sendeuros

As Matt and I bordered the 6.00am flight to Zhongdian, we weren’t entirely convinced of where we were going. Even on the plane listening to the pilots announcement we couldn’t make out where we were going. Feeling a little ill from waking up so early and nervous about where the plane was going to land, we watched as huge mountains penetrated the clouds. The flight attendent handed out herbal tablets, from what the packaging told us to prevent altitude sickness and the packaging advised warm clothing and sunscreen for high altitudes. Unfortunately Matt and I had rationalised our two packs, leaving one in Kumning with all of our warm clothes. When we arrived at the rural airport of Shangri-La we figured we must be near ‘the land of the snow’ or the Tibetian Plateu. Infact the GPS (thanks David) showed us that we were 3283m above sea level and Matt was feeling a little dizzy. We watched as the other passangers (all Chinese) ran for a winter coat stand and bought up big. Matt in his t-shirt and shorts wondered if it may be a wise investment.

We arrived at the Tibetian Cafe at 8.30am, we were asked if we “check-out” the girl looked confused when I said no we “check-in”. We were lucky enough to get a room at 9am and sleep off our fatigue. On investigation we were in Zhongdian the last stop before Tibet. We spent the day walking around the old town (getting sun burnt) and staring at the locals (in their traditional gear) as they stared back at us :) We worked out the bus system and got up to an old Tibetian monastery, that felt a little like the lost city tucked away in the hills. Though those monks have learnt about about capitalism, 30 yuan entry fee (AU$5). It was beautiful! Mainly looking at the huge hills around us. And against all early expectations, I got sunburnt that day.

As we were only able to secure one nights accommodation, we boarded an 8.30am bus to Lijuang (making our way south again). It took 5 hours to make to 160km trip across the mountains. And as always there were a few moments that made our hair stand on end. The trip was one of the most beautiful that I have ever done, through Tibetian rural towns, along the Yanzi river as it decends from the hills and twisting our way through enourmous mountain passes! But we were exhausted when we finally got to our destination, and not for the first time this trip, we did wonder where the hell we were, as our bus pulled in, we heard an announcement for a bus leaving for Lijuang, “isn’t that where we’ve come too?”. We found some other foriegners and confirmed that we were infact in Lijuang. We found a taxi (after passing the touts trying to sell us their services) and he took us around the corner and said he didn’t know where the nominated hotel from the Lonely Planet was. After signing that he could ring the hotel for directions, we went for another 10minute journey (which I think was just a big block) to pull up at another hotel and he told us to wait. We realised that the hotel was in a part of town that was restricted to traffic so the concierge from the hotel met us with a trolley. We were exhausted and thinking this hotel better be okay because we have expended so much effort trying to find it. We treated ourselves to the suite (two TVs), ate quickly and slept fo the next 5 hours.

That evening we went and explored the old town, to find that it must be China’s number one tourist destination (for the Chinese). With flag waving tourist guides everywhere. That evening we went to a moving performance of the Naxi Orchestra, not really our style of music, but so moving knowing the history of this country and the fact that the conductor had spent 21years in jail during the cultural revolution, due to his Western Sympathies (for playing Schubert). 50% of the orchestra was over 80years old, having hid their instruments during the cultural revolution, the other half of the orchestra were our age, it seems that traditional music here has missed an entire generation.

This country is one of contradictions, a communist country that does not allow freedom of religion yet photos of the Dali Lama were everywhere in the Tibetan Monastry we visited, a country that is closed and censors the press yet 80% of the audiance at the orchestras performance were Chinese, coming to see the conductor as they had heard of his story throught magazines and TV (about his time in prison from 28years old to 48years old).

Last night we also saw some Chinese night life, which seems really fun. Groups of people chanting songs at each other across the river and lots of dancing (to new and old music). We hope to get into it a little more tonight as it is apparently the biggest festival in the Lijuang calender.

Well, to continue where Philippa unexpectedly finished off…

…(whe)n we arrived, the driver and his wife were happy to accept our US$10.00 note and were half way down the street with it before we explained we expected some change, man we are stingy!

We were finally able to change some currency at the hotel which was a big relief; it is really scary not even being able to purchase a bottle of water. The rooms were nice and clean, and I got excited about having 35+ channels on the TV – even though 34 of them are in Mandarin (and the 35th one is only in English occasionally).

China (well, Kunming) is really scary at first. Philippa and I have done a little bit of travel, and this is the first place that has really freaked us out. The trusty Lonely Planet guide informs us that Kunming is a sleepy, slow city as far as China is concerned… WHAT!! This is the maddest place I have ever been to…

Initially we just thought everyone was rude, but we now believe the problem is the water – they are putting speed or red-bull or something in the water! Everyone, the traffic, the cats a dogs, crying babies – everything is running at 210%. Hmmmm, I’m a little scared about our imminent trip to Shanghai!

Other than running around the local shops (including Wal*Mart — which is another blog altogether), we went off to the Bamboo Temple today. This was a very different Buddhist temple, especially the “surfing” Buddha’s (google it) which were awesome. Apparently the guy who created them “went missing” (seems to happen a lot in China) afterwards!

We are flying off to Zhongdian tomorrow (heading towards Tibet), and than working our way back to Kunming by bus for our final flight to Shanghai! Not sure what Internet facilities are further up north, so this might be the last you hear from us for a while (although I’m sure some enterprising nerd ha managed to work something out).

Finally, hope my washing is now dry – we paid some little old lady Y10 per KG to wash them two days ago, and it keeps raining, and therefore never ready! I’m now officially out of undies!!

After two days of relaxing in Chang Mai, we have caught a plane to Kumning China. What a culture shock it has been! Arriving via plan we saw some of the country side, which was all divided into lots, with blocks of high rise building right next to them. At that stage it dawned on Matt and I that this was going to be quite different to anything that we have experience before.

Customs was efficent, thought the health questionairre a little personal, “Have you experienced any symptoms of HIV? or pyschosis?”. A the airport we discoverd that there was no currancy exchange or ATM which we were banking on, as we were unable to buy Chinese Yuan in Thailand. This left us in a bit of an awkward postition, with 30+ taxi drivers trying to secure our business, rain+++ and no money (only USD). We finally negotiated (with no English) a trip in a private vehicle to a hotel of our choice for USD4. We got caught in peak hour traffic, in what we were expecting to be a country town (3 million people), whe

The alarm was set for 5.45am yesterday for our 7am check in at Haui Xai airport. When we arrived we realised that we were the only westerners on this flight and that it was quite a peculiar air port. It is an old American Air Force base, so it is painted a grey colour and is the only building in Laos that we have noticed to have guttering. Atop of a hill, with a beautiful tropical mountain range surrounding it, our jumb/tuk-tuk struggled with us and our two packs (both expander packed by now). The terminal consisted a bench to check in at, with a sign stating the bags needed to be x-rayed (though the x-ray machine was no were to be found), a wooden table with a women collecting “air-port tax”, all 50cents worth (no wonder this airport is a shambles) and a small office (looked like an interrogation room) with the police in it, completing “passport control”. We checked in and as our bags were weighed on the old style slide scales, saw other passangers filing past with their tropical plant and live stock “hand luggage”.

The food facilities consisted of a grass hut 10 metres from the terminal building, where the locals were hitting the Laos home made whisky early. So as the hours passed and our 8.25am plane had not arrived at the airfield, the locals got even drunker. At 10.30am an offical made an announcement (in person) in Lao, it was roughly translated to us that the plane would be there at 12noon. This brought us relief as we had a nice hotel booked and paid for in Vientiane which we thought that we wouldn’t see and connecting flights to Kumning tomorrow at 5am. So we sat and ate noodle soup with the locals, and consumed the last bottle of drinking water that the store had, when the offical came out to the grass hut and the locals exploded in laughter (4 hours of drinking whisky by now), a tuk-tuk driver keen to secure our business translated the message for us, the plane had been can celled for today and would run tomorrow. ANOTHER DAY IN HAUI XAI!!!!

Matt went to the terminal building to retrieve our baggage as I made a quick phone call to Laos airlines, we needed a refund on our tickets!! We were going to miss the plane to Kumning and the next one isn’t scheduled until Saturday from Vientiane and as much as we love Laos, our visas would not extend that far and we wanted some new scenery. Matt and I made the quickest decision of our trip….we were going to Thailand!

I finally got across the information to the women on the ticketing line that we needed a refund for our tickets, she was quite obliging and said this was fine and we could collect the money when we returned to Vientiane, it took a little longer for me to explain to her that we were not returning to Vientiane. Again Laos hospitality coming through, she provided me the local Laos Airlines office details and said that we could obtain a refund via them.

Meanwhile, Matt had been doing some explaining to the baggage handling people, he was able to retrieve our bags after he convinced them that we were not returning for the flight tomorrow and was also able to obtain the original voucher that had been removed from our ticket so we could obtain a refund. He had also found the man that we had to talk to about getting our refund!

So the cheepest tuk-tuk ride our entire time in Laos, along with 5 other locals and their luggage, took us to the Laos Airlines Hauy Xai office . After another 60 minutes of waiting and listening to phone call in Lao to all sorts of offical people, the man behind the desk announced that he had organised our refund and we had to make our way to the bank. At the bank he gave us crisp new USD and we felt grateful that the system had work. we quickly changed our kip to baht and the Laos airline official dropped us at the immigration office.

It was here that Matt made his first “land” border crossing, which involve climbing into thin speed boats and being taken across the Mekong. It was raining and the banks were muddy and we were filthy by the end of it, but we were in Thailand and it felt like we were moving again. As the they are famous for a Thai tuk-tuk had sorted us out within 10 minutes, we were at the bus station and on a bus to Chang Rai. In Chang Rai we had our first meal for the day at 4.30pm as we waited for our 6.30pm bus to Chang Mai.

HELP! This is an urgent SOS from the Laos/Thai border! Come save me (you can leave Philippa behind)!
Just kidding, well, not really… but, we are surviving, I’m just complaining, again!

We arrived yesterday afternoon in Houi Xai, a little border town in Laos, just across the Mekong river from Thailand (with it’s alluring neon lights, fireworks and, if I squint hard a 7-11 and maybe even a McDonalds). More about Houi Sai later (I will need to de-breif).

Prior to our arrival yesterday, the past two days have been lovely… floating down (or up, or something) the Mekong from Luang Prabang. We spoilt ourselves and decided to go for the super luxary “slow boat” trip. Now, when I say slow boat – I really mean it. According to the GPS – the trip was about 320kms and over 18 hours travel time. The alternitive was the “fast boat”, which the secular Lonley Planet advises you “pray” before departure.

Starting bright and early on Saturday, we woke up at sunrise to see the daily monk parade. Luang Prabang is famous for their 70 or so Wat’s (temples) – 30 of which are still active. Every sunrise, Monks from these active Wat’s walk down the main street collecting food offerings from the local beleivers (and some visiting sleepy tourists). We have seen this procession elsewhere before, however due to the shere number of Monks in Luang Prabang – it was really impressive. Towards the end of the offering line were a group of beggers, and it was really touching to see the Monk’s give back some of ther supplies to those less fortunate.

Following the parade, we negotiated a rather expensive Jumbo (Tuk-Tuk) ride to the jetty where our boat was moored. We spent the following two days traveling rather slowly through some of the most beutiful countryside I have ever seen (will get the photo’s up sometime soon, hopefully). We stopped a couple of times at some minority villages and a small cave which was nice, however the majority of the trip consisted of chatting with the other tourists on our boat and waving to kids playing in the river along the way!

