Seiler World Tour

The Land of Opportunity

seilerworldtour — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 02:16:00 GMT

The American leg of our adventure, whilst on paper was the least exotic part of our travels, actually constituted our longest stay in any one continent and consequently a lot happened. Whilst not all of it may be of interest to you there may be bits and pieces you might like to fast-forward to, so we have arranged this part of our blog into sections. They are:

Los Angeles

San Francisco

New York

Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village

Election Night

Parent's Visits - Thanksgiving and Woody Allen

Christmas Day / Hanukkah

New Year’s Day

Home

Los Angeles

Despite leaving the sun kissed Cook Islands for autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, we were pleasantly surprised to find the sun was still burning brightly in LA on our arrival on October 12^th.

No sooner had we exited the airport but we were exposed to our first blast of American hospitality as a young guy called David offered to share a cab with us. He was a music producer, in town to strike a big deal with a major label for his band. We never found out the band's name or whether they "cut the deal" but his enthusiasm and helpful tips about life in the States helped put us in the right frame of mind for two and half months living Stateside.

As far as accommodation in LA was concerned it was somewhat a case of sticking a pin in the map of city and hoping for the best. We ended up in a hostel called Orbitz which sold itself as a funky boutique hostel with art nouveau upholstery and decor but was in fact a slightly over-priced dump with a room that came complete with a faintly rancid stench. Despite this it became our base for the next 3 days. We spent this period of time doing exactly what LA is not designed for and that is walking. Basically if you walk in LA you are regarded with suspicion. Nobody in their right mind would ever use their feet when you could burn some fossil fuel instead. Despite this we managed to visit the outside of Paramount Studios, the shops of Melrose Avenue, Hollywood Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard and all the tourist hotspots of this area of LA.

On our second night there we met up with an old family friend of Bobby's called Ben Carver who is a Hollywood producer. He's produced films like the kid's movie "Bratz", a computer game adaptation called "Tekken" and is working on the forth-coming Richard Branson biopic "Losing My Virginity". Ben kindly picked us up from our hostel and whisked us off to the legendary Chateau Marmont Hotel for a glass of red wine. The hotel is part of historic Hollywood as it is the place where everyone from James Dean to Britney Spears has checked in whilst actor John Belushi liked it so much he decided to check out there permanently when he died of a massive drugs overdose in 1982. From there we went to a restaurant called "Kate Matalini" which was used in the movie Heat as the diner where Robert De Niro and Al Pacino share the screen for the first time. After dinner Ben took us on a whistle stop tour of the Hollywood Hills showing us some of the incredible homes owned by the rich and famous whilst also surveying the view across the valley where the raging forest fires glowed like molten lava flows in the distance. It was an amazing 4 hours and a real window into the world of La-La land.

San Francisco

After another day eating up the pavement around our hostel, we made our way back out to LAX Airport and picked up a hire car in order to drive to San Francisco. As we passed Venice Beach we took a few minutes to walk on the sand that inspired Baywatch but were a little surprised to find that rather than being populated with bronzed beauties the only people present appeared to be of the beached whale variety. We headed on up the coast road in a bid to make it to Monterey, a pretty coastal town two hours outside of San Francisco, before nightfall. After a promising start viewing beautiful coastal road on the Pacific Highway and listening to the final Presidential debate on the radio, we took a wrong turning somewhere and lost the coastline and eventually winding up in a one horse town. There we got chatting to a guy riding his Harley back up to Oregon and he gave us a good taste of why Americans love "Easy Riding" on the back of a "hog". Eventually after travelling through the dusk of a Californian autumn evening we finally made it to Monterey at about 10pm tired and hungry. After checking out several motels we eventually settled on a gorgeous little place for $50 that came complete with a fireplace and a grumpy old codger on the front desk. After dinner in a diner populated by a weird hippy dressed head to toe in Thai-dye and a couple of boorish racists we settled in for the night before heading on to San Francisco the next morning.

Our first hostel in San Francisco was a real spit 'n' sawdust affair full of transient Europeans constantly making toast in the rec room. It was however a central location and a perfect place for us to make our first exploration of San Fran - still one of the most elegant and liveable cities in the States. Over the course of the next three days, we once again let the feet hit the street and walked ever peak and trough of this amazingly hilly city. Amongst the great views and sights we saw included the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, the Pink Ladies and Haight Ashbury. After three days in the city we hopped on the BART (Bay Area Transit System) and made our way over to the attractive neighbouring city of Berkeley - home to Bobby's parent's friends Pate and Judy Thomson. After the dismal hostels we'd stayed in, we lapped up to the elegant charm of their French Farmhouse-style home that came complete with panoramic views of the Golden Gate Bridge. There, we were fed and watered to our hearts content by Mr and Mrs Thomson and discussed the forth-coming election with two of the loveliest Americans you are likely to meet. The next day we toured round Berkeley enjoying the vibe of the University Campus and lazing on the lawns in the warm sunshine. Pate and Judy's incredible generosity extended to giving us a lift at 4.30 in the morning the next day to catch our flight to New York - our home for the next 2 months.

New York

You can spot a tourist in New York a mile off - they’re the ones who walk around looking up. It's not really surprising because unless you've spent your working life amongst the canyons of skyscrapers then it’s hard not to be constantly amazed by their monolithic presence. Everything ever written about them is true, whilst they are both incredible symbols of machismo and arrogance they are genuinely awe-inspiring and beautiful at the same time and even though Kate spent nearly three months working amongst them on 57th Avenue, 2 blocks south of Central Park, we never really got over being tourists in New York. Our orientation to the city was aided by one friendly local who stopped us, thrust a map in our hands and commented in a strong New York accent that Manhattan was “shaped like a water melon and no matter which you go, you gonna hit water.” Whilst being obviously true his mantra stays with us today.

Home for us however, was another no-less-colourful corner of the five boroughs that make up New York City. The full list is Manhattan, Staten Island, The Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. We made our home in the latter in an area called Park Slope. Park Slope is nicknamed Pram Slopes as it is awash with yummy mummies jostling with their MacLaren pushchairs and talking about how little Cassidy or Liberty is on a new mung bean rusk diet. Despite this, it really is a pretty area with tree-lined streets set amongst the "brownstones" that lie in a grid pattern round the splendour of the massive Prospect Park - designed by Robert Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux who also created Central Park. Despite the pretty environs, our apartment turned out to be “the flat of death”. Having arranged our accommodation in a stress from the Cook Islands we had taken a bit of a gamble on our selection and whilst our landlady had been honest about it lacking a lot of natural light and being “utilitarian”, when we arrived we were more worried about the vague honk of eggy gas from the wonky stove and the equally putrid smell from the alleyway next to us. It didn’t help that a large doe-eyed Alsatian dog called 'Legend' spent his days pacing around forlornly and excreting at regular intervals. None-the-less, it had a large lounge/kitchen with a day bed, constant hot water and a nice bedroom complete with a computer and internet access and for the last couple of months it has been our happy NYC home. What added to the experience of living in Park Slope was the proximity of three of Bobby's old BBC contacts. Andrew Purcell is a correspondent who provides a lot of content from New York for Bobby's programmes back in London and he was largely instrumental in encouraging us to come to Brooklyn. As it is, we ended up moving in to a place literally two blocks from the house he shares with his pregnant Brazilian wife Yula. Five minutes in the other direction was our friend Dan, who used to work for the BBC radio station 6 Music in London and is currently studying audio design in New York and lives with his movie producing fiancée Annie. They kindly took us under their wing and invited us to this party or that party and helped introduce us to many of the people we now count as friends. Our final BBC buddy was Bobby's old boss Louise Swan who works for the great American philanthropist George Soros as a lobbyist. She was always there for us throughout our trip to offer wise words of advice on our impending return to the UK and our plans for the bigger future ahead of us whilst also treating us to all the tea, coffee and muffins we could consume. These three people are largely responsible for making sure that our New York experience was as memorable as it was.

