On Tuesday 5th February we made our way to Auckland airport, massively excited at the thought of starting the next chapter of our travelling adventure. After queuing for quite some time,we were finally called over to the check in counter just as a Lan Chile representative came over to inform us that no one else was to be checked in. 20 minutes and much confusion later it transpired that our plane had been grounded in Sydney and we would not be flying for another 24hrs. The airport staff were all very good and after an hours wait we were all taken by coach to a nearby hotel for the evening and ushered back to the airport the following day in time to catch our flight.

On Wednesday 6th our South America adventure started in earnest. As usual I didn't sleep at all and spent the flight watching the entire library of films that were available. Gav did manage to grab a few hours but still we were both very dazed and confused by the time we landed in Santiago. It didn't help that we were living the same day twice. As we had travelled through the international date line, we departed Auckland at 5.25pm and, after a 12 hour flight, landed in Santiago at 12.45pm on the same day. That was a first for both of us.

Getting to the city from the airport was very easy as we used one of the airport shuttle buses. A chap called Richard tried in vein to have a conversation with us on the shuttle but Gav and I could barely remember our names at that point let alone anything else. Must have been an interesting journey for Richard.....not!

We stayed in the Bellavista Hostel which is a great hostel in the Bella Vista area of Santiago and had opted for a private room - as we probably would do for the rest of our trip (we are so over dorm rooms!). First things first....Zzzzzzzzzzzz, sleep was required. I think we literally threw ourselves onto the bed fully clothed and gently slipped into comas. Hunger woke us at around 7pm that evening.

Our Hostel was in a great location. Bella Vista is a lovely area full of traditional, brightly painted buildings, bars, restaurants and clubs. And so our first attempts to speak Spanish. The airport and hostel staff had all spoken English but we knew this would not be the case everywhere. Armed with our second-hand Lonely Planet Spanish phrasebook we hit the streets of Bella Vista. We didn't have to venture far to find a great little restaurant, called Golinder, which served traditional Chilean food and nice cold beer.

It's pretty painful when you try to have a conversation with someone whilst referring to a phrasebook for every second word but with the help of a patient waiter we managed to order steak dinners and a large bottle of Escudo beer to share. Then more sleep.......... in our hostel, (not the restaurant I hasten to add).

Aaaah, the pleasures of jet lag. We were both wide awake at 3.30am, managed to drift off again at around 7am only to find it was nearly 11am when we woke again. Bugger. Desperate not to waste the day we headed off to explore Santiago.

Central Santiago, El Centro, is a little grubby and cramped and is seemingly filled with an infinite amount of fast food restaurants. The surrounding areas of Barrios Bella Vista and Santa Lucia, for example, are far more pleasant to spend the majority of time in, however, the colonial architecture in central Santiago is not to be missed. The gorgeous Plaza de Armas was well worth exploring. Also very worth while was a visit to the Fine Arts Museum, although the contents were not outstanding in my opinion, the building itself was lovely.

Catedral de Santiago, Central Post Office & Plaza de Armas

We found a little cafe that seemed to be really popular with locals and so decided it would be a good bet for a cheap lunch. Using our so very basic Spanish we managed to order a salad for me and a steak burger for Gav however we have since learnt that the ‘steak’ burger that we had ordered was most probably horse meat. If it was horse, I have to say it tasted pretty good.

That evening we found another restaurant called El Caramaño which served excellent traditional local dishes. I had a sort of beef casserole topped with mashed corn whilst Gav tried chicken breast stuffed with meat and vegetables. Excellent washed down with a very good Chilean red that cost the equivalent of 3 quid.

Still very tired we called it a night pretty early only to wake up at 2.30am and again at 6.30am. Unbelievably the next time we woke up it was 4.30pm!

We set an alarm to ensure we woke up at a reasonable time on Saturday 9th and set off for Cerro San Cristobel. A hill that displays a 14 metre high Virgin de la Inmaculada Concepcion statue, that can be seen from all over the city. A short walk from our hostel took us to the foot of the hill and the point at which the funicular that takes you to the statue can be boarded. From the foot of the statue we had 360 degree views of the city - well as much as we could see through the smog (the city smog can get so bad at times that it can make your throat sore and your eyes water).

Cerro San Cristobel

We then took the cable car to Piscina Tapahue which is a lovely open air pool up on Cerro Cristobel. We had heard that there was a nicer pool a little further along and so walked maybe 2km, up hill, in the blazing heat to find it. Pisca Antilèn was very much worth the walk. The views of the city with the Andes in the background were amazing.

Pisca Antilèn

Saturday night in Santiago, it would simply be rude not to go out wouldn't it? First stop was Bar Conception, just around the corner from the hostel. It starts off as a bar restaurant and later removes the tables and chairs inside and becomes more of a club. Excellent, if a little too strong, Mojitos and slightly dodgy music but a really nice atmosphere. At 12am the club we had planned to go to, La Feria, was pretty empty according to the door men so we went off in search of another bar or club. Where we ended up was a sort of Chilean hip hop club. Dingy club, warm beer and sweaty bodies. After an hour we headed back to La Feria which was by that time fairly busy. The music was a little old by UK standards and, due to fridge issues, all the beer had been frozen and then defrosted and so was disgustingly flat but it was still a good night.

Something that was a little different about being out in Santiago was the smoking policies. Most restaurants and all bars and clubs allow smoking within the premises. I smoke but have become quite happy with not being able to smoke in public places. It was really strange to have our eyes stinging in the club because of the smoke and to come home with our clothes stinking of cigarettes. I definitely prefer stepping outside for a ciggie when I want one and being able to sit in a smoke free bar (so remind me I said that when I am back in the UK and having to step outside in the freezing cold for a ciggie).

On Monday 11th we took the Metro and then the bus to Valparaiso "The Jewel of the Pacific" which is 2 hrs away from Santiago. Valparaiso (which translates to Paradise Valley) is a world heritage site which consists of a fairly unattractive, flat central port area, El Pan, that is surrounded by dozens of charming, picturesque hills that are sprinkled with brightly coloured houses. The city is particularly beautiful at night when all the houses on the hills are lit up.

Valparaiso

Each of the hills has it's own funicular to enable you to get to the top without exerting too much energy, alternatively you can take the steep stairs. One guy told me that the girls in Valparaiso have the best asses in Chile as a result of climbing up all those stairs every day.

Caracol Hostel, our home for the next three nights, was on Cerro Bellavista. Cerro Bellavista was also home to Museo a Cielo Abierto, an open air museum displaying large murals painted by students of Universidad Catalica's Instituto de Arte.

After checking in and dropping off our bags we set off to explore. Cerro Conception and Cerro Alegra were our first stops. Ascensa Conception is the oldest of the 15 funiculars in the city and leads you up to the most beautiful of all the hills, Cerro Conception from which you can easily stroll over to Cerro Alegra. Walking around taking in the art on the walls, the brightly painted homes and charming cobbled streets passes a few hours easily. When all of the little bars and restaurants open early evening the atmosphere changes from quaint to trendy and another few hours can easily be spent over dinner.

Valparaiso street art

Tuesday 12th was spent strolling around and stopping for coffees. On Wednesday 13th we took the Metro over to Vina del Mar, a popular weekend destination for Santiaguinos. We took a long walk through the centre, along the river and along the long stretch of coast line.

Caracol hostel is an intimate hostel that makes it very easy to get chatting to the other people that are staying there. That evening it seemed that everyone that was staying at the hostel stayed in for dinner and so we all got to know each other.

Christian, AKA Genius, Harvard student who speaks numerous languages and knows everything about everything
Claude, The Crazy French Man. Hilarious guy who asks "Oh my God, what did I did (sic) to deserve this"
Rafael, The Boy from Ipanema (well Copacabana actually but I couldn't think of a song about that)
Anna & Carolina, Sisters from Buenos Aires who spent hours giving us list of things to see and do in their home city and whom we hope to meet up with again whilst we are there

Claude knew a bar in town and so at around 1am we all headed out to a typical Chilean smokey bar for ridiculously cheap beer and laughs. A large local guy befriended Gavin and asked if he could film us and kept repeating "sexo, sexo, sexo" into his ear. He later fell asleep at his table and whilst sleeping was dribbling onto his shirt (the "sexo" guy, not Gav). The funicular stop running at 10pm and so we had to make our way from and back to the hostel via the stairs. I'm glad we were in a group because the gangs of youths (yep, that'e me sounding old) hanging around on the stairs would be quite intimidating if there were just one or two of us.

The following day we headed back to Vina del Mar with Claude, Rafael and Christian. Anna and Carolina had moved to a hotel there and we had planned to meet up with them later in the day for a drink. We had a very long lunch in a restaurant over looking the sea which included two Pisco Sours for me. Pisco Sour is Pisco blended with egg white, lemons, sugar and ice and is delicious. Both Chile and Peru claim to have invented Pisco, a type of brandy. Most people believe that it was in fact Peru that invented the drink but the argument still carries on and if you are found entering Peru with Pisco from Chile it will be confiscated!

Once we met up with the girls we decided to take a walk to Renaca beach which in fact turned out to be a very long walk indeed, we think maybe around 10km. After dinner we made sure to catch the bus back! Back to the hostel for showers, change of clothes and home made Pisco Sours and then back to Vina del Mar to meet the girls and head to a club (although we didn't make it to a club at all. By the time we left the bar we were in, most of the clubs were closed and so after saying our farewells to the girls, we called it a night and around 4am headed back to the hostel by bus.

The following day we said goodbye to Christian as he had decided to stay a little longer in Valparaiso and Gav and I along with Claude and Rafael headed to Santiago by bus. After lunching together we said goodbye to Claude and made plans to meet Rafael in Pucón a couple of days later.

Pucón is in Chile's lake district and to reach it from Santiago we had to travel 10 hours by bus and chose to do so over night. We travelled in Semi Cama class which meant we had virtually fully reclining seats, foot rests and someone to tuck us in with pillows and blankets. It’s a really comfortable journey and means you save on a nights accommodation and wake up fresh in your destination. Of course, we had a snorer on the bus which disturbed my sleep a little. Well, I have to complain about a snorer at least once on every blog entry don't I?

By this stage we had taught ourselves a few Spanish phrases including how to ask for directions. This came in handy when we alighted the bus on the morning of Saturday 10th and were trying to find our hostel. The problem being, we could ask for directions but then where then totally unable to understand the answers given to us. Chilean Spanish is so fast, people that speak fluent Spanish have told us they really struggle to understand Chilean Spanish. The last letters are dropped off words and the words themselves are moulded together so that a sentence just sounds like one long incomprehensible word. Anyway, we managed to find our hostel eventually and after an hours rest we set off to explore the lovely city of Pucón.

Sunday 17th started at 4am for us as we had booked on a trip to climb Villarrica volcano. We chose the ealiest trip as we wanted the opportunity to climb the volcano before hundreds of other people arrived to do the same. Also, groups are often forced to turn back and are unable to reach the summit due to bad weather so we hoped that the early start would give us the opportunity to reach the top without the weather turning on us.

Half way up our guide informed us that if the smoke pouring from the volcano did not die down a little we would be unable to go all the way to the summit. The sulphur fumes are very toxic and can cause breathing difficulties and in the worst case scenario, suffocation. Luckily, the volcano decided to allow us to have a go and the smoke died down as we approached the top.

The final 50 minutes of climbing were the hardest, oh boy was it ever. It was the steepest part of the volcano and maybe the altitude made it a little harder but thankfully after 5 hours of hard climbing up steep rock face, ice climbing and snow walking we reached the 2847 metre high summit. What a fantastic feeling! I'd seen a shooting star on the way up the mountain before sunrise and wished "to get up this bloody mountain", see, wishes do come true!

The summit!

There was more to come. As part of the descent back down the volcano we got to take off our crampons, don our waterproofs and slide down three huge ice slides. It was so much fun! It would almost be worth climbing back up again just to be able to slide back down (I said almost).

The more than deserved beer following our climb!

We had arranged to meet up again with Rafael that evening and were delighted that Claude had decided to come along to Pucón with him. After catching up on each others activities for the last couple of days we headed out to the bars of Avenue O´Higgins.

The following day, Monday 18th, we decided to hire mountain bikes to better explore Pucón and after visitng Largo Villarrica we cycled over to Rio Trancura. My legs were already aching from the climb the previous day after riding a mountain bike all day so was my butt!

Rafael & Claude

Pucón has numerous hot springs and to relieve our aching muscles we decided to visit one that evening bringing with us a couple of bottles of wine to enjoy whilst soaking under the stars. Talking of stars, three of us managed to see a shooting star at the same time that night. All together now, aaaaaah!

Tuesday 19th was our beach day. The four of us headed to the beach and Lago Villarrica and stayed there all day. Sleeping, chatting, laughing and occasionally swimming.

Lago Villarrica

Gav and I along with Claude were leaving for Santiago by overnight bus that evening and sadly we had to say goodbye to Rafael (if we ever make it to Brazil for carnival we'll definitely know who to call!).

We arrived back at the Hostel Bellavista on Wednesday 20th and spent the next few days generally having a ball with Claude and Kim, a Dutch girl who was also staying at the hostel.

On Wednesday 20th after visiting Pablo Neruda's Santiago home, the Fine Arts Museum and Cerro St Lucia, we held a roof top barbeque during which we were able to watch the total lunar eclipse and afterwards we headed to Bar Conception for Mojitos and dancing.

Thursday 21st was Gavin's birthday celebration, our last night in Chile and our last night with Claude (although we hope to meet Claude again in Argentina). Gav's birthday is actually on 22nd but as we were leaving early that morning we decided to celebrate a day early with a view to carrying on the party past midnight and into 22nd. The night involved a roof top barbeque, a chocolate birthday cake and a trip to Bar Conception. In fact we partied on to the point that I didn't have time to sleep before our taxi picked us up at 6.45am (birthday boy just managed an hour as he had sneakily packed eariler in the day). We were asleep on the flight before it left the tarmac and slept through to landing in Lima airport 3 hours later.

Gavin's birthday

Just before I go could I please ask that we have a moments silence for our camera. You may have noticed that our pictures are becoming progressively more pink. Alas, I must inform you that our camera is dying. On some of the photos of New Zealand you may have noticed a slight pinkish tinge and it's now obvious that the problem is getting worse. We are reluctant to buy a new camera abroad because of warranties etc but equally are gutted that there are so many pictures that we may not be able to print on our return. I'll have to see if I can Photoshop them to amend the colours maybe?

On that sad note I bid you adiós until our next installment.

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After watching 'Spy Kids' in the TV lounge of the ferry and then napping for some time we awoke to see luscious green covered mountains through the ferry window and went out on deck and take a proper look. We were travelling through the Marlborough Sounds which is truly stunning. If the ferry crossing was this good we were sure not to be disappointed by the rest of the island.

Attractive!

Views from the ferry

The ferry docked in the lovely little town of Picton where we all pottered around separately for the day.

Picton

The Department of Conservation (DOC) run campsites all over New Zealand that range from the very basic to fully serviced and most are in gorgeous settings in National Parks and the like. Our first night on the South Island was spent at the DOC run campsite at Mistletoe Bay on the Queen Charlotte Track. Mistletoe Bay is around 45km from Picton and as well as being perfectly situated for the walk along the track that we all planned to do the following day, it meant that we had an opportunity to drive the Queen Charlotte Drive (although the numerous stops to take pictures of the stunning views did slow us down a little).

Mistletoe Bay Campsite

Walks along the Queen Charlotte Track give amazing views of the Queen Charlotte and Kenepuru sounds. We walked for around 4 hours, with Gav and I doing a slightly different route to Sylvie as we decided to climb up to a viewpoint which gave us spectacular 360 degree views. After loosing each other and a few "so where are you again?" and "I'm by the grassy hill" calls to mobiles we decided to head back to the campsite for a spot of lunch.

Queen Charlotte Track, Queen Charlotte and Kenepuru Sounds

We've just climbed to the top of there...

We had planned to meet up with Sue and Jane for a wine tasting day and so next stop was Watson's Way Backpackers in Renwick which is in the heart of Marlborough wine region. We booked a half-day tour with Marlborough Wine Tours, which was in fact more like a full day tour. It was great as we were able to suggest wineries that we would like to visit and the number of wineries included in the tour seemed to be unlimited. Other than a couple of wineries that we had in mind, we were happy to go with the suggestions of our guide and driver for the day. Believe it or not we visited so many that in the end we asked if we could call it a day and head back. I know, I know....we asked if we could stop drinking!!! Of course we bought a number of the wines we sampled and have spent the last few weeks enjoying them. We are now just stuck with a bottle of desert wine (must have been late on in the day, and after numerous tastings, that we purchased that one).

Marlborough wine tasting tour

Later that day we nipped to the local supermarket for supplies and then on to a pub called the Cork and Keg where you can use the barbeques for free to knock yourself up a bit of dinner whilst having a beer or two. Oddly the manager will let you use the barbeque but wont supply plates or cutlery and suggested we buy these from the local supermarket. Fortunately our campervan comes with everything so Gav ran back to gather up crockery for us to save us having to eat our meal off the beer garden floor.

No more drink for you!

Sadly that was the last we were going to see of Sue and Jane until we get back to the UK. Bye S&J, we love you!

Kaikoura was our destination on Tuesday 15th. About 30km before Kaikoura is the home of the South Island's largest seal colony. Our guide book said that there are usually dozens of them lolling around on the rocks but we found hundreds of them. They have a pretty pungent odour I have to say but none-the-less they are very cute. It's so interesting to see how agile they are in the water and how clumbersum they seem out of it.

Fur Seals

Wednesday 16th saw Gavin and I off on a whale watching trip whilst Sylvie went to swim with dolphins. Sylvie had an amazing experience with around 100 dusky dolphins swimming and playing with her group. Dusky dolphins are exceptionally playful and like to show off so Sylvie was treated to some great dolphin acrobatics. We were lucky enough to see two Sperm Whales, Dusky Dolphins, Fur Seals and Royal Albatross.

Whale watching tour

On that afternoon we all met up to do the Kaikora Peninsular Walk. Already a little tired from our morning activities, the walk felt a little harder than it should of done and so at the end we treated ourselves to fresh crayfish, cooked on a roadside stall along with scallops in a garlic sauce. All devoured at roadside tables along with a glass of our recently purchased Marlborough wine. Aaaah!

Kaikora Peninsular Walk

On we go and Christchurch is our next stop on Thursday 17th. That evening we sampled Christchurch's nightlife with a few drinks in Oxford Terrace or "The Strip" as it's known and then on to Dux de Lux for dinner. I ended up getting my meal and a bottle of wine for free as I had to wait so long for it to come out which I thought was very kind of them.

Christchurch

Next in our tour of NZ was Aoraki Mount Cook National Park and the DOC campsite that was right at the foot of Mount Cook.

During the drive down we were able to see the stunning Tekapo and Pukaki lakes.

En-route to Aoraki Mount Cook National Park

Aoraki Mount Cook National Park

On the following morning, Saturday 19th, we had our first introduction to Kea, which are very naughty mountain parrots. We saw them jumping around on people's tents, pulling at rubber seals around car windows and generally being pretty boisterous and noisy.

After brekkie we took ourselves off for a walk along the Hooker Valley Track which is one of the many walks that can be done in the National Park. Just a 2 1/2 hour loop walk from the campsite enabled us to have great views of Mount Cook, the Hooker River and the Hooker Glacier.

Hooker Valley Track, Aoraki Mount Cook National Park

That afternoon we were driving south to Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula. The main reason for heading there was to hopefully spend some time viewing the rare, yellow-eyed penguins. It turned into a bit of an adventure to say the least.

We knew that the best time to view the penguins was at dusk when they travelled back to shore after spending the day feeding and so that evening we set of from our campsite in Dunedin for the 30 minute drive to Sandfly Bay in the Otago Peninsular (fortunately there were no sandflies at Sandfly Bay!). Upon arrival a sign informed us that it was a 40 minute walk (read: scramble and fall) through the sand dunes and along the beach to the DOC hide that had been set up to enable people to view the penguins without disturbing them. The penguins are very shy and if they see people on the beach they simply will not come ashore, even if they have chicks to feed.

Sandfly Bay

We were absolutely delighted that we were lucky enough to spot two New Zealand, or Hooker's, Sea Lions on the beach whilst walking to the hide. They are not the slightest bit intimidated by humans and are much larger than the fur seals we had seen in Kaikoura. Numerous signs warned visitors to keep a safe distance and that's exactly what we did!

Hooker's sea lions

So up to the hide, where we waited....and waited....and waited. Lots of other people had arrived and left again. It was pretty cold and windy but we persevered. Well that is until some animal started searching in the bushes behind us and scared Sylvia and I into the decision that it was time to go. We’ve since learnt that the screeching that we heard was more than likely the penguins as they have a distinctive high pitched call. It sounded like a Yeti to us so we were not taking any chances.

