Heywoods1976

Gallery: Northern India

heywoods1976 — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:27:00 GMT

Northern India

heywoods1976 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:16:00 GMT

Cripes – where do you start with India? We have done 4 weeks so far and have done the sights in Delhi, the main cities in Rajasthan and a week up in the Himalayas and so have a good feel for how the country ticks – which is sometimes slow and sometimes not at all, but then all of a sudden far too fast altogether.

Delhi airport itself is no different to any other international airport on the inside, but as soon as you walk through the doors, India hits you – men sleeping under bridges, a scrum of rickshaw drivers peddling (pardon he pun) for business, 40 degree heat, roads abruptly ending, no lanes on big roads, cows in the road – the list of differences to most places elsewhere in the world goes on and on.

The one thing that you need to be prepared for when you come to India is the use of the horn. Nicola and I have been spotting different horn meanings over the last few weeks and whilst the list is not exhaustive – we feel we have covered the most frequently used. 1) ‘Just letting you know I am here’ horn 2) ‘I am about to cut you up’ horn 3) ‘You are driving too slowly’ horn (note there is no opposite) 4) ‘I am coming around this obstacle at such a speed I have no hope of stopping’ horn 5) ‘I would like to over-take you’ horn 6) ‘You may over-take me’ horn 7) ‘I don’t care what you are doing – I am bigger than you, so will do as I please’ horn 8) ‘No reason to beep, but I haven’t in 10 seconds, So I should probably just beep anyway’ horn 9) ‘I have spotted one of the 1 billion people in the country about to step further in the road 1km away and so I will beep just to warn you’ horn. Whilst all cars have rear view mirrors, side mirrors and indicators – they are merely aesthetics – put there merely to make the car look complete.

We got to Delhi just before the monsoon season was expected – so we were faced with mid 40s heat everyday and a general feel of agitated anticipation – I am not sure if this is our culture shock of being here or everyone elses frustration at the slightly late rains. Whilst hot, the dry conditions did make navigating around Delhi easier than if there were torrential rains every day. We did all the main sights Qutub Minar, The Lotus Flower, The Red Fort, the Jamma Masjid, Humanan’s Tomb, the National Museum – all really impressive – ancient monuments – places that really reflected the majesty of India’s history. Their history goes back 6-7000 years!!!!!!

Next stop was meeting up with Jamie and Craig and having a very indulgent long weekend with them – A flight down to Jaipur, 3 nights staying in a lovely hotel (strongly recommended if you ever go – The Jai Mahal) – going to all the local sights – the most impressive of which is the Amber Fort – and then spending a few days in and out of the textile, antique and jewelry emporiums of the area. From Jaipur we got on our first Indian train – to Agra, a cabin to ourselves, 6 hours of snoozing and general chit chat and then we arrived at the Agra Station. Again Jamie and Craig had a surprise for us – they had booked us in to the Amarvilhas Hotel – with a view of the Taj from its cocktail lounge/balcony and their good men had come wearing turbans and wielding 4x4s to whisk us in air conditioned luxury straight from the train station to the hotel. It was Jamie’s birthday and Craig had organized cake, flowers and wine for Jamie’s arrival – so we all retired to Jamie’s room to acclimatize to the luxury and share in his birthday bounty. The day was spent by the pool (frozen fruit and frozen towels delivered periodically through the afternoon), a couple of hours at the Taj Mahal – truly magnificent building, aesthetically very pleasing – but you do have to remember the inside is a mausoleum, so the value of the building is from the outside. Afterwards – it was back to the air conditioned bar for wine , nuts and cards and then a spot of dinner.

The next morning – we all went back to Delhi and exchanged the boys for Penny (for my family – Nicola’s mother). Dropping off one set of visitors and picking up another. Or that was the plan – but Gulf Air had other Ideas. Penny eventually arrived a day later – Nicola and Penny did a couple of the sights in the morning and then we all jumped on to the over-night train to Jaisalmer. Actually no jumping was happening at all – as Penny went over on her ankle at New Delhi Train Station and hurt her foot. It looked at the time like no more than a nasty sprain, but as it did not improve after 5 days we had it checked out by a doctor – who prescribed painkillers and a bandage. On Penny’s return to the UK she actually found out she had broken a bone in her foot and now has to wear a lower foot brace to help it mend. And yet she still managed to hobble around India with us for a full 11 days – good work Penny.

Jaisalmer is 17 hours on the train from Delhi and with delays actually took 20 hours. We had tried to get a cabin to ourselves, but couldn’t so we ended up sharing a compartment with 7 others!!! It was sort of fun, but with Penny’s foot, my still dodgy stomach (Delhi belly for 12 days), people getting on and off through the night and various miscellaneous human noises it was not the best night sleep we had ever had. Jaisalmer is an amazing town, cut, sculpted and built out of sandstone in the desert, near the Pakistan border – with a way of life that does not seem to have changed a great deal in the last 1000 years! We spent our time in the palaces and museums and in all honesty, doing anything to keep cool – it was again in the mid 40s.

Next stop was to see the famous floating palace of Udaipur. After various discussions we decided the best way to get there was a taxi for 9 hours – it sounds awful, but we drove through some great countryside and you do see so much more in the car than on a train or plane (note there was no plane option from Jaisalmer). The famous floating palace of Udaipur had a surprise for us – the rains had not come, so at the moment it is the famous NON-floating palace – just standing proud on a green plain with the odd buffalo strolling past. We again did the palace museum, went to a folk dance session, painted ourselves miniature elephants (Penny’s was best but mine was as good as Nicola’s) and had a few good dinners.

Back on another train, back to Jaipur – again we went to the Amber Fort, this time with an elephant ride up the hill – and enjoyed the fort just as much a second time. More textiles, paper, jewelry and antiques and then on to the bus for Agra again. We stayed in a slightly cheaper hotel this time around and got hugely frustrated at the faulty air conditioning, the restaurant covered in flies (they actually have pizza on the menu, that when you order it, someone drives to the Pizza Hut, 1 km away and picks it up for you!!!), the lack of communication skills of the manager, one of the rooms not being available for us 4 hours after we arrived etc etc! But Penny and Nicola still had a good time at the Taj and that was the reason for being there. One thing we did repeat with Penny was dinner at the Amarvilhas Hotel – Penny was good enough to shout us drink and dinner at the 5 star hotel for our last night together. Both the ladies had picked up Indian clothes through trip and looked amazing for the evening – I stumbled behind – as ever in city casual.