We arrived on the 21st October and Kate began her internship at the PR firm Ruder Finn (no relation to Bobby Finn) on Monday the 27th October, so after some cursory acclimatizing, we soon developed a routine. Kate would take the 45 min subway journey on the F train into work every morning from Monday to Thursday having Friday off to explore the city and have quality time with Mr. S. As well as working on accounts for the New York City Opera, Guggenheim and MoMA, Kate was assigned a crucial role on a new exhibition at the Onassis Cultural Center - the Greek contribution to cultural life in Manhattan. The exhibition was called “Worshipping Women” and brought together classic pieces of art and sculpture from ancient Greece that cast new light on the role that women played in Greek society. Her working days included liaising with magazines, newspapers and TV stations like the New Yorker, The New York Times and CBS as well as attending client meetings when she got to meet the Greek Ambassador at the Onassis center. The press launch opened to much fanfare and after stresses regarding invite lists and errant attendees, the event was deemed a massive success garnering high profile coverage both nationally and internationally as well as getting Kate one of the most over-enthusiastic reference letter she's ever received!

Whilst Kate was hard at the grind-stone downtown, Bobby played house back in Park Slope spending most of his days either trawling the 99 cents shops for cheap toasters and TV cables or doing the weekly shop at a variety of low-cost supermarkets dotted around 5th and 7th Avenue. In between the domestic bliss there was the serious business of writing the odd novel or four. There was the one about 5 misfits who went on the trek from hell in northern Thailand, there was the one about the misguided youth struggling to make sense of life in modern day London, the one about a young boy called Manh growing up in countryside in Laos and "The Ballad of Coop Raglin", the story of an aging guitarist for the likes of Van Morrison and Neil Young with a penchant for detective work - a cross between the Big Lebowski and the Rockford Files. Whilst they vary wildly in subject matter they are united in the fact they will probably never be published despite the pleasure they brought their author.

Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village

The two and a half months in New York can be largely divided into a number of major cultural events in the city's life, the first of which was the Greenwich Village Parade. There's nothing American's love more than dressing up and putting on a parade and the Halloween Parade through Greenwich Village is the most outlandish and bewildering example of this. From Elvis to Wonder Woman to more traditional ghoulish fair everybody goes way over the top and the whole occasion is utterly spectacular. Unfortunately due to our budget, our costumes were restricted to Kate dressing up in cat ears, whilst Bobby donned his Indiana Jones hat procured free from a TV show in LA and donned a power cable bull whip to go as the great archaeologist himself. As luck would have it, one of Kate's old friend's from University Nonnie had noticed that Kate was in New York from her Facebook profile and had got in touch to say she was over in NYC with her husband Mark and a few friends, so we all met up and enjoyed the carnival atmosphere together. They were a bit more experienced at the Halloween parade lark and had gone to town as Batman villains such as The joker, Two-face, Poison and the like. They looked amazing each and everyone and certainly helped us blend in with the rest of the weird and wonderful characters on show. They even treated us to dinner at one of New York's oldest and most famous pizza establishments "John's Pizzeria" on Bleeker Street in the West Village where the pizza pie was as good as mama would have expected. We ended up having a great night which was topped off by heading home to a party at our friend Dan's house in Park Slope.

Election Night

Dan was again our party planner for one of the greatest nights of our trip and one of the most historic nights in American history. We had been following the election closely on our arrival in the States and as most of the people we had met had been strong Obama-believers we were convinced that America would vote in the first African-American president in their history. We were not wrong and when we went down to Times Square in the early part of the evening we can be glad to say we were part of the carnival atmosphere that greeted every state that Obama won on his march to victory. We then met up with Dan and Annie for dinner in a bar on the Lower East Side where we heard the election result called and the victory and concessionary speeches broadcast and then we proceeded to Union Square amidst crowds of people of all races and descriptions hooting and hollering whilst massive trucks sounded their horns in a clarion call. The sense of jubilation and re-affirmation of the American promise was palpable and even us cynical Brits couldn't help but feel proud of America and the fulfillment in some way of what the country stands for. As one reveller said "After 8 terrible years of Bush, I think we got our Mojo back". It was a night we won't ever forget and we privileged to have been there.

Parent's Visits - Thanksgiving and Woody Allen

After a month of New York life we were gifted with subsequent visits from our parents. Bobby's parents arrived first at the end of November in time for another American institution - Thanksgiving. We had managed to find them a nice one bedroom apartment at a reasonable price overlooking Grand Army Plaza which stands at the head of Prospect Park, literally fifteen minutes walk from our apartment. In return they had brought a haggis, some turnips and a Christmas pudding in order to celebrate both Thanksgiving and St Andrew's Day on the 30th November. Thanksgiving falls on the final Thursday of every November and is four days of celebrating what is good in life with your family. We fulfilled this remit by spending a few hours in town watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade which consists of numerous massive floats with large inflatables of anything from Shrek to Kermit The Frog paraded through the centre of Manhattan and then returning to Park Slope for a turkey dinner. Also during their stay in NYC, Bobby's parents treated us to a trip to the Carnegie hall to hear the New York Youth orchestra play, a "snack" at the Carnegie Deli which involved a mound of corn beef between two slices of rye bread and a cheese cake that was a heart attack with a strawberry topping, we watched a stage production of Catch 22 in a theatre off-Broadway in Greenwich Village which was largely impenetrable but did feature 5 minutes of full frontal male nudity and a St Andrew's night which was almost completely ignored by the good citizens of New York but was celebrated with whisky, haggis and bagpipes courtesy of Bobby's dad!

Kate's mum landed a couple of weeks later and bravely accepted the day bed in our front room with all the attendant smells and lack of light. It was great to see her and suitably emotional for Kate as she had missed her family a lot in the previous five months. Parents visits were a great way for us to get out and see the city and we certainly took full advantage whilst Kate’s mum was in town with visits to the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum, a carol concert at St Patrick's Cathedral, a trip to the top of the Empire State building, caught the ferry to Staten island with great views of the statue of Liberty and on her final night we went see Woody Allen play Jazz at the Carlyle Hotel. This was a special treat for Bobby and something of a lifetime's ambition. Woody used to play clarinet with a New Orleans Jazz band in a place called Michael's Pub but lately he has had a residency every Monday night with the Eddy Davis Jazz band at a very swanky hotel called The Carlyle. As a special treat Bobby's mum and dad gifted us tickets to see the show, and as Kate's mum was in town she also came along. So, dressing up in the smartest togs we had in our global travel bag we swanned down to see one of New York's most famous sons in his element. He did not disappoint despite being not the most proficient clarinetist in the world and it's something none of us will ever forget.

Christmas Day / Hanukkah

Considering the multi-cultural make-up of New York it's not surprising that there is a great deal of sensitivity to everyone's cultural background in the city and this couldn't be truer than around Christmas time. Obviously not everyone regards themselves as belonging to the traditions of a Christian society so round the end of December it is simply The Holiday Season rather than anything more specific. Obviously there's plenty of carol concerts on and we made sure we had our fill of The First Noël and O Come All Ye Faithful but Christmas Day was more of a non-specific celebration day with a rolling lunch/dinner occasion round at Dan and Annie's. Among the guests were D & A's Iranian friend Fereste, Annie's brother Sollie, a young Vietnamese guy confusingly called Thai and a guy from Haiti called Pierre. The food served was Asian, the entertainment was watching Mickey Rourke’s latest film The Wrestler on DVD and the evening was topped off with a Jewish prayer and the lighting of a Hanukkah candle – all definitely a bit different from our standard Christmas back home but none-the-less a refreshing change from the norm and a whole lot of fun to boot!