Upon arrival in Houi Xai, we nearly lost our bags as they were loaded onto a boat to Thailand with all the other tourists bags. Luckilly Philippa saw her bag on someones back heading towards the boat and managed to intervene after a quick sprint down the road. The locals all thought it was very funny (Hah hah, who on earth would stay here!!).

As it turns out, we stuffed up our airline tickets by a day – and we are stuck here for two nights.

Seriously though, the place isn’t all that bad. I just enjoy complaining, besides – I think we have been a little soft with this 3 star trip of ours! We managed to get some nice Indian last night and also managed to recover our lost mobile phone – I couldn’t beleive how honest the kid was who returned it!

I have developed a pretty serious heat rash on my arms, and managed diagnose and prescribe my own medication from the local chemist – 20 cents for some antihistimine (or sugar concrete, not sure). I haven’t died yet and I think the rash is going!

Back to Vientiane tommorow morning, we are flying – no more SLOW boats for us! Than we fly to Kumning in China! I can’t wait!

Sorry about the slack blogging of late, Matt and I have just been on holidays :)

At the moment we are sitting in a hot internet cafe, talking to our parents on skype (isn’t the internet great) and listening to live Laos music at an open air college graduation ceremony. At the moment we are in Luang Prabang in the North of Laos in the mountains. It is very beautiful here, hence touristy. It is were the Mekong meets the Nam Khan river. So much to say, mix of local politics and the way of life here…but not sure that I wanna be sitting on the internet for hours typing it all out or that you will want to read all of our rants and take on the local situation. In brief the Chinese seems to have their eyes on Laos for Hydro electricity schemes and there is also pressure to start mining exploration here…the promise of big $$$ seems to be more aluring than the small amount of money they can make from keeping the environment beautiful with ecotourism and local industry that relies strongly on the environment.

So more about us, we have turned a little soft. We are staying in a beautiful hotel with air conditioning and hot water on the river front. Tomorrow we board a 5 star boat and travel along the Mekong river towards the Thai border to a place called Huay Xai which is a two day slow boat trip away. So we off set our guilt by visiting and supporting some local NGOs by buying local produce, yes we have had to expand our packs, and maybe have to buy a second bag :) We visited an NGO yesterday called Big Brother Mouse, that produces fun books in Lao to encourage children to enjoy reading. We have also bought up big in local textiles and visited the Laos versions of Friends which is a restaraunt that trains street kids in hospitality skills.

Any how we will bore you with more stories and photos in the coming weeks. Off to see the beautiful sunset.

Lucky the Lao people are pretty trustworthy as they could do a real number on us with the number of currencies they use here and the mental arithmatic that you have to do to work out which is the best deal. We did get quoted over USD2000 for a belt yesterday, I think that girl got her currencies mixed up or thought that we were really gullible.

So we’ve been to the Paris end of Vientiane (as Matt described yesterday), today we headed to the more typical southeast asian site of the Pha That Luang. Matt and I were not really expecting much, and did the obligitary visit as it is the number one tourist site. But it actually was something quite impressive and has been restored to what I imagine was its former glory. There are still works going on around the place, but is a national monument that the Lao people should be proud of. This is were I was gonna put a photo of a link to the impressive spire and surrounding temples until Matt can upload the photos, but he tells me this is illegal…this is what I will be telling him next season of 24 he downloads!

We went to a local place for dinner last night, thought that we would give the locals something to laugh at. No menu in english, infact no menu and only one man with a few english words to work with. I even left the guide book at home! So with our three Lao words (Hello/Goodbye, Thankyou and Delicous) and this mans five English words (no Menu, noodle salad, Beerlao [which I think is technically a Lao word]), we got a delicous you guessed it noodle salad with Beerlao (actually Pepsi) all for 12000kip, I know they really took us for a ride. That is USD1.20 for both of us.

Anyhow, better run and have some more fun.

What an exciting day… After three prompts to get out of bed by Philippa, we were nearly too late for breakfast (Scrambled or “Sunny”); We than headed to the Laos version of the Arc de Triomphe, described as a “…big lump of concrete” (on it’s official plaque!!) – it was a little better than that, with great views from the top!

The most exciting part however was the discovery of a Swedish Pizza Shop for lunch! For those who haven’t tried one,… well,… let me put it this way – it’s almost worth flying to Sweden for! I will have to give you all a bite-by-bite account of the experiance some other time!

Off to the travel agent now, we are going to book some tix up north. Starting to miss some of you now! Oh, we managed to get a local SIM, however nobody has replied, so we don’t know if it works! Probably not!

After transisting in Bangkok, we have finally arrived in humid Laos (pronounced Lao, we confirmed it!!).

Unfortunately we don’t have a great deal to report, as we only arrived this morning (and spent most of today sleeping); Briefly though – the weather is great, the food is cheap (and we haven’t been sick yet) and the locals are SUPER friendly.

The hotel we ended up at is simple, but nice. We had trouble checking in though as we were told the “reception staff are up a tree”. Philippa tricked me however, this place doesn’t have a TV (let alone satellite TV which was my stipulation) !!

Better run, this is 300kip a minute, and we’re not sure how much that is in Aussie dollars – don’t miss any of you yet!

We’re off to Melbourne Airport for our 14 hour flight to Vientiane, via Bangkok. I am glad to be writing this entry because I have had many conversations over the preceding weeks about how to pronounce Laos… a friend who has it on good authority from a guy that is from there believes that it is said “Layos”. These and many other mysteries should be solved over the coming weeks. I think that the Yanzi is off the itinerary which is sad, as it was the one big thing that I wanted to see, but it is sadder for the 100,000 people that have been displaced due to the spring floods. It is more like a humanitarian disaster than a tourist destination at the moment. We’ll get to see the scummy end of the Yanzi in Shanghai.

So travel with us as we blog our way around Laos (Layos) and Southern China.

How can you describe our 10 days in Sweden? We basically ate and ate and drank and played 500 and ate some more. Good times really. Our friends Pete and Kate kindly hosted us over Christmas and we had a wonderful cultural experience. Matt almost swears he can speak Swedish now, he actually is pretty good and understands about 70percent of what is going on. We arrived pretty exhausted after packing up the house and due to the long dark evenings we managed to fit in about 12hours sleep a night, bit like going into hybernation.

On Christmas evening the snow flakes came down and we enjoyed about 70cm of snow. It really brighted up the place and created a lot more fun and games (Matt invented a new game which involves throwing a snow ball at Pete and almost breaking his leg). Evertime we got into the car we had to scrape and brush it down, we had to shovel the snow, sweep it, brush it off our feet…really high maintenance living really. But still wonderful…Christmas is really designed for winter…well our traditions are at least.

We bought some small fire works and with the rest of Ljungby contibuted to the 360degree firework display that brought us into the 2006 (no fire restrictions to worry about). The local counsel has the right idea just legalise fireworks then you don’t have to pay for a public display. And the Ljungby locals spent alot of money on fireworks between them.

After 10 days of relaxing and some post-Christmas-sale shopping we packed our bags and waved Pete, Kate and Olivia off as we were wisked away on the 5.36am Swedish trains. Swedish trains are great!

The day was long, Lgungby to Copenhagen, Copenhagen to Stansted (London), Stansted to Heathrow, 9 hours waiting for check in to open and trying to reclaim some tax,…duty free shopping at Heathrow (our credit card didn’t see that coming and my long time dream to own a Swatch watch was fullfiled), then Heathrow to Bangkok….where it is hight time that Matt does some blogging.

Matt’s impression of the deep fried Mars bar was that it wasn’t worth waiting 10 years for…but maybe we just went to the wrong shop. Our whirlwind visit of Edinburgh was enough to make us feel as though we would like to go back there on day, but not enough time to check out all the trourist must see places. Matt, the star he is booked a hotel 5 minutes walk from the train station, so on Thursday we packed our gear…trying to protect all the grog and pressies that we brought for our friends in Sweden… and jumped on the 10am train to New Castle.

From New Castle we jumped on a DFDS boat to Gothenburg, via Kristiansand (Norway). Matt and I almost killed ourselves carting all the alcohol that Pete and Kate asked for, the taxes in Sweden almost work as well as prohibition…we felt like we were smuggling grog in across the sea border. The “cruise” was great fun…we dined in a swish restraunt…where we couldn’t understand anything on the menu although it was written in English, we saw dancing girls (and a boy), listened to the easy listening, underinspired rock group and did the whole titanic thing (Matt: “I am king of the world”). It was a beautiful experience sailing into Gothenburg, which is a much bigger city than I expected, with big bridges and a built up shoreline on both sides of the river. It was a bit unnerving that it was pitch black at 3.30pm when we arrived…and frezing cold. Not really sure how much daylight to expect…we are travelling south now, so hopefully there will be some improvement.

Tomorrow we start the Christmas celebrations, Swedish style. May everyone have a wonderful Christmas and take joy in the fact that “Man shall live forever more, because of Christmas day”. God Bless you all. Matt: “Bah Humbug”!

Hi, this is a real quick one because I am racing the clock at the internet cafe.

We left Bedford last night…very sad saying good bye to good friends! after racing down to the charity shop with our towels and bedding we raced to get a train that missed the airport station that we had to get off at. We jumped on another train and finally got to Luton airport, where we landed 8 months ago. still not British we chose the worst check in line, taking over an hour to check in. The flight was short and sweet and Edinburgh is beautiful. they currently have a winter wonderland theme park set up at the base of the cliff with the castle. It has an ice skating rink and a German market and a Ferris Wheel…which we will check out tonihgt. Today has manly been retail therapy, recovering from a hectic week of packing up and shopping for christmas pressies. We discovered that the scotts cannot cook any better than the English at lunch time, tonight we are going out in search of a deep fried mars bar…to celebrate matt’s 27th birthday.

love you all and hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas….

Wow, time really does fly when you are having fun!

Looking at the history of our blog, it has been nearly 5 months since my last post! Whoops!

Where have I been you ask? Well, for the most part I have been sitting on my bum watching telly. We have had a few small trips thrown in here and there (which Philippa has updated you all on), and the past two-three months have seen me in my Vietnamese suits (well, sort of) working with Fujifilm in their support department (well, when I say support – I mean call logging – easy mistake to make). Tomorrow will be my last day, and I have really been lucky to not only score a decent temp job for the past few months, learn heaps about mini-lab equipment (and print off all our trip pics), but also more importantly to meet some really great locals,… of course locals being a few Brits, an Irish and an American gal!

OK… Just to wind back a little bit. After a brief visit from my brother Simon sometime in mid-August, we packed our wonderful little Rover up with food, clothing, camping gear and what seemed like the kitchen sink and headed down south to Dover where we caught a ferry to France. Following a brief stopover overnight in Antwerp, Belgium – we found ourselves in Eindhoven, Holland about 11 hours later. It was quite an experience stopping for petrol early in the afternoon and ordering in English, filling up again a few hours later and ordering in French and than the following morning ordering Petrol in Flemish and than Dutch! Well, if the truth be know – these smarty-pants Europeans can all speak English better than us Aussies, but that is besides the point – we did try!

Upon arrival at our swish Holiday Inn hotel (Mum and Dad’s shout) in Eindhoven, it crossed my mind that I should have listened to Philippa when she suggested (nay, insisted) we purchase the international AA (like RACV/Q) membership. Steam was pouring out of the poor little Rover and the needle on the temperature gage had nearly done a 360.