The next day was another bus, back up to Delhi and Penny literally hopped (hobbled) back on the plane back to Blighty (arghh Blighty how we miss you) and Nicola and I got on the train heading north.

To cut a long travel journey shorter – we rook a train for 6 hours to Kalka, slept for 1 night there, took another 9 hour train from Kalka to Shimla – slept 1 night there and then took a bus for 11 hours to Manali – Trekking capital of India in the lower Himalayas. Manali was a great relief – much cooler – c30 degrees in the sunshine, but low to mid 20s out and they are renowned for their fresh fruit and vegetables – so as well as feeling cooler we started to eat much better quality food. With this new found health we decided to do a trek. There are a myriad of treks to do and it is very difficult knowing which one is best –after a combative discussion – Nicola and I agreed to do a 4 day, 3 night trek (Nicola was looking for something shorter – like 1 night). We found a good agency and paid our money. The trek would be just the two of us with support from a guide (the maps are useless and the paths almost non-existent), a cook, a cook’s helper (his son) a donkey man and 3 donkeys. It sounds quite extravagant to have so many helpers, but it cost about GBP50 per day for everything and it is the way trekking is done here. We had 4 great days, the sun was shining everyday for the treks – about 6 hours per day – quite hard – lots of up hill slogs – but with enough time each afternoon for tea, a chill out, scenery appreciation and then a camp dinner. As always the pictures give you so much more than my words.

With the end of our trip rearing its head in the distance we enter the final stage of our trip – down to south India – after a 15 hour over night bus to Delhi and a 3 hour plane ride to Chennai, one night in Chennai and 3 hours on the bus we are now in a small town famed for it rock carving and its white (ish!!) beaches. Unfortunately monsoon season is upon us , but in between the rain we have long periods of sunshine. We have 3 weeks to go and are trying to make the most of our unreal world, before the real world lays its hefty hand back upon us.

Gallery: Hong Kong

heywoods1976 — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:49:00 GMT

Hong Kong

7 Days in Hong Kong

heywoods1976 — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:35:00 GMT

Hong Kong became a suprise part of itinerary when we booked our flights. We hadn’t planned on coming here but our route meant we had to have a stopover here. Hong Kong isn’t a stop on the usual backpacker trail as it’s not ideal for those on a budget, but we decided to have a week there and make the most of the opportunity.

Our 1 week in HK didn’t get off to the best of starts when we tried to check into our hotel only to find I had booked it for July rather than June, it was a horrible sinking feeling moment. Steven is so efficient at these things so I just wanted the ground to swallow me up when I realized. I sorted it out eventually while Steven watched a rugby game in the hotel sports bar so it didn’t turn out too badly.

We stayed right in the middle of all the action on HK Island. The public transport system there is really easy and with trams/buses/undergrounds/boats a plenty we managed to get around really easily. They even take out some of the walking up hill for you by providing lots of escalators everywhere outside which are fantastic. Much of this aided walking is under covered walkways and on a Sunday these places are full of Philippino maids hanging out with their friends having picnics, it’s a real social spectacle.

In the afternoon we joined the expats enjoying their Sunday Brunch in Stanley, on the other side of the island. We didn’t realize how hilly HK is and surrounding the Island there are dozens of other islands so the views out to sea are very picturesque.

The other main part of HK is across the 200m stretch of sea to the mainland – to an area called Kowloon. Steven had read about a Chinese emporium there that he wanted to check out. Unfortunately it turned out to be full of tat. If you can imagine all of the usual Chinese restaurant ornaments, mixed with cheap looking clothes and seaweed in all forms possible, face cream, candles, crisps…

In the evenings we had a go at numerous Asian foods, the worst being Taiwanese, where they had the ever so tempting option of pickled pigs colon with jelly fish, or if that didn’t tickle your fancy how about spicy chicken feet? The Chinese do love their fresh fish, and every day on the way to the tube we passed a busy market where all the local ladies chose their fish, which were instantly scooped up and decapitated in one swift movement and dispatched into her shopping basket still twitching.

We took a boat ride over to Lamma, one of the larger of the surrounding Islands. The Islands main feature not advertised in the guide, turned out to be a massive power station. Lamma is famous apparently for seafood and Pigeon restaurants. Unfortunately due to Steven fish “allergy” the seafood restaurants weren’t really an option, but they turned out to be a huge disappointment anyway. They were huge round plastic table and chair affairs with all of the fish stuffed into tanks that were too small for them, and the fish looked as depressed as the waiting staff. We naturally then opted for the Pigeon restaurant which was half way along the scenic walking path, which had been kindly donated by the power station, it had lovely views of the power station all the way along the path. The restaurant was a bit tricky to find but we eventually saw a sign up a hill advertising “igeon” so we gave it a go. We were the only ones in the restaurant and the “igeon” was deep fried, decidedly average. All in all very dissapointing.

We had a much more successful trip out to Lantau Island which is connected to the mainland like HK Island by tube. We caught a cable car up to the view point and continued our trip on foot up to the summit. We had been walking up hill for about 2 hours when we had to turn back as the weather closed in, another failed ascent much to Steven’s disappointment. By the time we got back down to the cable car they had received a tornado warning so we had to get the bus back to the bottom.

We visited the History museum and let the audio guide lead us through the Hong Kong Story, all very interesting, especially the last 150 years. It’s great going up to the top of HK Island and seeing the famous skyline. We had lunch up there and tried to soak in all up; the surrounding areas of the reclaimed land, countless skyscrapers, huge shopping malls and country parks. It’s packed so much in to a relatively small area. We did explore up by the boarder with China, we caught the train to the end of the line and wandered round for an afternoon. It was a bit grey looking; the markets were bustling though and full of shops selling cheap looking everyday products as well as lots of Chinese medicines, and an abundance of weird looking dried things, mainly fish we deduced from the smell.

We had a couple of really fun nights out, one being the famous Carnegies’ bar where dancing on the bar is the norm and expats are glugging cocktails – thanks Matthew for the tip. Our other fun night was going to Happy Valley Racecourse for evening racing. The course is right in the middle of the CBD and the view of the city skyline, hopefully the photos will show, is very cool. We won the first race and lost all of the others managing to come out flat. The atmosphere there was great though, one end was mostly full of Chinese fully embracing the gambling side of thing and the other end was full of ex pat 20 to 30 something’s more interested in the beer stalls and the music. Great night out.