New Year’s Day

Once again Dan and Annie came up trumps with a plan for New Year and saved us from the grim reality of Times Square on the 1^st December. Whilst we thought it would be a hoot to stand around amongst the revelers and see the famous ball drop at midnight we were warned that it would involve queuing from about 4pm in the afternoon, with nowhere to sit down, freezing conditions and the chance that you would get stuck next to some nightmare mid-Western housewife who can’t stop screaming in your ear. In addition to this there is also a suitable fear that if you suffer a call of nature at any point you will lose your hot spot in the crowd and may not even be admitted back in to the festive zone when you return. With this in mind, the invite to a house party in Sunset park – a couple of stops down the subway from us in park Slope – seemed more than appealing despite the fact that we had never actually met the hosts and our link to the party was tenuous to say the least. Annie’s brother had been invited to the party and was encouraged to bring friends so D & A dutifully accepted this as an open invite and we somehow managed to Tag along. As it was Annie’s brother Sollie didn’t even turn up so we were left to play the role of novelty Brits with those weird accents.

The night turned out to be a fantastic way to see in the New Year with loads of posh food and Manhattan cocktails on tap and the evening finished up with a sing-song round the piano as various talented guests performed renditions of the old American standards, a young up-and-coming singer/songwriter performing her own material and a sister duo who stunned us with a powerful collection of Georgian choral tunes. While Kate kept a low profile, Bobby helped out on a version of Waltzing Matilda made famous by the American singer Tom Waits. We eventually collapsed into bed at about 4am drunk on a memorable New York New Year.

Home

As the period spent in the States actually took up nearly half of our complete trip, it’s impossible to mention everything that happened to us – good and bad. If however, you’ve still got a stomach for more of our tales and would like to hear about Bobby’s unfortunate brush with the American Healthcare system please visit www.Bobbyshealth.com/facialscars whilst our encounter with four burly fireman crashing into our apartment at 6am one Sunday morning can be found at www.CarbonMonoxidePoisoning.com/deathflat

As it is, we are now back in the UK in a chilly flat with roughly thirty unpacked bin bags around us and already looking back on a our trip with dewy eyes. Ten countries, twelve flights, one hundred and ninety-three anti-malarial tablets and even more fantastic memories – it’s genuinely been the trip of our lifetimes and something we will never forget. With this in mind we want to thank you all once again if you contributed to our travels as without you we could never have done it.

We hope that you’ve enjoyed occasionally browsing through our musings and we want to with you a happy 2009 – although for us it’s going to have to go some to beat 2008!

Gallery: USA

seilerworldtour — Mon, 5 Jan 2009 11:27:00 GMT

A Life on Four Wheels in NZ

seilerworldtour — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:49:00 GMT

South Island

Stepping off the plane at Christchurch airport the first thing you can't help noticing after a month and a half of rice and sunshine in Asia, is the similarities with back home. The weather was grey and overcast, the people were speaking English and were on the whole a bit pasty and everywhere you went the roads had names such as Chancery Lane and Dickens Street. However, it didn't take long to discover that New Zealand is very much its own country.

After picking up our 6.6 metre monster campervan - which we christened the Bohemoth - we spent a day or two in Christchurch getting our heads adjusted to New Zealand. Christchurch is the biggest city on the South Island of New Zealand and is very Anglican in it's influence - lots of boating on the river and pretty parks. We spent a day checking out the cool Christchurch Art Gallery and picking up a couple of huge woolly jumpers from a Nepalese gentleman at a market in the town square (which we later dubbed our "bear suits"). But with two islands to survey, 4 family members to visit, roughly a thousand km to cover and numerous spectacular examples of untold beauty ahead we were soon off heading south towards Dunedin. To get there we began by taking a detour to a pretty little seaside village called Akaroa which lay east of Christchurch and gave us our first exposure to one of the most familiar sights of NZ.

Sheep, sheep, a few more sheep and then some sheep followed by pockets of sheep intermingled with sightings of sheep. Amongst the sheep were scattered some of the prettiest green, rolling hills and flat reed-filled plains we had ever seen and we were both struck by how similar it all looked to the Highlands of Scotland - except without the sheeting rain and screaming Glaswegians. In fact large parts of New Zealand felt like we'd dropped through a portal and landed in some undiscovered corner of Caledonia - although admittedly about 10 times bigger.

When we finally got to Akaroa we were immediately struck by how quiet everything was. It was 6pm and nothing was open bar the chip shop, but after a month of rice and vegeatables and faced with saturated fat and fried fish we weren't about to complain and were soon stuffing our fat little faces with greasy fish suppers before heading to our campsite overlooking the bay. We arose to the beautiful vista of black blue water and village life below us and proceeded to entertain ourselves for a couple of hours. Akaroa has a Gallic feel to it as it was one of the first places the early French discoverers decided to settle and it still retains much of the French influence in its shuttered windows and Rues.

By lunchtime we had hit the road again and were southbound for Dunedin with a stop-over in Timaru. Timaru amused us not only for the fact that the only restaurant open appeared to be a Thai restaurant called Sukhothai (one of our previous destinations) and the fact that the town was populated almost exclusively by boy racers driving the same 100 metres over and over again in an attempt to impress the same 5 girls.

By evening the following day we were in Dunedin for a visit with Bobby's cousin Mele, her husband Ali and their two girls Mia and Helen. Dunedin itself is real blast of Scotland in New Zealand. Its name is derived from the old name for Edinburgh and there's a statue of Robbie Burns in the town centre, plus all the street names are Scottish. The city is situated by the sea and has one of the best Universities in New Zealand and consequently the large student population gives it a real buzz. As well as messing around in the brilliant Museum of Otago in Dunedin, we were truly spoilt by Mele and Ali and, as a musically-gifted family, were even treated to a full family band rendition of Jailhouse Rock (with Mia on bass and Helen on vocals). However, time was our worst enemy in New Zealand and we were soon heading West to one of NZ's most magnificent attractions, Milford Sound.

Milford Sound is a collection of high valleyed fjords that lie shrouded in mist and cloud for most of the year. Many people do a 3 day trek on foot to Milford Sound, camping in huts and walking the wilderness but we took the quicker but no less magical route of driving up the windy road by van. Despite the fact that the cloud hung low over the land when we made our assault, Milford's charms soon revealed themselves. The journey takes you through huge black walls of rock that rise up out of the ground and then disappear into the mist. Just when you're sure you've identified the summit of the mountainside the mist clears and you realise there is no end to the size of these cliffs. They are both awe-inspring and a little scary. The sense of claustrophobia is increased when you head through a mountain tunnel for what seems like a ten minute drive into the centre of the earth. Eventually as you emerge the other end of the tunnel you descend into a massive valley where the sense of euphoria is undeniable. At the end of the road mountains and lakes stretch out before you and we spent a good couple of hours just punching the air and marvelling at nature. After numerous photographs and a full-on sand fly attack, we reluctantly headed back through the mountain ready for another long day in the car the following morning.

Our next scheduled destination was Kaikoura in the north-west of the South Island and one of the best places in the world for whale-watching. On the way we passed through Queenstown - the home of all adrenaline fueled action such as bungy jumping, parachuting, speedboating and many other forms of simulated-suicide - all of which we completely managed to avoid. Further on down the road we passed by Mount Cook, the largest peak in New Zealand, and marvelled at the turquoise blue lakes that gathered at its foot.