We did manage to see four penguins in all so it was worth the wait.

If you look really closely....

As I mentioned it was a steep climb and scramble through the sand dunes and along the beach to get to the hide. The route was not marked as such, we just followed the people that were in front of us.....ah, and now it was 11pm and absolutely pitch black, no route markers and no people to follow......we were lost. Once we had tip-toed across the beach, terrified of disturbing the shy little penguins, we arrived at the bottom of the sand dunes. Thank God I had packed a little torch in my bag as without it we may had been running around is circles in those sand dunes until daybreak. We aimed for the top and after 30 minutes of thrashing around we found the path back to the car park.

We are still finding sand in our clothes and shoes now.

The worlds steepest street is in Dunedin. Driving the camper van up was a daft idea. The road is so steep that all the fuel went to the back end of the tank causing the engine to cut out.

Sunday 20th and on to Te Anau. I'll have to stop describing how beautiful, gorgeous or stunning each place we went to was - just take it from now on that everywhere was beautiful, gorgeous or stunning! The view from our campsite was straight out over the lake so Gav and I were more than happy to laze around in the sun whilst Sylvie went off for an explore.

Lake Te Anau

A chap that worked at the campsite came over to us with a huge trout that had been freshly caught from the lake that day. Did we want it? He had too many and was more than happy to give it to us as long as we would eat it and not waste it. Excellent! Barbequed trout and salad for dinner it was.

The following morning we drove the very short distance to Manopouri for our tour of the Doubtful Sound. We travelled by boat across Lake Manopouri, then were taken by coach through the Fiordland forest, had a stop off at Manopouri underground hydro power station (more of interest to Gavin than to Sylvie and I), followed by a cruise around Doubtful Sound.

Doubtful Sound

Okay, on we go. After our eight hour tour of Doubtful we jumped back into Colin the Camper and made our way up to Milford. It was at Milford that we had our introduction to Sandflies. Tiny little black flies that our guidebooks had warned us about. There are squillions of them along the West Coast of the South Island. They bite and their bites are itchier than mosquito bites. God they are annoying.

Road block and Mirror Lake en-route to Milford

Milford

On Tuesday 22nd Gav and I were being picked up at 7.15am for our kayaking tour of Milford Sound. When we woke that morning it was raining and it did not stop raining for the entire day. Oh well, at least then it didn't matter if we capsized as we would already be soaking wet. Fortunately we didn't capsize and we did manage to stay relatively dry by wearing our own waterproofs. Kayaking through Milford Sound is such a wonderful way to explore it. We saw yellow eyed penguins and had fur seals playing around our kayaks. We were in a small group of around 8 along with our guide, Kelly, and at times it felt like we had the whole of Milford Sound to ourselves. We enjoyed it so much and (apart from the swarms of sandflies and the odd occasion when Gav and I bickered when we were unable to row in time or even get our kayak to travel in the same direction as the rest of the group) had an excellent day.

Back to the campervan to throw some food at our faces and then on to Queenstown. Phew, we were getting a bit tired by now but had just a week left of travelling around the South Island and were determined to fit as much in as possible.

We expected Queenstown to be, well, tacky. We had read all about it being the adventure capital of New Zealand and almost expected neon sign reading "bungee jump here" and the like. In fact it was far from how we'd imagined it and definitely somewhere we all said we could spend a lot more time. It has a very picturesque setting around Lake Wakatipu with the Remarkables in the background, with an alpine village feel. Sue and Jane had text us to say how much they thought we would like Queenstown and most importantly had sent us a list of the best bars to visit. Great, we were set!

We spent Wednesday 23rd strolling around the shops and cafes and then heading out to the bars on the evening. How nice to walk into the bars on a freezing cold night and for so many of them to have roaring open fires, some even with outdoor fires. We toured about the bars until about 2am safe in the knowledge that we didn't have too far to drive the next day.

Queenstown

Did I say we didn't have too far to drive the next day? Well that's what we thought.......we'd got it wrong. In fact it was going to be a 10 hour drive to our next destination, Franz Josef Glacier. Copious amounts of coffee for the Curleys please!!!

As we were leaving Queenstown we happened to drive past the site of the worlds first ever bungee jump. There were signs for free viewing and it looked like someone was about to jump so we decided to run over and take a look. Next thing we know, Gavin is throwing himself off the bridge! He let out a kind of guttural roar as he hurled himself of the bridge and fell 43 metres with his hands dipping into the water of the river below.

There is just no stopping him now. I dread to think what extreme sport is going to be next on his list.

En-route to Franz Josef we visited Lake Dunstan, Fox Glacier and Lake Matheson. Lake Matheson is one of the most photographed sights in New Zealand as it has perfect reflections of Mount Cook at times. Unfortunately it was not the case when we visited as there was cloud around the peak of Mount Cook but it was very pretty none-the-less.

Lake Dunstan and Mt Aspiring

Fox Glacier and Lake Matheson

On Friday 25th Gav and I went ice climbing on the Franz Josef Glacier. What an adventure, it was great. We had our ice picks and crampons to enable us to climb through the peaks and valleys and squeeze through the tiniest, claustrophobia inducing cracks. One of the best bits was sitting on the ice to eat lunch. We were saying to ourselves "we're sat on the Franz Josef Glacier eating a ham buttie"....surreal. It does feel pretty amazing when we get to do the things that we started reading about maybe two or more years ago. All the planning and saving and then all of a sudden, we're there.

We walked for hours and after an 8am start got back to the camp site for about 6pm exhausted.

Just....enough....energy....to....lift...a glass....of beer.....

Franz Josef Glacier

Mmm notice our pictures have acquired an odd pink tinge...more on that later.

Nooooooooooo! It was time to start heading back. Colin the Camper had to be back in Auckland on Monday 28th and so the next couple of days were spent on the road getting the van back to the depot. A few days prior we had noticed that the front right indicator unit on the van was loose. The next thing we noticed was that it was gone. Bugger. Britz Rentals take a $5,000 bond for campervans. They don’t just take your credit card details just in case, they actually take the five grand off you. We did not want to loose any part of $5,000 and so during the drive back had a number of phone calls to various Britz bods and eventually they agreed not to charge us. It was a bit dodgy driving all that way with no right indicator and Gav did have to stick his arm out of the window every now and then but we made it in one piece.

And so back in Auckland. We decided to stay in the suburbs of Auckland rather than the city and were a little gutted to see everything we missed out on during our first stay. Ponsonby and Parnell are the two suburbs that we stayed in. Both areas are great and have an entirely different feel to the drab city centre.

Sylvia left us to head back to the UK on Tuesday 29th and after that Gav and I mainly slept, spent time in internet cafes blogging and generally passing time before our flight to Santiago on 5th Feb.

We were thrilled about heading over to South America although a little bit sad that we were not going to be able to get to Brazil for Carnival. It's our own fault, we didn't confirm our flights in time but, hey, everything happens for a reason (that's what we are telling ourselves anyway). We decided to cut Brazil out of our itinerary completely and spend the final two months of our trip in Chile, Peru and Argentina.

South America here we come!

New Zealand - The South Island remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We had a great flight and were able to see a gorgeous sunset which turned the sky all sort of wonderful colours as we descended into Auckland. Sylvia was travelling into Auckland on a separate flight, as were Sue and Jane who were also spending the majority of the month in New Zealand. Unfortunately they had a terrible time with delays (some poor bugger had a heart attack in the check in queue).

A slight mix-up with bookings meant that Sylvia and I had to share a twin room in a separate hostel to Gavin. It was fine though as the hostels were very close to each other and at least it meant that Sylvie and I didn't have to go into a dorm for a couple of nights.

The following day the three of us headed to one of the many Vulcan Lane cafes and restaurants for a slap up breakfast during which we planned our itinerary for our New Zealand adventure. Next was the Tourist Info office, Department of Conservation and the ferry depot to collect all the information we would need for the next few weeks.

A gentle stroll around the city followed by a lazy few hours in Albert Park were about as much as we felt up to for the rest of the day.

That evening the three of us met up with Sue and Jane and headed to Karangahape Road, known as 'K' Rd, to a Southern Indian restaurant called Satya for a delicious meal and followed this with a few beers at an Irish Bar on Vulcan Lane (Gav's eyes do light up when he sees that Guinness sign).

On Saturday we had an early start. Sylvie and I had to move over to the hostel that Gavin was in and then the three of us were shooting down to the ferry terminal to catch our ferries. Gav and I were heading to Rangitoto Island and Sylvie was off to Waiheke Island.

It takes 40 minutes by ferry to travel the 10km to Rangitoto Island, which is Auckland's youngest volcano, at just 600 years old. We planned to challenge ourselves to walk to the 850 metre high summit. It took us 4 hours, including a short stop for lunch, and I have to say was pretty exhausting. Once we had finished the walk, we sat on a bench to wait for our return ferry and both fell asleep. I only woke because of Gav's gentle snoring in my ear!

On Sunday 6th we had a tour booked to the Bay of Islands. A 6.45am pick up was followed by a 4 hour coach journey to get to the Bay of Islands. We then had an informative talk on the Treaty of Waitangi and tour of the Treaty House, a traditional Māori meeting house and war canoe. Then it was onto our boat for a cruise around the Bay of Islands. The weather wasn't great but it was still very lovely.

Meeting house and war canoe at Waitangi

Bay of Islands, incl. the 'hole in the rock'

Once the cruise was over it was back onto our coach for the 4 hour journey back to Auckland City. The scenery during the drive was as stunning as that of the Bay of Islands itself, but we did struggle so to keep our eyes open to take it all in. Sylvia has some very amusing pictures and Gav and I asleep, mouths open, heads nodding, the whole shebang.

On Monday 7th we picked up our second campervan, we named him Colin. We were all looking forward to this camper as he was much larger than Kenneth and would mean that we did not have to move our backpacks around each time we wanted to make up our beds. Colin had a peculiar smell. It turned out that Colin's waste tank had not been emptied since he was last hired so we had the pleasure of driving our first few hours in what smelt like a public toilet.

Colin

Our first night in Colin the Campervan was spent at Mount Mauganui Beachside Holiday Park, in the Bay of Plenty region. Wow, what a setting for a campsite. We had the back drop of the mountain behind us with a gorgeous long stretch of beach to our right.

Campsite at Mount Mauganui

As soon as we parked up Gav and I changed our shoes and headed off to climb the mountain. It was just an hour up to the summit and back down again (maybe more of a hill than a mountain?) and following this the three of us grabbed our swimsuits and nipped to the Hot Salt Water Pools that were right next door to the campsite. A long soak in the exothermically heated pools was just what the doctor ordered. The pools are open so whilst soaking in water we were able to gaze up at the mountain - pretty spesh if you ask me.

Mount Mauganui

Hot Salt Water Pools

The following day, after a morning stroll along the beach, we headed onwards to Roturua. I have since heard that Roturua has a bad reputation and is called the 'Vegas of the North Island'. Well we definitely didn't see anything that would warrant such a reputation. It did smell though, it's described as rotten eggs but it's probably closer to the smell of a spent matchstick. The smell is caused by the hydrogen sulphide wafting up through all the cracks and crevices of the earth’s crust that occur in the region. Imagine a scene from a film like Jurassic Park, with rainforest covered mountains oozing steam and lava from recently erupted volcanoes, bubbling mud pools and steaming lakes. That's what Roturua is like and, in fact, many parts of the North Island. You feel that you would not be at all surprised should a dinosaur appear in front of you. Although as Jane said, she would be bloody surprised if a dinosaur came around the corner, and I guess in reality I would too, but you know what I mean don't you?

Our campsite was on the banks of Lake Roturua, with a hot water beach separating us from the waters of the lake. The campsites were all geothermically heated which is basically like having under-floor heating installed. I imagine not so great on a hot night for those in tents. All the houses around the campsite that have steam pouring out of the earth in their gardens is a very strange sight!

Our first activity in Roturua was to visit the Te Puia Thermal Reserve, which was a stunning introduction to the geysers, hotpools and mudpools in the area. We were also given a free Māori cultural display which included traditional song and dance.

Sylvie ejoyed a lunch of fresh corn on the cob that had been cooked in a thermal pool

That evening we were picked up from the campsite and taken to the Matai Cultural Village for a Māori cultural evening that along with traditional song and dance included a Hangi meal which is a selection of meats and vegetables that are slow cooked in a traditional Hangi earth oven. It was a very entertaining and informative evening.

Hangi meal

(Cultural show pictures to follow!)

It became apparent that we would need lots of early starts if we were going to fit in everything we wanted to see and do so on Wednesday 9th we dragged ourselves out of bed to go and see the hot water beach at Lake Roturua. I know this might seem really obvious but the water is really very hot indeed.

Lake Roturua

Kuira Park in the centre of Roturua

Next we sped off to the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland determined to see the Lady Knox geyser erupt at 10.15am. We bumped into the lovely Sue and Jane in the car park and all wondered around the park together. There were some spectacular things to see there such as the Champagne Pool, however, the Lady Knox Geyser was a bit of a disappointment. Some chap comes out at 10.10am and pours a loads of what is basically washing powder into the spout of the Geyser and the geyser then spits it all back out again. Hmmmm. Apparently the washing powder just speeds up the process which would occur naturally around 4 times a day anyway. They just speed it up and have it happen at an exact time so that all of us lucky tourists get to see it without waiting around for hours. As I said, hmmmm.

Bubbling mud pool en-route to Wai-O-Tapu

Wai-O-Tapu - Artists palette, Champagne Pool, thermal pool and Lake Ngakoro

Next stop Taupo. Taupo is 80km south of Rotorua and is slap bang in the middle of the North Island. It has a magnificent lake in it's centre that reflects the Tongariro National Park's three volcanoes. We booked into a campsite a few kilometres out of the town and headed into town for a coffee whilst Sylvie took herself off on the 4hr walk to the Hukka falls and Craters of the Moon.

Lake Taupo

Something Gavin and I were desperate to do was the Tongariro Crossing, a 7-8 hour, 18.5km hike from Mangatepopo to Ketetahi in the Tongariro National Park, 1886m high at it's higest point. It's described as one of New Zealand’s best one day hikes....it's also described as "challenging" but hey, we're up for a challenge!

On Thursday 10th we were picked up at 5.15am and taken by minibus to the starting point of the hike. During the journey the driver gave us leaflets and talked us through the times it should take, the dangers and gave us tips on how to complete the hike. That bit made me slightly nervous.

Oh, we are all smiles before the hard work begins aren't we....

It was very challenging! The 'Devils Staircase' was the steepest climb up and I have to say I lost count of the amount of times I had to stop and catch my breath. Gavin 'Mountain Goat' Curley looked like he could have just jogged the whole thing and barely looked like he had used any energy at all until the very last 30 minutes or so. It was so worth the effort though, the views were out of this world. Every single step we took brought something new into our line of vision that made each (painful) step worthwhile.

Not so funny now is it young lady! The Devil's Staircase

View from the Red Crater

The Blue Lake and the Emerald Lakes

She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes....

Night-night

I'm delighted that we finished the hike in 6 hours although we both promptly fell asleep as soon as we sat down on the minibus for the transfer back to the town.

That evening we camped in Reid Farm Campsite. Apparently some chap left his land to campers and backpackers and so all are allowed to camp there free of charge for up to 28 days. Of course there or no facilities but our campervan had a loo and Taupo has a "SuperLoo" which is a shower and loo block that you can use for a $2 fee. It has hairdryers etc and you can hire clean fluffy towels so it was no hardship to nip there to scrub our smelly selves before setting up camp for the night.

Reid Farm Campsite

Did I mention that Taupo is the Skydive capital of New Zealand........oh didn't I?

15,000ft tandem skydive over Lake Taupo



The official pictures taken on the day take up lots of memory so we can't add them on just yet as we have used our upload limit for the month. We'll update the page as soon as we can though.

We have the DVDs to entertain you all when we get home as well. You know that the camera never lies and that you will see that Sylv and I were actually ****ing ourselves. Gav was cool as a cucumber and was not the slightest bit apprehensive. You can really tell from his face that he loves every minute of the jump and got the most enjoyment from the experience of all three of us. He is already looking at when he can do his next one!

Still shell-shocked from our jump we drove for 5 hours from Taupo to Wellington and set up camp in the Lower Hutt area which is 13km out of the city. Sylv was left understandably a bit tired after throwing herself out of a plane and decided to stay in that evening whilst Gav and I went into Wellington for dinner and drinks. We celebrated being alive with a lovely tapas style meal and a bottle of local Savvy.

On Saturday 12th we had an 8am ferry crossing over to the South Island and on to the next part of our New Zealand adventure.

New Zealand - The North Island remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Everyone meeting up in Sydney for Christmas and New Year and been decided on before Gavin and I had left the UK and it was something that we were massively looking forward to having not seen our friends for 8 months.

I got the initial feeling that something was up when I received a text from one the group. A few calls later it transpired that there was a pretty big balls up with our booking and once we all arrived at the apartments the extent of the balls up became clear. Basically the company had messed up somehow but were trying to blame anyone and everyone rather than take responsibility themselves and were less than apologetic for their mistake. The four that were in the two bedroom apartments were fine but the five of us that were in the penthouse were not. We simply could not have the apartment that we booked and the company had no other three bed apartments available to offer us. Based on the fact that it was 22nd December the likelihood of us finding anything else, through any other means, was pretty damned slim.

The solution the company offered was to put us up in a 2 bed apartment with one person on a sofa bed for a few nights. Following this we would have to move to the other side of Sydney and into 3 studio (read: bedsit) apartments. Gav and I would have one 'studio', Sue and Jane another and Sylvia another, with the other 4 people remaining in an apartment in Petersham. Clear as mud? Note quite the group Christmas and New Year we had planned eh?

I was not happy.

To cut a very long story short after a (ahem) conversation between myself and one of the managers, the five of us did move into the two bed apartment with a sofa bed, we stayed there for the duration and did not have to move to the other side of Sydney into the bedsits .....oh yeah, and we didn't pay a single penny. They gave us the whole apartment for 12 nights totally free of charge. A saving of £350 each. Nice.

Of course it didn't end there, the big boss turned up a couple of times and tried to throw his weight around. Unfortunately for him I have weight on my side too.....

Anyway enough on that, here's some piccies that hopefully show what a wicked, wicked time we had with everyone over Christmas and New Year. A huge thank you to everyone for making it such a brilliant 12 nights xxx

Oh no, Sue's found the beer!

Not a bad effort for our first night in the apartment

Sunday 23rd - Vicky's leaving drinks at the Bondi RSL and The Beach Road Hotel

CHRISTMAS DAY

The local garden centre gave away their (almost dead) Christmas trees on Christmas morning.....

Gordon Ramsey aint got nothing on me

Sylvie takes a nap after dinner from which we woke her sometime (and many glasses of wine) later by singing Christmas Carols to her. As you can imagine, it was as though a group of angels had landed in the room and sang to her....

Dinner was followed by drinking games, dares and general messiness

Boxing Day - Sydney to Hobart Boat Race watched from South Head and then fish and chips at Watson's Bay

Thursday 27th - Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb. I know it looks like our heads have been superimposed but that is really us stood on top of the bridge at it's highest point

Friday 28th - Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk with lunch at the Cogee Bay Hotel where Gav and I met up with Sara and Victoria whom we had met on our tour of WA. Later we headed out for drinks at the Loft Bar, Kings Street Wharf

Saturday 29th - After shopping along Oxford Street and at the Paddington Market, we met up with Roger and Tracey for drinks at the Paddington Inn

Sunday 30th - Dinner at Sussex Thai (I think the waitress had her hand over the camera lens for that picture) followed by drinks at Cargo Bar, Darling Harbour

NEW YEARS EVE! - Sydney fireworks watched from Mrs Macquairies Chair

Sue, Jane and I arrived at Mrs Macquaries chair at around 9am on the morning of New Years to secure a spot for everyone. Lucky we did as hundreds of other people had the same idea. Lots of queuing followed by a frantic dash with coolboxes and chairs followed. A little bit of stress was well worth though it as it was a wonderful day and night.

Don't ask me. It's the Birmingham Bogle or something isn't it?

(Fireworks pictures to follow. We've used our upload limit for the month!)

Happy New Year!

NEW YEARS DAY! - Field Day

Field Day was absolutely brilliant but apart from the excellent DJs that kept us rocking through the day and night, and of course the fabulous friends we were with, another reason that everyone enjoyed it so much was that they found away of earning money whilst they partied. Every beer or soft drink can that was brought back to the recycling desk earned you one whole shiny dollar. Now you can imagine how many cans are thrown all over the floor at an event like this. Our gang made hundreds of dollars, no exaggeration. Gav made $330, the others made more! There were a fair amount of others that cottoned onto the get rich quick scheme though and our collected cans had to be guarded to prevent them being nicked. It was hilarious seeing all these people running around the field, bin liners in hands, frantically grabbing cans as soon as the last sip had been consumed by an unsuspecting party goer.