A welcome surprise at the end of our stay was an upgrade to 1^st class on the flight to Delhi. It was lovely and we took full advantage of all the freebies and drank and ate as much as we could. Thanks you Cathay Pacific.

Thailand, North and East

heywoods1976 — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:31:00 GMT

Steven has been making such a good job of writing witty blogs about our travels, but this time it's my turn apparantly so here goes. Spelling, grammer and wit farewell.

We started our northern adventure with a train and bus trip up to the historical city of Sukhothai. Sukhothai is recognized as being the first Thai kingdom back in 1200AD. Most of the preserved buildings are conveniently in one place and have been presented to tourists as a park. We hired bicycles for the day and cycled round the many different monuments, stopping at the giant Buddhas and old buildings, it was an impressive place.

Chang Mai was our next stop, the 2^nd biggest city in Thailand, population 150,000, so more like a large town. It turned out to be much better than anticipated. Much easier to get about than Bangkok and it has quite an arty and foodie vibe about it which we both enjoyed.

What helped making our trip to Chang Mai so good was meeting up with an old friend of mine, Dan Kidd, from college days. He was visiting his parents who have recently moved to Chang Mai.

Dan joined us to watch Thai Boxing at the local stadium. We saw 6 fights. Each round lasts about 3 mins and there are 5 rounds per fight. The first 2 fights didn't get past round 2, after a couple of spinning kicks to the face who can blame them. The 3^rd fight was billed as a 'surprise fight' – the surprise being was that they blind folded 3 fighters and just let them go blindly swiping at each other for 3 minutes. The referee got the odd punch which was funny and it was a bit like a Charlie Chaplin sketch of silliness, all good fun. After the final fight the crowd started to clear and it became a bit of a free for all in the ring, with lots of traveler types pulling their best wrestling moves on each other. We made our way over to the punch bags and gave them our best punches – only lasting about 30 seconds, very tiring after 6 beers.

Dan's parents were very kind and invited us round for dinner. They live in an amazing modern Thai house, very beautifully decorated, it was featured in Elle Decoration and its easy to see why. Mrs Kidd treated us to a delicious Thai meal and we had a great evening. We explored the area a bit more with Dan the next day on hired mopeds (5pounds a day, bargain). It was great to have our own transport and after so much practice back home weaving in and out of London traffic Chang Mai was easy.

One of the more unusual things we did in Chang Mai is to have a Monk Chat. The monks get to practice their English and we get to ask questions about monk stuff. Our monk rolled his eyes a bit when he realized he was allocated to us, poor guy. He was true to monk form though and turned out to be very polite and kind natured.

Our next stop was the very small river side town of Tha Thon. We chose to come here to as it's a popular embarcation point on the river down to Chang Rai.

We organized a tour, which turned out to be just the 2 of us and a guide. He took us to a Karen village – 'village' is pushing it somewhat, there appeared to be more handicraft stalls than homes. The Karen people are refugees from Burma. They also known as the long necks because of the traditional necklaces which give the appearance of stretching out their necks. Its more to do with their collar bone getting depressed that makes them look longer, and apparantly if they take off the necklaces their necks don't snap, that's a myth. We also went up to the Thai and Myanmar (Burma) border army post, it was a great view point to see the countryside and good fun to crawl in and out of the army dug outs.

The River boat trip down to Chang Rai was in a large long tail boat operated by a one eyed wiley captain. There were 3 other tourists as well as us which was just as well as 10 minutes in we got stranded on a sand bank in the middle of the river. Steven rolling up his trousers lead the other boys and got out and pushed the boat until we became free. My hero!

Along the way we stopped and a couple of villages, some hots springs and an elephant sanctuary, although I'm not sure 'sanctuary' really describes it very well. More like 'the 10 tethered elephants'. We felt a bit uneasy being there and in turn supporting it, but tried to make up for it by feeding them bags and bags of bananas which was fun.

We had 6 days left in Thailand and so we decided to hop on a train south east and to make the most of what Thailand does best – beaches. We caught an overnight train which was fun. We were in second class (could there be such poverty?) which actually turned out to be great fun. We were served drinks and a couple of hours in a nice porter came and transformed our seats into bunk beds. Its a lovely feeling chugging along and being tucked up in bed at the same time.

Our island of choice was Koh Samed, which is about 3 hours east of Bangkok. Steven found us a 50%off deal on a beach side cabin and we settled into a relaxing 5 nights in paradise, hard life for some!

Gallery: North Thailand

heywoods1976 — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:14:00 GMT

North Thailand

Thailand - Bangkok (City of Bling)

heywoods1976 — Sun, 7 Jun 2009 22:34:00 GMT

Bangkok – It’s difficult to know where to start. We had intended to stay 5 days, but as we took the opportunity to apply for our Indian visas we ended up in town for 7 nights. Bangkok is a full on Thai experience – in a country with 64 million inhabitants, 6 million live in Bangkok! The next biggest city is Chiang Mai with just 200k – so it is really the only Thai city. The first observation is that the Thais know how to do “bling”. The starting point for a city of bling has to be a palace. Nicola and I did two palaces – one the Grand palace, by the river and the other in Dusit Thani. The grand palace is a collection of buildings in various different styles from Thai ‘wats’ (temples), to Khymer/Thai chedis/stupas (religious towers) to Italian style mansions – the theme throughout which is gold. Fully golden towers, golden rooves, gold paintings on the outside and then gold chairs, elephant saddles (now used as decoration), plates, ornaments on the inside. To bring the bling theme to an even more intense level – in between the gold items are jewels and stones, highly reflective glass and brightly coloured paints.

The second palace at Dusit Thani – was just as impressive – this palace’s building was in either a French or Italian style, but its real draw and bling content were the items inside. The king’s (now departed) mother has set up a college of artists to keep traditional crafts alive – and as only a queen can do – she has chosen the all the high end crafts. Making amazing creations in gold goes without saying – but the one craft that really grabbed our imaginations was using beetle wings for various things. No pictures were permitted in the palace – so I can’t us that medium – but basically – they breed beetles, let them die (they must die of natural causes or the colour of their wings deteriorates) and then harvest their wings, the beetles they breed have bright iridescent green, orange and blue wings. They then sort out the good ones and group them in the same colour – they then weave them in to rugs, stick them on statues (of all sorts of things – chickens for example) or on models of religious artifacts. Actually - I have just found this website – I think it is better than continuing to attempt to use my poor descriptive skills. http://thailand.prd.go.th/ebook/queen/content/content_chitralada.html

The next level of bling we observed in Bangkok were a couple of city high end places – we went to the Banyan Tree Hotel for a drink on their roof-top bar (on the 62^nd floor). Unfortunately due to a wee bit of vertigo I only managed the one gin and tonic before all the blood drained out of my fingers as they held on too tight to the bar! We have a good Bangkok rooftop picture on the blog. We also ate out at a couple of nice places – one called Eat Me – an Aussie place near Patpong and another place called Spring, off the Sukhumvit Road (the main hotel road that runs through Bangkok). If anyone is going – both I would recommend, but Eat Me was a bit deer at more than GBP10 per main course versus Spring at GBP4! Much more our budget.