By the time we had arrived in Kaikoura, the weather had taken a turn for the worse and we were confined to the land, left only to imagine what a magical show of nature these huge sperm whales were performing out in the ocean. Luckily we filled in our time by visiting our first New Zealand winery and sampling some of the emerging and celebrated wines of the the Marlborough region - Kate getting gently sozzled on the free samples of lightly oaked Chardonnay!

Our journey north took us through further wine growing country until we reached Nelson, an attractive town on the north coast of the South Island and was a good starting point for a visit the Nelson Lakes National Park where we completed a 5 hour hike up the appropriately named Mount Robert. Unfortunately our camera's battery failed on us so you'll just have to believe us when we say it was one of the most beautiful vistas we've ever seen complete with 360 degree views of snow-covered mountains and a hang glider rising and falling no more than a hundred feet beside us.

Back on the treadmill we motored up to the northwestern town of Motueka - the launchpad for the Abel Tasman National Park. This park differed from others in the South Island as rather than a collection of skyscraping mountain peaks, it is a strip of coastline that the Kiwis cleverly realised was too beautiful to be developed and needed to be preserved just as it is. Crystal blue waters lap against golden beaches and jungle forest rises up through beautiful granite cliffs providing a day of blissful walking. This was to be our last stop in the South Island and we were soon hopping on a ferry for the three hour crossing to Wellington - the nation's capital and home to Kiwi cool.

North Island

We'd heard a lot about the charms of Wellington before we landed on the 20th September but they weren't immediately apparent as the whole place was shrouded in thick mist. However, it only took a couple of days for us to start the now familiar topic of conversation "so, could we live here?" We're sure it's a question that affects a lot of travellers to this amazing country. Our first day in the capital was spent in the Te Papa museum - New Zealand's National Museum. In fact we spent nearly 5 hours there and it was worth every second as it was here that we were introduced to the geography of the country, the history of Maori culture in NZ, the influence of other Pacific Islanders on the country as well as a special exhibition all about the Scots in NZ. The second day involved travelling by cable car up to the Botanic Gardens and then onto the fashionable Cuba Street for a meal and a quick drink in a bar called Matterhorn - consistently voted NZ's coolest nightspot. This was of extra interest as another of Bobby's cousins, Mia is engaged to the owner of the place Sam Chapman and they have just become parents - more about Sam and Mia later!

Time again was urging us to move on but we had one last port of call to make in Wellington - the emergency room at the hospital! After suffering in relative silence for a week Bobby accepted that what appeared to be an insect bite on his leg was not healing and was beginning to cause him some considerable pain. Kate in her eternal patience and wisdom encouraged him to give up playing the tough guy and get someone to take a look at it. This involved 3 hours on a Friday night in A&E waiting for a Doctor to finally see him. When she did, she then proceeded to attack the pustule with her fingers, squeezing out about a pint of puss before prescribing him a 7 day dose of antibiotics. The offending insect of this bite is still a bit a mystery to this day but Bobby would like the legend to be written that he was bitten by the deadly white backed spider whilst rescuing Kate from a burning building. In truth he was probably bitten by a sandfly at a seal colony which, whilst not as sexy, is still just as painful.

Anyway, patched up and ready to go we hit the road again travelling to a small town on the quiet but beautiful beach of Waitarere - the home of Bobby's Auntie Bridget. A beautiful strip of wide beach leads up to sand dunes where a fine array of modern NZ beach houses lie. Auntie Bridget's house was one of the finest and had only been completed a few years ago. A masterpiece of modern architectural design, it was all guided by Auntie B's fair design! It was great fun spending the night in a proper house after endless nights bunched up in the back of the bus and we were treated to a genuine feast of food and wine.

No sooner had we arrived though than we were off the next day to the Art Deco majesty of the town of Napier which lies on the East Coast of the North Island. It was destroyed in an Earthquake in 1931 and the town fathers decided to build it in the fashionable style of the day - the French inspired Art Deco movement. Luckily they made a good job of it and Napier is one of the best looking cities in NZ - a real treasure with a fantastic headland that rises up and looks down over a bay full of sailing boats. We spent 2 day here just mooching around and catching our first Kiwi film - a movie called Apron Strings about two New Zealand families one white, one Indian - and thoroughly enjoyed it.

From Napier, we cut back to the centre of the North Island to Tongariro National Park - a collection of three mighty volcanoes and perfect walking country. After driving round the beautiful Lake Taupo, we attempted to walk to the first of two glacial lakes at the foot of Mount Ngauruhoe. Lord of the Rings fans will know Mount Ngauruhoe as Mount Doom which had a starring role in the Return of the King film and it is as perfect a volcano as you could hope to see. Luckily we got a beautiful day for it and enjoying the five hour trek to the cold blue waters of the lake.

From Tongariro we head north to Rotorua, the home of New Zealand's geothermal activity. Even our campsite was based in a geothermal area complete with natural hot baths and it proved a perfect way to relax after a day at the wheel of the Bohemoth. The following morning we were up early to take a trek around one of the main geothermal areas complete with bubbling mud, multi-coloured pools, sulphuric waterfalls and even a mini geyser that went off dead-on 10.15 in the morning. This was to be the last of our time in the van and so we raced north to Auckland to hand back the Bohemoth to our hire company before heading on to meet up with Bobby's cousin Sifa who lives in the north bay area of New Zealand's biggest city. After a lovely meal with Sifa's wife Rachel, their son Ben, and cousin Mia and her boyfriend Sam, we headed out of Auckland to a town called Thames to pick up a couple of mountain bikes with which to take 6 days cycling around the Coromandel Peninsula - a gorgeous area of hills and beaches that sits in the north-east of the North Island.

Whilst the intention to cycle was pure, the reality soon kicked in that mountain bikes loaded with heavy paniers were no match for the steep inclines of Coromandel and we down-scaled our expectations. We were also aided by various offers of lifts. That said, after being dropped off by our hire company 15 kms from the small town of Tairua on the Eastern coast of Coromandel we made the journey through stunnine scenery in 2 hours.

Our home for the night was a guest house called the Blue Water Motel which was owned by a lovely couple from the UK called Paul and Natasha. After hearing of our imminent schedule, Paul suggested that we'd never achieve what we wanted to do in the time alloted and amazingly offered to lend us his car so we could jet around and see some of the main sights in the north of Coromandel in return for staying a second night. We gladly accepted but said we had to spend one night down south in the coastal town of Whangamata - home to Bobby's brother-in-law peter's parents - are you still with us?

We set off the next day on a monster 6 hour bike ride which involved at times impossible hill climbs, long stretches of free-wheeling and an obstacle course avoiding the logging machinery scattered amongst the hills. However, stoic as ever, we never got off the bikes no matter how slowly we went.

Whangamata is a small town located 45 kms south of Tairua and home to Pam and Bill Luff - the parents of Bobby's brother-in-law Peter. On arrival late in the afternoon we were received with open arms and spent a lovely evening enjoying a Thai meal at the local Fishing Club. The next morning we were treated to a tour of the gorgeous Whangamata Beach and the various properties owned by Pam and Bill. They even gave us a lift with our bikes back along the road so we had a head start getting back to Tairua.

After another 3 hour stretch on the bikes we arrived back at the Blue Water Hotel in the early afternoon where we picked up the owner Paul's car and headed up the beautiful coast to the spectacular Cathedral Cove and then on to the Hot Water Beach - a bizarre natural phenomenon where geothermal activity just below the surface of the Beach means that after digging a shallow hole one can bath in seriously hot water. Bobby, ever the opportunist, dived in whilst Kate was happy to carry the camera on this occasion. The following day it was time to return to Thames and hand the bikes back but not before another epic 53km cycle ride over mountains that almost beat us but not quite. We celebrated in the evening with a visit to the Empire cinema in Thames to watch "Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day".