NEW YEARS DAY - We partied on at Candy's club after Field Day

All too quickly our time together in Sydney came to an end. Sally, Teresa, Andrew and Kat all on left on 2nd Jan whilst the rest of us left for our flights to Auckland, New Zealand on 3rd Jan.

Gavin and I had had 5 excellent months in Australia and were very sad to be leaving, although of course we were looking forward to the next chapter of our adventures.

Christmas is coming......and the Curleys are getting fat! remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We had decided to stay in more of large guest house than a hostel in an up-market suburb of Melbourne called South Yarra. My, oh my, what a great night's sleep we had that night. Bliss. It's such a nice feeling to get into a bed with crisp, clean linen after sleeping in so many grubby rooms. Also, as my Sister, Sylvia, was joining us in Melbourne we thought it would be a good idea to ease her into hostel life in a gentle fashion...and somewhere with clean bedding is a good start!

Images of Melbourne - Parliament & tram, State Library and train & tram

Yarra River

Before Sylvia joined us, Gavin and I decided to squeeze in a trip to the Great Ocean Road and well, if you are going to do it, do it properly - we decided to live it up a little and splashed out on a convertible car. I know, we'll be regretting it when we have to get second jobs in McDonald’s when we get home but frankly, bugger it, it was so much fun!

The Great Ocean Road

Our first stop off was at Picnic’s B&B in an area called Apollo Bay. The lady that ran the place was so cute and the room was so homely, think Mrs Bucket in Keeping up Appearances. I loved the fact that she brought out the milk jug with a little beaded doily on it.

Apollo Bay

The lady from the B&B also gave us some great info on things to see and do during our trip along the G.O.R. Heeding her advice our next stop was the Cape Otway National Park to see if we could spot any Koalas and we saw heaps of them!

Otway Lighthouse

We then drove on to Point Franklin which is a gorgeous, rugged coastline with barely anyone else around......apart from flies. Now, I know I'm going on about the flies now but take a look at this....

Point Franklin

With our jumpers wrapped around our faces for protection, we stumbled back to the car to get away from the zillions of flies that inhabited the beach.

Next stops were The 12 Apostles (or 11 now that one has fallen over), London Bridge and The Arch.

On to Warrnambooll and a gorgeous B&B called Herbs Hus which is a beautiful converted Victorian house with huge rooms that are filled with period features. As we were the only guests it actually felt like we had the whole house to our selves although the owner was just a tap on a door away if we needed her. She also has the most gorgeous baby daughter who I am afraid stole my attention whenever she was in the room. We had dinner at a lovely local restaurant called Beach Babylon. The kangaroo fillet was great (yep, I wont eat a dog but I'll eat a kangaroo....the line becomes blurred doesn't it).

The following day, Gavin gave up the controls and allowed me to drive the three hours to Lorne, on the return to Melbourne. It was all going so well until, when pulling in to a lay by to allow the faster drivers that were queuing up behind me to overtake, I managed to drive into a very large, very deep hole. The thing is Gavin had been virtually screaming at me to slow down but I had assumed it was just because he thought I was driving too fast to pull into the lay by when of course I knew I was not. I didn't realise he had seen the hole from some distance away but couldn't get the words out quickly enough to explain why he wanted me to slow down. Fortunately there was very little damage to the car and more fortunately still the hire company failed to notice it and so we were not charged for it. I didn't drive much further after that.

We headed back to the guest house in South Yarra and into a dorm room ready for Sylvie's arrival in a few days time.

On Friday 30th we went off for more of an explore and headed to Brunswick Street in an area of Melbourne called Fitzroy. Brunswick Street is littered with funky shops, cafes and bars and has a cool, edgy feel. Does the fact that I just said cool mean that I am so far from it that I should not have even been allowed onto Brunswick Street? That evening we headed to Chapel Street near to our guesthouse for drinks.

Street art on Brunswick Street, Fitzroy

On Saturday 1st December we jumped on the tram and headed to the beach in St Kilda. I don't think it's too unfair to say that the beach at St Kilda is not the best that we have seen however it does have some of the best cake shops I have ever seen. Acland Street is home to a number of old fashioned cake shops which are just impossible to walk past, along with shops, bars and restaurants and so of course we had a beer followed by a cake.

St Kilda

I loooove cake

Sylvia was due to arrive at the airport at 6.30am on Monday 3rd and so on the previous day, after making our huge "Sylvia McNeish" banner we had an early night. Sylvie's flight was slightly delayed and so by the time she arrived I had been holding the banner in the air for around an hour. The other people in the arrivals lounge were beginning to find it rather amusing and were asking me whether my arms were aching yet. When Sylvie arrived she came through a different door, walked in the opposite direction to where we were standing and therefore did not even see the banner. Oh well.

We all headed back to the hostel with the plan to grab some sleep before the Neighbours Triva night that we were going to that evening. Needless to say none of us slept and so Sylvia attended the Neighbours night in a sort of jet lagged haze. Now, the Neighbours night is not something Gav and I would have gone along to and we were only going to keep Sylvie company but I have to say, what a laugh! Yep it was tacky, and yes I didn't know who any of the 'stars' of the show were, having not watched Neighbours since I was about 13 years old, but it turned out to be a really good night. Sylvia sleepwalked back to the guest house.

Neighbours Trivia Night

On 4th Dec we took Sylvie on a Melbourne city tour, through the Vietnamese area of Richmond, the city and Federation Square and on to Melbourne's 'Little Italy' Carlton where we stopped for lunch. Following which we headed to Brunswick Street in Fitzroy and after a leisurely coffee jumped on a tram and a train back to our room.

Melbourne alley art

Wednesday 5th Dec was day two of Sylvie's whistle-stop tour of Melbourne. The day was spent along Chapel Street for a spot of window shopping (Gavin left us to our own devises for this section of the day, probably very relieved that I now had my sister to accompany me with any sort of shopping activities). That evening we all went along to the Queen Victoria Night Market and had dinner from the great food stalls whilst being entertained by the local police band. Mildly odd to see the band in their police uniforms singing a Fat Man Scoop song (the title of which I cannot recall) but they were very good.

Thursday 6th we were off to the Botanical Gardens to meet up with our friends Sally and Teresa who were in Melbourne as part of their month long tour of Australia. We would all be meeting up again at Christmas but as we were all in Melbourne at the same time it was a great opportunity to get together. A picnic in the Botanical gardens was our activity of choice and we picked a great day for it.

That evening we met up with Sally and Teresa again for drinks at the Transport Hotel in Federation Square.

Gav and I spent the majority of the following day in the Melbourne Museum whilst Sylvia had a look around the shops in Chapel Street and caught up on some sleep. We were off to Chinatown that evening for dinner and so after a group nana nap, off we went. We stopped off at a bar before dinner and got chatting to two local guys. Unfortunately by the time we had stopped chatting and laughing, the restaurant we had planned to go to was closed and that is why we ended up in the worst restaurant in the world. From the outside it looked fine and if our memory served us correctly it had been fairly busy when we had looked around earlier that evening. Lets just say this, after our starters arrived we decided to simply pay and leave rather than subject ourselves to the rest of the meal. Yep, it was that bad.

Melbourne Museum, Royal Exhibition Centre and War Memorial

The evening of 8th was spent in Carlton for an excellent Italian meal and the 9th was spent packing as the following day we were flying to Brisbane to pick up our campervan which we then planned to drive back to Sydney in time to join our friends for Christmas and New Year.

Melbourne sunsets

Is it because I iz black? A stall we came across at a craft market in Melbourne

Our first night in Brisbane was spent in a hostel as we didn't pick up the camper until the following morning. To occupy ourselves in the meantime we took ourselves on a walking tour of the city which I have to say totally changed our opinion of Brisbane. Gav and I had spent a little time in Brisbane during our honeymoon in 2004 and were less than impressed with it, however, the walking tour showed us how much of the city we hadn't seen before and how much more of an interesting place it was than we'd thought.

Images of Brisbane - Eternal Flame, City Hall, signal box art and City Beach

On Tuesday 11th Gav collected the campervan first thing and we set off on our road trip.

Our home for the next 12 nights

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

We drove to the Gold Coast on Wednesday 12 and had our first trip to Surfers Paradise.....in the pouring rain.

We spent a couple of days at Surfers visiting Wet 'n' Wild Water Park and Dream World. Both of which were really good fun but the absolute best attraction was the Giant Drop at Dream World. You sit in a carriage with 7 other people and are slowly lifted up to a height of 120 metres where you are held for 20 seconds. After 20 seconds you are dropped with such speed that you cannot even scream, in fact breathing is almost impossible. Gav and I went on three times.

Giant drop and Sylvie and Gav on the log flume

On Friday 14th we drove to the Lamington National Park and stayed in a campsite at the Binna Burra Lodge. The drive to the lodge was pretty hairy as it was late and therefore pitch black during the last couple of hours of driving and when you are driving along mountain top, winding roads, with sheer, barrier free drops at your side that isn't too much fun. Thank God that Gav was driving and not me as I suspect we would not be here now to tell the tale if I were at the wheel. The campsite was pretty basic and in the middle of the forest, which left Sylvie far from impressed after the long drive. She was even less impressed after a rabid, crazed possum chased after her during the night. I heard her screaming, "let me in, let me in" but thought it was simply an insect that had frightened her. She managed to blurt out, "one of them things...fluffy tail" as she scrambled back into the camper. We did stop laughing at some point but I have to say the possum did remain outside the camper for some time looking at us all in a menacing fashion. We took bathroom breaks in twos for the rest of the evening.

Lamington National Park, Gold Coast Hinterland

We were lucky enough to see heaps of wildlife whilst we were there including Pademelons, which are small, nocturnal, marsupials that are similar in appearance to kangaroos.

The following day after checking out the views from the lodge we headed off on a trek to the Gwongoorool Pool. Which was a pretty steep 3km down to the pool and of course 3km climb back up. Sylvia splashed her face with lovely cool water from one of the waterfalls during our ascent back to the van to cool down a little only then to have her next brush with nature when she realised a leech had managed to grab a hold of her. Gav to the rescue!

We then drove on to Ninbin which is a surreal little place. In 1973 a bunch of university students held the Aquarius Festival in Nimbin which was a "total cultural experience through lifestyle and participation". Following the festival a number of people stayed around to continue living the dream with other like minded people. The result is an 'alternative' sort of town where, although still illegal, cannabis can be bought and smoked in local cafes etc. Taking a look at some of the people in the town, I suspect cannabis is not the only substance that is readily available in Nimbin!

Onwards to Byron Bay where I subjected myself to the hottest Thai salad I have ever had. I do like spicy food but I think someone in the kitchen was having a laugh with this one! We followed dinner with a few cocktails - well I needed something to put out the raging fire that was happening on my tongue! My lips felt swollen and were burning and without going into any detail I was slightly concerned about the after effect of eating so much chilli.

Byron Bay

Gav and Sylv had booked surfing lessons for the following day. I have had surfing lessons previously and, though it was tonnes of fun, I knew I was useless and did not need further proof of the fact. I instead spent the day strolling around the pretty town of Byron Bay, reading the papers on the beach and generally enjoyed doing nothing. Knowing that the others would be starving when they had finished I nipped to the local supermarket to pick up supplies for Gavin's famous McCurleys which we were to have for lunch. Two things went a little wrong that day, firstly we got a parking ticket for not being parked at a 90 degree angle....... I kid you not. Secondly, the surf lessons were cut short as the current was became too strong for the instructor to continue. However, on the upside Gav and Sylv did get half of the money they had paid for the lesson back and those McCurleys, barbecued on the beachside and eaten whilst sat by the sand, watching the world go by, tasted pretty damned good.

For those that are curious a McCurley is Gavin's take on a McDonalds bacon & egg McMuffin and it's delicious. Ask him to knock you one up next time you see him. Although Sylvie did knock up a 'McNeish' recently which is her version and is up there with the McCurley I have to say.

Next stop was Coffs Harbour. Our campsite was right by Park Beach so first thing the following morning Gav and I took our pre-brekkie walk along the beach which was followed by a swim and the invention of a game we have called Sea Stunts. Sea Stunts involves flinging yourself into the waves in a position suggested by the other players, for example I might shout "scissor kick" and we would both have to jump into the next large wave whilst doing a scissor kick. Backwards flip, gambole, belly flop etc are other suggestions. All I will say is don't knock it 'till you've tried it because we have had no end of fun with this game.

Coffs Harbour

Later we all took a walk along Coffs' Historic Jetty and were lucky enough to see a couple of turtles swimming around. A mooch around town followed by a couple of hours at the beach and then back on the road for our 2 hour drive to Port Macquarie.

Historic Jetty at Coffs Harbour

It rained that evening, in fact it rained quite a lot. We had planned to treat ourselves to fish and chips at a local chippie we had read about and were not going to let the rain put us off so off we trundled. It was a little further than we anticipated but they were excellent fish and chips. The owner of the restaurant, a fellow Pom, was even kind enough to drop us off at the local pub and let us devour our fish and chips in his car during the journey.

Port Macquarie

On Tuesday 18th we nipped to Port Macquarie's Town Beach for our morning walk and sea stunts session before heading on to Nelson Bay, Port Stephens. As well as visiting the lighthouse and One Mile Beach, we of course sampled the famous pies from Ned's Pie Shop.

Nelson's Bay and sea stunts at One Mile Beach

Stockton Bight sand dunes, en-route to the Central Coast

We then travelled through the Central Coast area and stayed at an eerie campsite at The Entrance and the following day drove through the Northern Beaches, en-route to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.

Gav and I had visited the Blue Mountains previously but as Sylvie had not we were more than happy to go again. It's such a beautiful area and we were able to combine the visit with a trip to the Jenolan Caves.

Jenolan Caves

After spending a couple of days enjoying the Blue Mountains area we continued on to Sydney where we were to drop off the campervan and check into our luxurious apartment with all of our friends................hmmmm more to follow on that saga on the next entry!

Until then ta-ta xxx

Kenneth (Williams) The Camp Van remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The Ayers Rock Resort is pretty overpriced for the standard of accommodation available so rather then pay top whack for the higher end hotel rooms we opted to rough it a little and stayed in a cabin on the camp site (still $150 a night though!). We had no loo in the cabin and so shared the bathroom facilities with the campers but did have our own little kitchenette (handy as food in the resort restaurants was as overpriced as the accommodation).

Our cabin at the Ayers Rock Resort

Warning signs in the campsite and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park

The best decision we made was to hire a car and see the sights independently rather than booking ourselves onto any organised tours. We therefore had as much time as we needed to see and do everything that we wanted to.

Sunset from a view point in the Ayers Rock Resort on our first evening

We dragged ourselves out of bed at 4.45am the following morning to watch sunrise at Uluru (Ayers Rock) which was, well, a little grey. After sunrise we walked the Liru and Uluru Base walks which took us from the visitor centre and around the base of Uluru, around 13.5km in total. Fortunately it was a cool day so great for walking and the low temperature kept the flies away (more on the flies later).

After nipping back to our cabin for a little rest and sustenance we headed back to Uluru for sunset that evening.

Monday 5th, day three at the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park we visited Kata Tjuta (The Olgas). I have to say that we both thought it was more impressive than Uluru. We completed both the Valley of the Winds walk and the Walpa Gorge Walk, around 10km in total.

It was a much warmer day than the previous day and so the dreaded flies decided to make an appearance. We had been warned about the flies at Uluru but this was our first real taste of things come (although little did we know how bad it would get during the next few weeks).

Another downside to the much warmer weather was that I managed to get sun burnt! Quote annoying as I then had ridiculous tan/burn marks so it actually looked like I was still wearing my vest top even when I wasn't.

Uluru, Day Four

It was a terrible shame that we were unable to visit Kings Canyon during our stay in the red centre. Heavy rainfall in the previous few days had resulted in the only road from the Ayers Rock Resort to Kings Canyon park to be closed due to flooding. It was very frustrating to be so close (well, around a 4 hour drive away) and to be unable to get there. There was the option of getting a helicopter but we may have had to re-mortgage our house to be able to afford that method of transport so we decided against it.

Mount Conner, 2 hours drive from the resort

On Wednesday 7th we departed Uluru for our 3 1/2 hour journey to Perth in Western Australia. Our accommodation in Perth was a double room at a hostel called One World Backpackers, in the Northbridge district of Perth. We arrived feeling totally refreshed and relaxed (and a little sun burnt) after our four days at Uluru. Our refreshed feeling was short lived however as the double room we had booked was adjacent to the communal kitchen and the main reception area and so was very noisy until well into the evening and from around 6am the following morning. Not much sleep was had that evening - welcome back to hostel life Mr & Mrs Curley!

The following day we took ourselves on a walking tour of the city ending up in Kings Park, a 1000 acre park in the city which incorporates the Botanical Gardens.

Percy Button and Kangaroo statues

Barrack Street Jetty, Swan Bell Tower and Swan River

Views of Perth from Kings Park

On Friday 9th we headed out to Cottesloe Beach which is short a bus ride away from the city. It was a lovely day but pretty windy which meant we were sandblasted the whole time we were on the beach and having my freshly sun burnt skin sandblasted was a fairly unpleasant experience. We ended the day with a few drinks at the Cottesloe Hotel and the Ocean Beach Hotel which has great views of the beach.

Cottesloe Beach

Lizard at Cottesloe Beach

The 2007 Northbridge Festival was held on Saturday 10th and was just a short stroll from our hostel. After an hour or so wondering around on our own we met up with Roger and Tracey for drinks and dinner. Roger and Tracey have emigrated to Australia and arrived in Perth the day before we did and it was great to catch up with them both.

DJ Kentaro at the Northbridge Festival

We had moved from the double room into a dorm room and thankfully were able to get some kip that evening as on Sunday 11th we were up at 5.45am for a day swimming with dolphins in an area called Rockingham. Neither of us knew exactly what to expect but the day far surpassed anything we had imagined. We basically get set up with wetsuits and snorkels and then spend a while searching around the bay for the dolphins. Once the skipper spotted dolphins, we took it in turns to get into the sea, one small group at a time. A staff member lead the group, pulling us along with an underwater scooter and unbelievably we were able to get within touching distance of wild Bottlenose dolphins. At one point we had 6 dolphins swimming and playing around us, all around 7ft in length. We had 6 drops into the water and each time the dolphins were more than happy to come and play. It was amazing. We were both in agreement that it was once of the best experiences we have ever had.

On Monday 12th we were packed up again and were picked up at 7am for our Western Exposure tour to Exmouth and back to Perth. The tour itself was 7 days although we had decided to spend a little longer in Exmouth in order to do a couple of Scuba dives and planned to travel back to Perth with another group.

We were both a little apprehensive about being on an organised tour for so long but the company had been recommended to us and we decided it was too far to drive independently with the amount of time we had available. We need not have worried. It was brilliant. We were fortunate enough to have a great group of people who all got on like a house on fire. There was 9 nationalities, with ages ranging from 22 to grandparents (we were too polite to ask but I'd imagine mid 60's). I have to say the way the group gelled was a lot to do with a Scouser called Casper who was one of the funniest guys I've met. He got us all talking by setting up quizzes and things to pass the time on the bus and generally entertained us all non-stop. Another factor of course was alcohol!

It was pretty early on in the tour, ie day 1, that we realised how bad the flies were going to be. We stepped out of the minibus at the Pinnacles Desert and were absolutely swarmed by flies. Jeez, I had complained about the few in Sydney and Uluru, they were small fry compared to these bad boys! Our tour guide, Nathan, said it was the shortest visit to the Pinnacles he had ever conducted as we all piled back into the bus after just 10 minutes. We depleted the entire stock of fly nets at the next service station.

The Pinnacles Desert

Sandboarding at Kalbarri

Us abseiling and 'Natures Window' in Kalbarri National Park

Gorge Walk, Kalbarri National Park

Flynets 'R' Us

Stromatolites and Shell Beach in Shark Bay

Joey at our Denham Hostel, daybreak and Dolphins at Monkey Mia

Gorge and Torquoise Bay in Cape Range National Park

The 'Western Exposure' Group

During the tour we had the option on booking an additional one day 'Swim with Manta Rays' tour in Coral Bay. Gavin and I were hesitant to book as we had already spent a fair amount on the Rockingham Dolphins day and also knew that we wanted to go scuba diving during our stay in Exmouth which is another fairly pricey activity. However, the rest of the group persuaded us to go along. It was quite different to the swimming with dolphins experience as we were not pulled along with a scooter and so it was pretty tough going to keep up with the 4 1/2 meter Manta ray that we spotted - they are pretty damned fast. I was fortunate enough on the second drop to have got myself into a great position and was able to swim directly above the ray, having the most amazing view for what felt like ages before it decided it had had enough and swam away from us. To make the day even better we were also taken to a shark 'cleaning station' where the sharks hang around to get a good old clean by all the little fish. We snorkelled 5 metres above around 7 Whitetip reef sharks. We had to leave however when some of the staff noticed a shark that they were unable to identify arrived. The fact that the new shark made the reef sharks skittish and nervous was enough for them to get us out of the water pretty sharpish. There were no complaints from us! (Pictures to follow once we've had the underwater camera developed)

Coral Bay

It actually felt a little sad when we were all saying our goodbyes on the last evening together. One of the American girls said it was a bit like the end of summer camp when you are saying good-bye to all your new friends. Luckily two of the girls in the group had done the same as us and decided to stay on in Exmouth to dive so we were able to book together to dive at the Murion islands.