Thankfully the whole family was there to meet us at the hotel, and Dad, tired from all his own travel, was strait back into his fatherly routine by looking at the car and assuring me that no damage had been done as the car had simply overheated! The wonderful hotel staff managed to track down a local Rover mechanic for us and finally managed to book the sick girl in to the shop. Thankfully the only problem was a fan sensor, which caused the fan to stop when it shouldn’t have (at least I think that’s what the invoice says).

The real reason we all (that’s me, Philippa, Simon, Mum and Dad) met up in Eindhoven was to see the town Neunen (about 30 KMs out of Eindhoven) where Dad was born and spent the first 6 years of his life. It was a sweet, definitely off the tourist trail, little town. We saw the house where Dad lived and the surrounding area. He was even lucky enough to get invited inside for a few minutes – soon learning that he knew more Dutch then he originally thought! It was truly a magical and special day!

After a few more days pottering about Eindhoven (and dipping down to Belgium for the day) we all parted ways, picking up in Germany and Philippa’s blog from a while ago :) I had better run as I’m at work, and writing this between calls!

Off to Venice this weekend for our Aniversary, Miss you all!

Thank you for everyone’s feedback, to be honest I think that the promise of retrospective blogs was an empty one until we received so many comments and emails and realised embarrassingly that people still check the site regularly. So not to disappoint, here are some yarns and tall stories about Liz and my trip to Germany. Thank you to Liz who let me cut and past some of her group email to help prompt my memory.

After we left the boys in Frankfurt Liz and I started on our adventure. Liz describes our first stop Heidelberg where;
“we had a few money problems and put together a bit of busking act. Phil recited Man from Snowy River while I sang Waltzing Matilda in the background while jumping around like a kangaroo. Luckily the banks came through and we never had to put it into action, but there were a few tense moments as we tried to conserve the last few cents we had”.
The money problems we experienced, I later discovered were a product of me entering my PIN number incorrectly and not being able to access any funds for the entire time I was in Germany. Thank God for gracious friends – who don’t mind paying for your holidays.

Our camping ground in Heidelberg was picturesquely positioned along side the river with large trees behind, unfortunately they were not enough to mask the sound of the traffic from the major arterial directly behind the campground. Our first lesson for a camping road trip holiday – choose our camping grounds more carefully so that we can get more sleep and be a little less grumpy. I was also a little grump because I was missing Matt.

Then onto the Romantic Road through Bavaria from Wurzburg to Fussen. We have decided there is more romance in the thought of the drive than the drive itself. But there were some gorgeous German towns along the way. We recommend that no couple attempt this route because it is poorly sign posted and often leads in disagreements, especially when the driver travels 2 or 3 km to find a location to turns around after missed turn offs.

Fussen the end of the Romantic Strasse is magnificent. Set amongst the mountains with lovely lakes and 2 very famous castles, built by a very eccentric man. I was so taken by him that I bought his biography, wishful thinking that I would read it. I have a long plane trip to Oz. Heading out of Fussen we hit a bad rainstorm – and had flash back of the pictures of flooding that had been on the news weeks before. Liz and I made the quickest decision we made for our entire trip – we were heading for the city and a B&B, we weren’t gonna camp that night.

In Munich we discovered another much loved German pass time – nudity. Liz and my love for nature drew us to the magnificent parks in Munich. Unfortunately other German’s were using the autumn sun to get an all over tan. Have they not heard of the new sun smart ways? So traumatised by this open nudity and unable to take in the natural beauty of the parks, Liz and I headed to the beer halls to get sloshed. One night Liz describes “Had the best night at the touristy beer hall, the Hoffbrahaus. We sat with these old German guys with the lederhosen on. After getting through as much beer as we could (a very good 500ml) we noticed their photos on the wall. These guys were the locals. Some conversation in our very bad phrase book German discovered they had been going there every Friday night for years. They were very sweet.”

We then headed for the hill, and how magnificent they were. Berchesgaden, a little alpine village right near the Austrian border. We hiked lots, cheated a little by catching the cable car up the mountain. But boy my knees hurt after 5 hours of down hill walking. We met some very tame cows and took lots of photos. It was stunning. One day we walked right to Austria, quite bizarre. It even had a customs house there, but now there is just a teahouse and a bus service that leaves at regular times. They may have big mountains in Germany, but they are not as hard-core as us Aussies or maybe they just have it right. After four hours of walking to a “remote place” you come across a pub in the hills that sells sausages and sauerkraut. We visited a local schnitzel bar, which reportedly had 20+ types of schnitzel. They where all pork, with variations of toppings. Some local lads recommended a dish and we spent the night talking with an old timer (even though he didn’t speak English), who took everything out of his wallet to show us. We also went rowing on a lovely glacial lake and laughed like school girls when we passed some naked rowers. Boy could they row, disappointingly I couldn’t keep up with them.

Our final German stop was Rhinefalls. Hmm, actually we discovered it was in Switzerland and very confusedly asked the young girl at the tourist office how we got to Switzerland. I was extra annoyed because I had made a big fuss about boarder crossings and how I wanted to avoid them, just in case they caused us delay and we didn’t even notice that we crossed one. So we hurriedly tried to find a cash machine to get some Swiss francs, the euro makes it all so easy that you forget how it must have been 10-15years ago travelling though Europe. Apparently Reinfall is the biggest (?widest or longest) waterfall in Europe. Really it isn’t that fantastic. But the Rein river itself is great fun and river life is really alive, with people floating down it all day and night. Somehow Liz convinced me to canoe 40km down the river. I was a bit dubious, it sounded like too much hard work for a holiday. I was happy to do the 20km trip for the same price, but Liz is an accountant and value for money is important for her, so we set out on the 40km trip. When we were on the train travelling down the river, it began to sink in the task that we had set ourselves. When we set out it dawned on us that the trip started on the lake and there was no current to help us along, the task therefore because 10 times harder. The current kicked in about halfway along, I kept Liz going with Saltie songs and choruses. The nudist beaches and a man offering us sex, gave us motivation to row a little harder too. Poor Liz was suffering the next day…and she tried very hard to bend my “no massage” policy.

Next stop was Stuttgart where I left Liz at a bus stop, this stop was literally a formality and we didn’t expect to find much there. But as it happened we arrived in the middle of a wine festival…every major city in Germany we visited seemed to be having one festival or another. The next day I drove 800km and paid 50euro in tolls, across France and England (without my trustee navigator – never again will Liz be able to pretend that she cannot read maps), with a ferry crossing in the middle. Amazingly I just happened to be on the same Ferry as my in-laws the Piening’s and we all jumped in the little Rover (with a lot of luggage) and headed back to Bedford and my beautiful husband.

This is where you have to imagine “The Final Count Down” rock ballad in the back ground and a Flash animation with the world spinning and a plane taking off from London Heathrow airport, into the atmosphere, back down to earth for a quick stop over in Bangkok and pulling up at the final destination Melbourne, Australia. That’s how I pitched it to Mattie anyway…as it has taken us this long to write a blog…I don’t think fancy animations are going to be part of our site any time soon.

So finally we have broken the silence…

England seems to be exploding with colour from dusk until about midnight for the last week. I have never seen anything like it and Matt rightly asked why would a country celebrate the failed plot to blow up parliament?? The thick cloud at night reflects the fireworks in the distance and it seriously could be mistaken as a war zone at times! It really is ever so fun and Matt and I enjoyed our first Saturday night out together walking the streets, drinking beer and watching the fireworks. Part of the evening was soaking in the atmosphere, but the other part was celebrating our decision to come home and booking our tickets to arrive home in mid-January. So needless to say the night started in the Aussie pub drinking VB and Boags, and watching Australia take on the French in rugby (league or union it is hard to say…).

Our plans are to leave Bedford on the 21st of December travel north to New Castle then catch the boat to Gothenburg in Sweden. Catch the train down to Pete and Kate’s house and spend Christmas and New Year with them. On the 3rd of January we will catch a plane from Heathrow to Bangkok for some R&R, acclimatisation and to readjust our body clocks…then we will head home on the 12th of Jan, in time to enjoy some of the summer.

There is so much to catch up on that I have decided to write a retrospective series that will cover Liz and my trip to Germany, and the parents’ visits, it should appear over the next few weeks or so. If there is anyone who is still checking this site thanks for still loving us.

I think that we have lost the routine of blogging…so a bit of a catch up is in order….

Please excuse any typos, I am currently doing battle with a German keyboard.

A quick recap of the last month…there was a fantastic weekend (4 days) in Sweden with our friends Pete, Kate and Olivia. We shopped in Malmo, went to a Swedish surprise party and visited an Alk park. Enjoyed a BBQ and learnt a new board game…it was a fantastic relaxing time and great to be hanging out with old friends.

We have also had some visiters staying with us in Bedford which has also broken up the manotonoy of life a bit. Matt´s brother Simon stayed with us for a week, we managed to cram a road trip into that also – to South Hampton (the Launching place of the Titanic), visiting Oxford briefly to have dinner at the Eagle and Child (Tolkien and CS Lewis´ old watering hole), saw an Abby and a couple of castles and visited Stone Henge all in one weekend!

We then had some other visitors from Oz, Richard Carron (Tommy´s little brother) and his friend Julie. They made good use of the Thames Link and travelled to London everyday to take in the sites. Which reminds us we should venture to London some day :)

Last weekend Matt and I packed the car and made our way down to dover to catch the Ferry to France. We travelled for about 11 hours reaching Antwerp and our beautiful four star hotel. My husband is such a bargin shopper! It took us a while to wind our way to the “tourist” sites in Antwerp but when we got there we were glad we stayed the distance…it is a pretty little city. We then headed off to Eindhoven, where we caught up with the Piening clan and spent a few day visiting the sites of significance to the Piening family. Phillips pretty much own that town. It was hard to find a building without Phillips written on it. We also crammed a road trip to Western Belgium into to our four days. Belgium waffles are great!!!

As we set off again our car was a little fuller, with Liz and Simon crammed in the back with all our gear – Metro Rover what a car. The German auto barns are fast and furious. We had a brief stop in Colone – visiting the Dom (and walking the 500 steps to the spire), and Liz initiated me into the H&M stores.

Our next stop Frankfurt swept us off our feet as we landed there in the middle of a huge festival. All the museums were discounted for the festival and the river bank was a sea of people, market stalls, live music, out door bars and plenty of German food (which is apparently more than sausages). The boys caught a plane the next day to London and Liz and I continue on with our German roadtrip.

That is a whirlwind catch-up and here is my obligatory promise to update the site more often…which I actually think might happen as I am back on the road again. Send Matty emails because he is probably lonley home alone…hey why not even give him a call!

Still playing catch up…

My uni friend Ali and I planned a trip to Brighton that is directly south from London on the coast. Initially we decided to catch the Thames Link train from Bedford that travels directly to Brighton without transfers (through London). We decided however that it would be cheaper to drive in our little rover. When we hit the M25 (London’s outer ring road) we began to think differently. We travelled one exit in 25 minutes and decided we would be best to get off the motorways and travel on the back roads or the A roads. Ali skilfully navigated until we hit an eight-way intersection that made us panic, we ended up heading to Windsor (the opposite direction to which we hoped to travel). We went on a nice sight seeing trip of Surrey (one off England’s posher shires) and eventually pulling over for a picnic next to a local air field…ah the serenity. We arrived in the vicinity of Brighton 6 hours later (when the train would have taken 3 and a half. Our camp ground was actually in a small town east of Brighton called Seaford, we camped right on the beach – if it could be called that, with a pebble coast line and no surf to speak of. After pitching the tent we headed to the toilet block to freshen up for our big night in Brighton.