The next morning we were off for our last day in NZ enjoying the hospitality of Bobby's cousin Mia and her partner Sam. Once again the welcome we have received by all Bobby's contacts and relatives has been above and beyond the call of duty and no more than Mia and Sam, especially considering Mia was heavily pregnant at the time. After a lovely walk down by one of Auckland's many coastlines a cozy evening was spent eating a superbly cooked meal by Sam and getting educated in New Zealand's recent musical history. After a restful night we awoke early for our departure to the Cook Islands in the middle of the Pacific - a week long stop-over in paradise before heading on to LA.

Saying goodbye to Mia at Auckland airport was emotional in that it was sad to believe our time in New Zealand was over and that it may be some time before we return, however after sampling the glory of New Zealand once, the desire to go back is overwhelming and we felt pretty sure that this would not be our last visit to these incredible islands.

Gallery: New Zealand

seilerworldtour — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:48:00 GMT

Wat's Happening in Cambodia?

seilerworldtour — Sat, 8 Nov 2008 14:31:00 GMT

As the American band The Ded Kennedy's once sung "A holiday in Cambodia" is to some extent ironic as the country is infamous throughout the world for possibily the ugliest example of man's inhumanity to man - the actions of the Khymer Rouge. Luckily it also plays host to the awe-inspiring collection of temples in Angkor. As it is, we got a taste of both in our short stay here.

With not much time on our hands to get around the country, we were limited to an overnight stay in the the steaming metropolis of Phnom Penh before our assault on Angkor. With only a morning in which ''to do" Phnom Penh we decided to gen up on local history with a visit to the most fun-free tourist attraction in the world, the 'Tuol Sleng' Museum. Our trip there started off with a scrumptious breakfast at a cafe opposite. The leafy tranquility and bubbling water features of the Bodhi Tree Cafe coupled with the air of Buddhist calm was ironically juxtaposed to the horrors and attrocities that lay in the museum across the road. 'Tuol Sleng' had once been a high school until 1975 when it was turned into a Security Prison (otherwise know as S21) under Pol Pot's communist Khymer Rouge regime. It became the largest centre of detention and torture in Cambodia where thousands of innocent Cambodians were incarcerated before being sent to the 'Killing Fields' nearby. The museum clearly didn't censor history. The rooms of the prison exhibited rusty iron beds where helpless victims had been electrocuted. Blood stains could still be seen on the tiled floors and graphic black and white photos adorned the walls depicting the horrors that had happened there. Elsewhere there were heart-breaking mug shots of the detainees including those of children, whilst in another room were remnants of victim's bones and skulls. The extent of the Khymer Rouge's unbelievable inhumanity was exemplified by what they deemed offensive and illegal to their communist cause e.g. any form of intellectual pursuit or education was strictly prohibited to the extent that the wearing of spectacles and reading of books were enough to have you thrown in Tuol Sleng - even falling in love was deemed undesirable. The visit was far from a barrel of laughs but a genuinely important experience which was as much educational as it was heart-breaking. Feeling suitably depressed from our new education, we continued our journey by catching a six hour bus to Siem Riep - home to Angkor Wat.

To say that Cambodian roads were 'a bit basic' would be an understatement. Our journey to the town of Siem Riep was along what our guide book aptly described as, a 'joker of a road' through the classic country scenery of vibrant, green paddy fields and grazing water buffalo. The entire journey involved rattling along a bumpy, dusty track which felt rather like sitting on a washing machine for six hours. The experience was complimented with some bizarre in-bus TV entertainment in the form of two Chaplinesque comedians with stick-on moustaches stealing people's possessions. It appeared you had to be Cambodian to get it although we now realise why Mr Bean was such a world-wide phenomenon.

On arrival in Siem Riep we got bedded in to a faceless, monolithic hotel that had more than a touch of "The Shining" about it. The town of Siem Riep itself is a large sprawling city with a very pretty riverside district full of bars and restaurants and a bustling night-scene. Elsewhere (where our hotel was) was just a souless base for travellers to the region of Angkor. The site of Angkor itself contains about a thousand temples and is home to Angkor Wat - the single largest religious building on the planet. Whilst we never had any intention of seeing all the temples in one day, we did attempt to see as many as we could in an 8 hour period. The best way to do this was to hire a tuk-tuk driver by the name of 'Mr T', who proved to be reliable if just a little bored by the experience.

Out of the many temples, the highlights for us were 'Bayon' with it's multitude of serene and massive stone faces, Angkor Wat itself - huge and sprawling - and of course Ta Prohm, famously known to film fans as one of the locations in the Tomb Raider movie. Broken beyond repair, the temple is the perfect example of how nature has consumed many of these sites over time and reclaimed the land. Huge silk cotton tree roots have engulfed the stonework, cracking and swallowing up much of the original structure. A great deal of fun and hilarity was had by Mr and Mrs S posing either as Angelina Jolie or Indiana Jones (see photos attached).

Although we could have spent many more days exploring the numerous temples at Angkor, our final Asian destination beckoned - the beautiful island of Koh Chang on the south western coast of Thailand. The journey to the Thai-Cambodian border, involving yet another tumble-dried bus ride through torrential rain was interrupted midway when we came face to face with a swollen river and a broken bridge. A backlog of cars slowly stacked up behind us and we were promptly told to disembark the bus causing Mrs S to cry apprehensively "Do we have to cross that bare foot!' whilst Mr S, ever the reporter, took out his camera and filmed the whole thing. Passengers and drivers gathered together to assess their chances of crossing the river whilst villagers came to see the commotion and a monk looked on smoking a fag. As the day darkened and fork lighting struck in the distance, our hopes of getting to the border in time were diminishing fast but displaying Cambodian fortitude, our impatient bus driver took the direct route and with his foot on the gas drove through the raging torrent risking his engines and our luggage. Luckily the gamble paid off but unfortunately we didn't make the border before nightfall and so spent an hour tramping around in the mud - the only tourists in the village!! Finally we located a hotel in which we were the sole guests and in the morning caught a taxi to the border of Thailand. To get to Koh Chang however took another taxi, a tuk-tuk, a public bus and then a ferry ride before finally arriving at our hotel in the middle of the afternoon. We spent the remaining days lazing on the beach and buzzing around the island on scooters before heading back to Bangkok to stay with our friend Jack for a restful couple of days. So our Asian adventure was over after a month and a half of constant travelling - it was time to put away the shorts and t-shirts, get the waterproofs out and look forward to a month of living in a van as we headed off to New Zealand.

For video footage of the epic river crossing, click on the link below! Just remember to click 'back' on your tool bar if you want to come back to the blog. Kate & Bobby

http://www.youtube.com/v/D1keo9v5AE4

Gallery: Cambodia

seilerworldtour — Sun, 5 Oct 2008 11:01:00 GMT

Halong Bay from home in Vietnam

seilerworldtour — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:31:00 GMT

If Laos had been a gentle walk in the park, then arriving in Vietnam felt like a shot of espresso to the heart.

The pace of life was immediately evident on our first night in the capital Hanoi. Everywhere we looked there was a blizzard of human life - locals dining on the pavements on small plastic chairs, shop vendors selling everything from shoes to shark's fins and any remaining space taken up by speeding scooters and cyclos (cycle-driven rickshaws). Negotiating this sea of humanity entailed a certain degree of skill especially with heavy backpacks strapped like shells to our bodies and crossing the road proved to be adrenaline sport in itself. Scooters, cars, bicycles, cyclos and humans all seemed to swarm around in some bizarre dance, moving in any direction they fancied and it made any passage for pedestrians all but impossible until we watched the locals and followed suit. At first it took about 20 minutes for us to make our first attempt but we soon got the swing of it. The trick was to slowly walk into the traffic with conviction and allow the mopeds and cars to weave their way around you not unlike Moses parting the Red Sea. It was a skill we mastered in the end and ultimately took a masochistic pleasure in.