I have now completed 6 dives but have a long way to go before I'm any good at it I think. I managed to shake myself up a little bit when I started having a coughing fit 15 feet underwater. Not a great feeling but I did mange not to panic too much and complete the dive. Gav had a few issues with his buoyancy and seem to keep floating up towards the surface. I wouldn't say we are naturals in the water!

South Murion Island

The best part of the day was when we had finished our dives and were given the opportunity to snorkel for a while. The crew kept it quiet until the last minute that we were going to be able to snorkel with turtles. It was turtle mating season and the area that we were dropped off, South Murion Island, was just swarming with them (some of them were, ahem, a little busy though). Visibility was not brilliant so once our faces were in the water we were not aware how close we were to a turtle until we were literally face to face with one. They are huge! I'd guess they were around 1 1/2 meters long and around a meter across. They are so chilled out (just like there are in Finding Nemo) that they just let us swim alongside them for ages. The ones that were 'getting jiggy with it' were understandably a little less patient with us and would swim off is we got too close. We could see all the tracks on the beach were the females had climbed up to lay their eggs. To be that close to so many turtles in the wild is pretty special. Another absolutely amazing experience. (Again, pictures to follow once we have developed the underwater cameras)

On Monday 19th we started our 2 day bus journey back to Perth. Lots of road and lots of sleeping were involved. We did have a stop off at the Hutt River Province which was quite interesting.

Basically a wheat farmer in Western Australia decided that he wasn't happy paying taxes to the government and, after much debate, he used a loophole in the law (which has now been closed) and declared his land a sovereign state. He and his wife are know Prince Leonard and Princess Shirley of Hutt. He has his own currency and stamps and you can have you passport stamped upon arrival as you are effectively entering another country that is within Australia (yep, we had our passports stamped).

Hutt River Province - Us with His Royal Highness Prince Leonard I

After one night back at One World Backpackers in Perth we collected our hire car for a 3 day trip to the Margaret River area, stopping off at Bunbury and Bussleton en-route. We had to juggle our itinerary a little to fit it in but are both very glad that we did. The wine tasting tour that we had booked ended up only having one other couple on which meant it was a pretty subdued tour although it didn't stop Gav and I getting sloshed on all of the wine we tried. We ended up coming away with 3 bottles of wine and bottle of white port (surprisingly good), all of which have now been consumed!

Our hire car

Bussleton

Wine Tasting Tour, Margaret River

Prevelly Beach, Margaret River

Freemantle, 15km from Perth

We decided not to head back to Perth City and instead booked into Ocean Beach Backpackers in Cottesloe Beach. The room we had was pretty disgusting, I mean really messy and dirty, and don't start me on the bathroom! I was the only girl in a room with 7 guys. We had to sleep with the windows open all night as the smell in the room was too bad if you closed them. All of that aside, we had the best time there. It was such a laugh and we met some great people. It was a shame to have to move on as we had had such fun staying there although I was glad to see the back of the dirtiest kitchen I have seen in ages.

Sunset at Cottesloe Beach

On Saturday 24th we jumped on a ferry from Barrick Street Jetty to Rottnest Island where we hired bikes for a 3 hour ride around the island. It's pretty hilly and I did have to stop once or twice and push my bike up the hill. It didn't help that we had arrived too late to get a bike with any gears which made navigating the hills a little more difficult, downhill was great though. It was also great to be able to stop and jump into the sea in one of the lovely bays to cool down when it all got a bit too hot and sweaty. We even managed to spot a Quokka and her Joey.

Rottnest Island

On Sunday 25th we met up with Roger and Tracey again and were joined by a couple of girls from the hostel, Amy and Rachel, for the Cottesloe 'Sunday Session'. We ended the evening with more drinks at the hostel. Another big session the evening before a flight!

Cottesloe Sunday Sesh

Drinking games at Ocean Beach Backpackers

This entry doesn't take you right up to the end of November but I'm afraid I have blog fatigue, as I fear you have too after reading this lengthy entry. In addition to my blog fatigue the internet cafe that we are in keeps playing heavy rock which I'm sure could cause ones head to explode. I therefore have to leave as a head explosion may be difficult to explain at the local A&E and claiming on my travel insurance would be a nightmare.

Melbourne here we come!

Oh My, The Flies! remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Oh my word we have been hit by a plague of Bogong Moths!

It's made the news here as it has been such a problem. At one point we must have had 20 in our apartment alone. There were thousands upon thousands of them in Sydney itself. They migrate through South East Australia during the spring but this year Sydney was hit with massive numbers of them. Some buildings were literally covered in a complete wall of moths. Sitting in the park or even just walking down the street was a traumatic experience let me tell you.

Gavin "I aint scared of no moths fool" Curley came to my rescue on numerous occasions with his cat like ability to catch the little blighters mid flight. Not surprising given that his only alternative would have been to listen to three girls in the apartment squealing and running around like lunatics every time we were confronted with one.

Apparently they are delicious, there have been loads of recipes doing the rounds. You have to remove their wings and fur though......(vom).

Talking of insects, is it just me or are flies in hot countries a bit, well, 'harder' than flies in the UK? In the UK if a fly finds it's way into your home all its looking for is left over food. It will then relentlessly fly against a window pane (regardless of whether said window is open or not) until it dies. Here, forget food, they want to take you on! They repeatedly try to fly into your mouth, your ears or your eyes. They don't care that you are feverishly batting them way and doing that crazy dance that we tend to do when something is flying at us - you know sort of 'spinning around on the spot whilst swinging your arms around your head' dance? Nope, these flies are saying "C'MON, HIT ME. IS THAT THE BEST YOU'VE GOT!" (for some reason in my head that's a Cockney accent when of course it couldn't be because these are Aussie flies, but go with me on this).

They are ASBO flies. They want to fly into your eye and then steal your car.

I don't like Bogong Moths or ASBO Flies.

Moving on......

Sydney has completely come alive now that the sun has arrived. Every weekend seems to have a free festival or event taking place. Here's what we have been up to for the last few weeks.

Wallabies v England, Rugby World Cup - Saturday 6th

Later that evening.......

Those of you in Birmingham think 'Flares' and that will give you an idea of what The Retro Hotel was like which was the venue for our PwC Retro night out. Full on cheesy, I don’t care that I'm dancing to ABBA, kinda place. I managed to get lost on my way home even though the club is on the same street as our apartment. You'll be pleased to know I found my way back eventually!

PwC Retro Night Out - Friday 12th October

The Surry Hills Festival included stalls selling clothes, jewellery, arts & crafts, food and beer, three stages with live bands and performances and a dance tent. Not bad for a free event! Fortunately the dance tent stopped playing at 6pm as had it of carried on we would not have made it to the fancy dress party that evening.

Surry Hills Festival - Saturday 13th October

Vicky invited us along to a fancy dress party where everyone had to dress up as something beginning with the letter P. Gav and I decided against dressing up but those that did really put a lot of effort into their costumes and looked great.

Patrick's ‘P’ Party - Saturday 13th October

I attended a drinks evening with the agency that placed me at PwC on Thursday 18th. Copious amounts of 'bubbles' (as in not really champers but it'll do anyway, especially as it's free) was drunk. I came away very merry with a lots of new friends.

On Friday 19th I attended a charity lunch at PwC to raise money for The National Breast Cancer Foundation. The team at PwC put on truly excellent events. The room was beautifully decorated - it was obvious that a lot of time and effort had been put into making sure it was a successful event. Around 150 people attended and lots of money was raised for the charity. Again the champers flowed....and I drank it.

A couple of the girls that I had met on Thursday evening invited Gavin and I out to a works drinks evening on Friday night and so after my long boozy lunch I left the office to rush home, get changed, pick up the Hubby, and start all over again. We had a great night but I have to say it all caught up with us by Saturday. DVDs and a Thai takeaway was all we could manage. Little Miss Sunshine, have you seen it? It's worth watching just for the dance routine at the end, hilarious!

Another day another festival. Dank Street festival is part of The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Month. There were numerous stalls selling all kinds of food and wine along with two stages with DJs and live performances. Well here's the thing, we started off very civilised, tasting wine, eating freshly cooked seafood whilst listening to the music. However, once we had 'done' the festival we decided to move on to a nearby pub where we met with a group of guys who had been out since 4am (watching South Africa beat England in the Rugby World Cup but enough said about that). Sambuca shots and Irish dancing followed.

Dank Street Festival – Sunday 21st

Hungry?

Oh dear, here we go again...

On Wednesday 24th the team I work for at PwC took Gav and I to a restaurant called Wildfire in Circular Quay for a farewell dinner. It was a lovely evening, Gav got to meet the people I have been working with for the last three months and we all got to meet each others's partners. We received our third invitation to Christmas dinner that evening too. I think for someone to invite two people that they hardly know into their homes for Christmas is an exceptionally kind thing to do.

Also part of The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Month was the Sydney Food and Wine Fair held in Hyde Park with all proceeds donated to the AIDS Trust. It was an extremely popular event with lots of queues for the various food and wine stalls. After we'd had a good feed we sat in the sun for an hour or two just watching the world go by.

Sydney Food & Wine Fair – Saturday 27th

More drink, I actually need to detox now I think. Well let me just explain, we didn't set out to go to the Drink Pink Rosé Festival at The Argyle. We spent the first part of our day, as planned, visiting Paddys Market and then the Rocks Market looking for little gifts to send home. We had heard that the Argle was a good bar so when we spotted near to the Rocks Market area we decided to pop in for a spot of lunch. It was then that we realised there was a Rosé tasting day. For $20 you could have unlimited tastings of over 50 wines and three full glasses of your favorites. When it was coming to the end of the day the gentlemen serving were more than generous with the amounts they were pouring.

Drink Pink Rosé Festival at The Argyle, The Rocks - Sunday 28th

Wednesday 31st. Our last day at work! We've both been so lucky with the jobs we found and are fortunate enough to have really enjoyed working for the last three months. Having said that, we are both very excited about donning our backpacks and hitting the road again and having no more work until at least April 2008! We have two months of travelling around Oz ahead of us and it's just over four weeks until my Sister, Sylvia, joins us in Melbourne. We also get to see our friends Roger and Tracey when we are in Perth.

Cardie's leaving lunch with some of the PwC support team

Ladies and gentlemen, he is bringing sexy back! Oh yeah, I dragged Gavin along to see JT at the Acer Arena on 1st November and it was absolutely brilliant!

Justin Timberlake Concert

We arranged to have farewell drinks on our last night in Sydney. I honestly do not remember a thing past the second Sambuca, however, judging by the photographs I had a great time!

Leaving Drinks, Cargo Bar - Friday 2nd November

You can guess that I felt less than well getting up at 6am for our flight to Uluru but more on that in our next installment.

Ta-ta for now xxx

Festivals and Fancy Dress remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Friday 7th September was a public holiday due to the APEC summit which was being held in Sydney (George Bush and his entourage whizzing past our offices the previous day had caused hysteria). Gavin and I went to see Snow Patrol perform at the ACER Arena on the evening. They were absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately we have no pictures as we were the only two people out of thousands that abided by the no cameras rule. It's a little strange going to a concert in Sydney though as the crowd are so subdued. We have spoken to a number of people about it since and that simply seems to be the way people are at concerts here. I found it odd that the people in the seated area stayed seated for the entire concert - we were in the standing area and bounced around like lunatics as you would expect. I hope the crowd are a little more enthusiastic when I go to see Justin Timberlake next month! He's bringing sexy back!

Vicky's main birthday night out was on Saturday 8th. it was a great evening although I realised it was time to go home when I found myself in a 'dance-off' which involved me break-dancing, spinning around on the floor like a mad woman. Sadly I did not win said dance off as my opponent wiped the floor with me with her double commando roll. Note to self: must learn more moves.

Vicky's birthday night out No.2. Cargo Bar, Kings Wharf - Saturday 8th September

The following weekend was spent walking some of Sydney beautiful costal walks. It's excellent as we can jump on a bus or a ferry and be at a beach in less than 30 minutes.

The Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk - Saturday 15th September

The South Head Coastal Walk - Sunday 16th September

The South Head Coastal walk ends at Watson’s Bay where it would be simply rude not to sample the fish and chips from the famous Doyles restaurant.

Views from the ferry port in Watson’s Bay

On Friday 14th we jumped on the train after work and headed to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains for a weekend break (I know, a weekend break during a year long break!). The mountains are spectacular. We had such a lovely time. It's fair to say we had to drag ourselves away on the Sunday. We stayed at the cutest little hostel called No. 14 which is a restored mountain guesthouse with lots of character and a lovely fire burning in the communal area (it's pretty cold in the mountains at night).

On Saturday we walked from our hostel to Echo Point, the starting point for our Echo Point to Scenic Park bush walk which incorporates The Three Sisters and the Giants Stairway along its 2 1/2 hour duration.

Blue Mountains bush walk - Echo Point to Scenic Park

Like the big kids that we are we had to buy the unlimited pass for the two cable cars and the funicular railway at Scenic Park so that we could go on everything in both directions!

Scenic Park at the Blue Mountains

Views of the mountains from Scenic Park

On the way home from the mountains we decided to visit the Zig Zag railway which is also in the Blue Mountains. Unfortunately we missed our connecting train for our return journey and had to wait for over two hours at the Zig Zag's Bottom Points station with the company of an exceptionally annoying family - Mr Know-it-all, his wife, Mrs Man-Woman, and their kids, Rudee and Ruder. (shudder)

The Zig Zag railway

On Thursday 25th PwC hosted an event for PAs and clients PAs. It was a such a fun night with a fashion show and lots of champagne. I'm pleased to say that I was relatively well behaved and was not one of the girls that got locked in the stairwell whilst having a cheeky ciggie, or the girl that knocked a whole table of drinks over - twice, or the girl that was placed into the sick bay by a Partner who had found her slumped over her desk in a drunken stupor. The same girl woke up at 3am and called the police as she had no idea where she was (she rang in sick the following day unsurprisingly). No siree, not me. I was of course one of the ones who insisted that the night could not end when they closed the free bar and switched on the lights. "Who's up for carrying on?" - said in a loud Brummie accent

One of the guys at work invited us along to a private party that was being held at Bungalow 8's bar in Kings Wharf on Thursday 27th. It was a great do that had attracted a huge crowd and had DJs, live PAs, entertainers and a free bar. We managed to get our photo in the social pages of the Sunday Herald which my work colleagues found very entertaining! Fortunately the photographer managed to take our picture before we commenced our drunken dance routine to Salt 'n' Pepa's "Push It".

The Sun Herald, 30 September 2007

On Saturday 29th Sarah, Conor and their gorgeous little son Finn invited us over to their home for our first Aussie BBQ. I think they were a little surprised that our contribution to the BBQ was kangaroo meat. But we wanted to try it! It's a bit like tough lamb and I probably wouldn't buy it again. Following the BBQ Gavin and I headed to their local pub which Sarah had promised served the best Guinness in Sydney - Gavin is in full agreement. There was an Irish Band playing and lots of dancing too which made it a great evening.

As it was a bank holiday weekend, on Sunday 30th we headed to a night called Godskitchen at Home Club with Vicky. The club went on until 7am....we did not. Why, why, oh why do people bring glow sticks to clubs? You look silly, stop it! We left at around 2am.

The weather on Monday 1st was gorgeous. We spent the whole day in Darling Harbour for the Darling Harbour 'Fiesta' which was a celebration of all things Latin American. There were three different stages with performances from dancers and musicians along with stalls selling crafts and food. The children's Flamenco performance was excellent, however, the funniest thing I have seen in ages was the 'Learn to Salsa' session. Two dancers on stage gave instructions to the crowd and we all had a go at learning a few Salsa steps. We were really surprised at how many people got involved. Everyone was really up for a laugh and didn't care how silly they looked and boy did they look silly. It was very funny indeed.

These two little darlings were having an excellent time dancing to the salsa music (yep, still obsessed with Asian kids!)

And so the end of the bank holiday weekend and the end of this installment.

We'll update again at the end of October by which time we'll be finishing up at work and set to head off on our travels again (can't wait!).

It's Wallabies v England in the Rugby World Cup on Saturday. I do hope England win as we've been getting no end of stick from the Aussies. C'MON ENGLAND!.

Ta-ta for now.

Gav & Cardie xxx

Spring in Sydney remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We had a great day on Saturday 11th and headed to Bondi Junction for some retail therapy. No really, I had to go shopping. I imagine the chaps at the office would be less than impressed if I were to turn up in my combats and flip-flops so attire suitable for the office was called for. After shopping we headed to the RSL Club on Bondi Beach to meet up with Vicky, Zena and friends for cheap beers. The RSL Club is an ex-service men's club that's right on the Beach and has excellent views from the balcony.

Bondi Beach

After the RSL we headed to the Beach Road Hotel where it all got a little messy!

The Beach Road Hotel, Bondi

Ouch!

Who's ya mate?

Sunday 12th was spent at Manly Beach. We were lucky as the weather that weekend was gorgeous, there were people sunbathing on as it was so warm. We ate fish and chips on the beach and walked part of the Manly scenic walkway. We both felt a little rough from the previous days drinking and could not face trying out any of the pubs.

Ferry to Manly - Views of the City

Manly Beach

Fish & Chips on the Beach!

Manly Scenic Walkway

Paddington Market was our destination on On Saturday 18th. Its a cute little market on Oxford Street that has vintage clothes, gorgeous jewellery, modern art and the like. It was far too girlie for Gav so he headed off to the shops on Oxford Street whilst I hunted around the market for bargains. Oh dear Gav... leaving me shopping....on my own.....schoolboy error! We both spent too much. The Paddington Inn is a great pub on Oxford Street and as we were on it's door step it was a shame not to go in and so thats where we spent the evening.

Rain, rain go away come back another day.....on Sunday 19th we had torrential rain all day so we took advantage of our apartment block having a gym and spent a couple of hours in there. Now when I say I was in serious pain as a result I'm not exaggerating. If I coughed or sneezed it brought tears to my eyes as my tummy was so sore from the small number sit-ups I managed. We were supposed to use the pool the following night although I decided the risk of sinking to the bottom was too great due to the fact that I couldn't move my arms more than a couple of inches following my mini weights session.

It seems that everyone in Sydney is fitness crazy, everyone goes to the gym, goes running, blah, blah, blah, (vom). There was a really good run that thousands of people took part in, 65,000 to be exact, the City to Shore charity fun run. It's the largest fun run in the world apparently. It was a spectacular sight seeing all those people running through the city streets, some serious runners and others dressed in fancy dress. I'd love to show you some pictures however we were too lazy to even get up to watch it and watched it on TV in bed!

Work is going really well for both of us. Gav has changed jobs as his first contract came to an end. He is now working on a new house build and is really enjoying it. It's hard work though and he has been pretty tired some nights but as it's a $3million house that is being built, it's really interesting to work on and the guys he is working with are good fun.

I am really enjoying my job. It's quite busy at times and involves a bit of working late here and there but that's fine, especially as I only have a minutes walk to get home.

Our House, In the Middle of Our Street...where we live

I had a lovely welcome lunch on my first day with all the PA's that had joined during the previous 3 months, a nice way to say hi to everyone. On Thursday 23 August, I was taken for another welcome lunch this time with the admin team from my floor. We went to Nick’s Seafood Restaurant in Darling Harbour which was gorgeous. Drinking wine at lunchtime is never a good idea, luckily I didn’t have too much work to do during the afternoon!

Saturday 25th was Wendy's leaving bash. After drinks at Zena and Vicky’s flat we went to the Paddington Inn although we had to leave as the girls said it was “dry” (translated that means it was severely lacking in attractive males). We then made our way to the Beach Road Hotel from where I had to make a sneaky emergency exit at around midnight and put myself into a cab home - it was the Zambuka that did it.