And the lowest level of bling – fake bling and go- go bars. To our shame we participated in one of the two – don’t worry mums – it was just a fake watch for Steven and almost a fake bag for Nicola – but Nicola couldn’t bring herself to buy it after all her years in the real luxury trade. We did go to the go-go bar area around Patpong, but just ended up in a live music venue, had a few beers and then met a couple of French guys who lived half the year in Paris and half the year in Bangkok and had just arrived the previous days. They were keen to get back in to the swing of things, so after a fair few beers and maybe a couple of tequilas we headed for a nightclub (somewhere in Bangkok) and danced the night away. I got home, but only just!!!

And then there is the opposite – the rest of Bangkok. It is a proper city as well as high end hotels, strip joints and palaces. We used the river quite a lot to get around – tried to go to a floating market, but it turned out to be a floating restaurant – poor Thai language skills lead to Nicola being served with a huge river cat fish for lunch – little eaten. We used the river to go up to the flower market, but that turned out to be only really in the morning and after the flowers leave the vegetables move in. We have some good pictures of huge bags of ginger, onions, garlic, lemon grass, chillies – all the stuff you would expect to find on your Thai plate.

We made extensive use of the BTS – the monorail system to get to from one end of the Sukhumvit Road to the other. The traffic, whilst colourful (all the taxi’s are painted the same bright colours that make up a pack of Opal Fruits, sorry Starbursts) was never ending, along with the taxi drivers keeness to stay off the meter meant we avoided them as much as possible. We did take a number of tuk-tuks, but this was more for the romance of them than their practicality – slightly better than taxi’s , but the heat and the dirt from the roads meant you arrived considerably more disheveled than when you departed.

Bangkok has a lot more history and culture than say Kuala Lumpur, but it has also developed a penchant for shopping malls. Though less needed due to lower heat and humidity than KL they are still a very relevant part of Bangkok life. We dipped in and out of them for various things – more good food halls and restaurants – but for quick food rather than a pleasant dinner.

On the morning of the eighth day we took an early morning taxi to Hua Lampang train station, bought our second class ticket for Phitsanulok and put the city of bling behind us.

Thailand - Beaches

heywoods1976 — Sat, 30 May 2009 21:06:00 GMT

With our newly acquired (well free – special initiative by the government to encourage tourists in to the country after the recent political upheavals) Thai visas we jumped in to our VIP minibus and headed for the Thai border. For VIP you should read normal minibus, built for 8, but carrying 10, but including a full sized flat screen tv (not working)!! – however, as we are going through border controls – it is better to be in private, rather than public transport. The public buses have a reputation for dropping you one side of the border and then not waiting around for you at the other! The border safely negotiated – bar Nicola being interrogated in Thai about her passport – as on the Thai database it was registered as stolen! It was stolen, last time she was here, but the British embassy in Bangkok had issued her with a new one – just the Thai information had not been updated.

Our first destination in Thailand – was more of a transit point – Krabi – the port town from where ferries sail to the Island of Koh Phi Phi. Krabi did however offer us our first taste of Thai market food – I think we both had Pad Thai – and it was delicious – cooked in front of our eyes – with fresh ingredients at a cost of less than GBP1 per portion. The next day – it was down to the dock and on to the ferry. 2 hours later we disembarked on to the Koh Phi Phi pier and dodged the hotel touts on to the mainland. As Nicola had bee here before, she knew generally where on the island she wanted to stay and so we headed in that direction. I found a café, for a banana smoothie and Nicola went in to barter mode. We arrived at the start of the wet season, along with political issues in Bangkok and the financial crisis – the hotels were down on numbers and were in keen to get that all important occupancy rate up. Nicola found, a 4 star hotel, with a lovely pool, a private bungalow for 5 days for just shy of GBP25 per night – normally closer to GBP50 per night in high season. Whilst we had a couple of down pours over the 5 days – we hit the beach most mornings and the pool most afternoons – and even managed to squeeze in a couple of hours of turbo tanning. The pictures for the island have come out really well and we believe are all the inspiration most would need to spend a beach holiday here.

Koh Phi Phi, Nicola tells me used to be, pre-tsunami, a real desert island, with shabby huts made out of wood and palm leaves, still a great place to come, but definitely on the traveler end of the holiday spectrum. Post Tsunami they have tried to edge up the star ratings, many more concrete built bungalows, proper unit style shops and properly designed restaurants. Nicola thought it had lost some of its charm, but it already has a reputation as a holiday destination and nothing else, so the changes I saw as improvements. The one downside was that along with the good stuff there were also more English style pubs and Costa Del Sol (wet t-shirt competitions/drinks by the bucket) promotion nights. We still had some great nights though – one highlight had to be the fire shows, fuel soaked and alight poise balls span around the body at great speed. Most of the pictures look a bit dodgy, but a few really capture how beautiful and impressive it is. After our 5 days “on holiday” it was time to move on again.

Back on the ferry, but this time on to another Island – Phuket – another 1.5 hours (but perfectly calm) further east. Some more nimble bartering, but this time on the internet, meant another hotel of a much higher quality than our meager budget should permit – this time at GBP16 per night. It was a good job too – as it rained for most of the next 3 days. We just holed up and hoped it would dry up. Unfortunately it didn’t so we jumped on the direct bus (11 hours) to Bangkok. Technically we did not just jump on as our taxi turned up at the hotel late it meant we missed our allotted bus seats – the taxi driver how-ever just put his foot down and reassured us he would catch it up, got on the phone and 45 mins later (2 hours after getting in to the taxi) we hopped on to the bus at the next stop!

Not too many cultural events to be had on the beaches of southern Thailand, but a fair splash of sun, an easing in to Thai food and our first few Thai words – Khawp Khun Krap (thank you - if spoken by a man) and Sawat Dii Krap (hello – if spoken by a man). A good relaxing start to the country though and the right mindset to deal with Bangkok - our next stop.