Whilst "Vietnam in a week" seemed like a tall order we had managed to whittle our itinerary down to three or four essentials on our journey from north to south. The highlight of our trip however was undoubtedly Halong Bay. Bobby had made a big deal of wanting to see some massive limestone stacks similar to the ones found on Thailand's southern beaches as part of our trip but as our schedule did not allow for this, Halong Bay provided a perfect replacement. Situated on the coast two hours east of Hanoi, Halong Bay is a collection of three thousand islands, some no bigger than a small skyscraper but all examples of stunning prehistoric architecture. After debating which of the many tour operators to go with we decided to opt for a 3 days/2 nights option that involved spending one night on a junk boat and one night on a deserted island.

We set off in a minibus from Hanoi with our travel companions, Cat (Scottish), Miranda (Welsh), Hayley (South African), Rachel (Irish) to be joined later by three Italian slow coaches. On arrival in Halong Bay we were able to inspect our junk boat cabin and grab a quick welcome drink before we set sail. If our expectations had been high for the trip we weren't disappointed. The scenery was genuinely awe-inspiring and our first couple of hours were spent just casually floating from one amazing rock structure to another before dropping anchor in a secluded bay between islands. We then exchanged our junk boat for sea kayaks and paddled in convoy through dark limestone caves inhabited by squeaking bats. The afternoon was completed by daring each other to jump off the top deck of the junk boat as illustrated in our pics whilst taking care not to jump on the numerous jellyfish lurking in the warm water below. After a dinner of shellfish and seafood, we retired to the top deck of our boat to watch a fantastic electric storm which our snap-happy Italian companions Claudio described as, "God taking photographs of us".

Our second day involved further exploration of the islands and a trip to the 'Amazing Cave' which was unsurprisingly pretty spectacular. Then after a journey on the open sea we wound up on a secluded island for our second night. The afternoon was spent sea kayaking around the island in the blazing hot sunshine and a lot of rest and recuperation on the beach. We spent the night in a Bamboo Beach Hut which would have proved idyllic if it weren't for the visit of an unwanted guest in the middle of the night.

Bobby had woken to the call of nature and no sooner had he opened the toilet door than he quickly recoiled blaming a sea of mosquitoes as the cause. The only option available was to venture outside to the beach in the moonlight to conduct his business. The episode soon became farcical as Kate joined him in his trip and managed to slip in the moonlight on the bamboo steps and came crashing down flat on her face. It was only in the morning that Bobby revealed that the cause of his consternation had not in fact been a swarm of mosquitoes but a large foot-long rat that had winked at him from the sink! As the morning developed it became clear that we had not been the only ones to be visited in the night by vermin as each of our travelling companions regaled us with their own particular nightmare - Italian lady Stephanie coming off worse as she woke to find a rat cuddling up to her neck.

The expedition was rounded off the next day with a trip to the largest island in Halong Bay, Cat Ba. There, we explored another cave known as the Hospital Cave which had been a refuge for Chinese and North Vietnamese soldiers during the Vietnam war. We then undertook a 12km mountain bike ride. Although the whole expedition did take a sizable chunk of our budget for this leg of the journey there was no doubting in our minds that it had been well worth it.

On returning to Hanoi we spent the next day, getting acquainted with Vietnam's hero Ho Chi Minh, with a visit to his museum. We would also have enjoyed the opportunity to gaze at his waxy body in the massive Mauseleum he resides in but they kept him locked up on Thursdays. We also got some history down us by visiting the the "Hanoi Hilton" prison, where Presidential candidate John McCain was holed up for the duration of what the Vietnamese call understandably call "The American War", plus we spent time at the Women's Museum where we learned the impact woman have made on Vietnamese society.

Our next stop was Hoi An - another example of French Colonial charm in the same vein as Luang Prabang in Laos. After another overnight train we set up shop in a cheap hotel and ventured into town. It didn't take long for us to be won over by the shuttered shop fronts and streets framed with purple bourgainvillea. We decided to stay an extra day and get some clothes made as Hoi An is famous for its tailoring. After perusing the many options, Kate decided on a classy red winter coat for New York whilst Bobby settled on his first ever made-to-measure formal shirt. The clothes were completed in 24 hours and despite being a little tight round the arms were exactly what we ordered. The remainder of our time was spent enjoying traditional Vietnamese dance and music performances alongside a mooch around the many museums and traditional houses open for display in Hoi An.

Our schedule poked us in the ribs after three days and we realised that we were up against it to complete Vietnam with enough time for Cambodia so we took a quick flight to the southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon). We spent the next 48 hours further exploring theimpact of the "American War" on the Vietnamese with a visit to the appropriately titled War Mueum. Although created from a Vietnamese perspective, the museum was deeply affecting and is a document of the atrocities the America soldiers commited in Vietnam and made you realise what an utter waste of time and life the whole exercise was.

With our minds topped up on history and our eyes suitably popping from all the dizzying spectacles we'd seen, it was time for us to climb aboard another bus for the six hour journey across the border and our last Asian adventure in Cambodia and a visit to the mystical majesty of the largest temple on the planet - Angkor Wat!

Gallery: Vietnam

seilerworldtour — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:37:00 GMT

Living Laos Vida Loca!

seilerworldtour — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:35:00 GMT

After about 10 days enjoying the classic backpacking experiences of northern Thailand, the next stop on our epic adventure soon came calling - the mysterious, and less well trodden Asian outpost of Laos.

Our main aim was to get to the fabled Luang Prabang (apparently the height of French colonial charm) and the journey we had chosen was certainly epic! It began with a five hour bus ride to the northern Thai town of Chiang Khong followed by a two day trip down the Mekong River by slow boat with an overnight stop at a riverside village called Pakbeng - all of which was done in torrential rain. We were warned by experienced backpackers that this journey would be mammoth. Rumours "floating" around our hostel spoke of Pak Beng as being hell on earth offering the most basic of accommodation where electricity stops at 10pm and rats can be heard scratching under the bed. With this in mind, we did our best to psyche ourselves up into true back-packer mode and like everyone else who treats the Lonely Planet guide as Gospel, bought cushions for the journey to avoid the numbness felt after 8 hours of sitting on wooden seats in an overcrowded boat. Luckily, being the low season, the boat was not full and we enjoyed the first day getting to know the other back packers on board, and befriended four Brits, Dan, Matt, Emily and Pete.

It didn't take long for us to develop a good sense of camaraderie on board but things soon took a gruesome turn for the worse midway through our journey. Whilst gazing on the chocolate brown water of the Mekong, we overheard one of the French guys onboard cry 'un cadavre!''. We looked to see a corpse floating in the water. To everyone's surprise, the boatman sailed right past. At this point, Bobby and another fellow back packer took it upon themselves to question the captain. He explained that floating dead bodies in the Mekong is a normal occurrence due to the river's strong currents and whirlpools. Apparently, the occasional fisherman gets lost over board. His other theory was that the Burmese often like to to bury their dead by setting them out to sail on a bamboo raft together with flowers - we found this theory unlikely in this case as the guy was fully clad in trainers, t-shirt and shorts! We later learned that many of these bodies are related to the drug trade across Asia - opium being a major player. Shocked at the complacency of the captain and suffering fatigue and hunger from our rationed diet of chocolate Oreo biscuits and crisps, the journey lingered on until the small fishing village of Pakbeng.