We caught the surf express that travelled along the coastline affording us great views. As we approached Brighton my preconceptions of this coastal town were blown out of the water – it was a huge sprawling city. We spent an hour or so walking the coastline taking the glitz and glamour and tackiness. It appeared to be a big destination for buck’s parties and hen’s nights which kept us entertained. We ate at a local pub, drinking a bottle of Australian wine and catching up on the details of Ali’s recent trip to Turkey, Croatia and Greece. We then walked over to Brighton’s famous pier that embodies British seaside tackiness, with roller coaster, merry go rounds and stands testing you skills with the odds hopelessly stacked against you. We enjoyed some Belgium waffles and then walked backed to the train station for a good nights sleep.

The next day we packed up and jumped on the seaside express. We spent some time walking though the boutique shops and trash and treasure shop. Brighton has great shopping and bargain hunting, as it has a diverse community (all sorts of “alternate” lifestyles) there are a good variety of shops.

We dragged ourselves away from the shops to do some sight seeing. We visited the Royal Pavilion, which looks like it should be in India next to the Taj Mahal. This palace of similar vintage as Chateau de Versali, an era of decadence for royalty, was built by King Richard IV the son of “mad” King Richard III. The facility was built primarily to have huge parties in. King Richard IV isn’t remembered as a great king and the palace fits in with the Brighton tackiness as the Asian architecture and interior design was reproduced by those who had never been to Asia so is a mishmash of the east meeting the west.

Ali and I headed back to the car via the shops not looking forward to the potentially long trip home. The traffic was fantastic and I arrived home to my husband by dinner time. After being together every day for six months it was nice to have a period of missing each other (even though it was only one night), as they say, absence makes the heart grow stronger.

Sorry about the delay… I need to get into the mood for bloggging again, and now have a little bit of inspiration after our recent trip to Sweden. I have to start two weeks ago though… where Matt left off in Bordeaux.

Bordeaux was a beautiful little country town in Southern France. After arriving by train, we booked a budget hotel for the night – and when I say budget, I mean it… I guess in hindsight the room wasn’t too bad, it was clean and there where only a couple of cigarette burn marks in the bedding. Bordeaux is apparently one of the major wine producing regions of France, with hundreds of wineries dotting the surrounding countryside. As Bordeaux is also a university town, the main street is youthful – with all the usual French designer label stores on every corner. I couldn’t help window shopping, and had to be brought down to earth when Matt said we couldn’t afford the €600.00 Louie Vuitton hand bag.

Later in the afternoon, we met up with some friends from Australia – Ang and Warwick; they are driving around France, Spain and Portugal for three months, camping wherever they end up at night. After walking around town with Ang and Warwick, we decided on a yummy Vietnamese restaurant for dinner. After dinner and a quick chat, we parted ways – Ang and Warwick to go find a camp ground, and us to our 1 star hotel. Early the next morning, we caught a tram and a bus to the edge of town where we again met up with Ang and Warwick. They entertained us with stories of Gypsies, obnoxious Americans and other camp site companions they had met as we journeyed to the sea-side resort of Biarritz.

We finally found some beaches that rival those of home in Biarritz. It is a very posh, touristy area – where the surf beaches really are surf beaches. We spent the afternoon in the sun, watching the tourists more than the view. Matt ventured off to find some baguettes to make lunch and took and hour an a half to locate four croissants – the poor bugger, he did get to see most of the town though. After lunch and a bit of shopping, we again bid farewell to Ang and Warwick as it was time to find a place to rest our heads, we settled on a hotel with a “sea view room”,… three blocks from the beach and Ang and Warwick went off to find another campsite. It was a cute little hotel and like our hotel in Paris – it felt very homely. Later, Matt and I ventured out for dinner, and I experienced my first Spanish Paella (Biarritz is very close to the Spanish border). Matt watched on as I devoured prawns, shrimp, muscles and chicken pieces all served on a massive plate – I was very disappointed when I couldn’t finish it all, but the waitress told me that I had finished more than most men – so I still had my dignity.

We all met the following morning for coffee and decided that we would just have a lazy day on the beach and in the shops. I visited the Long Champ shop and restrained myself from buying anymore hand bags (although it should be mentioned that Matt has purchased more man-bags on this trip than I own handbags). In the evening we visited Ang and Warwick’s 5 star campsite for afternoon tea of French pastries and other yummy treats. The campsite was nothing short of amazing, with it’s own private beach and pool. Pretty flash! We made plans for the following day to visit Pamplona in Spain, with the hope of witnessing the first day of the famous Running of the Bulls Festival.

As planned we met our friends at 5am at the beach car park, and than drove the 20KM or so to the Spanish border, which we didn’t even realise we had crossed until the signs had changed from French into what we guessed was Spanish. We arrived in Pamplona to a sea of red and white people, and somehow happened to land a car park only a block from the main stadium where the bull run finishes. We found our way to the stadium by saying “Toro” to all the Spanish people walking (stumbling) past. Queuing for the tickets, we ran into some Aussies that had made their way over from London on a package tour. From their account, the opening party the night before had been pretty wild with much drinking, singing, drinking, mob rowdiness and drinking – tourists where already in hospital, before the bulls had even been released. Waiting to purchase entrance tickets, the Spanish locals showed us a new way of queuing – basically a free-for-all shove and hope that you get to the ticket window. We were able to get our tickets to the morning running, but the afternoon bull fight had already been sold out, which wasn’t a bad thing in retrospect.

The stadium atmosphere was awesome, the photos put across some of the atmosphere if you want to check them out. We joined in on a “Spanish Wave”, that rivaled the MCG’s and hummed along to the Spanish songs. These Spaniards sure know how to have a party. The brass band left the arena and then the “runners” started to arrive in the stadium… starting slowly with a few joggers and gradually speeding up to a sprint as the runners closer to the bulls tried to avoid their fierce horns. The arena quickly filled with thousands of runners, funnily enough – I think that I could pick a jersey from just about every AFL team. An ex-pat who had lived in Pamplona told us that an Australian or an American dies every year running with the bulls. I wasn’t surprised to hear this because there sure seemed to be a lot of dumb Aussies running with the bulls.

The crowed oooooed and ahhhhed as the bulls finally stampeded past…which was all lots of fun and every now and then a poor sucker (probably and Aussie) got picked up by the horns or trampled under foot of the bull,… the crowed seemed to really like that. The matadors did their best to heard the bulls into the gates on the other side of the arena, it was interesting watching how these professionals worked. Then the not so fun part began, a single bull was let into the arena for the thousands of runners to taunt,… watching exhausted animals being beaten, poked, kicked, slapped and tormented by thousands of half drunk barbarians wasn’t really our cup of tea – so we took a “stage right” and exited the stadium and left these animals to their sport of tormenting animals… I’m sure it is already under scrutiny, but surely the EU Animal Rights department should ban it! I won’t go on about it, we kind of knew what we where getting ourselves into – but being there, and seeing the cruelty to these animals really made us sick. On our way back to Biarritz, we stopped off for a coffee in the Spanish mountains, all a little emotional and mostly with our minds made up that this wasn’t a sport that we enjoyed.

A road trip to Barcelona was planned for the following day, through the very picturesque Pyrenees mountains. Matt probably said it best when he said, jaw a gasp “we don’t have those in Australia!”. We stopped for lunch in a gorgeous little town and enjoyed some more baguettes,… in a parking lot :) We skimmed past Andorra and then hit some very impressive tunnels to finally reach Barcelona.

Our first impression of Barcelona was a very hot and dusty traffic jam, driving around for what seemed like hours, we eventually found our way into the town, located parking and got to our pre-booked youth hostel. Negotiating with the youth hostel reception was a bit of a nightmare, it appeared that more than we realised was “lost in translation” – the man serving us appeared to speak fairly fluent English, however he didn’t quite understand us (as we where changing our original booking). Throughout the argument, Ali – who had just flown in, joined us and got caught up in the discussion. We finally got our rooms and Matt and I ended up sharing a room with a really nice Australian guy called Shane, who had only bought a one way ticket and was hoping to get some work on boats off the coast of Spain or France. He was a bit of a free spirit, who only traveled with a guitar and a surf board. He was enjoying the Barcelona night life, getting up at midnight and returning at about 5am.

We went out for dinner, and after my previous promising experience of Paella, I decided to try it again. Matt ordered a pizza, beer and a coke; I ended up with the biggest beer that we had ever seen as Matt could barely drink the head. They had seen us coming however, charging us €6.00 for the coke and €9.00 for the beer. Needless to say I was pretty annoyed at the bill, but I was more annoyed when I spent the whole night throwing up the Paella in the youth hostel bathroom. BAD PAELLA! After a night in the youth hostel, with drunks coming in and out of our room (one even decided that our bin was the toilet) – we where reminded why we don’t like youth hostels!

The next day, a little groggy – we took in more sites of Barcelona. Starting with a local market to get a bit more of a feel for the place – the colours and smells have a certain vibe and we enjoyed watching the interactions between locals and shop keepers. We followed this up with a visit to the Picasso museum, which was a lot of fun and had a good collection of his early work – and his not so great ceramics (probably worth millions all the same). We enjoyed the buskers in the street on unusual instruments, and witnessed an interaction where a half naked man forced a busker out of the street because, he was trying to sleep. The museum was followed up with a nice lunch in a cafe (nice change from baguettes!) and then we spent the afternoon at the Sagrada Família. Gaude is credited with most of this bizarrely designed cathedrals architecture – it is hugely symbolic and meant to be an offering to atone for Barcelona’s sins. We where happy to hear that it is being funded purely by private donors and that the Vatican purse is not contributing a dime. We forwent the walk up the stairs into the towers as the queue was pretty long.

We rushed back to the hostel and snuck back in to get our luggage, to avoid having to pay the storage fee. We negotiated the public transport system and found our way to the airport. Going through security we experienced more Spanish queuing, then at Luton London airport I enjoyed the one hour, almost stationary non-EU queue, while Matt strolled through the EU queue. We finally arrived home at 2AM to find that our landlord had been over to make some repairs and on his exit had deadlocked the door,… that we did not have a key to. We tried the local hotel, but all the hotels in the county were booked out due to their proximity to the English Grande Prix. So we spent the evening sleeping in our car not getting much sleep as it isn’t too comfy and was parked between three pubs. Needless to say we slept all of Sunday away.

Wow! An entire month since our last post; bit pathetic really, sorry to anyone who has been checking to see if there are any updates! We promise to write a little more often, especially as we now have a few more trips planned (and not just talking about boring old Bedford).

Well,… At 3.00AM on Friday the 1st July, Philippa and I set off for our little trip to France and Spain. We had earlier decided that as it was only a week, it would be a great idea to drive to Luton airport and stay in long term parking. After driving around in circles for what seemed like hours looking for the cheap “off-site” (they weren’t kidding) parking, we finally found the place up some side road in the middle of nowhere. After checking the car in, we boarded an overcrowded shuttle bus to the airport which took another 15 minutes. Finally arriving at Luton airport, we checked in with minutes to spare and finally boarded our easyJet flight to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris!

