it's a long way from whitley bay... Hi everyone and welcome to our journal where you can see and read what we've been up to and where we're going next. We hope you enjoy it, and would love you to keep in touch with your news, and send us your comments! Lots of love, Sarah and Phil x ;)

Final round up

UNITED KINGDOM | Tuesday, 2 September 2008 | Views [1138]

It's Whitley Bay!!

Well, we don't know if anyone's still reading this - seeing as we're back in the real world now! But seeing as we promised a final round up, and seeing as Sarah is now unemployed and needs diversions to keep her from Jeremy Kyle-induced madness... (did we say American TV was bad?!) here is a compilation of some of our favourite, and a few not-so-favourite (!)things from around the world that we wrote up on the plane home.

We hope you find them interesting, and maybe even find some inspiration in there! We also really hope you've enjoyed hearing about our travellers tales, traumas and general tittle tattle over the past ten months, and would like to thank everyone once again for reading, and especially for all of the messages we've received which kept us smiling, even when our chips (or, more typically, the Internet connection!) were down.

So, with lots of love, and wishing you many happy adventures of your own, it's bye bye from us (for now!)

Sarah and Phil x x

Phil’s answers	Sarah’s answers

Countries

#1 New Zealand	Joint #1 New Zealand / USA / Thailand / Japan
#2 Japan	Joint #1 New Zealand / USA / Thailand / Japan
#3 China	Joint #2 China, Laos

Cities

#1 St. Petersburg	#1 New York, New York!
#2 Luang Prabang, Laos - the whole city is UNESCO listed and we can see why	#2 Buenos Aires - shopping, tango and eating 'til the early hours - all at bargain prices - heaven!
#3 Buenos Aires / New York	#3 Sydney - it's pretty hard to beat this setting - just avoid the cockatoos!
and the booby prize goes to… Delhi / Moscow	and the booby prize goes to… Wuhan, China - they're throwing concrete around at scary rates here. Get some trees!

Sights

Joint #1 the Iguazu falls / all of New Zealand	Joint #1 Pushkar camel fair / the Iguazu falls
#2 the Grand Canyon	#2 Lake Tekapo, NZ - the most amazing blue I've ever seen, and incredibly silent
#3 the Atacama desert, around San Pedro	#3 monks collecting their alms at sunrise, Luang Prabang



Animals

#1 Cheeky thieving monkeys, Delhi	#1 Giant pandas, Chengdu
#2 Tahi the one-legged Kiwi, Wellington	#2 Koalas, Brisbane
#3 Pandas, Chengdu	#3 Sea Lions, NZ
and the booby prize goes to… pesky mosquitos, especially the one that bit Sarah on the eye

	birds

	#1 Tahi the one-legged Kiwi
	#2 Black cockatoo that liked talking to me, Australia
	#3 Yellow-eyed penguins

Meals

#1 Steak / Chicken / Chorizo brochettes, Santiago	#1 Doyles fish restaurant with Mum and Dad B, Sydney
#2 Steak, with red wine, Buenos Aires	#2 Camarou Muqueque, Salvador
#3 Mushroom curry, Delhi	#3 Churrascaria buffet with dancing, Foz de Iguacu
and the booby prize goes to… a pot of Pea Yoghurt, Beijing	and the booby prize goes to… chips with mash, Buenos Aires

Food discoveries

#1 Laos coffee	#1 chocolate brownies – a lifesaver in China, and a treat pretty much anywhere and everywhere!
#2 Bundabergs drinks, New Zealand	#2 Sticky rice – with anything – sushi in Japan, mangos in Thailand, hot curry in Laos…
#3 Beerlao	#3 Lao coffee
(aren’t these all drinks Phil? – Ed)	and the booby prize goes to… fried pork fat, Chengdu
and the booby prize goes to… live, shell-less turtles in Chinese supermarkets

Journeys

#1 Tubing, Vang Vieng	#1 Any of our long, lazy Southeast Asian boat adventures – down the Yangtze or Mekong rivers, or sailing around Halong Bay on a junk in Vietnam
#2 Elephant trekking, Chiang Mai	#2 Driving Route 66, USA
#3 Yangtze river cruise, China	#3 Tongariro crossing, NZ
and the booby prize goes to… sharing the Moscow – St. Petersburg sleeper train with a Class A psycho Uzbekistani	and the booby prize goes to… our mad dash to, and around, the train station, Mumbai