Wendy's Leaving Bash

On Sunday 26th Gav went to the Leichhardt Oval to watch the West Tigers play against South Sydney. It’s nearing the finals so everyone is talking about it here. Disappointingly the Tigers lost 37-12 although on the plus side he did manage to get himself a number of pictures of the very attractive cheer leaders (I wondered why he was suddenly so interested in rugby).

West Tigers v South Sydney

The Cheerleaders

Whilst Gav was watching the rugby match I met up with Vicky for an afternoon in an area called Newtown. Newtown was a total no go area in the 60’s but has been rejuvenated in recent years and now has a cool, arty feel to it. It has lots of little shops, funky cafés and coffee bars and smart gay friendly pubs. I found a quote about the area which I thought was hilarious, “an arty-farty suburb filled with freaks, poofs, junkies and weirdoes”. My kinda place! After mooching around the shops, Vicky and I spent the afternoon in the garden of the Bank Hotel where Gav joined us after the rugby match. The company was great, the sun was shining, the tunes were playing and I had a glass of vino in my hand....heaven!

Just incase you are wondering why we are drinking in so many ‘hotels’ - pubs here are called hotels although most no longer offer accommodation. We think it’s to do with the old licensing laws in that to serve alcohol an establishment offer rooms (although we may be wrong).

What is going on with the weather in the UK? Every email we have received has mentioned it. We obviously picked a good year to go away! I was going to make you all feel better by saying that the weather was bad here at the moment and in fairness it has been pretty cold and wet over the last few weeks but people, recently it’s been gorgeous. On Tuesday 28th it was 27 degrees! Not bad for winter eh. I went out for yet another work lunch (who at all the pies, who ate all the pies......you can fill in the rest yourselves) this time with my 'POD'. We sat on the roof terrace of a local bar soaking up the sun. It's a hard life!

We are trying to visit somewhere new each weekend and so on Saturday 1st September we went to an area called the Glebe with Vicky and Zena. The Glebe has a real Bohemian, hippy feel to it, with a vintage market, shops, cafes and bars. We wondered around the markets for a couple fo hours and finished the day in a little cafe that served delicious seafood. From The Glebe we walked along the river front, visiting the Syndey Fish Markets on the way home.

The Anzac Bridge, Johnstone Bay

Views of the City

A Pelican Outside the Sydney Fish Markets

On Sunday 2nd September we took a stroll across to Darling Harbour where we had a 1pm pickup for our whale watching trip. The outward journey on our little boat was hilarious, the sea was very choppy and the boat was going very fast so we were bouncing up and down on the waves getting absolutely drenched. It was great, like being on a cross between a Pirate Ship and the Log Flume at an amusement park. Luckily we had taken sea sickness tablets before getting on the boat and so did not feel in the slightest bit queasy. Judging by the amount of sick bags being passed around and the very green looking faces, very few people had done the same.

Darling Harbour

We were both a little apprehensive as it would have been so disappointing if we were to see no whales at all. We needn't have worried. We saw four humpback whales and tonnes of dolphins. Gav was lucky enough to see one of the whales breaching, jumping right out of the water and flipping over in the air (unfortunately I was facing the other way and also had the camera...oops). The dolphins were so playful and raced over when they heard the boat approaching. They then swam along side the boat for ages jumping out of the water. It was amazing - probably one of the best things we have done so far this trip. I honestly think we were more excited than the children that were there. Our camera isn't really good enough to capture wildlife on the move so the pictures don't do the day justice at all.

If you look very closely and you might see whales and dolphins in these pictures

On the way out to see the whales we saw this message written in the sky.....is someone tying to tell us something?

On the way we saw something quite different....a nudist beach! Not sure if you can see the bare bottoms on this picture - we certainly could from our boat.

That's all for now folks!

We'll update again in a few weeks. Take care all of you xxx

It's all work, work, work! remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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It's Monday 6th and we have been in Sydney for just over 2 weeks. It's winter! Who allowed Australia to have cold weather? When we arrived at Sydney airport I was wearing flip-flops but realised I was underdressed when I saw people coming into the airport wearing hats and scarves. To be fair we have had some really lovely days. In fact there have been a couple of days where we have been sat in Hyde Park in shorts and tee shirts. The days are beautiful and sunny with clear blue skys but a cold wind - nights are plain cold!

Our first destination in Sydney was D.Lux Hostel in Kings Cross. We arrived pretty tired after our 8 hour, overnight flight and were lucky enough to be put into a dorm on our own. Aaaaah sleeeeeep.

The hostel had a really good social atmosphere and arranged free drinks sessions in local bars every evening. On Saturday 21st, after catching up on our sleep during the day we headed to The Gaff for an hour of free beer. Ever been to a Ritzy nightclub? It doesn't matter in which city, they were all the same. Yes, well then you know what the Gaff was like. Prizes for the couple that act out the best sexual position on stage and that sort of thing. Once the free beer stopped flowing we left. We did join them for one or two other free drinks session though - well, we are backpackers!

We met up with the Birmingham Crew, Vicky and Zena on Sunday 22nd. I wont go into details about the night although needless to say carnage ensued. We have some good nights with Vic and Zena since and they have introduced us to some really good bars (sadly we have also introduced ourselves to the local kebab shop).

On Monday 30th Gav headed off to the Wests Tigers home ground for the rugby match against the Queensland Cowboys (anyone else think that sounds gay?). He went with Aussie Greg, the guy we met in Hanoi, Vietnam. We had both met up with Greg for beers on the previous Friday which was good fun.

It was our third wedding anniversary on 31st July so we treated ourselves to a meal and a bottle of wine (or two) at a restaurant we visited when we were here on our honeymoon.

As well as sampling Sydney's nightlife we have actually got our acts together and managed to find ourselves a flat and jobs! Our apartment is right by Darling Harbour and we are sharing with two lovely girls. The joy of having a room to ourselves being able to unpack our rucksacks! The apartment block also has a gym and pool that we can use. Gav is using the gym this evening.......how many times do you think I'll make it to the gym? Oh but ER is on tonight. Some of the apartments we went to view before finding this one were unbelievable - real dumps. I think we have been really lucky to find the one we are in.

We had to get out of hostels for a bit as I suspect we would have been driven to murder if we'd have stayed where we were for much longer. The last guy we were sharing our dorm with thought it was perfectly acceptable to repeatedly and violently break wind and to use the bathroom with the door open. And guess what? He only bloody snored too!!! I'm not sure what was worse, his trumping, snoring or the sound of his knuckles dragging on the floor. He was disgusting.

Gav started his new job today working with an electrician refurbishing shops and offices. He very much enjoyed his 10 minutes train journey over Sydney Harbour Bridge this morning as opposed to driving for 3 hours to London as he would have done at home. I start my role as an Executive Assistant for 2 Partners at PwC tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in (remind me I said that when I'm moaning about the hard work!) and a bonus is that the PwC offices are at the end of the street that we are now living on.

We both plan to work for the next three months before we go off on our travels again so I can't promise much exciting news during that time as it will be back to early to bed, early to rise........yeah, WHATEVER!

G'day Mate! remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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During our honeymoon three years ago we spent two nights in Singapore on our way to Australia. Obviously our budget then was a little different to our budget now. Three years ago we were staying at Raffles the Plaza hotel, quaffing champagne in the New Asia Bar. That couldn't be further away from this occasion - a dorm room at the Betelbox Hostel, sharing with around 16 other people, all men I might add.

Then and now....Raffles the Plaza and our dorm

Sleep, who needs sleep! Not us clearly as we had managed to pick yet another hostel next to a karaoke bar. In fact the Betelbox hostel is above a karaoke bar and is on a street that is literally filled with karaoke bars. I use the term 'karaoke' loosely as, although people do sing in these bars, I think 'girlie' bar would be a better description. You get my drift. In addition to the activities in the street, simply the number of people in one room meant it was pretty impossible to get a decent nights sleep. Of course we had to have a dorm snorer too, just to put the icing on the cake.

The Blue Lagoon 'Karaoke' Bar
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During the days we walked around the city taking in the sights and evenings were spent in the Chinese coffee shops grabbing an evening meal and a cheap Tiger beer. It's pretty expensive to go to bars in Singaopre so we decided to save any partying for Sydney.

Boat Quay and Clarke Quay

Sir Stamford Raffles

The Esplanade

The Singapore River

China Town

The Asian Civilisations Museum was really interesting as a lot of the exhibits related to countries that we had visited during this trip. They also had a fascinating exhibit which looked at how the perception of beauty in Asia had changed through the years.

The Asian Civilisations Museum

Another week, another country. On Friday 20th July we headed to the airport for to catch our flight to Sydney.

Singapore remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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By the time we boarded our overnight train from Thailand to Malaysia We were so tired by the time we boarded at 1.45am that we were both certain of sleeping through. However, Mr Snorey-Head, in a bunk besides us had other ideas. There is nothing more frustrating than being kept awake by a snorer. It's the fact that he is getting a great night's sleep thank you whilst keeping everyone else awake. We both, somehow, resisted the urge to throw a shoe at him or smother him with his pillow.

In total we spent 24 hours travelling from Koh Samui to Penang, Malaysia. The journey went something like this:

• Songthaew (pick-up style taxi) to Nathon - I hour
• Ferry from Nathon to mainland Thailand - 1 1/2 hours
• Bus journey to Surat Thani - 2 1/2 hours
• Wait at train station - 8 hours (yes that's right, 8 hours)
• Train to Butterworth, Malaysia - 10 hours
• Ferry from Butterworth to Penang - 15 mins
• Taxi to guesthouse - 5 mins

No more overnight trains, please!

Our guest house, 100 Cintra Street, was an interesting little building. It's a Peranakan house that dates back to 1881 and has been refurbished to include a museum, cafe and guesthouse. The rooms were basic - a mattress, mossie net and a fan, but the charm of the building made it a lovely place to stay. What did not add to the charm however was the nearby night club playing hardcore techno until 5am every single night.

Penang had so much to keep us occupied. It has a wealth of history and a really interesting mix of cultures. We had become a little lazy towards the end of our time in Thailand so it was great to have so many interesting things to see and do. Also, the food was brilliant and ridiculously cheap.

Komtar Tower - Penang's Tallest Building

We found it totally hassle free to get around Penang. Public transport is cheap and easy and there are taxis and trishaws everywhere as an alternative.

We spent Thursday 21st just having a general explore around Georgetown, the capital of Penang.

On Friday 22nd we jumped on a bus to Air Itam to board the Funicular to the top of Penang Hill which is 821 metres high. Somehow I managed to talk Gav into walking the 5.5km from the top of the hill, down to the Botanical gardens. I regretted it a little half an hour into the walk though as it was such a steep track and my old knees started to give me some gip I tell you. We met a really friendly chap on the way down. Mr Chi walks to the top of the hill and back down again every single day for excersise. He chatted to us about Penang's history, all the sights that we should see in Penang and mainland Malaysia and of course all the best places to eat.

The Funicular and views from Penang Hill

Mr Chi and the Botanical Gardens

On Saturday 23rd we went to visit snake temple which is home to a number of venomous snakes. Unfortunately the temple was closed due to a fire but we were able to visit the snake house next door. As part of the tour, we were given a snake show which consisted of snake handlers kissing King Cobras and the like. During this performace one of the handlers was bitten by a Mangrove Viper, twice! At one point the lad had this snake literally hanging from his hand by it's fangs. Through very nervous laughs the compere informed us that it was okay, the snake was not very poisonous and that the bite was just like a bee sting. It looked much worse than a bee sting to us. I know you shouldn't laugh at another's misfortune but when the compere then asked if anyone would like to come and touch the King Cobra whilst the snake handler had blood dripping from his bites it was just too much for us - we laughed a lot I'm afraid to say.

If you look closely at the second picture here you can see the blood on the handlers right arm!

On saturday evening we did a walking tour of the city taking in all of the sights in the less oppressive early evening heat.

China Town, Love Lane, The Cathedral of the Assumption, Queen Victoria Memorial Clock Tower, St Georges Church, WW1 Memorial, City Hall, Town Hall and the Betelnut Sculpture

Little India

Fort Cornwallis

Georgetown has a majority Chinese population and Sundays seems to be a real family day for the Chinese. Businesses are closed and local resturants are buzzing with families. We had a fabulous afternoon enjoying Dim Sum in a resturant near to our guesthouse. Ladies come past your table with trollies stocked with lots of delicious bite size goddies and you simply pick which ones you want. We finished our meal with a pot of Chinese tea and a very full bellies!

Dim Sum!

Whilst in Penang we just had to treat ourselves to lunch at the Eastern and Oriental Hotel. It's a beautiful hotel that was built by the Sarkie brothers who also built the famous Raffles Hotel in Singapore. The maître d' did hide us away in a corner behind a large potted plant but that was okay, at least then no-one could see how many of those delicious little desserts from the buffet we actually managed to eat.

The E&O Hotel

Mmmmm!

We had planned to leave Penang on Wednesday 27th however neither of us had thought to check the times for ferries to Langkawi as we had both just assumed they ran all day. At around 11am we had managed to pack up all of our stuff ready to check out and casually asked what time the next ferry to Langkawi would be.....Oh, tomorrow? There are two ferries a day at 8.15am and 8.30am we were clearly running a little late for either. Luckily we were quite happy to spend another night in Penang although we made sure we set an alarm before going to sleep.

A hop, skip and a jump from Penang to Langkawi by ferry on Thursday 28th. We were unbelievebly sea sick during the 2 1/2 hour crossing although as we were turning odd shades of green and hanging our heads over the side of the ferry we were lucky enough to spot a whale and a number of sharks which more than made up for it.

We headed straight to Cenang Beach and checked into the Gecko Guesthouse. Our stay at the Gecko Guesthouse was cut short when we were awoken at 4am the following morning by next doors cockerels. As Langkawi is more of a mid-range to high end hotel kind of place so our choices for budget rooms was fairly limited. We therefore ended up at OP Motel and had the pleasure of sharing our room with a couple of very large cockroaches. We were unable to evict one of them as it managed to hide within the plywood of the bathroom door. The other Gavin successfully exterminated using mosquitio spray, it put up a good fight though. I suspect there were probably more of the horrible things in there with us (shudder).

Cenang Beach

There is no public transport as such in Langkawi and rather than reply on taxis to get around we decided to hire a car for a few days. Even with the air conditioned sanctury of our little Proton Myvi we hired we still had to resort to shopping malls on the odd day to escape from the midday heat (yep, any excuse to shop).

On Friday 29th we visited the Langkawi Lagoon, Gunung (Mount) Raya, Pantai Pasir Hitam (Black Sand Beach), Telaga Harbour Park and Pantai Kok (Kok Beach...childish giggles)

On Saturday 30th we had an excellent day visiting Gunung Machinchang and riding the cable car to it's 708 metre peak. I walked along the suspension bridge although Gav's fear of heights meant the bridge was just a step too far for him.

Langkawi Cable Car

The Suspension Bridge

Afterwards we headed to Telaga Tujuh (Seven Wells waterfalls). The water has smoothed the rock so much that you can slide from one pool to another at the top of the waterfall. It was brilliant fun and just what we needed on such a hot day. Langkawi is a duty free island and was even cheaper than Penang so that evening we decided to treat ourselves to a bottle of wine and a tapas dinner at one of the resturants in Telaga Harbour Park. A lovely end to a great day.

Seven Wells Waterfalls

Dinner at Telaga Harbour

On Sunday 1st July after treating ourselves to a Starbucks coffee we headed to the Langkawi Bird Paradise and Tanjung Rhu Beach.

Langkawi Bird Paradise

Pantai Tanjung Rhu

On Tuesday 3rd we boked onto an organised 'Island Hopping' tour. I'm not a great fan of organised tours as they tend to feel so rushed but it was actually really good. The day started off with a boat trip to Dayang Bunting Island (The Island of the Pregnant Maiden). Legend has it that if you drink the water from the Lake of the Pegnant Maiden you will conceive (I taped my mouth up with duct tape before swimming). After the lake our tour guides threw a chicken pieces into the sea so that we could watch all of the sea eagles come down to feed.

Island Hopping

Lake of the Pregnant Maiden

To end our island hopping day we visited Beras Basah Island. Now here's a thing, there are no toilets on this island. When Gav enquired about restroom facilities he was told to "use the jungle". We were shocked and amused in equal measures when we turned to see a Chinese man doing exactly that. He was not, however, using the jungle as such, more the edge of the beach. A beach that more than a hundred people were on at the time. He was crouched down, swimming trunks around his ankles, therefore stark naked, with toilet tissue in his hand at the ready. We looked away immediately not wanting to see what was obviously going to happen next!

Beras Basah Island

On Wednesday 4th we had a trip out to Pulau Payar Marine Park. The water there is cyrstal clear and the coral reef makes it perfect for snorkelling. We swam with baby reef sharks, a huge very scary looking Barracuda and oodles of beautiful reef fish. It was so much fun. They threw food out for the sharks but the barracuda was so big it was scaring the sharks away and nicking all the food!

On Saturday 7th July we flew to our next stop in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. Gavin has always wanted to vistit the Petronas Towers so this was one of the places he was most looking forward to visiting. We were not dissapointed, Kuala Lumpur is an amazing city. As with the rest of Malaysia there is just so much to see and do (and eat), we didn't have one day that wasn't jam-packed.

KL was really easy to get around and a lot of the main sights were walking distance from the hostel we were in. Unfortunately, our hostel was right next to an illegal karaoke club. I don't blame the hostel owner for not asking gang that ran the place to turn the music down. I very much doubt he would have made it back alive.

Monorail

Times Square Shopping Centre was right opposite our hostel. It had a fab indoor amusement park.

On Sunday 8th July we headed for Petronas Towers. The free Skybridge tickets that we had queued for 2 hours to get were for a 4pm visit so we spent the day wondering around the Suria KLCC shopping Centre, the lovely gardens and fountains attached, and of course in the food hall!

Petronas Towers, us on the Skybridge and the KLCC

Monday 9th was spent visiting Menara KL Tower which was the tallest building in Kuala Lumpur before Petronas Towers. We thought the 360 degree views from the KL Tower were far more impressive than those from the Petronas Skybridge.

Gav did a nature walk through the virgin rainforest that surrounds the tower. I started the walk but soon realised that shorts and no mossie repellent in a forest were not a good idea. I had to admit defeat and retreat, followed by a swarm of hungry mosquitos.

We had a go on the zip wire ride at the base of the KL Tower. "Xtreme!'' It didn't seem that high from the ground but felt pretty high when we were standing on the edge waiting to jump off.

The following day we headed to the KL Lake Gardens. As well as strolling around the lake we visited the Butterfly Park and the Bird Park. Enroute to the gardens we took in more of the sights of KL.

Jamek Mosque

Sultan Abdul Samad Building, Merdeka Square Flagpole, the Sculpture Gardens, The War Memorial and the National Monument

Wednesday 11th we jumped on a bus to the Batu Caves which are around 7 miles out of the city centre. A steep climb up 272 steps leads you to the three main caves which house several Hindu shrines. The Hindu Thaipusam festival is celebrated here every year in January or February. The festival is the celebration of good triumphing over evil and involves devotees practicing ''mortification of the flesh'' by piercing the skin, tongue or cheeks with skewers and hooks, fire walking and flagellation.

There are lots of cheeky monkeys at the caves. They are so used to tourists that they have very little fear and will snatch food out of your bag or your sunglasses off your face.

We spent a really interesting day at the Forestry Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) on Thursday 12th. Apart from walking around the 1528 hectares of forest (not all of it of course), the best parts of the day were spotting the wild Dusky Leaf Monkeys, which are too cute for words, and the 30 metre high canopy walk (the uphill 1/2km walk to the canopy was not much fun though!).

We of course had to sample the night life so on Friday 13th we headed to a club called Zouk where Norman Jay, a British DJ, was playing. It was a brilliant night - a beautiful club full of beautiful people (Gav and I excluded of course). The next day we were good for nothing, we had danced so much at Zouk that we were both actually aching and more than a little hungover - it was those frozen Margaritas!

We left Kuala Lumpur by train on the morning of Sunday 15th, headed for our next destination, Singapore.

Malaysia remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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On the evening of Monday 14 May we arrived in Bangkok. During our six days there we had a great time sampling the city's nighlife.

Going back to a dorm room was difficult after the lovely rooms we had stayed in during our previous week in Cambodia. However, our hostel did have a fab roof terrace and was also right by a Skytrain station so made getting around during the day very easy.

HI Sukhumvit roof terrace

Our local street kitchens

The shopping in Bangkok is amazing, okay so we could only window shop, but it was still good fun to visit those huge shopping complexes that are all linked by the airconditioned Skytrain so that you can hop from one to another without breaking into a sweat (Bangkok was HOT!).

Our time in Bangkok was made more enjoyable as we were lucky enough to be there at the same time as my stepbrother Sean and his lovely new wife, Clare, who were starting their honeymoon in Bangkok before heading off to Samui. We met the newlyweds in their hotel on Wednesday 16 and set off on what I can only describe as an entertaining evening!