Gallery: Thailand

heywoods1976 — Wed, 20 May 2009 20:04:00 GMT

Beaches and Bangkok

Malaysia

heywoods1976 — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:43:00 GMT

This is more like the good old times in Central America - flying through countries. After just 3 days in Singapore we jumped on the bus and got ourselves another stamp in the passport.

First stop was a town called Malacca - does not really matter about the correct spelling because so many different peoples have lived in this historically important port that we have seen it written in 4 or 5 different ways. The Indonesians have ruled here, the Thais have had a strong influence, the Dutch were the first Europeans, then the Portuguese, then the British, then the Japanese (briefly), back to the British and then finally part of the Federated Malay states.

We actually knew very little about Malacca before we arrived, bar it was a good half way stop between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. What we did know was that it was the capital of the Baba Nonya region and still had good examples of their architecture and (more importantly) their food. Baba Nonya is an ethnic group derived out of Chinese immigrants marrying into the local Malay families. We tried a couple of delicacies - most of which were spicy noodle based and Nicola tried the Durian. The Durian is a famed (sorry notorious) fruit in this neck of the woods - which smells so bad there are signs on public transport not permitting their consumption. Nicola had a special Durian concoction of shaved ice, kidney beans, some rubbery jelly type things and the Durian beast itself. The sage words seem to apply here - if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks - it is a duck. The Durian looks awful, smells awful and as Nicola found out - tastes ruddy awful too.

The Dutch have left a lasting imprint on Malacca - the main square is built in the Dutch style (pink clock tower, pink buildings) and they built also a small system of canals. A couple have recently been renovated and are slowly being turned in to a tourist attraction – with motorized gondolahs whizzing up and down them. This was the first of our activities in town - not very spectacular, but a good way of getting your bearings in a new place. The second was another revolving viewing gallery up a big pole! As you are getting the gist of - It was not the most exciting place in the world.

No matter - as is the life of a global gypsy - we just picked up our metaphorical tent and got on the real bus and headed for the capital - Kuala Lumpur.

Kuala Lumpur is, I would say, a more intense version of Singapore. A much larger poor population, less town planning, worse public transport system - but still just as hot and humid. Much as I dislike saying it - we spent much of the time in KL (as all the travellers call it) in a shopping mall! Not out of laziness, but because most people in KL exist in malls due to the heat. We also did the Petronas Towers, we went to the Islamic Arts Museum, we tried to go for some Malaysian tea (but the tea house had closed down)and we did a walking tour of all the historic sights - with me narrating (info from Lonely Planet guide book)

After the disappointment of the closed tea house and our cool northern European genes letting us down we decided to head for the Cameron Highlands - slightly further north (6 hours) but at an elevation of some 1500 meters. We booked the VIP bus, which turned out to be a very average mini-bus and after 4 hours on a motor-way and 2 hours on switch backs arrived at Tea central. We checked in and went straight to the first Tea House we saw - amazing green valley views, Tea bushes all around and proper cups of English breakfast tea - oh and maybe a couple of scones and jam each too. Did I mention the humidity had dropped to lovely (thats the real scientific metric point) and the temperature to English summer? It was very welcome.

As soon as we arrived at our hostel, grubby but I think it was the equivalent of GBP4.5 per night for both of us, we booked ourselves on to a day trip the following day.

We had such a good day - I will just briefly list what we did - Land Rover squelch up a jungle track, a 1.5 hour jungle trek, saw the biggest flower in the world (its actually a fungus!), swam in the fresh water waterfalls, went to local tribal village, blew local tribal blow-pipe (Nicola got bull’s-eye on her second dart, mine limped pathetically out of the pipe - apparently there is a technique), visited a strawberry farm, a Tea farm (and factory and a butterfly and insect house. I think in one day we managed to exhaust all the Cameron Highlands best bits - but what a day.

With nothing else to do - and Nicola itching for some picture postcard islands, surrounded by seas with out deadly sharks and jelly-fish (as in Oz) we got back in the VIP mini-bus and headed for the coast. Our final destination was the Perhentian Islands - off the east coast of Malaysia and specifically - Kecil (the Malay word for small). The islands were indeed picture postcard, but the weather did not really play ball - not terrible, but not sitting out in the sun/snorkeling weather. We had a lovely few days - just chilling out - reading, a bit of scrabble and formulating future plans.

As you leave the Perhetian Islands, the first town you hit back on the main land is called Kota Bharu. Kota Bharu is the Muslim capital of Malaysia – whilst the whole country is Islamic – Kota Bharu is traditionally the most devout region (they used to have single sex check out queues – butnot any more). We stopped off for the night markets, the traditional handicrafts and hoped for a cheaper cooking lesson than the ones offered in KL. When we arrived – we went straight to the local tourist information office and met a character. That character was called Roselan – a middle age Malay who had spent time living in both London and Paris and was now back in his home town as the director of tourism. He gave us a pointer for the places to go, sent us to a local cultural centre for local drumming, kite making and batik painting (all of which he co-ordinated) and then he took us to his house for a cookery class. We sort of thought there would be others and a more formal teaching area, but no – it was just his house! We bumped I to his son coming out of the shower as we came in to the front room! Any-way – with limited space he took us through 5 different recipes and then we sat down to eat them all. Whilst the format was a surprise – it was a very interesting evening and fun too – we learnt and tasted new meals and had the chance to talk to a local and see where and how he lived.

Next stop in Malaysia, was back to the west coast and another Island, but not for beach bumming, no for history and culture. Penang was the British port on the straits of Malacca prior to Raffles founding Singapore. The capital, Georgetown is a great bundle of Chinese shop-houses, British colonial influence and modern office blocks. We again popped to the local tea house for tea and scones, had lunch on the verandah of the Eastern and Oriental Hotel (sister hotel to Raffles, founded by the same family), did another Heywood narrated walking tour and organized our visas for our next country – Thailand.

Apologies for over use of lists and lack of charming narrative, but with so many experiences I have had to cut out some of the waffle. I hope it still gives you a feel for what we have been doing and there is enough rhetoric to keep you coming back for the next installment. Of which, we are in Bangkok at the moment but still have 2-3 weeks in Thailand, so the next up date will not be for a month or so.