Sports events

#1 Thai Boxing	#1 Musical chairs at Pushkar
#2 Kabbadi, Pushkar	#2 Baseball, San Francisco
#3 Aussie rules, Melbourne	#3 Aussie rules, Melbourne
and the booby prize goes to… competitive car horn beeping in India	and the booby prize goes to… kayaking in Thailand – hopefully we’ll get our timing more together in time for the first dance at our wedding, otherwise there could well be early marital dischord, if not injuries!

Nights out

#1 Baked potato, baked beans and champagne in our camper van in NZ, after we got engaged	#1 San Pedro de Atacama – around the fire looking at the stars…
#2 Sydney Opera House	#2 Sydney Opera House
#3 Las Vegas	#3 Las Vegas / Shanghai acrobats
and the booby prize goes to… driving round LAX for two hours looking for a motel	and the booby prize goes to… the boneshaker Chinese night bus on which I got 1 hour sleep, during which my camera and i-pod were stolen L

Essential things to pack

#1 mosquito repellent	#1 books
#2 good books	#2 silk sleeping bag liner
#3 pants	#3 scrabble

Things we missed (other than friends and family, who of course were always number 1!)

#1 Sunday roasts	#1 Having a proper Sunday
#2 Breakfast on Stoke Newington Church St	#2 Cooking (NB: I might retract this at a later stage)
#3 Sky Sports	#3 My i-pod (see above!)
and the booby prize goes to… work!	and the booby prize goes to… cigarettes (very proud to be a non-smoker since Jan 1^st though!)

Books read

#1 Wild Swans, Jung Chang	#1 Zorro, Isabelle Allende
#2 The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bilgakov	#2 The Corrections, Jonathon Franzen
#3 The Damage Done, Warren Fellows	#3 The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson
and the booby prize goes to… How the Mind Works = How the Mind Hurts!	and the booby prize goes to… Touching the Void, Joe Simpson (just a bit on the scary side when about to go up a mountain!)

Cities to live in

#1 Auckland	#1 Auckland
#2 San Francisco	#2 Vancouver
#3 New York	#3 San Francisco
and the booby prize goes to… Mumbai - we'd last 5 minutes!

Hotels

#1 Ryokan Kangetsu, Tokyo	#1 NZ camper van
#2 Barra Guesthouse, Salvador	#2 Ryokan Kangetsu, Tokyo
#3 Hostel Tanguera, San Telmo, Buenos Aires	#3 Hostel Tanguera, San Telmo, Buenos Aires

Bargains

#1 £3 /night hotel, Khao San Road, Bangkok	#1 Parks – always a nice, free way to chill out in a city. And often come with ice creams, animals or some kind, audience participation opportunities…
#2 Argentina	#2 Buenos Aires (steak, wine, shoes the zoo, and underwear particularly!)
#3 20p Pad Thai, Bangkok	#3 Chanel eyeliner – one pencil got me all the way around the world without fading into the background in all our photos– thanks Orange folks!)
#4 1st class cabin, Yangtze cruise - well worth it to escape the kara-jokey	#4 free refills in the USA

Experiences

#1 Getting engaged!	#1 Tubing, Vang Vieng, Laos
#2 Walking (some of!) the Great Wall	#2 Elephant trek, Thailand
#3 Driving across the USA	#3 Sandboarding, Chile
	#4 Getting into the whole spa and massage thing – in Budapest, Japan and SE Asia...
and the booby prize goes to… being Mad Freddy’s assistants in Santiago. Still makes us blush!
Museums

#1 Hermitage, St. Petersburg	#1 Hermitage, St. Petersburg
#2 Te Pa Pa, Wellington	#2 MOMA, New York
#3 Hanoi ‘Hilton’	#3 Monterey Bay Aquarium, California
	#4 Pre-Columbian Art, Santiago
	#5 Lincoln Experience, Illinois

We have loads more recommendations too, and copious notes that it would be lovely to think were worth taking -so if anyone is interested, ever, just ask!