Being a budget flight, the easyJet plane pretty well landed in a paddock and we had to catch yet another bus to the terminal. After passing through immigration and customs we flagged down what we believed was our shuttle bus (we were told by the shuttle bus company to flag down the “grey” mini bus); in broken “Frenglish”, we were informed that it wasn’t our bus – we flagged down another two shuttle busses until we found the correct one! Our driver was an interesting young guy, who had no problems having an argument on his mobile (in Hindi) and swerving in and out of lanes (in many respects, it was worse driving than in most of Asia). At one point he pointed out a young couple being rather “intimate”… driving down the freeway – he explained that sex while driving is one of the biggest causes of road accidents in France (second only to arguing on a mobile phone)!!. The trip into Paris took over two hours, apparently (according to our informative driver) we had arrived into Paris on the second day of their yearly sale! People were coming into Paris from all over France and the rest of Europe to get their hands on the latest designer labels – some up to 90% off! Wow, did we time our trip right!

The shuttle bus finally pulled up at our hotel, and we were immediately greeted by Liz, Kristy and Andy (some great mates from back home in Melbourne) who had only arrived moments earlier from Kuala Lumpa – Paris was the second stop on their big trip! After checking in and unpacking, we went on a walking mission to find some breakfast; it wasn’t long until we found a traditional Vietnamese (French) bakery where we were able to stuff ourselves on cheap baguettes and croissants. Next was Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris – the amazingly decadent Catholic church constructed in about 1345. Standing in this magnificent active church, with priceless artwork and furniture – it made me wonder if the congregation or even the vatican had ever considered selling it and moving to a warehouse out in the suburbs; the millions, if not billions they would get for the church could probably end world hunger! The rest of the afternoon involved tracking down the gelato shop recommended in the Lonely Planet guide to Paris, a long coffee in a cafe and than an afternoon snooze (we did wake up at 3.00AM)!

After waking up a little later in the evening than planned, we sussed out a local brasserie (pub) for dinner and than headed to the Musée du Louvre; unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to go inside as they were closing up, but we did get a look through some of the windows and spent a good hour or so admiring I.M. Pei’s famous pyramid in the courtyard. Some people were setting up equipment for a film shoot outside the front (although we have no idea what the film was, my guess is The da Vinci Code – as according to IMDB, they are currently filming and the Musée du Louvre is listed as one of the filming locations). After a short stroll back to the hotel, we all went strait to sleep – and trust me, I slept! These fit girls who have no concept of taxis wore me out!

Saturday morning found us up at the train station, attempting to organise train tickets for our onward journey(s); it is incredible how far you can get in France by only knowing the words Bonjour and Merci – we all found the French (in general) to be friendly if you at least attempted to speak in their language and the arrogance everyone has heard about seemed to only apply to the American tourists who refused to even try! Next we learnt to use the Paris Metro and made our way to Luxumburg Park for a nice, relaxing picnic lunch in the sun. Unfortunately lunch was cut short as a police officer scolded the girls for sitting on the grass and made them move along. I had already determined that sitting on the grass was a no-no and managed to avoid being reprimanded by sitting on a park bench on the path!

Somehow we made our way to The Arc de Triomphe and spent the next few hours navigating around the crowds trying to find a bargain in the expensive shops located in that area. The Arc de Triomphe was an impressive monument come round-about; however, other than a war memorial – I don’t know what purpose it stood (perhaps thats all it is)? Phew! The day was still young and we again navigated the Paris Metro to Sacre-Coeur, another impressive church – situated atop a mountain – offering the most incredible view over Paris. Although Sacre-Coeur is somewhat smaller than Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris, the charm and view more than made up for it’s size. Sitting on the grass outside the church, enjoying the view – an old friend from School, Sonja happened to walk past – it was all a little surreal that she happened to be at the same place at the same time as us on the other side of the world! It was really great to quickly catch up with her and hear all the gossip from back home – I didn’t feel so far from home at that point!

A gentle stroll down from this majestic holy place was the notorious Moulin Rouge, unsurprisingly – once the romance of the movie dissapears, the Moulin Rouge is just another strip club in a street full of sleaze. We obviously didn’t see the show (the girl’s wouldn’t let me), but it was fun to see the famous wind-mill. After taking obligatory photos in front of the wind-mill, we quickly made a bee-line to the closest Paris Metro station as we wanted to get out of that part of town ASAP and headed to the Eifel Tower. The Eifel Tower is amazing! Postcards and documentaries do not do it ANY justice whatsoever! Unfortunately we arrived just a few minutes too late (we spent too long eating dinner, and filling up water bottles in the toilet), and were not able to go up to see the view! Following a stroll along the Le Seine river, we caught another train back to the hotel and slept, and slept, and slept. Seriously, I don’t know where these girls got all there energy from.

On sunday morning, we made our way by train to Château de Versailles, which started it’s life as a ‘hunting lodge, a little gentleman’s chateau’ in 1623. The ‘hunting lodge’ soon grew into an incredible palace by 1770, with the most unbelievable gardens I have ever seen. We spent the majority of the afternoon enjoying the sun (with the rest of France) by the Grand Cannel which stretches for 7KMs. The Château de Versailles is by far the most opulent estate I have ever seen, anywhere and if you are ever getting to Paris – it is an absolute *must see*. After a bit of a mix up with trying to work out which train to catch, we eventually ended up back at the Eifel Tower for our second attempt to get up to the top; unfortunately we missed the deadline, AGAIN!! Perhaps next time I get to Paris I will get to see the top! Miserable, we made our way back to the Hotel (via a shop that sold crepes). Monday morning we tearily said good-bye to the girls, and made our way by train to the wine city Bordeaux.

Phew! What a busy couple of days! I had an absolute blast, and have decided that France is by far my favorite European country (so far). Philippa will fill you in (hopefully) tomorrow on the rest of our trip through Bordeaux, Biarritz and Spain!

Life has settled back into a routine which makes it a bit difficult to find exciting material to keep our loyal readers entertained…(well that’s you mum and I talk to you twice a week anyway). The weeks are flying past, over the last three weeks we have treated ourselves to the theatre, going to see Miss Saigon, which was fantastic and making me believe that we are going to be visiting the West End of London a few times before we leave.

Last weekend we packed the car with our new tent and lilo and headed up to Sherwood forest to see what this Robin Hood legend was all about. Needless to say my childhood fantasies of Kevin Costner leading his merry men were quite removed from the reality. I have since discovered that the majority of that film was shot in Ireland. We visited the old oak the place that Robin Hood and his men legendarily met and the church where Robin and Marian got hitched. Across from the church we found a great cafe and an English man that can really make coffee (he had spent 3 years living in Madrid and 5 in Africa) we had a great chat with him and he excited our dreams of future travel. Strangely he had been a middle level manager in an ISP and decided he was sick of playing with the numbers on excel spread sheets. The next day we visited Nottingham with our camping compatriots (Ang and Warrwick). Nottingham was a really nice medium sized city with a really young feel. It has a bit of a rough reputation but we were given no reason to feel unsafe. We visited the man made underground caves and learnt the process of early day tanning leather. We then visited the local gaol and had a tour much like that of the old Melbourne gaol. It brought us a bit closer to home as the last exhibit was about transportation to the colonies. The back ground music was the early colonial music that I remember Grandad Harvey used to listen to.

I still am working at the same post – which has provided me some security as a locum. The team I am working with is currently 4 people down and with holidays and sick days there have been days when I am the only person in the department. So needless to say that work is hectic and the days pass quickly. Getting a glimpse at the NHS (National Health Service) has made me realise that Kennet was a pussycat compared to Thatcher and that investment in public infrastructure is so important. The building in which I am working is literally falling down around us. When we were interviewing job applicants on Friday a small drip from the ceiling began to hit the applicants shoulder, a few minutes later eventuating in the ceiling collapsing. Apparently it is a pretty regular occurrence, raw sewerage flooded the department last Christmas. So as the Psych department await a new building the NHS is paying hundreds of thousands of pound patching up the pipe system which is reportedly beyond repair. We have a man employed to run each tap in the building for 5 minutes each two times a week. The absurdities make my mind boggle and make me wonder if I am that far from Asia.

Last night we a had a staff function, Christmas in June, which was novel for most as it was “so hot” (21 degrees). It was great getting to know all my work colleagues a little better, I am really happy to have landed with a great bunch of people (and yes I have to say that because they’ll probably read this).

We have a few thing coming up to be excited about, we are flying to Paris to catch up with Liz and then travelling down to Barcelona with Ang and Warrwick. We have planned another trip in July to fly over to Sweden and catch up with Pete and Kate. And of course Pauline and Henry (Matt’s parents) are arriving in Birmingham on the 31st of July!

As always thank you all for the news from home, it always bring a smile to our face and reminds us about why home is the best place in the world. The Aussies cricket team are touring here and are copping bad press for their poor performances. Don’t think that we will get to Lords (as the tickets are pretty sewn up), but we might catch them somewhere on their tour.

After a quick look at the auctions on Saturday we jumped in the Rover and headed on a road trip to Manchester to see Philippa’s uni mate Ang and her partner Warwick. The car handled the four hour trip without any problems, although it did struggle to keep up with the speeding BMWs on the M1.

Ang and Warwick kindly put us up in their spare room and prepared a marvelous seafood dinner on our first night. I was initially apprehensive about eating fish (as I usually hate it), however it was absolutely delicious. Following dinner we headed into the city to see the Chemical Brothers, live in their home town.

The concert was absolutely awesome! Starting with “Hey Boy, Hey Girl” they played a mix set, covering all their albums. “Piku” was everything I had hoped for live, you could literally feel the base vibrating through your bones and messing with your t-cells (perhaps that’s what did it?? – it was that same song that blew up my speakers in the Sikma). I was a little disappointed that they skipped “Setting Sun” and the final encore absolutely ruined the show – they played what appeared to be random noise for at least 20 minutes at full blast, annoying everyone around us (some people even walked out); what where they thinking? The video and lighting where brilliant and really enhanced the show (gives you something to look at other than a couple of nerds pressing buttons and tweaking knobs). Overall we all had a great night, I think they went the extra mile for their home town crowd.

After waking up at some un-godly hour (or should that be after sleeping in for those who are actually working) on Sunday we meandered to the bus stop for the Ang and Warwick tour of Manchester. The city centre is a bizarre mixture of modern and classic architecture. The more recent buildings exist thanks to the clearing of land by Nazi and IRA bombing. We spent the majority of the afternoon looking at tents in all the camping stores as Philippa has decided (and I have begrudgingly agreed) to go camping, starting with Sherwood forest in Nottingham next weekend (I hope we look poor, as I don’t want to be robbed). We had a late lunch at “The old Wellington Inn”, a popular old pub; now, when I say old – I mean it – the building was built in 1548 and first licensed as an Inn in 1830. I was lucky enough to run into the renowned Manchester hospitality as I was exiting the pub; three drunk local giants blocking the exit refused to move – forcing me to navigate through the crowd to another exit. Later we met up with a couple of Ang’s friends who had come to visit for the weekend from London. After a game of hackey-sack and dinner we all retired early, still recovering from the night before.

The following morning we all loaded into our cars and headed for a short road trip to the Yorkshire Dales. After scoring a free parking ticket from another visitor who was leaving early, we had a lovely stroll through the Yorkshire Dales National Park. National Parks in England are somewhat different to home, there is no forest! We basically walked through a lovely bit of countryside, complete with lambing sheep, a flowing river and traditional stone fences. There was a beautiful active old church located in the middle of the national park, apparently it was built over 800 years ago! Lunch was beautiful in another old pub, once we managed to find a place that was open and had space for six people. Upon our return back to Ang and Warwick’s place we quickly ate dinner and headed off to a small pub to see Aussie singer Missy Higgins.