Gallery: Malaysia

heywoods1976 — Sun, 10 May 2009 23:07:00 GMT

Malaysia

Gallery: Singapore

heywoods1976 — Fri, 1 May 2009 22:27:00 GMT

Singapore

heywoods1976 — Fri, 1 May 2009 22:05:00 GMT

The next continent - Asia - the final continent! I know - already! - we feel like we have barely been gone a couple of months. After an exceptionally boozey send off from Australia we limped passed the swine flu detectives at the airport (with their heat sensitive cameras)and eased our way to our hotel. As with most big city hotels - it was very average - clean enough, but shared bathroom facilities, a hairy cat roaming the place and only the kitchen sink to brush your teeth in!

The city got off to a much better start. Knowing of a strong British presence, both historically and through the on-going large ex-pat community, but not knowing how it came about and how it currently influences the city state - we decided to head straight for the national museum of Singapore and bone up. Now its rare for me to say this, but it was capitavating - lots of oral history, lots of artifacts, lots of historic connections to the modern city.

Our desire for knowledge sated - the desire for food kicked in and we headed for the Newton Hawker Centre (for those not au fait - hawker centers are collections of food stalls, serving all types of quick food). We looked at the map and assessed it was not far and headed off on foot. Then the pavement stopped, then humidity kicked in, then the sun came out, then the roads started to take us in a very circuitous route - in short - we nearly melted. Lesson learnt though - in this heat and humidity - walking is no longer an option. Lunch was decent - chinese style food (much of the malay diet is strongly influenced by the huge number of immigrant chinese).

The next day was another big one - first of all off to Sentosa Island - an island off the southern coast of Singapore (an island itself) which has been and is still being developped in to tourist park. We took the monorail across (after being distracted by a huge foodhall in an even larger shopping mall) and got involved. Activities were a priced closer to holiday makers budgets than our own back-packing one, but we chose a couple of the chepaer options - a ride in the Tiger Sky Ride - a 70m pole around which a viewing gallery rotates and some seguing (sic). The Sky Ride gave us some great views of the city and the seguing (sic) let us drive a round a track on motorised two wheels which move forward when you lean forward and stop when you stand up straight. We paid for our 10 minutes of teaching and then 1 lap around the test circuit - fortunately we were not very well supervised and managed to squeeze in a couple of extra circuits as well.

That evening we donned our closed toed shoes and long pants and collars and headed to Raffles Hotel (named after the founder of modern Singapore (Brit.) Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles). We headed straight for the Long Bar, where tradition dictates you do two things, drink Singapore Slings and throw the shells of your monkey nuts on to the floor. We were in the mood for Gin and Tonics, but we did manage to create a thick carpet of shells in no time at all. After our extravagence in Raffles - we just popped to Chinatown and another place for street food.

Day 3 was more relaxed - Holland Village - to check out one of the ex-pat enclaves and then back towards town for the Botanic Gardens (including the Orchid garden). Our photo section for Flora and Fauna from around the world is filling up nicely - when we return fell free to request and audience and Nicola will come round with the lap-top and run you through the 500 pictures! The afternoon was filled with more shopping malls than you can shake a stick at - nothing bought I can assure you, but it is apparently a further insight in to the mindset of the locals.

Our final evening was another high-light - the Night Safari. Whilst it was brilliant to see all the animals up close and to feel there was nothing between you and them - it is still a very touristy thing to do. We were at all times surrounded by large group of (very pushy, not demanding, just physically pushy)Indian tourists, straight off multiple buses, the food is much lower quality than the hawker centers and yet it costs 10 times as much! Maybe I am being a little unfair - maybe I just prefer to see the animals for real rather than in a Zoo.

And that was it. Singapore done in 3 days. Greatly aided by Dave (Vanessa's boyfriend) (a former Ex-pat Singaporean himself). Before we arrived we had heard mixed reviews of Singapore - too strict, too western, too sterile and alcohol too expensive. The final one I fully agree with - but Singapore is a gateway to Asia - it is the perfect place to ease you in to the heat, the food, the culture, the language, the humidity and the smells. The fact that everyone speaks English was an additional cherry.

Australia: East Coast

heywoods1976 — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

And we are backpackers again. The camper van route from Sydney to Cairns is very well driven. Many of our friends and family have done it in the past and there are still hordes of Europeans doing it today. Whilst we invested in a copy of Camps 5 (campsite guide for all of Australia) and had intended to camp in beautiful spots (hopefully for free) all the ones we found were only one stop better than lay-bys. We ended up joining the growing herd of ‘grey nomads’ (mature people who live in camper vans for all or part of the year) and stayed in proper campsites every night.

We stopped off near Port Stephen, Coffs Harbour, had a couple of nights in Byrons Bay and then in to Brisbane – stopping off at as many giant things as possible. If a town in Australia is vaguely famous for anything then erect a giant whatever at the entry to town – we saw a banana, a mango, a pelican, an orange, a lobster etc.

Brisbane – almost kept us for more than one night, but we again realized we were not really in Australia for the cities – so pushed on again and headed to Noosa. I came to Noosa five years ago whilst on gardening leave before starting my next job and loved the place and so I really wanted Nicola to see it. Noosa is a couple of hours north of Brisbane and set on the beach and inlet of Noosa river. It has a large lagoon, surrounded by water-front houses, a main street with a plethora of eating options (some of them very nice indeed) and a large gently sloping beach. We stayed for 4 days, soaking up the sun (27 degrees every day), played lawn bowls at the local club (they have barefoot bowls nights – where you can turn up with no equipment and they provide everything), hired a surf board at 8 in the morning and practiced the surf skills we had learnt in Rio, walked the beaches and tried to let the surf drown us (some of the big waves are really quite nasty).

Believe it or not – after Noosa we were all beached out and felt like experiencing something different – maybe some outback? With our Wicked camper we were not allowed on unsealed roads, so we wondered how much outback we could see. We pointed our van inland and drove. We managed to get about 300km before we found something to distract us and yet were still no where near real outback. The distraction was a town called Sapphire! We were here to find our fortune. We rolled up to Bobby Dazzler’s sapphire mine – had a brief tour underground an then bought ourselves AUD15 of dirt – or the technical mining term ‘wash’. We then fossicked – went through the dirt, sieved out the sand, rinsed the stones and then searched for black rocks….sorry sapphires. After about 30 minutes we had a little pile of black stones and took them to the mine owner for appreciation. Yes – they were sapphires – probably about 8 in all and worth – well……… nothing – not even big enough to get cut and therefore worthless. Looks like we are going to have to return to the grind of travelling the world!!!