Us with Sean and Clare

Note to self: NEVER get in a cab outside an expensive hotel in Bangkok. Also it might help if you don't pile into the cab outside said expensive hotel stating that you want to go to a ping-pong show. Subtle.

Tuk-Tuk and cab drivers in Bangkok are unbelieveble. We wanted to go to Patpong although our cab driver had other ideas. So we did the tour - his mate's resturant followed by the dodgiest club (and we have been to a few so we know what we are on about here) that I have ever seen. There was no way that we were going in and the mafia that were standing outside trying to usher us in was not going to change our minds. I dread to think what would have happened to us in there.

"Erm that's fine we'll walk from here mate."

Then we stumble across a tuk-tuk. Now let me think, what were the warnings that we had read prior to arriving in Bangkok, 'stay away from tuk-tuks at night.....if he quotes you a price that is too good to be true then it probably is'. It's night and he quotes the unbelievably cheap price of 20 baht to take us to Patpong.....so we all pile in. Well Sean and Clare hadn't been in a tuk-tuk yet and there were 4 of us, what could go wrong?

He took us to a brothel. We didn't go in.

"Again, that's fine we'll walk from here mate."

We headed for the nearest bar for a much needed drink. It was getting stressful trying to see a ping-pong show! Luckily the guys behind the bar were really helpful and told us that we were within walking distance of where we wanted to go.

You are not allowed to take pictures in the bars and clubs in Patpong. It's a good job. The women in the show we did end up seeing were truly hideous. I mean really, really bad. Luckily I have had my rabies and tetanus shots as one of the darts actually landed on my leg. Gavin was using a drinks tray to bat the ping pongs away that were being fired in his direction. Gross.

There were lots of bars that had far more attractive ladies (and ladyboys) however they obviously lacked the lower abdominal muscles of the monsters in the shows and therefore just gyrated on bar tops for customer's entertainment.

All in all a hilarious night out.

The following day, a little hungover, Gav and I headed for the shops for a while, although the novelty wears off when you can't actually buy anything, so we jumped on the skytrain and headed to a nearby public park to chill out for the afternoon. We spotted a huge monitor lizard at the side of the lake munching its way through a turtle. We could hear the beast crunching through the turtles shell. We don't get many of them in Cannon Hill Park in Birmingham let me tell you.

We met up with Sean and Clare that evening and were on a mission to go to a good club. Taxi drivers had other ideas yet again. I'll cut a long story short (what do you mean that's unlike me?). We ended up in a crappy club in the @rse end of nowhere that was full of other idiot tourists such as ourselves that had been brought there by their equally dodgy cab drivers.

I had a massive sulk and decided that I wasn't going to play as it wasn't where I wanted to be and I felt that we shouldn't have given the cab driver the satisfaction of actually paying to go in. Then I realised I was the only one not having a good time (apart from Gav who was trying to get me out of my sulk) so I swallowed my pride and busted some shapes on the dance floor along with everyone else. We hit our beds at around 5am the next morning.

Sean and Clare

The following day we decided to move to a double room in the hostel. It's not much more expensive than two dorm beds and we were getting told off by the young 'uns in the room for coming in so late each night. Surely it should be the other way around?

FA Cup Final day, Saturday 19 May. We started our day with a webcam chat with the Curley family. Gav's parents were in the UK for his Nephew's Holy Communion so it was a great opportunity to get everyone together for a catchup.

For the football we headed for a British style pub that had Guinness on tap and a large screen showing the match - Gav was a happy man. Whilst in there we met a lovely couple, Steven and Fiona, from Sydney. We ended up going out clubbing again to a great place called Bed Supperclub. It was hillarious that the doormen made Steven run to the local supermarket to buy a pair of socks to put on with his flip flops before they would let us in. Girls can wear flip-flops but men cannot...'dems da rules' but boys wearing socks with flip flops makes it okay? We'll let you judge....

Steven & Fiona

Bed Supperclub

After the club, typical us wanted to carry the night on and went on a mission to find somewhere that was still open. We did find an afterclub but as the entrace fee was steep and people were buying shorts by the bottle rather than individual drinks.....we gave it a miss.

CHIANG MAI

Why oh why did we go clubbing the night before travelling? Hungover and tired we arrived in Chiang Mai airport on Sunday 20th May and jumped in a cab to a guest house we had read about called Julie Guesthouse.

Now lets get something straight. Yes we are backpacking and we can slum it with the best of them but this guest house, no way siree. It was not happening. We spent our first day in Chaing Mai looking for somewhere else to stay. We did have to spend one night at Julie Guesthouse - we didn't sleep at all. (Shudder).

The following day we moved to Jonadda Guesthouse and spent the day mooching around Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai has a really laid back, almost hippy feel to it, entirely different to Bangkok.

Sunday Market

It turns out that one of the guys we met in Hanoi, New York Greg, was also staying at Jonadda and we bumped into each other that evening. It was great to catch up and chat about what we had all been up to duiring the last month.

In Chiang Mai they seemed to be obsesed with Bob Marley and reggae in general. It must be a ganja thing. Anyway, we ended up in a reggae bar for dinner that had a Thai band singing Bob Marley songs. Hilarious!

Chiang Mai is great for outdoor activities and the next day we decided to hire moutain bikes to explore the city. Gavin said he has never ever seen me sweat so much in all the years we have been together - well it was very hot! I didn't make things easy for myself either. Not content with riding around on the lovely flat roads in the city, I decided that we should try to cycle up the Doi Suthep Mountain. We didn't even make it to the foot of the mountain before I admitted defeat.

Help me!

That evening we met New York Greg for a few drinks in a bar near to our hostel. It was difficult to sit on those wooden chairs after riding that bike all day. Ouch!

By hook or by crook we were going up that mountain so on Thursday 24 May we hired a moped. At times we didn't think the little moped would make it with both of us on but we got there and were rewarded with some great views of Chiang Mai.

C.H.I.P.S.

Views from the mountain

On the way back down we decided to stop at the entrance to a National Park for a gentle stroll to find the waterfall. An hour of serious trekking later (in flip flops) we found a trickle of water pretending to be a waterfall. Ah lovely, an hour trek back then.

Gav was eager to do an organised mountain biking tour, I of course was not. On the Friday Gav set off on his mountain bike day whilst I had a day long Thai cookery course. Both of us had a great time (and it probably did us good to have a day apart after 2 months of travelling together!).

I had a tour around the local market as part of my cooking course.....bacon buttie anyone?

Gav had arranged for us to meet a couple of the guys from his mountain bike tour for drinks that evening. An evening of drinking games followed, as did another 5am finish.

Drinking games

We (Gav) decided that we were booking onto a three day jungle trek. I personally would have opted for the safer two day trek but was up for the challenge (Gav knows how much I love walking). It's something that we have both been really looking forward to and on Monday 28th we set off on our mini adventure into the Northwest Mae Teang area of Chiang Mai.

Day one of the trek started very easily with an hour or so in a pickup truck to a market for supplies followed by lunch in a riverside hut. Then came the difficult bit. Now, I knew it was going to be a trek although for some reason I didn't think it would be 3 hours of uphill hiking. I started off at a great pace but 3 hours later I thought I was going to die. By the grace of God there was a couple who were struggling more than I and we had to stop every now and then to wait for them to catch us up which gave me a sneaky opportunity to catch my breath!

Ray Mears and Nora Croft

The night was spent with the Lahu Tribe, under mosquito nets in a communal hut. Before hitting our sacks we sat around a fire with our guide. Firstly the hill tribe children came and performed for us, singing sweet little songs and dancing. Even the tiniest children were involved. Then we had to sing for them, very embarassing. We then played a few games (sort of drinking games but without the drink) with the loser having soot from the bottom of a cooking pot smeared on their face. Guess who was the overall loser?

Loser!

Our fellow trekkers

The children's performance

Sleeping in a bamboo hut with 10 other people is near on impossible. Every time one person moves the whole hut moves and any sound echoes through the bamboo. Also it seem that each village must have a million (okay that's a slight exaggeration) cockerels. The purpose of the cockerels is simply to cock-a-doodle-doo from about 4am in order to wake up anyone who may have managed to snatch a few minutes sleep in a communal hut.

On day two of the trek our group was reduced to 7 as some people had opted for the sensible two day option. A 1 1/2 hour trek in the morning, a swim in a waterfall, lunch in a pig sty (well not exactly, but not far off) and finally a 3 hour trek in the afternoon. Although we trekked for longer, it was a lot easier than day one as there was less uphill hiking. We followed the river so there was lots of scrambling over rocks and wading through the water which was really good fun.

Our bed for the second evening was also a communal bamboo hut in a beautiful setting. It was completely open fronted overlooking the river. In the evening we were able to sit and watch thousands of fire flies in the trees opposite. It was gorgeous. By 9pm we were all in bed, absolutely exhausted.

Day three consisted of elephant trekking, white water rafting and bamboo rafting. The white water rafting was the best activity, we had great fun throwing ourselves into the rapids as fast as we could. We both thought we would enjoy the elephant trekking but we actually just came away feeling very sorry for them.

The hardcore three day group

And so it was time to move on again. On Thursday 31 May we flew from Chaing Mai Airport to Koh Samui and then jumped on a ferry to our first Island desination, Koh Pha Ngan.

THE ISLANDS

We met a group of South Africans on the ferry who were all on holiday for a 40th birthday celebration. I stayed with the group and our bags in Thong Sala whilst Gav nipped off on a moped to find us somewhere to stay. By the time he got back 3 hours later a number of beers had been consumed and it's fair to say I was a little tipsy. Our first night we stayed in a room that Gav had found that actually had a bath tub...bliss. However, as it was quite pricey (by our backpacker standards), the following night we decided to join the South African group at a place called Boom Cafe which was just 5 minutes away.

Views from Boom Cafe

Our host, Nok, and our South African friends

Friday 1st June was a full moon and so we along with the group of South Africans headed to Haad Rin for the famous Full Moon Party.

I think to really enjoy the Full Moon Party you need to be there during high season when the larger crowds would create a better atmosphere. We thought that the music was great but there were lots of young kids in awful states (yep, worse than us). You know, sort of 'Ibiza Uncovered' style where they have drunk and drugged themsleves to the brink of hospitalisation. There was a 'casualty' tent where the real bad cases were dumped and left on the ground until the effects wore off. Also, I couldn't get over how many blokes were using the beach as a toilet. Just stood there in full view, urinating on the beach. Obviously we are getting too old for this lark. The group of South Africans, who are all at least 10 years our senior I might add, put us to shame. Gav and I sneaked off at about 4am, they didn't roll in until 10am the next morning!

On Saturday 2nd, feeling holier than thou as we were up with the birds with no hangovers (unlike our South African freinds) we decided to go out on the moped to explore the island and decide where to move on to next. We first popped back to Haad Rin, it looked awful after the party, we definitely would not be staying there. We then went to Haad Salad and Chaloklam before having to turn back as our little moped couldn't make the steep dirt tracks with both of us on.

Haad Salad

Views of Kho Pha Ngan

We decided that Hat Thong Nai Pan on the North East of the island was where we wanted top go next and on Sunday 3rd I jumped in a pickup with the bags and Gav followed on the moped.

Thai style taxi and ice-cream van

We headed straight for Dolphin Bungalows which was in a glorious setting, you simply could not get more chilled, but our bungalow had the hardest mattress imaginable and the mozzies were eating us alive. We stayed there for two nights before moving on to a gorgeous little beach side bungalow which was only 300 baht a night. We honestly could have stayed there for weeks. The beach was perfect with powdery white sand, the weather was perfect, the sea was bath water warm and great for swimming in and there were little local restaurants serving great Thai food for next to nothing within walking distance. It was peaceful, chilled and we met some really cool people there. Have you ever been somewhere that you are so taken with that you don't have to do anything, you can just sit back and relax? This was one of those places for us.

Hat Thong Nai Pan

Okay so the downside, our gorgeous beachside bungalow had bed bugs. At first we thought it was mosquitoes, or maybe sand flies.....no, it was bed bugs. The room had twin beds so Gav and I slept seperately, he luckily didn't get a single bite whilst I was covered from head to toe. My God, they itch.

View from our bungalow

Our little friend

Maybe it was for the best as we probably would never have moved from there otherwise! You would have heard from us in a few years time. We would be earning money by working as a Bob Marley tribute band (Gav would be Bob) and sleeping on the beach with the stray dogs.

Our last night in Hat Thong Nai Pan

Reluctantly we headed back to Thong Sala to jump on a catamaran to Koh Toa. The main thing we were heading to Koh Toa for was the diving. It has great dive sites with reef sharks and whale sharks often sighted. We headed straight for Ban's Diving Resort on Sairee Beach. Our room was fairly basic, a bed, a fan and no hot water but we are well used to that by now and we did have use of a lovely pool. The beach didn't seem to be as nice as where we had come from but that was no problem as we had come for the diving rather than the beach.

Our hotel pool

Catastrophe! I'd picked up an ear infection and couldn't go diving. Cue a little sob. I insisted that Gav still went for his dive as there was no point in us both missing out (oh I'm such a brave little soldier). I sat in our room feeling very sorry for myself with my antibiotics and ibruprofen whilst Gav went off on his two dives and guess what...he only went and saw a shark! It was a Grey Reef Shark and around 2 metres in length. I was gutted to have missed out.

Talking of sobbing, I didn't mention that I have broken my little toe did I? It's now slightly deformed but no longer painful. I basically kicked a brick wall (accidentially) and knew immediately it was broken - toes are not supposed to bend in that direction. You know the sort of pain that takes your breath away and it feels like your heart stops beating for a couple of seconds? Well that's what it was like. I didn't cry at the time, however, I did cry a couple of days later when I skidded on a wet floor in my flip-flops and bashed the bugger again. Gav laughed. He said it looked like I was ice-skating. I did laugh a little too but tears were falling at the same time.

On Friday 15th we jumped on a Catamaran to Koh Samui. We are staying in the Chaweng Beach area in a little bungalow just off the main strip. I have to say we've been living a little like hermits since we arrived. There are plenty of great bars and restaurants but it all seems to be a little out of our price range and other than eating and drinking there seems to be little else to do (what do you mean that's all we do anyway?). We are missing our little beach on Koh Pha Ngan!

We will probably spend a couple more days here catching up on 'admin' before heading on to Malaysia by train where we are hoping to spend the best part of a month. Gav will take over for the next update. Until then here are a couple of extra piccies to keep you entertained. Now why did we call our blog Afros and Sunburn........?

Gav take that vest off!

Oh Dear God, it's a GHD emergency!

Aaah the Land of Smiles remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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When we planned our trip, Cambodia was somewhere that we both overlooked. However, as we travelled through Vietnam virtually every other traveller we spoke to asked “Why aren’t you going to Cambodia?” So we did some research and decided that we had enough time to make a small detour.

Our journey into Cambodia was by bus from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It is a relatively short trip with the border crossing only 2 1/2 hours away. The cost for a Cambodian Visa is $20 per person. We paid an additional $4 ‘admin’ charge to the guy on our bus in order for him to take our passports and organise our visas for us. Obviously this $4 was going directly into his pocket but as it meant we passed through border control hassle free it was absolutely fine by us!

To reach the capital, Phnom Penh, it was another 3 hours or so from the border and included a ferry aross the Mekong River. There were street kids on board the ferry selling everything from water to fruit. I’ve learnt that I’m too soft with kids and cannot even look at them without being parted from my money so I stayed within the safety of the bus.

Along the highway into Phnom Penh we passed a number of villages and traditional stilt houses where the kids would wave at us, full of smiles, as the bus passed. It had been raining and the lots of the children were playing in the huge muddy puddles that had appeared along the roadside.

Arriving into Phnom Penh was chaotic, as soon we got off the bus we were being pulled from one direction to the other and were bombarded with “tuk-tuk Sir?” “I take you to your hotel”. We were both trying to keep an eye on our backpacks and it all felt quite overwhelming. We had no accommodation booked and therefore had no destination in mind. There are no taxis in Phnom Penh so we took a tuk-tuk, or to give it its proper name a remorque moto.

The driver dropped us off at a café on the riverfront and from there Cardie set off in the heat to find us somewhere to stay. We ended up at a small hotel called the Boddhi Tree Aram, located in a little residential street behind the British Consulate.

Phnom Penh

8 May 2007 Cardie’s birthday

The room was the best of our trip so far and we both had a great nights sleep. We woke up as fresh as daisies and as it was Cardie’s birthday I had asked housekeeping if they could arrange a bunch of flowers. The housekeeper went to the flower market that morning and brought to our room a beautiful bunch of lilies.

Being the big spender that I am(!) and Cardie loving to shop, I took her to the Russian Market. We had read that as a lot of clothes are manufactured in Cambodia ‘surplus stock’ often finds it way to the market. There were plenty of 'designer' brands but unfortunately they were really bad copies. We set off for the other main market in Phnom Penh, The Central Market. Again, the clothes were mainly fakes but we did buy Cardie some trousers - this was probably the cheapest birthday I’ve known in our seven years! On the evening we went to The FCC for dinner and splurged on a bottle of wine.

Birthday Girl at The FCC

9 May 2007

Cambodia has suffered from the effects of many wars but one of the most destructive and harrowing periods was when The Khmer Rouge took control of Government. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, The Khmer Rouge systematically rounded up and executed anyone they believed opposed them, over 2 million people in all. The Khmer Rouge took over Tuol Svay Prey High School in 1975 and turned it into the main prison and torture centre in the country, it was known as Security Prison 21. The former prison is now a museum highlighting the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. We spent the morning visiting the museum and it was extremely disturbing to see the place where so many people had been tortured and suffered.

Rules for Prisoners

Within the grounds are the graves of 14 people whose bodies were found when the city of Phnom Penh was liberated by the Vietnamese. The haunting pictures of the many victims fill several rooms and the tools used to torture the people are left as a reminder of the brutality that occurred. All in all a very sad place.

From S21 prison the prisoners were taken to The Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. It was here that the Khmer Rouge executed over 17,000 people, women and children included. Some of the mass graves have been exhumed and the remains of the victims reburied. A memorial to the 2 million people killed by the Khmer Rouge has been built at Choeung Ek and houses the skulls of some 8000 people.

Skulls in the Memorial

The experience of visiting both the museum and The Killing Fields had a very sombre effect on us both and we returned to Phnom Penh reflecting on what we had seen.

As a result of war 4 - 6 million unexploded landmines remain in Cambodia and it now has one of the highest number of amputees in the world. It was very distressing to see people begging in the streets with servere injuries as a result of landmines.

Our tuk-tuk driver also took us to Wat Phnom, the site of the first pagoda in Phnom Penh. It is here that many people still come to pray for good luck and success in all aspects of daily life.

Wat Phnom

That evening we had a wonderful meal at a restaurant called Friends which is an organisation set up to help and train disadvantaged and street kids in the catering and tourism industry. I managed to leave our bag with $300 in it at the restaurant. Luckily, as we were walking down the road one of the kids came running after us with the bag....phew, that could have been an expensive meal!

The architecture of Cambodia is very striking and we were both blown away by the Royal Palace and National Museum which we visited on Thursday 10th May. The National Museum houses the largest collection of Khmer sculpture although it was the building itself that we where most impressed by.

The National Museum

After lunch we made our way to The Royal Palace, unfortunately as soon as we had paid our entrance fee the heavens opened. A huge thunder storm meant we had to spend the next half hour standing in a door way for shelter. When we thought it had eased off we made a dash for it and ran across the courtyard and a massive bolt of lightning came crashing down beside us. Very dramatic and quite scary!

We thought the Palace was amazing and we spent several hours there. The Silver Pagoda, so called because of it's 5000 silver floor tiles, was very impressive. It houses a huge collection of Buddhas made from many precious metals and gemstones. The centrepiece is the lifesize gold Buddha weighing 90kgs and containing 9584 diamonds the biggest being 25 carats. Very bling. Unfortunately, no photos are allowed inside the Palace buildings so you'll have to take my word for it.

Children selling water outside the Royal Palace

Leaving Phnom Penh

After 4 days in Phnom Penh we left to take the 6 hour bus journey to Siem Reap. We had a guide on the bus who pointed out interesting sights along the way and the journey passed quickly.

On arrival at Siem Reap we were met by our tuk-tuk driver for the next 3 days, Mr Sokha.

Mr Sokha

The main tourist attraction when visiting Siem Reap has to be the temple complexes in the area of Angkor. On Friday 11th May we set off for a mammoth day of temple sight-seeing. Mr Sokha took us firstly to Angkor Wat - the ultimate example of Khmer architecture and the largest religious building in the world.