After waiting outside for what seemed like aaages for the doors to open, I proceeded to the bar to order a coke. I was finally served 45 minutes later (and was ready to start throwing punches at the girls trying to push in). Apparently everyone in the audience was familiar with Missy’s music, however when the support act started – I think a good 90% of the audience (myself included) thought it was her. I think she needs a little more publicity as nobody knew what she looked like! Unfortunately by the time Missy started to play, Philippa and I had to get going (as we had the long 4 hour trip home ahead of us) – we only managed to stay for 4 or 5 songs. Although I only knew a couple of her songs, the show was really fun and intimate – looking forward to hearing more of her music.

The long trip home was rather uneventful, except for winning £4.00 on the pokies at the road stop! Nearing Bedford, we got off the motorway and navigated our way through the small surrounding towns for about 30 miles – unfortunately due to the slow speed limits in the area, this section of the trip took us nearly an hour (Philippa found out from some colleagues the following day that the motorway goes all the way directly to Bedford and would have saved us probably 45 minutes), doh! Finally, walking in the door at about 2.00AM, we managed to set off the alarm – I slept till lunch time the following day! Phew, what a weekend – had a ball – thanks Ang and Warwick for the great time!

We bit the bullet this weekend and decided it was time to get ourselves a car. Partially because we are off to Manchester next weekend to visit one off my uni mates and watch some live music (Chemical brothers and Missy Higgins). I don’t think that you miss your father’s so much as when you are looking for a car and trying to work out whether it is worth our hard earned £250.

We looked at a few private sale cars, but weren’t really impressed. There is an amazing amount of rust in the cars here, I think it is because of the salt they put on the roads during winter to break up the ice. So you guessed it, we returned to our trusty aucton house two doors down and bidded on a little Rover Metro 111…which we hoped would go :) When cars are sold at aucton here they are generally sold with MOT (road worthy) and Tax (rego), so we kinda felt a bit confident about its condition. We got to start it and look over it before the aucton, and there didn’t appear to be any unusual noises. After sales tax and credit card premium (how odd buying a car on credit card) I think we were out of pocket £274. Our insurace cost more than the car!

It was great getting behing the wheel after 4 months. Our first destination was Tesco a huge supermarket where we purchased a few bits and pieces to fit out the car. A place looks a lot different when you are driving around, one way streets are suddenly significant and you are trying to find speed limit signs.

We collapsed after a long day of talking with insurance companies, organising parking permits and negotiating English roads. At least they drive on the same side of the road as us. We sat in front of the televion eating leftovers and Matt’s home made pancakes and watching Eurovision. I never thought it but the experience is definately hightened being in a country were we can vote. How does Israel get grouped in with Europe?? Anyhow I took my right to vote very seriously and judged all the performances on originality and entertainment value. Denmark got my vote – the guy had an amazing resemblance to Crown Prince Fredrik and I thought that he is almost an Aussie, so I kept the voting in the family like the rest of Europe does.

Anyhow…I think that it is road trip time…don’t forget to give us a buzz on our new number. Will upload some pictures of the car soon.

Phew! I Don’t know where to start! How about “I’m sorry for taking so long to write a post!” I have been sitting here for 10 minutes trying to come up with an excuse – unfortunately there isn’t one!

The past four weeks have been rather exciting, and boring at the same time! Although we haven’t seen any great sights or visited any exciting countries, it has been nice to unpack our suitcases and settle down for a while!

Well, following on from the previous post – we moved into “home” the following day. Somehow we have managed to score a three story, four bedroom semi-furnished terrace house right in the centre of town! At first we where a little worried about renting a place as all the real-estate agents didn’t want to know us (before they will rent out a place, they require proof that you have been a resident for two years); as luck would have it – the boss at Philippa’s job agency was looking for a tenant for their house and was happy for us to move in immediately without all the usual security checks! We had to share the place with a few girls who where studying at the local university for a few weeks (which was fine, except for the mess) – but now we have the place to ourselves! The only downside is the place is up for sale, and theoretically it could go at any time!

Philippa was offered the job she previously mentioned and has been working at the local hospital full time (about a 10 minute walk away) since. She seems to be enjoying it, although she is finding it hard to get back into work mode! That said, she is doing better than me – I have barely even looked for a job, let alone applied for any! I am a kept man!

Setting up the house has been fun! We have had to purchase sheets and doonas (duvets here), knifes, forks, pots and pans etc etc. We seem to purchase a new knick-knack every time we go down the shops (which is only 1 minute walk away). About two doors down is a huge auction house that holds a mixed auction every Saturday – we have been a regular attendee every week for the past four weeks and have managed to accumulate a TV (the big one previously mentioned was one of the girls), a broken portable phone (doh!), a push bike, an office gas lift chair, two really good portable phones and a box of 10 Kensington Locks (for laptops). I was really disappointed when the lot of 90 MP3 players and 37 packs of smokes went higher than I was prepared to pay! Next time, hey!

The rest of our spare time has been filled with watching Freeview Digital TV (so much better here, over 15 extra free channels – better than the Channel 7 test logo back home), eating out at the multitude of pubs within short walking distance, going to the movies etc. Philippa has also been attending some modern dance classes with Alie – she can really cut the rug now! Oh! I also got the internet/phone connected – ADSL 4MB Unlimited – W00T! Speaking of which, I have set up a VoIP phone which gives us a Melbourne (03) number here in England (therefore, if you are in Melbourne you can call us for the cost of a local call) – send us an email if you want the number (just don’t call when it’s the middle of the night here)!

I am woefully homesick and cannot wait to come home! I would love to be at the Star Wars premier with all my mates tomorrow – but I guess it won’t be long until we start traveling again! No ETA yet – but 12-18 months is what we have decided (well, Philippa decided :P).

Better run, Philippa just rang and is walking home from work – she wants to go to the market to get some veggies (today is pay day! Oh how we love the mighty £).

I love you all heaps and miss you a great deal! Make sure you e-mail or call or send a carrier pidgin or something soon!

Our last day we spent with Pete and Kate we did the all important visit to Ikea – yep it is pretty much the same as at home, but a lot more of the products make sense in the Swedish environment – especially the meat balls that they sell in the cafeteria. We caught the speed train the Ryan Air airport about 100km from Stockholm (and didn’t get a chance to see Stockholm this time, we’ll just have to go back to visit it). Ryan air is about as budget as you can get – the chairs are primarily made from hard plastic! We arrived in Luton (near London) exhausted and made it to our guesthouse, what an adventure that turned out to be!

The guesthouse owner had overbooked the accommodation, so he offered us his room, which we took – as my recruitment agency had prepaid for three nights and it seemed like a waste of money paying to go elsewhere. We were directed out to the back bungalow, which was a real bachelor pad. This bachelor however had a thing for purchasing clothes, and, other than the bed, you could not see any of the furniture as it was all covered in clothes. We found about 1 meter square to put all our bags, we were almost too scared that our belongings would merge into the chaos that surrounded them. To top off the clutter situation, there was about an inch of dust over everything. After viewing the bathroom, we decided that we were in England now and we only needed to bathe once a week! The owner was such a top bloke though, we felt as though we couldn’t really complain.

We spent the next few days visiting medical centres (trying to get Matt seen as he had a really bad ear ache), checking out the real estate and hassling my job agency. We finally made it to London on the Friday and did the monopoly board tour, while trying to open a bank account. So we have had our highs and lows this week. It looks like I have a job, which is great – cannot believe how easy it is, and we were homeless for a little while and shelling out the dollars (which don’t convert to pounds to well) waiting for temporary accommodation to be sorted out. I also caught up with the uni crew that are over here – there are about eight of my peers here, we had a baby shower for Kerri (for those that know her).

Looks like our home is going to be Bedford for a while. And tomorrow we are going to move into our new place, which is fully furnished, with a big screen TV (I think that was the selling point for Mat).

We have uploaded heaps of photos from Hong Kong and Europe for those that are interested in using the internet inappropriately at work.

Love yall and looking forward to your correspondence. And yes… I’m soon going to get tuff on you guys who have promised e-mails and haven’t delivered yet!

We flew into Copenhagen feeling a little groggy after our 6am start (which was necessary because we couldn’t be bothered packing the night before). We didn’t pass through any customs, I am still feeling a little confused about how all this EU stuff works – who’s in it and who isn’t, who uses the euros and who doesn’t?

We walked straight to the train ticket booth (how great are these airports that have train systems that connect to the airport), and abruptly asked the ticket man the details of our journey – turns out they are a bit more helpful in Denmark. Felling a little bad after this interaction I adjusted my interpersonal style to match this new environment. We caught a train that crossed directly to Sweden and travelled north to a town called Alvesta where Pete (Matt’s school mate) and Olivia (his 2 year old daughter) picked us up. How great was it to see them (and then Kate – Pete’s wife, later), it was one of those weird feelings knowing that a lot has changed over the three years since we have seen them, but so much was still the same.

So this week we have been up to a lot of catching up, relaxing, eating, walking through the woods, fishing in the lakes, visiting bakeries and tea houses, golfing, watching Hong Kong movies, meeting Kate’s family, playing cards (yep Pete’s influence), dancing to the wiggles and walking Poppis (the dog). Matt and I think that they put something in the water over here, because Poppis seems to be the most gifted amazing little dog that we have ever met. He understands only Swedish (which makes it a bit difficult for us to interact with him), but when told he does just about everything – he can discern between his different finger puppy toys (duck, bear, lion, froggy etc). Matt has been trying to communicate with Poppis by talking like the Swedish chef from the Muppets.

Oliver, Pete and Kate’s two and a half year old daughter speaks both English and Swedish (this kid is smarter than us and she is 2 and a half). She is such a little cutie, but she suddenly hit the terrible twos while we were there ☺ But she is still sooooo cute!

Pete, Kate and Olivia say “Hej-Hej” (G’day).

Sweden is exactly what you expect, the air is clean, everything is designed smartly (triple glazed windows on houses), they actually eat meat balls, they’re all blond and giant (well not the recent immigrants), dairy seems to be a staple over here – milk with everything, everyone bludges off social security and there is an Ikea on just about every corner. Disappointingly we haven’t seen any mousses (elks) yet, but we have seen lots of cute road signs with schematic diagrams warning of their proximity.

There were some crazy storms here in Smalland in January where five years of logging produce was destroyed in one day. Even now some houses haven’t had power restored. Trees are down everywhere and it is only now that the major clean up is commencing (after the snow has melted). There are high piles of logs beside the road every 100m. Entire forests have been flattened and some minor roads are still yet to be cleared. Peoples retirement plans are in chaos as they were relying on harvesting the wood slowly to give them a steady income.

We’re off to England in a couple of days – time to face the real world again ☺ Thanks for all the emails and sorry that these blogs have been so long coming.

Turns out I don’t have SARS (thanks for all the well wishes), just a bad head cold which has finally cleared up.

It was really sad saying goodbye to Hong Kong and our new friends. We had a really good time and felt at home in Honkers! I have a feeling that we may end up there for an extended stay sometime in the future (but don’t tell Philippa).