As if the boat trip hadn't been tiring enough, our final ounce of energy was sapped searching for a guest house in the rain whilst traipsing through Glastonbury style mud in flip flops with our ubiquitous backpacks. Luckily, we found a clean homestay with no rats and despite the plethora of mosquitoes that dined with us, we enjoyed a peaceful night in Pakbeng not caring too much about the 10pm electricity curfew. We later found out that this small fishing village is a den for opium, hash and illicit whisky all of which we managed to completely miss!

The second day on the boat was slightly rougher. Due to a full night's rain, the river was swollen. With just the tops of trees peeping out of the water, the river's current and whirlpools were stronger than ever. Just two hours into the journey we were suddenly faced with an almighty 'BANG' as the boat's engine trapped some enormous floating debris. The boat suddenly spun out of control and was swept quickly by the current downstream. Turning a full 360 degrees, the captain steered it towards the banks so that it collided with the trees, which initiated a massive insect invasion. Whilst the captain attempted to replece the propellor by swimming in the soup, we busied ourselves by fending off the impending branches and massed armies of caterpillers, moths and an illuminous green preying mantis.

After about 30 minutes, with the engine working again, the journey continued but with no life vests to be seen, a general ambience of fear ensued and the subject of conversation amongst us and our fellow travellers changed to the horrific reality of having to swim the breadth of the river should the boat go the same way as the Titanic! Trying her best to get back into the Buddhist mentality of complete calm, Kate consoled her anxiety by listening to the word's of PJ Harvey's song "We Float", with the revelant refrain to "take life as it comes!". Our new pal, Dan, having not enjoyed a single second of the experience reassured us that if he were lucky enough to make it back to the UK in one piece, he would never leave his town of Banbury again! Morale was lifted by a few mean rounds of the card game Cheat, two of which Kate won whilst Bobby tackled a game of Chinese Chess with a French backpacker and wa comprehensively trounced. Before we knew it our little slow boat had quietly crept to our final destination, the charming little town of Luang Prabang.

Rather like when you have your wisdom tooth pulled out, the pain of the boat trip was well worth it in the long run as sleepy Luang Prabang lived up to all our expectations. Remnants of faded French colonialism add to the town's charm - colourful, villa style houses, cafes and boulangeries come together with beautiful buddhist temples set next to the mighty Mekong river - it's easy to see why UNESCO have classed this as a world heritage site.

Laos has offered us plenty to do - visits to buddist temples, a 50km mountain bike trek and diving in waterfalls have all been part of the itinerary - and we were ably assisted in these adventures by our guide, a sweet young guy called Manh. The funky Hive bar became our local where we got to hang out with friends from the slow boat. We even took a jaunt one evening to Luang Prabang's bowling alley, the only place to have an open bar after 11pm. Much fun was had by all - with Bobby claiming the glory as the winner - and the evening finished with a crowd of us pushing a tuk tuk in the rain to get the motor started and then piling in.

They say that if Laos were a taxi driver, you would have to wake him up to get him to take you somewhere. This has been best reflected in the relaxed attitude of the Laos people. Thankfully, they don't haggle too much, smile all the time and above all are trustworthy, as proved when Bobby mistakenly left our bag at the Bowling alley complete with bank cards, passport photos and honeymoon snaps. Luckily for us, they had safeguarded it for us!

And so it was with a sad heart that we said goodbye to this sleepy corner of Laos but Hanoi beckoned. All we had to do was survive the Vietnamese Airlines flight and hope that we got there in one piece.....

Gallery: Laos

seilerworldtour — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:30:00 GMT

Gallery: Thailand

seilerworldtour — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:57:00 GMT

We've Thai-ed the knot!

seilerworldtour — Thu, 7 Aug 2008 15:58:00 GMT

Oh dear, has the honeymoon gone sour? Last night Bobby spent the night in a room with a French guy called Gerard and Kate was shacked up with some Dutch bird called Yorinda, and they barely spoke to each other all night. How come? What went wrong? All will be revealed!

After a great break in Singapore, we began our long journey up north to Bangkok and the loving arms of our friends Neil and Kala and Jack and Kai. This involved a short 6 hours to Kuala Lumpur with an eventful night reviving a paralytic Malaysian girl on the street - Kate especially coming into her own with offers of getting her in the recovery position and sipping coke to bring her back to consciousness! We then spent a day looking endlessly at the huge Petronas Towers (until recently the tallest building in the world) and a tourist-tastic scoot around the Kuala Lumpur aquarium, before boarding our sleeper to Thailand. Despite the icey cold air-conditioning and the mischevious kids in the bunks next to us we made it in one piece. On arrival in the border town of Hat Yai we bumped into a couple of friends we'd met in Singapore - Kian (Irish architect) and Katerina (Swiss accountant). We'd met them in the foyet of an incredible art deco-style office block that, despite looking like a 1930s Hercule Poirot hangout, was actually built only 9 years ago. It was memorable not only for the bonhomie as we all shared a drink at the bar but by the bizarre sight of our "wine angel" - a girl attached to a zip wire - who ascended a hundred feet above the bar to retrieve expensive bottles of wine for clientele who had considerably more money than us (picture featured in the Singapore pictures).

We spent the day bumbling around Hat Yai before climbing on board our next sleeper which was a 16 hour jaunt bound for Bangkok. This time we travelled in style with our own little cabin and entertained ourselves with chess and pretending we were extras in Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie is looming large in our thoughts as you can see!)

Our host's in Bangkok were Bobby's friend Neil "The Skull" Menzies and his lovely girlfriend Kala and on arrival at Hualumphong station we were met by Neil's driver - a pleasant non-communicative gentleman with tattoos on his neck called Somphong - and we soon plonked on Neil and Kala's brand new sofa. It was a fantastic place to settle for 3 days. Despite having only been in Bangkok a couple of months themselves, their city centre pad is beautiful, spacious and cool and as hosts they put up with us brilliantly. In the afternoon, we met up with Jack and Kai. Jack being central to our relationship as he was present when we first met in London is a scriptwriter who has re-located to Bangkok to be with his girlfriend Kai, their two foster kids and 3 dogs. He looked well and we managed to negotiate a stay with him on our return from "doing Asia".

Our three days in Bangkok, mainly consisted of riding the sky train, wandering the rivers and parks, hijacking a International City conference to get our picture taken with some mystified Chinese dignataries, sampling the seediness of Soi Cowboy and having possibly the most spectacular meal of our lives at the top of the State Tower courtesy of Jack - Star Wars fans, the illuminated walkway is something you must do before you die, it takes all the will power not to fall to your knees and call out "Luke, I am you father, join me on the dark side"!

After recuperation and the collection of a cold for our Katie, we hit the buses and headed north to do temples, monks and elephants. First stop was Ayuthaya which was a good introduction to Wats, Prangs and other Buddhist temples before getting on another bus to the old town of Sukhothai. This is where the real temple-touring takes place. You basically can't move for sacred Buddha images and latice built temples. We spent the afternoon on bikes just tootling around the historical park in anticipation of the main event of the evening - a light and sound show! It began with a beautiful picnic by the lake before being led to the main Wat with a huge 12 metre statue of Buddha where the local kids acted out a history of the city of Sukhothai complete with nasty Burmese invaders and a kindly Thai king - not much of which we really understood - culminating in fireworks and the lighting of hundreds of lanterns into the still night sky. Whilst you may be excited to check out the exquisite pictures of this on our pictures page, unfortunately Bobby had spent so long snapping over a thousand pictures of piles of rocks that may or may not have once been temples that after one cheesy picture of the two smiling honeymooners at the picnic, the camera went kaput! Bobby managed to control his rage at fate long enough to not spoil things and it was a truly magical night!