From Sapphire we headed back towards the coast, crossing back in to the tropics for the first time since Brazil – banana plantations increasing and humidity rising. Up to Airlee Beach – another backpacker hot-spot to see the Whitsunday Islands. Airlee Beach is not much of a town, but it is the departure point for day trips and cruises to the beautiful Whitsunday Islands – tropical paradise like islands – with perfect white sand and aqua marine water. We took a high powered rib out to a couple of spots for snorkeling and then spent a couple of hours on Whitehaven beach – voted a top 10 global beach – the pictures are pretty amazing.

And then the coincidence of the trip so far. One evening in Airlee Beach we were bemoaning not making any friends on the boat (we tried, but little reciprocity) when Nicola spotted one of the couples we had met when we sailed from Panama to Colombia – Sooz (hope that’s the right spelling) and Steve. They are pretty much doing the same trip as us – so we compared notes and caught up on shared experiences and then got pretty drunk and ended up in a foam party. Good night had by all – pictures less impressive!

After the hang over faded – we drove up to Townsville – not really a planned stop, but an old friend of Nicola’s lived there, so we thought we would try to hook up. Unfortunately her friend was on business in Brisbane for the week so we missed her. We occupied ourselves by watching the locals commiserate Anzac Day (25^th April, when the first Oz and NZ battalion got slaughtered at Galipoli (along with thousands of British and Turkish troops) and then we went to watch a rugby league game – the Queensland Cowboys versus the Manly Sea Eagle. Not really my code – but an entertaining night out and more insight in to the Aussie psyche. Nicola very much liked the music, cheerleaders, fire works and the Harvey Norman sale adverts.

And then the final leg, up to Port Douglas for a couple of days – including our Great Barrier Reef trip – I will let the pictures tell the story – but there is no picture for the highlight. Nicola spotted a shark – she says she was just pretending to panic, but I thought there was an element of real fear. The shark was only about 4 foot long – so no Jaws.

We are now in Cairns – we have handed back the van (quite a sad moment) and so are no longer happy campers (4320km achieved) – we are happy ho(s)tellers again. Last night was the first in a bed for a while and we are very much appreciating a toilet attached to our sleeping area – rather than across 3 lawns, two roads and an ornamental flower bed!

In two days we board a flight for leg 4 of the trip – Singapore and South East Asia.

Gallery: East Coast Australia

heywoods1976 — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:10:00 GMT

East Coast Austraila

Gallery: South Australia

heywoods1976 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:11:00 GMT

Adelaide up to Sydney

Sydney

heywoods1976 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:54:00 GMT

Episode 3 – Sydney

We stayed in Sydney for 6 nights – one on a campsite, when we first arrived and we then imposed ourselves on Ann and Murph for the following 5 nights. Ann and Murph are friends of ours from London – who moved back out to Sydney at the start of the year and as I recall revealed their intention to depart London at the same time as us last year.

Ann and Murph have a flat in Manly, one of Sydney’s northern beaches – it’s a great part of Sydney – whilst you can drive to it from the centre of town, it is just as quick to jump on the ferry. The added benefit is that from the ferry you get to see the whole of Sydney harbour/bay including the iconic harbour bridge and opera house.

We followed a pretty standard tourist route in and around Sydney – but rather than this being boring and over-hyped, because Sydney is so cool, it was cool. We did the beaches at Manly and Bondi (including drinks at the famous Icebergs bar – watching the winter swimming club members swim in the sea water pool, which has waves crashing in to it every few minutes). We went to Toranga Zoo – saw all the indigenous animals – emu, platypus, kangaroo, koala and a few more besides. We walked around central Sydney – saw all the sights (as previously mentioned and the Botanic gardens, Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, the maritime museum). We had lunch in Wastons Bay (5km from the CBD) – in a renowned fish and chip shop, with the most glorious view of Sydney, sun sparkling on the bay, hundreds of boats bobbing away and a couple of cold beers. We also kayaked around the bays near Manly (with Ann), drove out to see the surfers in Freshwater Bay (with Ann), had a BBQ (with Ann) , went out with Ann’s friends (with Ann) for dinner – you can see how gracious a host she was. Thank you xx.

On top of the usual touristy things there were two stand-out activities we did – a tour of Sydney fish market and watched a Waratahs rugby game.

Considering my aversion to most things fishy – it seems strange that a fish market would be given such a big intro – however it was so interesting it really deserves it. Nicola was the driving force behind the idea to go and then one of Murph’s friends works there, so we managed to bum the whole thing for free. We had to be up at 6am and drove in to Sydney for 7am – we were escorted around the cooking school, explained the buying process (a dutch auction), told about the product and then taken on to the market floor to get in the way of the traders and porters. There were huge swordfish, chunks of giant tuna, lots of by-catch (less well known fish that can also be eaten) and also a live section – where the crabs and lobsters are bid for. And the best thing? It did not smell fishy at all.

The second highlight was the Waratahs game. The Waratahs are New South Wales, Sydney based rugby union team. We met up with a couple of Nicola’s friends – also recently departed from London – Katy and Scott – for a few beers in the afternoon and then slowly edged our way to the stadium. The game was okay, a loss for the Waratahs, but its just great fun to watch live sport, drinking beers with friends.

And all too quickly it was time to leave Sydney. Nicola and I both agreed Sydney is a great place to live – they do have the best of so many worlds – weather, food, sports, life-style etc – but it is just so far away from home – that’s all we can fault it on!

Gallery: Sydney

heywoods1976 — Wed, 1 Apr 2009 12:04:00 GMT

Sydney

W and S Australia

heywoods1976 — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:54:00 GMT

G'day

We are half way in to our tour of Australia and after much correspondance from disgruntled fans (my dad) of the blog we have decided to do a half-country post. Australia is the largest country we will stay in on our tour, so I suppose it is only right that we deliver a couple of episodes.

Epsiode 1 - WA

WA - Not the noise a baby makes when it first wakes up, but the acronym for Western Australia. WA is where we first landed in Oz and we got straight on the 'Inger' bus. Inger is our good friend, fiance of Ben Russon (school-friend from North Yorks) and most importantly native Australian. She was brought up in and around Perth in her formative years, but does have a British passport and moved back to the UK after school ( hence a solid grasp of English English and good knowledge of British culture). The key point really is that she was very well qualified to drive our WA bus. The bus analogy actually goes even further, because as well as organising various accommodation, she did actually pick Nicola and I up in a big 4 wheel drive vehicle the morning after we landed.