We woke up early in the morning to finish packing our bags and hurriedly ran downstairs to catch the shuttle bus (after a Macca’s breakfast of course) – after sitting around, complaining that the bus wasn’t getting ready, we soon learnt that the bus wasn’t running due to a public holiday. The hotel concierge quickly realised we where upset (as we had a flight to catch); he grabbed our bags and threw us into a taxi… which was nice of him!

We arrived at the train station 5 minutes later, checked our bags and boarded the train to the airport (how good is THAT… you can check in AT the train station!!!). 20 minutes later we arrived at the airport, boarding passes in hand with time to kill. After ummming an ahhhhhing for weeks, we finally decided to buy a few expensive electronic gadgets (figuring that duty free at the airport would be the way to go) – unfortunately the airport was a good AU$50.00 more expensive than the shops in Hong Kong city, so we decided to wait until we arrived in Holland – assuming you could purchase duty free goods there for a reasonable price (oh boy, where we wrong… more on that later).

Somehow we managed to be late for boarding; when we arrived at the gate, people where ready to usher us straight to our seats. Quite an experience, kind of felt like being a Munckton for a few minutes!

After the looooong flight over China and Russia (lucky we didn’t catch the train as first planned), we finally arrived in Amsterdam. What a grumpy bunch of buggers. Seriously,.. not a single welcome, hello or did you have a pleasant flight – all we got was “Passport”. We decided to get some food (yes Tommy… at Macca’s) – the staff there where just as unpleasant, not even “would you like fries with that”! Grumpy, grumpy, grumpy…, we guessed it’s because it is so bloody cold and they never see the sun! Give me Thailand any day!!

After Dinner (or was it breakfast??) we went to the duty free store at the airport to pick up our gadgets (after our mis-adventure in Hong Kong) only to learn that duty free once you arrive in the EU doesn’t exist (even though we hadn’t passed through customs)! The inc. tax price on the items we where looking at where over AU$200.00 more expensive than in Hong Kong. We decided we didn’t need an iPod after all. Note to anyone travelling to Europe – “The inflated prices at the airport in Hong Kong (or Singapore, or Bangkok) are CHEAPER than the cheap stores in Europe!”).

After exiting customs (no problems with the first use of my Dutch passport – except everyone spoke to me in Dutch), we caught the next train into town. Again, the staff at the information desk where less than helpful and it took us over an hour to work out which train to catch.

From our train stop, it was a short taxi ride to our Bed and Breakfast. We were on the third floor of a traditional Amsterdam flat and the room was lovely. Our host Anna Lynne was the first nice person in Holland we met; she gave us a quick run-down on what we could do and where the closest place for dinner was. We had a little snooze and than headed down to the local kebab shop! Mmmmm, Kebabs – just like at home.

Breakfast the following day was enormous; we couldn’t work out if it was for our entire five day stay in the B and B or just that morning. We found out the following morning that Anna Lynne expected us to eat two small loafs of bread, a block of cheese, a packet of ham, yoghurt, cake, hot cross buns etc every single day! we have since put on a lot of weight!

After recovering from breakfast, we made our way into town by foot. We passed the Anne Frank house, which was a real eye opener. It was a really odd feeling being in the same room (complete with her posters and stickers still on the walls) in which she wrote her diary. Unfortunately I couldn’t help comparing the Holocaust, which Anne endured with the atrocities that happened more recently in my lifetime in Cambodia.

As we were a little down about life after the Anne Frank house museum, we figured we should do something a little light hearted – so,… we went to the Sex Museum (we heard that as far the “sights” of Amsterdam went – this was the safest). Turns out it was quite interesting – the museum started with all sorts of antiques (lots of old master paintings and snuff boxes). Look if you want more details Tommy you can talk to me directly ☺ Afterwards we went to the tourist information, where not surprisingly they were very unhelpful. We passed up the 17 euro, two hour walking tour through the red light district as we figured that it was something that we could do ourselves. The rain started and we jumped on the number 17 tram home.

On route to the Van Gogh museum the next day, we passed a Cash Converters…it is exactly the same as at home…but so much cheaper, they know the true price of second hand goods over here. We had to elbow our way through the millions of school kids lining up to see the Van Gogh museum. It was good and all, but bah…I’ve seen and heard it all before – Cashies was the real highlight of the morning.

We walked around Amsterdam that afternoon and found more entertainment that this liberal society affords, an entire strip of Casinos. We were getting to the point where we were thinking “Is anything illegal in this town?”. The unhelpful, grumpy assistant at the “Cheapest internet café in Amsterdam” (which is false advertising by the way) would not give me change to buy a ticket “No change” he grunted, I had had enough of poor customer service by then so I grunted back at him “No Use!”.

So not to bore you too much more we also visited: Rebrandt’s house, hung out in Coffee Shops, went to the movies and had lots of croquets.

We went for a day trip the Hague before we left because Phil really wanted to see the World Court (geek). We were a little disappointed because we were wisked around on a bus (we felt like Japanese tourists), but in a way we didn’t mind because it was freezing outside, I don’t think that it got above eight degrees that day! We visited a huge model of Holland on the way home, which would have been a lot more fun if we didn’t loose circulation to our fingers, toes, nose…but it was really quite cool, they had working models of cannels, showing how 49% of Holland manages to stay dry, while below sea level. The airport in Holland is called Schipol which is literally Ships Hell, because when they were “reclaiming” the land (draining the land) they found many ship recks in this area. We went past a new housing estate on the way back to Amsterdam that they were building on recently “reclaimed land”, better watch out the Dutch might be knocking at our door soon ☺

We had wine and a long philosophical discussion with our lovely host Anna Lynne on the Saturday night before we boarded the plane to Copenhagen.

We left you on the bustling streets of Hanoi. We we’re able to cram all our stuff into the four bags that we are now travelling with. The alarm went off at 6am and we lingered out of bed and ended up rushing to get our taxi who was waiting for us outside. We arrived at the airport and checked in to Southern China air (the most budget airline that we could find – as this flight was not in our original itinerary). We high fived (well metaphorically) when our bags weighed in at 18.5kg and at 22.6kg…it was our hand luggage that ended up being an issue. Matt and I consciensciously asked the lady if our hand luggage was okay, unfortunately it weighed in about 8kg over (both bags combined), the remedy was we were sent to the bag stall to purchase another bag which had to be checked along with our big bags. So yes dear friends Matt and I stooped to new lows and purchased a “candy bag” – like middle aged ladies on a crazed shopping tour! Dad we revoke any slide remarks that we have made about all of you luggage :) The lady very nicely checked our 8kg excess bagage for no cost. Nothing runs smoothly in Vietnam so after a gate change and about 30 minutes after our scheduled departure time we boarded the plane.

We had a 6 hour stop over in the middle of China that we had to pass through imigration for, we could have gone out and explored the city – but instead Matt and I decided to spend the time exploring the terminal (which is the biggest and most modern airport that we had both ever seen)! The information lady laughed at us when we asked where the McDonalds was (Matt was keen to get back into it after spending a month in countries that hadn’t quite reached that stage in development). Instead we spent $37 on a very average lunch – we spent some time trying to work out the exchange rate and got caught out! The part of china that we saw was very expensive, Au$5 for a coke!

We arrived in Hong Kong and cruised through imigration to baggage collection where the very polite customer service officer informed us that our baggage was probably not going to arrive that evening! I was so impressed with the customer service that I wasn’t too put out that our bags hadn’t arrived. And of course there was McDonalds. We jumped in a taxi…and as we watched the meter tick over on the highway to our hotel, we got a very serious reality check about the cost of living in Hong Kong. Our Au$60 cab fair reminded us of the real cost of living in the Western world.

We checked into our lovely hotel (which Matt’s mum spoiled us with) and got a good night sleep, after checking out all the cable TV chanels. HONKERS – what a big bustling city it is! You can spend a lot of money very quickly in this place, but you can also get some great bargins. We are loving the food here – hmmmm…BBQ pork! We spent the first few days crusing up and down Hong Kong island on the double decker trams and checking out all the big (generally expensive) shopping spots. Mattie purchased some Hong Kong cinema (which we are very excited about watching when we pick up his lap top and we’ll prolly bore Pete and Kate with) and we have been comparing price on iPods and having the “Do we really need this” conversations. We caught up with a girl that we met in Hanoi who lives in Hong Kong. She sings at a hotel here, so we went and saw her perform (eating out Au$20 hamburgers and drinking our Au$7 coffees). Natalie is a Melbourne girl who is pursuing her music career in Hong Kong. We invited ourselves to her church the next day and got to hang out with a heap of expats, which was loads of fun, we did really normal things like go to McDonalds for ice cream and then hang out playing sherades at the harbour. Matt and I almost felt as though we could stop here for a while. I met another OT…dunno what is happening to the world!

Tonight we went up to the peake of the island on a cable car (actually that is where I am sitting at the moment enjoying free internet access. The reason you are hearing from me again (and not Matt) is that he is a little under the weather – he is hoping that it is not SARS.

Tomorrow we jump on a jetplane and head off to Amsterdam. If you have been wondering why you haven’t got a post card lately it is because I haven’t posted any since Cambodia. So chances are you will receive one from Vietnam with a Netherlands postmark on it…sorry just having too much fun at the moment :)

The holiday is almost over and the reality of upcoming work is beginning to set in! What a great time we have had though and what wonderful people we have met along the way! Thanks for all the new from home…hopefully Matt is all better for the next post!

Hoi An is another gorgeous little Vietnamese town that felt like it had more tourists than locals at times…for this reason, along with the architecture, a lot of the time we felt as though we were in Europe. We planned to stay for three nights but stayed for four for reasons outlines below!

My birthday had left me cashed up – thanks to some generous family members – which was perfect timing to be visiting a town of tailors and cobblers! It was exhausting walking the streets full of shop fronts wanting your business. Visitors appear to come to Hoi An and leave with an extra suitcase or two. Along side the tailor shops the bag shop owners seem to be doing a decent trade. We had come with a rough idea of what we wanted to purchase (as we knew that we needed some clothes for work and colder climates), but really it was a bit overwhelming…the process involved sitting down and looking at pattern books, then choosing the material that it should be made out of, then haggling over price, then returning the next day to be “fitted”, and then returning later to pick up the finished garment. I didn’t want to ‘put all my eggs in one basket’ or the manufacturing of my clothes in the hands of one tailor – so I ended up dealing with three tailors, two cobblers and a leather worker. Our four days were jam packed with walking from tailor to cobbler to the ATM – as the maximum withdrawal amount was 2,000,000VND(dong) (AU$160) and our clothes/shoes came to a bit more than that (our haggling skills are not that great) and trying to fit some time in to eat at the great restaurants that Hoi An had to offer. I have to put a big rap in for the Mango Room – which impressed us no end, the meals all come at once and in order of the courses, along with the fact that the food was tantalising. Adding mango to anything can only really improve the dish :)

To appreciate how exhausted we ended up, can only be illustrated by the amount that we purchased –
Philippa
1. shirts (6)
2. suit – with a skirt
3. duffel coat
4. work slacks (2)
5. leather jacket
6. knee high boots (2)
7. sandals/high heals (3)
8. skirt

Matthew
1. suits (2) – both with additional slacks
2. shirts (6)
3. shoes (3)
4. over coat

Robert
….lost count

We also managed to fit in a half day trip to My Son and to Marble Mountain. My Son is where the centre of the Cham Kingdom was about 1500 years ago. Unfortunately there is not much left to see after the US bombed the place senseless. There are a few remaining temples, but unfortunately – they really did not compare to the Angkor temples in Cambodia. The jungle surrounding the temples was dense and we saw a number of colourful butterflies which kept us entertained…and the ride down to the temples in an old army jeep with 9 tourists hanging out the side kept us on our toes.