From Sukhothai, we moved on to Chang Mai, the second biggest city in Thailand and something of a Mecca, for those adventurers keen on spiritualism, trekking and old world Thai charm. About 40% of this proved to be correct. Chang Mai is a tourist trap no doubt and like many of the cities and towns in Thailand, takes a few walks to reveal itself to be more than just a steaming mass of bikes, Tuk Tuks, tour operators and Dutchmen. We got lucky on our first night as we had a arrived for the Sunday night market where Bobby got a bit carried away with the tourist tat and at one point had to be pulled back from the edge by Kate as he was about to hand over the equivalent of 3 quid for a pair of Thai Boxing shorts that would inevitably end up at the back of a drawer never to be worn in anger.

The highlight of our stay was to follow the following evening as we decided to spend a long dark night of the soul at a Buddhist monastry outside of Chang Mai and indulged in a series of meditation sessions. We gathered along with about 40 other spiritual questers at lunchtime at Wat Suan Dok and after an introduction to the basic tenets of Buddhism were ferried an hour out of town to a secluded monastery where we were given three basic rules. No man should sleep in the same room as a woman, no smoking or drinking and no talking. The evening session would begin after a simple dinner of rice and vegatables and we would have sessions until 9pm where we would be sent to bed only to rise at 5am for further meditation. It was at this point that we shared a worried glance wondering if we were in too deep!

However, it turned out to be a fascinating introduction to meditation and Buddhism in general and we have been practising our walking meditation ever since. The follwing afternoon, suitably enlightened, we enjoyed a further two days in Chiang Mai and indulged ourselves by taking a cooking course at a traditional teak style Thai home where we successfully cooked and sampled the delights of Thai Green Curry, vegetable spring rolls and Tom Yam Soup amongst other dishes. The calories were soon burned off the next day when we trekked into the mountains along with some French and German tourists to visit tribal villages as well as take part in white water rafting and elephant riding. Surprisingly, despite Kate's fear and terror to take part in activities such as crossing the muddy river trapped in a shark cage, white water rafting backwards through chocolate brown river rapids as well as a forest trek in torrential rain clambering over rocks and slipping on bamboo bridges, she embraced the experience, over came her fear and enjoyed it.

Whilst there were a thousand other towns and villages in northern Thailand worth visiting we knew time was pressing and so sfter 5 great days in Chiang Mai we began the trip north to our next adventure - a two-day journey down the Mekong River in Laos!

Thirty years young in Singapore!

seilerworldtour — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:03:00 GMT

So, our second diary entry finds us in the city/country that is Singapore.

Our first night was spent in the 'Fragrance Hotel' - an ironically named budget hotel in Singapore's red light district, where ladies of the night lined the streets waiting to be picked up and three cockroaches greeted us under our pillow. Our visit thankfully picked up when we moved to a new hostel the next night called Lollypopcorn. Although not in the city centre, this homestay provided us with clean towels and bed sheets- a good base for visiting the city and a little insight to ordinary Singaporeans.

Singapore itself is a classy, modern, clean metropolis that appears to be taking control of its own future with the creation of a new resevoir, a pedestrians pathway around the city and the first night grand prix. We spent a large percentage of our time just walking around the city and now have the calf muscles to show for it!

To celebrate Kate's 30th, we splashed out on a plush room at the boutique hotel 'The New Majestic' based in China Town. The room was decorated in true traditional oriental style with opulent red silk walls and chinese lanterns. With a welcoming bottle of complimentary vino and a swimming pool on the roof terrace it was a real treat - a world away from our back packing!

After enjoying a tour of the city followed by a dip in the pool, we donned our glad rags and headed out for dinner at the Pan Pacific hotel's 37th floor restaurant. Once recovered from our intial feeling of vertigo caused by taking the outside glass lift, we were able to enjoy the panoramic views while sampling the culinary delights of shark's fin soup. Not quite sure as to whether the dark floating bits were shark or exotic mushroom the lesson learned is: just don't ask! In truth, it was actually quite tasty.

The night ended in true style with a delicious Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel - the only place you are allowed to legitimately drop litter in Singpore as the tradition is that you throw your peanut shells on the floor of the bar. We didn't take much encouragement and were soon joining in with the rest, flinging left, right and centre.

So 30 years young and ready for an exciting new era beginning with our long train journeys to Kuala Lumpur and then overnight to Bangkok in Thailand.

The honeymoon is over and we've come on holiday by mistake!

seilerworldtour — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:06:00 GMT

Hello from the other side of the world!

This is the first in an occasional series of musings, tall tales, observations and blatant boasting from the Seiler World Tour 2008! We have just completed our first month of travel which included two weeks of five star luxury involving seven days by the beach in the colonial opulence of the Oberoi Bali followed by another week in a boutique hide-out deep in the Balinese forest complete with ostentatious infinity pool (or as Mrs S calls it an eternity pool). Several enlightening photos attached. To summarise our honeymoon adventures, we spent most of our time playing with mischievous, macacque monkeys, getting up at stupid o'clock to climb volcanoes, cycling through rice fields and attending the cremation of the Ubud King! Of course we also spent a lot of time soaking up the sun and have currently thawed out our traditional pasty complexions to a rather appealing golden brown.

"We've come on holiday by mistake", so said Withnail in the movie Withnail and I and that was largely how we felt on our first night of real travelling. After the luxury of our honeymoon experience, we went from 5 star to no star in one easy taxi ride. Our first destination was Pandangbai on the East Coast of Bali. A corpse had more life and our accomodation resembled a disused barn complete with nocturnal beasties scrabbling around our room in the middle of the night. Ready to leave after three days, we caught a slow boat to the island of Lombok and then on to the Gili islands where there was no motorized vehicles and no police - a place where any crime will result in a low speed chase. Luckily Kate's guts stayed intact for the four hour long crossing!

Gili Trawangan, the largest of the three Gili islands, turned out to be our kind of paradise - laid-back, small and beautiful offering nothing much else to do than sun soak, snorkel in warm bath tub waters and watch picture post-card sunsets. The only drawback was the early morning wake up call as the cockrels competed with the 5.30am morning prayers from the local mosque.

After leaving Gili with five days to kill, we took a punt on a trip to Tetebatu at the foothills of Mount Rinjani - the second biggest volcano in Indonesia. After viewing our basic accommodation at the faded colonial outpost The Soejourno Hotel, we feared we'd made a bad mistake but it soon turned out to be the best experience of the trip so far. We truly got a taste of Indonesian life by making friends with some of the local villagers - even to the point of being invited into their homes for a cup of sweet Lombok coffee (without milk!) and helping out with English lessons at a local coffee shop (a 'Warung'). We also borrowed a scooter and spent a couple of glorious afternoons whistling through beautiful villages with views of rice paddies and tobacco fields. We were sad to leave but with a fast plane waiting to take us to Singapore for Katie S's big 30th birthday, we couldn't hang around.

We write this from Singapore whilst celebrating Kate's 30th. As a special break from the back-packing, we're living the highlife in a cool boutique hotel called the New Majestic - all red chinese lanterns and rooftop pool the kind of place featured in Wallpaper magazine - and we will be taking a riverboat tour followed by a Singapore Sling at The Raffles Hotel and then dinner at the Pan Pacific 37th floor restaurant with a panoramic view across Singapore Harbour! Next adventure is getting to Thailand by slow sleeper train to meet up with a couple of Bobby's mates Jack and 'The Skull' aka Neil Menzies!

Enjoy the photographic highlights, these were lovingly culled from the 5000 that Bobby has already taken with our new digital camera. Signing off!

Mr and Mrs S x

Gallery: Singapore

seilerworldtour — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:31:00 GMT

30 years young

Gallery: Indonesia

seilerworldtour — Tue, 8 Jul 2008 12:47:00 GMT