Angkor Wat

At its height the Khmer Empire stretched from Burma to South Vietnam and into parts of Northern Thailand, the hundreds of temples still standing are a small remainder of what once was. The earliest dating form the year 802.

Bayon

Ta Prohm (part of 'Tomb Raider' was filmed here)

Us at Phnom Bakheng

After a whole day of visiting the spectacular temples we headed back to the hotel with Mr Sokha for a chat and a beer (or two). He along with many of the other tuk-tuk drivers has served in the army. He told told us about the hardships he had faced during his time as a government soldier and a great story about fighting off a gang of monkeys in the jungle for 8 hours as they were trying to steal his limited food supply. He also told us it was okay for Cambodian men to have more than one wife and having extra girlfriends was perfectly acceptable. I told him I thought one was more than enough. He explained that with your extra girlfriends "you can make funny, have jokes, dance and touching is allowed but no honeymoon". We got the gist of what he was saying!

Mr Sokha took us to the floating village on Tonle Sap Lake the following day. The floating village is made up of wooden boathouses and shops selling everything from large car type batteries to groceries. We stopped at one shop which doubled up as a crocodile farm...bizarre!

Children selling fruit on Tonle Sap Lake

Mr Sokha explained that the people living on the lake use the water for all aspects of daily life, cooking, washing, as a childrens play area and as the communal toilet. He told us that the water was filthy and there there was a lot of disease as a result. We have since learnt that 1 in 7 children under the age of 5 years old, dies in Cambodia as a result of dirty water.

After our boat trip on the lake we stopped at a nearby village. Some of the children came out of the houses and asked for money. Rather than hand them cash, I took them to the shop and brought them bags of sweets to share. They were delighted and were squealing with excitment as they tore into the bags of sweets.

I'm not sure that I could say that I enjoyed our time in Cambodia as such, as it was hard to see so many people living in such poverty. The attack on our senses was challenging - the barrage of sights, sounds...and smells made Cambodia, at times, quite difficult. However, we met some of the most friendly, genuine people of our trip so far and seeing the temples of Angkor were amazing.

They eat bugs in Cambodia!

Leaving Cambodia

Johm Riab from Cambodia remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The bus dropped us off right in the main backpacker area of the city and we promptly decided that we wouldn't be staying there and jumped in a cab to a guest house that Gav had read about called Miss Loi's just a few minutes away.

Miss Loi's guest house was lovely. We had a massive room with huge windows letting in loads of sunlight and a balcony with views over the city rooftops. The Mickey Mouse bed linen was amusing but hey it was clean and that's all that mattered.

Views from our room

The following day, Thursday 3 May we spent the day taking in the sights (on foot of course!). We started the day at The War Remnants Museum, previously called The American War Crimes Museum.

The museum has a number of 'themed' rooms displaying photographs and artefacts from the war. The most disturbing of which were those that contained photographs of the effects of Agent Orange and napalm as well as the full size replicas of the 'tiger cages' used to house political prisoners. It's a strange feeling that you are left with after visiting somewhere like that. We were very sad indeed to view the terrors that humans are capable of inflicting on each other.

Later we managed the Botanical Gardens, Notre Dame Cathedral and the gorgeous post office building....before Gav gave up and refused to walk any further and we ended up in.....KFC of all places. Well it was close by, air-conditioned, we were hungry (and that chicken burger tasted good).

The Post Office

On Friday 4 May we had booked a trip to see the Cao Dai Temples and the Cu Chi Tunnels. It was a little rushed, as organised tours often are, but was really interesting.

Cao Dai is a religion that was started by a Vietnamese civil servant in 1926, incorporating all of what he perceived to be the best bits of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism and Hinduism. There are now between 2 and 3 million followers. The temple was very beautiful but it felt odd that they were happy for bus loads of tourists to be traipsing through during their service. It felt a little like we were invading their privacy (although we obviously didn't feel too bad as we took photos along with everyone else).

They have enlarged a section of the Cu Chi Tunnels to accomodate the western frame and allow vistors to crawl through. It still seemed pretty small to me and I wasn't going to risk it. I am a little claustrophobic anyway but mainly I wasn't going to risk it as I had visions of my fat ass becoming thoroughly wedged in a tunnel and the local fire brigade being called to come and dig me out. In the end I decided that I may as well give it a go as everyone else was but only got half way before giving up. It is very hot down there and each section becomes smaller than the last. Gav said that the final sections was so small that he had to pull himself along on his stomach. I would have had no chance!

The face of fear!

On Saturday 5th we spent the day planning our trip to Cambodia. Cambodia wasn't in our origional itinerary however we had heard so much about it from other travellers that we decided it would be a shame not to go. The only problem was that rather than being in Bangkok for my birthday as originally planned, we were now going to be in Phnom Penh. We therefore decided to bring my birthday celebrations forward to coincide with our last night in Vietnam and so on Sunday 6th May Gav took me to the Caravelle Hotel roof top bar for cocktails. What a lovely evening. The open air bar had views over Ho Chi Minh City and to top it off they made a perfect Mojito, all very romantic (vom).

At last I get to wear heels!

After cocktails I was informed that Arsenal were playing and asked whether I minded going to watch the game in a bar in the backpacker area (aaah I see). The bar we ended up in was grim. An actual rat ran across the bar - I kid you not!

At 8.30am on Monday 7th May we departed by bus for our 6 hour journey to Phnom Penh, Cambodia and with that our time in Vietnam had come to an an end.

We'd had a fantastic month in Vietnam. Yes at times there were challenges and we did get a little fed up with being scammed but overall we had thoroughly enjoyed our time there and would like to think that one day we will be back.

Of course we have to end with a picture of a kid!

Ho Chi Minh City remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Our Hotel, The Perfume Grass Inn had been recommended to us so we had booked ahead. It is nice to be able to just turn up at your hotel and go to your room rather than going through the palaver of looking at the rooms and bargaining a price. However, we later found out that we were being overcharged, bugger. After an adult discussion (read argument) with the manager, our rate was reduced so that we were paying the same as everyone else. Well, it was a whole one pound fifty per night we were paying extra..... I know, pathetic isn't it but I rationalise it by telling myself that the amount we were being overcharged adds up to a nights accomodation somewhere and therefore is worth having a little tantrum about (just agree with me).

The hotel was in a perfect location, a stones throw from the beach with all the bars and restaurants right on our doorstep. We arrived at around 10.30 on Saturday 21 April and did what any self respecting backpacker does on arrival at a new destination....... went to find a pub. We found a bar called Crazy Kims that was actually playing decent music (the first decent music we had heard since leaving Brum). Crazy Kim campaigns to protect the street kids again paeodophiles and an amount from every drink sold goes towards her cause (so in fact we were doing it for the kids).

The following morning we were up nice and early to start our 4 day PADI open water diving course. After brekkie we had half an hour to kill so decided to go for a stroll along the beach. My word it is a gorgeous beach. It was all the better for the fact that it was almost desserted (apart from a few hawkers - at that time!) so had an opportunity to take some great photos.

The first day of our course was class room based with DVDs followed by tests. It was a lot of information to take in at once and it's fair to say we were a little frazzled by the end of the day.

The second day we had a full day at a local pool for our practical sessions. The first thing we had to do was swim 200 metres, just 4 lengths of the pool. No problem I thought to myself. There was no time limit at all, it is just intended to ensure divers have a general level of fitness. Ah! We all know that I'm not the fittest person....okay I may be the most unfit person you know, but for some reason I thought I wouldn't have a problem swimming 200 metres. Wrong. Coming up to the end of the second length I realised that I was going to struggle to complete this initial test and that I had foolishly paid for a course that I was going to be unable to complete due to my embarassingly lack of fitness....too many fags, too much vino and no exercise since, well for a long time. Luckily I did manage to complete it but couldn't breath for around 20 minutes afterwards and my limbs had turned to jelly. Honestly, I think they were considering giving me oxygen at one point.

It was a really interesting day but again there there wa a lot to take in. And then there was my panick attack.

Sean, our diving instructor asked us to perform a number of tasks out of the water, on the surface and under the water. These ranged from just floating for 10 minutes to removing and replacing your breathing apparatus underwater. One thing he told us quite clearly is that should something happen under water do not simply shoot to the surface in a blind panic. Should you do that in the actual dive you wouldn't equalize and could rupture a lung or get decompression sickness. Also, don't remove your mask and regulator (the thing you breathe through) once at the surface. Logical yes?

You know what's coming don't you.

Gav and I were performing one particular test during which I had to remove my regulator, signal to Gav that I was out of air and he had to pass me his alternate air source for me to breathe from. When given the signal I was to then remove Gav's alternate air source, find my own regulator which is floating behind my back somewhere and pop it back into my mouth. Simple? Nope. Something to bear in mind that at no point when we were under water were we allowed to hold our breath. When I remove my regulator I have to constantly breathe out whilst remembering to save some breath to purge (blow the water out) the alternate when I put it in my mouth and the same to swap back to my regulator.

During the test I forget how I'm supposed to hold onto Gav, Sean is gesturing at me and I have no idea what he's on about so I get a little flustered. Then when it comes to replacing my air source I remove Gav's and breath out as I'm supposed to but then I can't find mine. A little flustered becomes a little panicked. I finally find my regulator but simply have now breath left to purge....ah and now we have absolute blind panic. I start gulping for breath and of course breathe in water. Obviously all I want is to be out of the water at that point so do exactly what I had been told not to and swim directly to the surface where I then splash around coughing and spluttering like a complete muppet.

I could have purged the regulator my simply pressing a button on the mouthpeice - I forgot. I suspect I will not forget again.

Anyway, we both passed. Yep, I'm as surprised as you are. We had 4 dives at sea, the deepest being to 17 metres, followed by an exam to test us on everything we had learnt. During our dives we were repeatedly tested on the skills we had learnt in the pool and it did all start to make sense once we were putting it into practice (luckily).

It was brilliant. We both really enjoyed the course and are now very much looking forward to our next dive which will hopefully be in Malaysia (dependant on the weather) where the water is apparently 29c!

Us with Cecilie and our diving instructors

We met a lovely Norwegian couple, Cecilie and Steinar, on the diving course. One evening Cecilie and Steinar took us to a restaurant that they had come across previously. The waiter that served us was an absolute diamond. He fell over himself to be helpful and we ended the evening with an amusing language lesson. He taught us a few Vietnamese phrases and in return we taught him how to pronounce the English translations for the items on the menu. We've had so many experiences such as this whilst in Veitnam, where the Vietnamese people simple can not do enough for us and really make our time as enjoyable as possible.

Us with our "diamond" waiter

On Thursday 26 April we headed off to Monkey Island with Cecilie and Steinar. This journey was a cab ride to the harbour and a short boat trip over to the island.

Monkey Island was bliss. Just the four of us, the staff and of course the monkeys (okay there was a fair amount of litter but we'll ignore that). We set off for an explore of the island which is quite small but has some amazing scenery. It wasn't long before we realised we were being watched (by the monkeys not the staff). Steinar bought some nuts to feed to the residents and they soon clocked the bag rustling in his pocket. Within minutes we were surrounded by the 'cute' little monkeys which actually became quite intimidating! We spent the remainder of the day lounging around on the beach (read Gav slept all day) whilst Cecilie and Steinar snorkelled. We saw a woman get attacked by a monkey when the little critter decided that she wasn't feeding him quickly enough (we'd had a lucky escape).

We extended our stay in Nha Trang a little as it was a public holiday in Vietnam on 30 April and 1 May and therefore travelling anywhere during that time would have been problematic. Yes okay, okay, we jut wanted to doss around on the beach for a little longer, can you blame us!

On [bSunday 29 April[/b] we set off for a little sight seeing. As I've mentioned in a previous entry, Gav has put his foot down on about all the walking so we hired a motorbike without a driver for the day. To quote my Brother, it was "a bag of nails". There was an awful scraping sound once we went past about 10 miles per hour and we lurched forward everytime we changed gear (or maybe that was just Gav's driving). Anyway, it did the job and meant we were able to see all the sites we wanted to in one day (leaving more time for the beach of course).

When in Rome....

The Long Son Pagoda

The Giant Seated Buddha

Nha Trang Cathedral

Nha Trang has great seafood. We had a whole lobster, a crab and 4 tiger prawns for the equivalent of 4 quid and it was all BBQ'd by a little old lady right on the beach so we didn't even have to interrupt our sunbathing (needless to say there are no pictures of this....the food didn't last long enough).

Talking of sunbathing, Gav is sunburnt. He is convinced he will go brown at somepoint before the end of our years travelling although I'm not so sure. Bless.

Our last night out in Nha Trang - The Sailing Club and Why Not Bar

These little darlings are a couple of the kids that patrol the beach trying to part you from your money. It seems they also try to part you from your 'hard earned' by whipping your ass at pool.

I'm a Hustler baby........

On Wednesday 2 May we departed Nha Trang (reluctantly) and set off on our 10 hour bus journey to Ho Chi Minh City.

Nha Trang remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Hoi An is a really lovely riveside town that was left virtually undamaged from the War and so has retained it's beautiful 'Old Town'. The Old Town is a World Heritage Site and very pretty indeed with buildings that date back to 19th century. As with Hanoi, the French influence is apparent in the buildings, baguettes, pattiseries and coffee shops.

Us in Hoi An

Apparently there is a really lovely beach there too but we never actually made it to the beach. We spent ours days in Hoi An strolling around the Old Town and mooching through the markets.

The Old Town

The streets are literally filled with tailors where you can get absolutely anything made to measure. I now you may be surprised at this but I actually resisted the temptation to go clothes shopping. My backpack is heavy enough already thank you and it's fairly expensive to send stuff home. Anyway I'll be a superwaif by the time I get back so nothing I bought now would fit me then (what? A diet of beer and baguettes isn't slimming!?!). I didn't buy clothes but I did buy almost an entire dinner service in the market which I now have to lug around until I can send it home and I imagine it will be destoyed during transit - where's the logic in that!

We did manage to squeeze some culture into our time in Hoi An. On Friday 20 April we set off at the ungodly hour of 5.30am for our trip to My Son, the site of the Cham intellectual and religious centre.

The Cham people origionated from Java, Indonesia and occupied the central section of Vietnam from 2nd to 15th centuries. They were forced South when the Vietnamese migrated from the North and there are now just 110,000 in Ho Chi Minh City. Their religion, Hinduism, and Indian influence apparent in artwork came from commerical relationships that the Chams had with India.

Oh how funny and original we are!

The trip we had booked was the sunrise tour although as the sun was rising whilst we were waiting for the minibus to pick us up we realised that we would have had to leave at 4am to get there in time for sunrise. Never mind, the most important thing was that we would get there before the hordes arrived and would be able to enjoy the site and take our pictures unobstructed. It was perfect, other than our group of 7, there were only 4 other people there. Another good reason for visiting so early is the heat. By 8am it was very hot indeed so it would have been unbearable by midday.

It's unknown how the bricks were fixed together as no apparent mortar was used however it is thought that they may have used a sap from trees in the area to glue the bricks together. The carving was all carried out after the towers were constructed. Amazing aint it! Unfortunately the site was almost completely destroyed by bombs during the War and the craters are still very visible today.

The Cham language is now completely lost so the script seen here cannot be translated

Apparently if a man rubs the linga....well we'll let you work it out!

Our guide for the day was delightful, a real character and very informative. I wanted to adopt him by the end of the day!

Whenever we are out in Vietnam we are approached by hawkers selling sunglasses, postcards, books etc. Most are good natured and simply move on if you do not engage in a convesation. However, I was not prepared for the children in Hoi An though. We've already established that I think Asian children are exceptionally beautiful, so put a Vietnamese 8 year old in front of me selling something.....I'm a lost case......

Gav and I were out in a lovely riverside restaurant for dinner (not very backpackerish I know but dinner two nights ago was baguettes and peanut butter in our room so that balances it out a little) and were approached by a succession of cute little kids selling crap. Initially I was firm but could see that Gav was buckling, and so could they. Upon seeing Gav's weakness one little girl turned her back on me and with all the cuteness that is physically possible asked him "but why wont you buy". It was too much for me "Ah man, okay, okay I'll buy". Then the business woman emerges from the child and she is fleecing us for evey penny she can get. I now have a wooden whistle that cost more than dinner - fine. But no, that's not the end. She then runs off to tell her mate, or sister or whoever it was who in turn comes over to our table to ask "why wouldn't you buy from me but you bought from her" and then would not leave our table for a good 15 minutes whilst putting on the saddest face that is humanly possible. Oh no. Needless to say we will not be suckered like that again (actually that's a lie because we were the other night but I'll talk about that in the next entry). Anyway, a dodgy wooden whistle thing that was vastly overpaid for will be winging it's way to my Neice and Nephew in due course.

And so our time in Hoi An came to an end and on Saturday 21 April we left on 10 hour train journey to the beach resort of Nha Trang.

School's Out-School Children in Hoi An

Cardie's hair is getting bigger.......

Hoi An remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Well hello there. How the devil are you all?

On Sunday 15 April we departed Hanoi for Da Nang. We still hadn't fully recovered from the epic 3 day train journey that we put ourselves through at the beginning of our trip and therefore decided to fly. What? You don't expect me to slum it all of the time do you?

Our hotel was in My Khe beach which I have to say we had mistakenley assumed was walking distance from central Da Nang however it wa in fact a cab ride away (oops, my mistake).

My Khe beach (also known as China Beach) was used by American solders for a little rest and relaxtion during the war. It is quite undeveloped currently although judging by the construction sites it wont be long until it is.

The view from our hotel room

On Monday 16th we headed into Da Nang for the day to do a little sight seeing. The most interesting thing we saw was the Museum of Cham Sculpture which houses the best collection of Cham sculpture in the world (more on the Cham people in the next entry).

The Museum of Cham Sculpture

We did also hunt for the Ho Chi Minh Museum but after a very, very long walk (what is it with us and all this walking) in the searing heat, Gav lost it! He was walking no further and that was that. So after everything I've said about the dangerous roads and the motorbikes, what did we do? Yep, we got motorbikes back. I was holding onto the guy driving so tight that he was hysterically laughing at me (the only thing the girls here hold on to when they are on bikes is their sunglasses or hats). We made it in one piece though, phew.

Da Nang

We were not blown away with My Khe or Da Nang although there was nothing wrong with either place as such. A good thing about not having a strict itinerary is that we can just move on if we are not particularly enjoying ourselves and that's exactly what we did. We had origionally planned to stay for a week but in fact stayed for just two nights and on Tuesday 17th April we headed off to Hoi An.

My Khe Beach and Da Nang remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We all know that the Vietnamese eat dogs right? Gav and I have seen one or two caged up and it has been apparent what lies in store for them. Apparently dog is quite an expensive meat and is therefore only eaten on special occassions although some like to eat dog once a month as it is thought that it brings luck. Sandy coloured dogs are said to taste the best. I believe it is an honour if a local asks you to dine on dog with him. We have spoken to a few travellers who have tried dog meat and said that in fact it is fairly tasty. Until recently it's fair to say that we have had no objections to the eating of dog, I mean how can we really? We eat animals so how can we judge? Don't get me wrong, neither Gav or I had any intention of actually eating any but surely us Brits eating our battery farm chickens is no better???

Anyway, back to the story. As I have mentioned we did experience some rain during our time in Ha Long Bay, in fact on the morning of Saturday 14th April we were subjected to severe thunder storms. Oh well, thats fine, we'll just stay in bed then is what we thought to ourselves.

The resort has a number of exceptionally friendly German Shepard guard dogs and at around 9am the dogs started going crazy. All of the dogs where barking at the same time and after around 10 minutes or so it was obvious that something was upsetting them.

I managed to drag myself out of bed to have a look at what was going on. At first all I could see was the young staff member, kitchen hands and the like, gathered around the volley ball pitch which was directly below our bungalow. One of the staff had a stick in his hand, similar to a broom handle. The dogs where all in the same area and seemed to be all looking in the same direction.....and so my gaze fell on what all the comotion was about.

On the sand volley ball pitch was a smallish sandy coloured dog. It looked like a greyhound type of dog although a little stockier. At first I could not work out how the dog's body was contorted in such a way although it was soon apparent that it's front legs had been twisted up behind it's back and tied together. The poor thing was terrified and was repeatedly lurching forward on it's hind legs trying to escape.

Oh God, it was awful. Gav told me not to look anymore as he knew how much I would be upset by what I was seeing. However I did once look back to see that the stick that the young staff memeber had been holding now seemed in someway holding the dog to the ground.

After some time, it became a little too much for both of us. The dog we squealing with fear and the noise of the other dogs barking at it and the staff shouting was overwhelming. What should we do? Eventually Gav shouted down to the group below that if they were going to kill the dog could they just get it over and done with and put the animal out of it's misery! We do understand that we are in Vietnam and whilst we are travelling we should respect the local customs and traditions and therefore maybe this was inappropriate action for us to take?? I'd actually like to know what other people's views on this are - what would you have done?