From Perth airport we drove straight down to Margaret River - 3.5 hours south of Perth and in to WA's biggest wine producing district. You might be thinking that after Mendoza (ARG), The Colchagua Valley (CHI) and Marlborough (NZ) we would have had enough of tasting wine - but not at all. Every wine region is different, indeed every vineyard is different, so our knowledge and thirst remained unquenched. In Margaret River - Inger's sister had found a house to rent on a vineyard - it was the old vineyard homestead (including huge wine cellar) that was no longer used as the family had moved on. The views out of the windows were of vines, a few kangeroos and the tennis court! We had a lovely few days in and around Margaret River with Ben and Inger and Inger's mother and a couple of aunties. We made the most of the vineyards every day - using the tasting rooms prior to stocking up on that nights wine for dinner, did a spot of shopping, again for dinner that night and then an activity - one day golf, one day on the beach and one day popping in to Byrons (one of Inger's friends) place - a macadamia farm! I think it is the first time I had them and, straight from the shell they were delicious, maybe not garlic bread, but defintely, to quote the great Peter Kay 'a taste sensation'.

Next stop was back to the big city - Perth and what a lovely city it is - the weather bounced around 25-30 degrees every day, the Swan river inlet snaking in towards the modern city skyline and thousands of huge, luxury homes, all with magnificent water views. Our own 'home' for the week was on the top floor of a block of apartments in Mossman Park, just one block away from the Indian Ocean and the soft white sand at Cottesloe beach. We again just enjoyed hanging out with Ben and Inger (and her sister and friends), making the most of seeing our friends rather than investigating the city itself.

After Ben and Inger left, we moved in to the town centre and back in to the travelling groove - in to a youth hostel for 3 days and did the hard work around Perth - going to the park for lunch, doing the shopping areas, across to Freemantle (on the other side of the Swan river) and getting to know some more of the suburbs. Its always interesting to see what its actually like to live in other cities - see how real people live, rather than just seeing the tourist or shopping areas. On our final full day - we got the ferry from Perth quayside out to Rottnet Island - 7km off the coast from Freemantle. The island is uninhabited, allows no cars, has a large rat looking (chicken sized) mammal called a quokka, lots of white sand beaches and clear blue ocean. Inger's mum was kind enough to give us Inger's snorkelling kit, which means, as well as snorkelling in and around Perth, we can take the kits all the way up the East coast and all through the next leg of the trip - South East Asia.

Episode 2 - South Australia

The HeywoodNotts get back in to the camping groove. From Perth we flew to Adelaide and hired another Wicked campervan. We spent one night in Adelaide itself - slighlty unsure as what to do - we had so much fun with Ben and Inger in Perth that we had not really done much research in to our next destination. The one thing that struck us both about Adelaide was how culturally mixed it was, still lots of caucasian, but also a very strong presence from SE Asia, Japan and China. It was the surprise more than anything, but even more so because Adelaide itself felt very English, lots of victorian buildings, huge love of cricket, pleasant climate, lots of green etc etc. As a corollary it also has a brilliant Asian food market - where we had a great cheap Vietnamese meal.

After much debate we decided that we were relaxed about the cities in South Australia and the main reason for being there was the Great Ocean Road - a 200km stretch of bitumen that hugs the south coast of Australia facing the Antarctic, whose ocean pounds the coast so hard it creates huge sculptures out of the coast's soft sand stone cliffs. Check out the piccies.

One extra detour we had to do was stop in a little town called 'Heywood'! It was not the luxury metropolis I had hoped for and some one had forgotten (Nicola!!!) to call ahead and announce our imminent arrival. Heywood was closed for sunday, with only the small local super market open and not even a postcard available for sale! The best I could do was have my picture taken by the town welcome sign.

We stayed most nights on camp-sites just off the beach, saw some lovely sun-sets, but this far south in Australia, whilst still pleasantly warm during the day - a couple of the nights dropped below 10 degrees, so the emergency blankets had to come out. Just remember we are living in the back of a people carrier!

The end of the Great Ocean Road is Melbourne. Melbourne is the one city that everyone we have spoken to about Australia insisted we came to. It is reknown to be the most European of all the Australian cities, it has lots of cultural activities. The two we managed to partake in were - the Grand Prix and the International Comedy Festival. The Grand Prix is a bit of a lie really, but as the course goes around the city and they open up the roads the day after the Grand Prix, we managed to drive around half the course, with the grand-stands still up, all the hoardings, advertising and finish line still in place. I think there is a short video to prove it. The second event was the comedy festival - we booked ourselves in to see Bart Freebairn, but in the back room of the bar we were in having a drink before Bart there was another act about to start. With just 6 minutes before the start of the show, the star was on the door and offered us 2 tickets for AUS20 (GBP10), rather than the face value of AUS18 each - as Nicola likes a bargain - we jumped at them. I can't remember his chirstian name, but his surname was 'Freak' and his show called 'The Freak Show'. We were not rolling in the aisles, but he was entertaining for the whole hour. The second, higher billed comedian, Bart Freebairn, who was in the the proper theatre actually had fewer people in the audience. Fortunately the room was suitably small, so the atmosphere was still pretty good. Bart is about our age and his material was about travelling the world looking for inspiration - which we thought was very apt - unforetunately his trip returned to Australia without any solid conclusion!

After Melbourne we headed north again, for Sydney, 900km away. We have settled in to a habit of driving for 300km per day and just finding something to do as close to that distance as possible. In between Melbourne and Sydney there seemed little that really grabbed our attention. Some of this lack of imagination was due to being very excited about getting to Sydney. On the way we stopped for a walk up to the top of Australia's tallest mountain - Mt Kosciuszko - at a mere 2228m it barely registers on the global scale. Unforetunately, this is another mountain to go on Nicola's list of failed ascents - no real reason for the failure, just we got 3/4 of the way up (1/2 on ski lift) and thought the view was not going to get any better and we quite liked the idea of getting down in to the valley for a spot of lunch.

Next stop was Canberra - the capital of Australia, a planned city, full of civil servants, that everyone has encouraged us to avoid. We ignored them, but only as it was the only suitable location around our 300km daily target and 309km from Syndey. Admittedly we put little effort in to squeezing out something of interest from Canberra, but our overall impression was that it was like Canary Wharf 10 years ago, but rather than having thrusting dynamic bankers there, you have 'relaxed' civil servants!!!! We took a picture of the main government building and left.

Next stop, sunny, sexy, sandy, sail (y) Sydney.

Gallery: Western Australia

heywoods1976 — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:33:00 GMT