Marble mountain on the other hand was well worth the trip – there are actually 4 mountains which look like blemishes on anotherwise smooth terrain. Scurrying around the caves looking for the hidden temples made me feel like a kid again! Surrounding the mountain there is a booming industry in making marble artifacts (all the marble is now imported from China, as the government worked out pretty quickly that they would have no mountain if they continued to remove marble). You can purchase a life size sculpted tiger and have it shipped to the US for US$1500…Matt wants to get a couple for our place in Caroline Springs. Around the corner was China beach which was the R&R place for the US soldiers during the war (and is the setting for the TV series of the same name).

We sadly said goodbye to Hoi An as our time was quickly running out in Viet Nam and we still had half the country to cover. We caught the bus to Hue (the old capital during the Nguyen dynasty) stayed for 4 hours then caught the night bus to Hanoi.

Hanoi…another big city, but with somewhat more charm than Ho Chi Minh city. Motor bikes continually zoom up and down the narrow streets, and women walk around with heavy baskets selling there wares. There are many shop fronts that open out onto the street and the city is doted with lakes, that people fish in and meet around in the evening. As we stumbled off the bus at 7am, after a night of broken sleep a man grabbed us to “show us his hotel”. We had little energy to resist, so before we knew it we had agreed to the US$10 a night room, probably being ripped off :P We ventured into a local cafe trying to find some breakfast, like most local cafes the food preparation seemed to be outsourced to a number of local traders, no sooner had we ordered our meal than a little boy and a teenage girl headed off in different directions with bowls in hand. Dad’s soup arrived from one direction and a loaf of bread from another…this cafe even had more varieties of tea than lipton (which seems to hold the majority of the market here). We spent the day visiting tourist agents looking for the best deal in tours to Harlong Bay and to Sapa (in the North West mountains). We walked through the different streets which are named after the main trade that occurs in the street such as “Tin Smith Street” and “Spice Trading Street”, interestingly there is a counterfeit street, where counterfeit money is sold for burning in the ceremonies dedicated to the ancestors. You can purchase a US$5000 bill.

We found a middle range tour that we booked to Harlong Bay and dad also organised a trek to Sapa that Matt and I miss out on as we have run out of time – Matt was sorely disappointed! We found a place that makes a decent Aussie burger and we had an early night catching up on sleep.

The next day we decided to go and see Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh) at the mausoleum, but unfortunately he has the day off. We instead spent our time organising tickets to see the Water Puppet Theatre. While queueing to get our tickets we witnessed a very uncomfortable seen were a military officer was trying to detain a pick pocket until the police arrived. The poor kid was on his knees crying to be let go, and in the end the officer (who I think was in as equally difficult position) did let him go, as the seen became a little too public for his liking I think. We really enjoyed the water puppet theatre, complete with fire crackers and traditional music. The show was in Vietnamese, but it was fairly self explanatory and full a cute little jokes. We planned to go out singing at a Karaoke bar later that night – however after repacking (and purchasing another suitcase), we instead had another early night.

The next day we headed off on our tour to Harlong Bay. The weather looked shocking…misty rain. We stopped at the usual tourist stops, with over priced souvenirs…however this was the most overpriced so far. Matt was looking at a necklace for me that he thought was 245,000VND ($20), but it was in fact US$245…I don’t think we have seen anything that expensive the entire time that we have been here.

Harlong Bay as all the post card show is amazing – the lime stone islands, I think there are 1900 in total are spectacular, and the weather cleared up for the afternoon, for us to cruise the bay. Our poor guide (who was a previously a journalist and is a trained computer programmer) had nothing go right for him. As we settled down in a quite part of the bay to spend the evening, he received a phone call that another four guests were arriving via water taxi. The problem was there where not enough beds to accommodate all of these people. So dad got turfed out to the staff quarters (as he had a double bed to himself). The Vietnamese culture seems to have no concept of compensation – so the fact that dad had paid for a private room with an ensuite bathroom didn’t seem to phase the guy. After some negotiation, dad did receive a complimentary beer. We spent the evening playing a Swedish/Danish version of a card game called “asshole”, which seems really similar to a game that I used to play at youth group. It was great fun and almost everyone on the boat got into the game.

The next day we woke up to no water in our bathroom, a man came and fiddled around for a while and I did get a warm shower in the end. Showering become redundant after heading off on our bushwalk through the jungle and up a very muddy hill. Information communication is also not a strong point on Vietnamese tours, even with English speaking guides. Luckily I did not arrive in my tan shorts and thongs as some other people had. My white shoes however were soon mud red. The walk was actually very enjoyable and the view spectacular. In the afternoon we had an opportunity to see Harlong Bay up close as we canoed around it. We canoed into caves that opened up into little land lock lakes. It was great fun, however, I think that an hour was long enough for me…I have no upper body strength at all. Dad went to spend the second night on the boat and Matt and I spent the evening at a Hotel on Cat Ba island, with the rest of our tour group.

That evening we visited the local disco…the had the music cranked really loud and the two times that we walked in a local guy was singing out some Karaoke song that I could not recognise, though the music sounded familiar. We tried to stay twice, but the environment was unbearably uncomfortable. Instead we opted for a second dinner with our new friend Rikard. We ended up at a pizza place that also served porcupine and turtle. Rickard ended up with a pizza that had more cheeses than it did crust and Matt with a burger that was white at times. The town was decked out in lights and a new water, sound and light show was being trialled, for the upcoming visit of someone important. I think it was something to do with the 30 year celebrations of reunification???

Again another early night…the next morning we discovered the party was in room 405…the German guys room. Later we met up with dad on the boat and he had also had a big night…with some Germans he had met on the boat. The only thing that I can deduce is that Germans really know how to party! The cruise back to the harbour was slow, and the mist had set into the harbour again, most people slept on the boat on the way back. We had a lovely French family on the tour who had a five year old son who looked like a miniture Harry Potter – he was the smartest kid I have ever seen and he did not cry once on the trip. Matt was feeling a little clucky (maybe I was too) :)
The mother of little Harry Potter I discovered was also an OT…which was very odd, considering I usually have to spend half an hour explaining my profession because nobody has ever heard off it. Sadly she betrayed the profession and went back 8 years afterwards and trained as a physiotherapist :P

We arrived back in Hanoi and spent our time trying to organise freight home for some of dads belongings. We turned our nose up at the US$240 quote that we received from TNT and instead sent it home via sea at the post office. We met up with some of our tour group mates for dinner, before the majority of them caught the 10pm train to Sapa (along with dad). Rikard again got the raw end of the deal with his “tuna salad” arriving…actually it was more like not arriving. In the end it was rushed goodbyes and exchanged email addresses. Dad got all his gear together and jumped on the back of a motorbike to the train station which I can only imagine was for an early night after his previous one.

Today we did get to visit Uncle Ho. We lined up and went through three security checks, got man handled by the guards and had our cameras removed. Gee he is looking good for a guy that died over 30 years again. I have been reading a bit of his work and he sounds like a pretty decent guy, his wishes was to be cremated and not to have a big fuss made of him…the party didn’t really respect that though.

So here Matt and I are, almost one chapter of our adventure is over, we are jumping on a plane to Hong Kong tomorrow and still we are not in debt. I think that Europe is going to be a shock to our budget. We are really looking forward to catching up with Pete and Kate in Sweden, and with my uni friends in England. Sorry about the long blog…Matt and I have resolved that we have to blog more often! We are feeling a little further away from home now that dad has left and there is about to be greater disparity in time zones – but looking forward to Hong Kong!

Brrrrr…. It’s cold up here in Hanoi! Happy Easter Everyone!!

We last left you in the hills of Da Lat, about 10 days ago! Sorry for taking so long to post, we have just been having to much fun!

After a short (about 6 hours, yet only 150km from memory), uneventful bus trip we arrived at the sea-side city of Nha Trang – think of a Vietnamese Gold Coast, circa 1985! Our bus driver recomended a hotel upon arrival (I’m sure that he got a kick-back) which we eagerly accepted as it was cheap and clean; however we soon learned otherwise as white ants had also decided to make it home (you could hear them munching at the walls in the middle of the night).

I scoped the town out, for what appeared to be the best hamburger place and somehow managed to drag Philippa and Rob there for dinner. Afterwards I enjoyed a US$3.00 foot massage at the “Relax Hut” … hmmmm, they have a broad definition of what constitutes a foot,… I was centimeters away from being *really* relaxed!! Philippa however opted for a US$1.00 manicure (somewhat cheaper than our Bali experience) and spent the hour chatting to a newlywed from Frankston receiving the same treatment. The Frankston couple had been to the “Relax Hut” every day that week!

Philippa had decided that it was high time that we sent some birthday gifts home and took us on a death march to find the post office (she refused to take a Cyclo after our previous experience in Saigon). After what seemed like hours, and lots of “it should be just around this corner”, we finally found the place. We huffed and puffed up to the counter and handed over our neatly wrapped packages. We were politely informed in broken English that we had to unwrap the packages for inspection, and than fill out half a dozen forms – groan… all up, it took almost an hour to translate and fill in the correct forms and re-wrap the packages! Happy bloomin Birthday, hope you enjoy your pressies kids! :P

Following our ordeal at the Post Office, Rob took us out for dinner to the best restraunt in town for Philippa’s birthday (a day early as we had planned to catch a bus the following day) – it was the “Sailing Club”, not exactly sure where it got it’s name as there where no boats! This place offered Indian, Vietnamese, Italian and Mexican cuisine. We opted for Indian and wow, we were not dissapointed, the best meal we have had on our trip!

Philippa’s birthday didn’t pass unnoticed – I think that she woke up at 5am and requested breakfast in bed. I comprimsed with her and took her back to the great hamburger place for breakfast (at about 9am, had to get my beauty sleep). Rob and Philippa spent the rest of the day on the beach, while I ran around town trying to organise a birthday present… that girl is hard to buy for. We met up for a late lunch/dinner (again, at the burger place) and it was Rob’s turn to bring up his lunch (and by the sound of it, his breakfast and dinner from the previous night too), he did so as we sang happy birthday to a candle lit icecream. The plans for the night bus to Ha Noi were aborted and Philippa went on a scouting mission for a hotel with a few less insect inhabitants. The “Dream Hotel” proved to be just that, compared to our prevuous experience. We vowed from then on not to take the first place offered by the bus company – no matter how cheap it is!

Rob was a terrible patient until he realised that he didn’t have the capacity to get out of bed – he slept for about 20 hours! As he was feeling much better, we decided to jump on the evening bus for the 12 hour trip Ha Noi!

Again, the trip was rather un-eventful other than the 2.30AM stop where I purchased a can of “coke” from a 7 year old! Apart from the fact that she should have been sleeping – getting ready for school, she tried to rip me off (price wise) AND… once I got back on the bus, I discovered it wasn’t coke (it was the equivalent of AC Cola from K-Mart).

Being all bright eyed and chirpy when we arrived at 6.30AM (yes, thats me being sarcastic) – we decided not to go for the first hotel our driver recommended,… or the second,… hell, even the third was no good! The bus driver ended up dumping us in town and we had to hoof it (well, Rob did – we stayed with the bags)! Lucky we did, we ended up at the nicest and newest place in town!

….oooops, I’m being kicked out of the Internet Cafe — Will finish soon!