The group of staff then dragged the dog away out of view and, as Gav saw one of the boys pick up a meat cleaver, we assumed that was the end of it and that the dog would be killed and cooked. Erm nope! In fact what they actually did was just move the dog so that it was out of view and placed it into a shed area that was to the rear of the private beach. Throughout the rest of the morning we could hear the dog whimpering although stangely most acted as though they could not. I have no idea how long a dog would be left like that before it dies but it upsets me to think about it.

We have sinced been informed that the Vietnamese believe that the slower the death the tastier the meat becomes. They believe that the adrenaline released during death improves the flavour. Hence the treatment we witnessed and the reason why they were reluctant to give the dog a more humane death.

Chien, the owner of the resort, had asked us on the previous evening if we could email him with any suggestions as to how he could make his resort most appealing to western tourist. he asked for ideas or music CD's that he should buy, medicine that he should keep on-site etc. The resort had only been open since November and so was still a work in progress of sorts. At the time we imformed him that we loved it the way it was. It had a sort of rustic charm that would be lost if he tried to improve it too much. However with this conversation in mind we decided to approach him for a chat before we left (well Gav did the approaching). Gav basically took him aside and quietly said that we understand the dog is included in the Vietnamese diet however the treatment that we had witnessed that morning was hard for most Westeners to comprehend, whatever animal it might be. After initially denying he knew anything about the dog he was then very apologetic indeed.

If I am being honest I have come away feeling quite guilty as the guys at the resort tried so hard to make us as comfortable as possible and I think they felt that all their hard work had been undone. Maybe we shouldn't have said anything? However, if it stops the next guests having to witness the same thing, maybe we should have?

Gav and I wanted to go travelling to have new experiences and learn about other countries and cultures. We are certainly doing what we set out to!

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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What a gorgeous place!

Ha Long Bay

First let's discuss the 3 hour minibus journey to the harbour. There are more deaths in Vietnam due to road traffic accidents than for any other reason. Gav and the rest of our group saw a particularly horrific accident on the way. Luckily I was asleep so missed the whole thing although I was unlucky enough to see one on the return journey though. It's no wonder there are so many accidents as the locals drive like freaking lunatics - overtaking an overtaking vehicle is common practice so drivers are clean on the wrong side of the road driving into oncoming traffic. We have learnt that the best thing to do is simply not look ahead!

There are a ridiculous amount of boats moored at the harbour. Boarding your boat involves clambering over numerous other boats in a mad scrum of tourists until you reach the boat that will take you out into the bay. I suspect that risk assessing is not common practice in Vietnam. This part of the trip is a little grim as the pollution caused by the boats and tourists is evident in the colour of the water and the amount of litter floating on it.

Ha Long Bay Harbour

Anyway, all of that aside, Ha Long Bay itself is breathtaking and well worth the journey. There are around 3,000 limestone islands rising from the sea, some of which have little beaches and contain cave structures. The unusual shapes of the islands along with the mist that often surrounds them gives them an almost mystical appearance. They are very similar to the limestone rock formations that we mentioned seeing during our train journey from China to Vietnam (we have since learnt that this area is called Guilin in China).

Halong translates as 'where the dragon descends into the sea'. According to local legend the islands were created by a great dragon that lived in the mountains. As it ran towards the coast, it's tail gouged out valleys and crevasses, as it plunged into the sea, the areas dug up by the tail became filled with water, leaving only the high land visible.

Our Captain!

We sailed around the islands for around 2 hours on the way to our resort and stopped off half way at a floating settlement of boathouses. I am unsure as to the authenticity of these though as the 'locals' seemed to earn their living from selling ciggarettes and tubs of Pringles to tourists rather than fishing! Gav spent an hour kayaking and watching the wildlife, whilst I wondered around the houseboats (I was feeling far to lazy for any physical activity - as per usual). We also stopped at one of the numerous cave systems which lead to a secluded lake (pictures soon we promise!).

Kayaking in Ha Long Bay

The Lake

At around 7pm we arrived at the Ocean Beach Resort. Guys it was gorgeous! It comprises of 6 bamboo beach bungalows, all hand made by local craftsmen. Our bungalow was set into the hillside overlooking the whole resort. The only sounds we could hear from our room was the lapping of the waves and the insects in the forest behind us. Meals were served in the main house with our first meal being BBQ'd seafood caught fresh that day.

Ocean Beach Resort

In total there were 12 guests in the resort although not all were staying for the 2 nights as Gav and I were. We spent the evening with the rest of the group, chatting over a few beers....aaaaahhhhhh.

Okay so at midday the next day it started to rain. Damn it. Although even with rain the place was still great (well of course I'm going to say that). The 6 of us that were left in resort gathered in the main house with our gracious host, Chien, the owner of Ocean Tours. He along with the two guides, Tien and Tuong could not do enough for us. They went out of their way to make our stay perfect and we can't thank them enough. We sat drinking tea in the traditional fashion with Chien as he explained each part of the process (later in the evening we also drank Tequila slammers with him although there was no explanation required to participate in that). Apart from the Dog Incident (more on that on a seperate entry) we had a fantastic time.

Our Neighbours

Our Host and Guides

By midday on our final day the weather was perfect! The boat journey back to the harbour allowed us to see the bay again in a whole new light as rather than being shrouded in mist as it was on the way in, it was now glorious sunshine and we could see how beautifully green all of the islands were.

The Return Journey

Back to the chaos of the city......! We had one night in Hanoi before departing for Da Nang.

Ha Long Bay remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The hostel has a great atmosphere and we were soon chatting to everyone that we were sharing a room with. They had all been out the previous evening and were a little worse for wear but still really friendly and welcoming. After a MUCH needed shower we headed out to explore.

View from the hostel roof terrace

Hanoi Central is split into two main areas, the Old Quarter and the French Quarter.

Our hostel is situated in the Old Quarter which houses streets and streets of shops and vendors selling everything from silk to motor bikes (more on motor bikes later). Each street has a theme so there can be an entire street of blacksmiths followed by an entire street of childrens toy shops. Something that is quite entertaining, although also a little confusing, is that there are no copyright laws in Vietnam so EVERYTHING is a fake. There are fake Mango, Nine West and Hugo Boss clothes shops and if the name of the shop isn't a copy you can bet that everything inside will be. Great shopping but I don't imagine any purchases will last too long. If a shop, cafe or restaurant opens and seems to be trading well, another will open on the same street and use the same name - the owners will then pretend that their premises is the origional which is hilarious.

According to the Vietnamese Tourist Board (more on them later) there are 2 million motor bikes/mopeds on the roads in Hanoi. Yep, it feels like it, especially when trying to cross the road in the Old Quarter. The record for the number of people that we have witnessed on one moped so far has been 5 people (3 adults, 2 children). The locals also transport the most unlikley items on these mopeds, we have seen a double mattress and a front door although our friend told us a story about a unbeliveable amount of watermelons (including the one the driver was sat on).

The French Quarter is around a 15 minute stroll from where we are staying and is a lovely place to unwind after the hussle and bussle of the Old Quarter. As the name suggests it's very European in both architechure and attidude. Gav and I have spent possibly a little too much time sitting in the cafes drinking coffee and taking leisurely lunches.

There are an abundance of vendors in Hanoi selling street food. The most popular dish being the Pho (noodle soup) which is usually consumed for breakfast. We have tried various tasty bits here and there and also had some great, cheap meals in local restaurants. A relatively up market lunch in the French Quarter yesterday cost us a fiver, including drinks (we are so going to miss these prices when we get to Oz and New Zealand).

Street kitchens

So, you all know that I am a lager lout now - well, not literally but I am drinking beer. In Hanoi there is a beer call Bia Hoi which is freshly brewed each day and, as it has no preservatives, only lasts for 24 hours. Once they have sold out that's it for the evening (must be why the locals start so early). On many of the streets there are Bia Hoi outlets. To indulge you pull up a (very low) plastic chair and signal how may beers you would like brought over. The waitresses keep a score card for you and you simply pay up when you are ready to leave. A group of us from the hostel had a great afternoon/evening on Easter Sunday sampling said beer. Many hours and many beers after we first arrived and the bill only came to the equivalent of 3 pounds each, including the tip, which aint bad for a Sunday sesssion!

Bia Hoi!

I'd love to give you all details of all the cultural things we have done whilst we have been here but I have to be honest and say that apart from visiting the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum today we have done very little to educate ourselves. We have spent our days wondering around the streets, parks and lakes and our evenings enjoying the local bars and restaurants with our hostel buddies, Aussie Greg aka The Gregster No.1, New York Greg, Daddy Dave, Little Dave and Karen.

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

A few of the hostel crew had headed off on various excursions by Monday 9th April but the lazy Curleys hung around Hanoi and went to the hostel's roof top BBQ on the evening. It was a great opportunity to meet all of the new arrivals and we got chatting to two girls from the UK, Jess and Leah along with numerous others. The evening started in a fairly civilised manner with conversation and burgers and ended in a nightclub as guests of the Head of Vietnam Tourism. Cut to go-go dancers, scantily clad hostesses and free drink and food all night. I wont go into too much detail as this blog is open for general viewing but remind me to fill you all in when we get home - it was hilarious. Unfortunately they confiscated our cameras so there are no pictures.........! Gav was repeatedly asked whether he was married by the hostesses that were feeding us Johnny Walker Gold Label all evening (I don't even like whisky). At one point one of the girls began rubbing herself seductively against Gav whilst we were dancing (I didn't say a word...well come on, it was free drinks and I can take a lot for a free night - yes even pimping out my husband!). Sue & J, you would have definitely brought home a 'cleaner' from this place.

So apart from our dorm snorer keeping us awake into the small hours we have had a fantastic time in Hanoi.

Tomorrow, Thursday 12 April, we are heading to Ha Long Bay, which is 2 hours North East of Hanoi, for three days. We'll be staying in a beach front bamboo hut, spending the days sailing around the bay and lazing on the beach...bliss. From there we will be heading further south and will update you all when we hit our next stop.

A BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SISTER JOANNE!

Love to you all.

Cardie and Gav xxxx

Good Morning Vietnam! remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Our room for the next three days

After travelling for around 6 hours, just as we tucked ourselves into bed at around 11pm, there was a gentle tap on the door and we were joined by our new neighbour. Well actually, we very nearly were not joined by him as when he opened the door and saw Gavin and I, he stormed out and we could hear a very heated exchange with the train conductor. I suspect the conductor must have said something along the lines of "that's your bed mate, take it or leave it" as he reluctantly returned and settled in for the night. Boy did he smell bad (although so did we by the end of the journey!).

Just to help you picture it, once he had tucked himself into bed, he and I were around 1/2 metre away from each other....it kind of felt like I was sharing a bed with him which you can imagine was fairly uncomfortable. We had very little sleep that night.

By the time our neighbour departed at Nanning we were buddies and he had spent the previous few hours pointing out places of interest to us and stopped checking that his wallet and phone were still in his jacket pocket each time he came back into the cabin.

The very best thing about the train journey was watching the scenery change from the grey, polluted city to stunning limestone rock formations and terraced paddy fields. The worse thing was the lack of food (which was totally my fault). I had read somewhere that basic meals are included in the price of the ticket for overnight journeys...erm nope! To make matters worse we had spent our left over Chinese Yuan on ciggies for me (yes I know I was going to give up but they are a pound a pack, cut me some slack) so were stuck on a train with very little food and no money. We survived on the Chinese equivalent of pot noodles and the odd shared apple, for three days, two nights (and you all now how much we like our food!).

Immigration at the border of Vietnam on the second night was an interesting experience to say the very least. We had already had our passports checked by both Chinese and Vietnamese immigration officers on the train. They had also checked our guide books for inappropriate material which was a little unnerving. We arrived at Dang Dong, Vietnam at around 3am on Saturday 7th April and were ripped off by immigration officials! We were subjected to a "health check" (and I emphasise the inverted comas for that statement). Basically a chap holds a thermometer in your general direction and then charges you 2,000 Dong for the privilege. As you cannot obtain Vietnamese Dong outside of Vietnam we had to pay in dollars. Initially he simply made no effort to hand us any change, following my questioning he threw a few dollars change at us. I walked away feeling all smug as I had sussed him out and came away a winner (then Gavin explained that he had still had us over as the exchange rate meant that he had more than quadrupuled the price for us based on the change he had given. Damn it.).

We will fly from now on.

We arrived in Hanoi on Saturday 7th April at around 8.30am. It had a totally different feel to Beijing and we both knew straight away that we were going to have a great time here.

Bye-bye Beijing, Hello Hanoi! remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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So you'll all be pleased to know we made it to Beijing in one piece. We arrived on Friday 30th at around 6am. Great flight over apart from massive turbulence during the last half hour or so (not great after we had just eaten our full English!).

We'd organised for our hostel to collect us from Beijing Airport and so had our first experience of the roads in Beijing. Lordy was that a frightening experience. Basically it seems that lane markings are ignored, as are pedestrian crossings, bikes and other cars. You simply use your horn to let other road users know you are coming through and drive where ever you want whenever you want. Pedestrians dice with death each time they try to cross the road.

At 7am we arrived at our home for the next 7 days, The Red Lantern Hostel. The immediate thought running through our minds was "what have we let ourselves in for?". Our room was basically a cupboard, no windows, freezing cold and smelling of something rather strange. We had to walk through our neighbours room to get to ours which meant waking him up during the night if we needed the loo or anything. It's fair to say that we were quickly aware of what hostel life had in store for us.

The very first thing we needed was sleep! Once suitably refreshed many hours later we decided that we would head out to the streets of Beijing to explore. Thus we commenced the longest walk EVER. Let me just explain a little about Beijing, it's huge! Something which Gavin and I did not fully appreciate when we first took our little guide book map and set off to explore. What we thought would take around half an hour turned into three hours to find a bar which we were later informed had been knocked down...great! Another quick realisation, guide books are often wrong! It was however a great opportunity for us to get under the skin of Beijing. We had read about all of the construction in the city ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games - the reality is far greater than you can imagine. It feels like the whole city is a huge building site, there is construction everywhere. We have found it particulary sad actually, as all of the building work seems to be at the expense of the traditional way of life. Traditional 'Hutong' (alleyway) homes are being bulldozed to make way for endless skyscrapers. This along with how cold our first couple of days were made Beijing seem a very grey city to us. The void between wealth and poverty is very apparent, it seems there is no real middle ground. Another thing that is apparent, is that they don't get very many black folk around these parts! For our entire week people literally stop in the street and stare. Not at all in a threatening way, just out of pure curiosity. It was little unsettling to start off with but it's amazing how quickly you get used to things and by the end of the week I am completely unfazed by it.

At the end of our first expedition we did in fact find a bar and were quickly introduced to Beijings dual pricing system ie tourists pay more! This rule applies to food, drink, accomodation, public transport in fact any where they can get away with it. We quickly wised up to this and learnt that you need to ascertain prices prior to ordering and need to have the exact money ready as you will almost definitely be given the wrong change back otherwise. It's easy to get very annoyed about this until you realise that in our money it's only the difference of a few pence here and there and it probably means a lot more to them than it does to us...however we did still get annoyed! So we got ripped off for our beers and had to listen to karaoke to add insult to injury (I resisted the temptation to give them the Brummie version of Tainted Love).

We also had our introduction to Chinese toilets....

So back to our freezing cold room for a very poor night's sleep. We had not prepared for the cold at all and only really had one set of very warm clothes...these are the clothes we have worn virtually all week. It's amazing how quickly you can settle into this crusty traveller lifestyle!

Saturday 31st March. We head off to the Temple of Heaven and another mammoth walk (when will we learn). Hours later we arrive and are stunned at how beautiful the place is. To quote the guide book The Temple of Heaven "is the most perfect example of Ming architecture and has come to symbolise Beijing". Beijing feels so hectic, dusty and loud, your senses are constantly bombarded and here we were right in the centre of it all is this beautifully peaceful place (if you can block out the tourists).

The Temple of Heaven Park

Any opportunity for Cardie to grab a picture of Chinese children...

We then walk (again) to Tiananmen Square which is full of plain clothes police and if I'm being honest felt quite eerie. Here we meet "Jack". A really friendly chap who we first assume just wants to have a chat and practice his English....oh how naive we are! It's usually tours or artwork or something but generally there is something that you are being sold! We used the 'we are meeting friends' line and got out of there before we ended up spending all of our savings.

Our new 'friends'....

In Tiananmen Square

Jack did however introduce us to Snack Street. A little corner off a main shopping street that houses numerous food stands selling everything from spicy beef skewers to delicious candied fruit, quite similar to toffee apples. We both had a feast for the equivalent of 1.50 each (no pound sign on this keyboard) and this includes the tourist supplement that we paid for each snack!

Eating again...!

Once we'd had our fill we headed around the corner to find a whole street of similar food stands although what was on offer on a number of them was a little more than we could stomach. There were crickets, some sort of sea slug and animal testicles mmmm looks lovely but we'll give it a miss today thanks.

The Night Market

Did I mention I'm drinking beer now? Obviously the locals do not often partake in a bottle of Pinot or Chardonnay so unless I want to drink the local rice wine I have had to resort to an alternative tipple. The beer here is quite weak so perfect for me and at 20p for almost a litre it makes perfect financial sense too! I'm not sure Gav would agree with me on the taste side but he is definitely happy with the price.

Sunday 1st April. We head to The Forbidden City, named as such as it was out of bounds to commoners for 500 years. Apparently it's the largest and best preserved group of acient buildings in China and was home to to two dynasties of emperors, the Ming and Quing (I just typed that straight from our guide book). It is stunning but very busy with tourists - the equivalent of trying to see the Mona Lisa at The Louvre. The sun was trying it's very hardest to come out by now so it was lovely to sit in the Imperial Garden and watch the world go by....in fact I actually nodded off for a short time. We used the Metro for the first time to get there, damn all that walking, the metro is so easy and cheap. It's not an extensive network so you often have to walk a short distance or get a cab once you get off but for 20p a journey that's fine by me. To be honest we are aching so much from all the walking we have done so far that it's is just too painful to contemplate any more.

On Monday 2nd we had an organised excursion from our hostel to the Great Wall at Mutianyu. Around a two hour drive from where we are staying. A great spot as there were hardly any tourists so we really got to enjoy our day. It really is breath taking.....no literally, I couldn't breathe by the time we had walked for an hour or so. It's so steep in places that we were virtually on all fours to get up some of the steps and came back down on our backsides. What did I say about no more walking? The weather was perfect, gorgeous sunny day with enough breeze to stop us overheating on those steep bits. The views from the wall are awe inspiring, we stopped every few minutes to drink it all in (and to get our breath back). After walking as far as we were allowed from one side to the other we deiced the best way to get down again was by cable car.....has Gav mentioned that he is scared of heights? He kept his shades on so that we couldn't see the tears.

Are we nearly there yet?

We met a cool girl called Hannah on the excursion, she is staying in the sister hostel around the corner from us and is travelling for a month following teaching English for a year in Xian. Hannah and her boyfriend, Tom, took us to a local restaurant for dinner that evening. It was great being out with someone that speaks Chinese as it meant we could order what we wanted and didn't get ripped off - bonus! We ate like kings, drank beer and the bill came to around four pounds each. We ended the evening with a few beers at our hostel....aaahhh this travelling lark isn't so bad!

We managed to change our room on Monday and now have room with a view (of sorts). Well it's got windows and therefore isn't a fridge as our original room was so that'll do nicely thank you.

Yesterday, Tuesday 3rd April, we headed off to the Summer Palace. This is one of my favourite sights in Beijing. It was bascially the emperors summer residence which is surrounded by lakes and parkland. The main residence overlooks Kunming Lake and we spent a leisurely afternoon strolling around the lake in the glorious sunshine. It was so peaceful and exactly what we needed. We decided that we would brave the buses to get there and back as it's only 10p each...never again. Nuff said.

The Summer Palace

We've had our first accident! Luckily we have a well stocked first aid kit. So here's how it happened, being a typical girl I was whinging that I was cold last night. We have a twin room so are are in seperate beds and I wanted Gav to get into bed with me to keep me warm (quiet at the back!). As he did so he managed to smash his head of the corner of the bed side table and has given himself a fairly nasty cut. He is now sporting an attractive band aid on his forehead.

The walking wounded

Tomorrow we check out and start our two night train journey to Vietnam. We are both really excited about moving on now and are planning to just spend today dossing around and repacking ready to go.

Sorry this has been a long one, we'll try to update more often from now on so that our entries are a little more bite sized!!!

I hope everyone is well. Lots of love Cardie xxx

Cardie's obsession with Chinese babies continues.....

The Journey Begins..... remains copyright of the author Curleys, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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