Gaz and Saz Globetrotting

So we headed from Melbourne to Sydney, with Virginblue airlines and they were having a bit of a testing evening when we arrived at Melbourne airport. There had been thunderstorms in Sydney that afternoon and flights had been delayed by forty five minutes on take off. This was causing them major problems in Melbourne, because the schedules run on such tight timetables. The flights that were supposed to leave at about 7pm were now scheduled to leave at 9pm. Thankfully ours was only delayed by about half an hour and we were soon taxiing down the runway.

I think I will remember that flight for a long time. Not because it was bad in anyway, but because of the steward who was in charge of the cabin crew and his pre-flight message. It started normally, even if it was a little on the camp side. Then he got to "...in the event of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will automatically drop from the panel above you. Please ensure that you put your own oxygen mask on before helping anybody else. Anybody travelling with two or more children, please take a look at them now and decide which one you prefer." I was almost crying with laughter.

We arrived in Sydney at about 10.30 pm and were approached by a man who could barely speak English who said that he was the shuttle bus driver, and where were we staying? Now, I knew that we had already missed the last shuttle bus and suspected that this chap was a little dodgy, despite his assurances that the shuttle bus was just around the corner. We opted to take the safe route and get a taxi to our hostel in Glebe. The hostel was OK, the room was quite large and reasonably clean, but when we went to go to bed we remembered why we don't like hostels...the noise. There were people sitting on the tables outside our room talking loudly until gone 4am. Not impressed. Thankfully we had great plans for the following day to make up for it.

We decided back when we were in Sri Lanka staying in some hovel or other that we needed some luxury to look forward to, so we decided that we would save our pennies along the way to have one night staying in the Shangri La on Sydney harbour - and December the 13th was it. So in true backpacker style we got the bus to Sydney's best hotel and pitched up in reception with our rucksacks on. I can only think that the receptionists thought that we were lost and were going to ask for directions! If this was the case then they did a very good job of hiding it.

It may seem a little lazy, but we decided that if we were going to spend a substantial amount of money to stay somewhere then we were going to make the most of it, so we turned up at 11am to check in and didn't leave the hotel until we checked out the next day at 1pm!!

The view from our room

As part of the deal on the room we had a free laundry service. We may have singlehandedly managed to convince the senior management of Shangri La hotels that they should end this offer. As soon as we checked in Sarah and I emptied the entire contents of our rucksacks into the laundry bag and sent it for washing. When the laundry came back the invoice for it said that it would have cost us $186!

I have to say that the Shangri La was worth the wait, we had excellent views over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Opera House and Circular Quay, it was fantastic! They also have a fantastic cocktail bar on the top floor which we obviously had to test out!

Down the hatch

Unfortunately our time in the lap of luxury had to end and we left the Shangri La bound for Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. Katoomba is not very far from Sydney at all, but it is a two hour train journey from Sydney Central Station, because it stops every five minutes all the way there!

Katoomba is quite a small town, so we quickly found our hostel and dumped our luggage to have a bit of an explore. There isn't really very much there, it's more of a base for people who want to explore the Blue Mountains and do various "adventure" sports. It's a bit like Chiang Mai in Thailand in that way and seems to have attracted exactly the same budding Ray Mears types! That evening the hostel was buzzing with people going on about the adrenalised mountain experiences they'd had that day. Now I don't want to belittle their efforts (I'm going to anyway) but the highest mountain in the range is apparently around 1200 metres above sea level, this compares with Snowdon which is just short of 1100 metres. Hardly mindblowing when you consider that the temperature is around 25 degrees and you could easily climb it in shorts. Not really an expedition. Although to be fair, unlike Snowdon you can't get most of the way up the mountain on a train either!

Not to be outdone, the following day we headed into the mountains. Well actually we walked to the end of the main street, (imaginatively named Katoomba Street) to Echo Point to check out the view and have a wander over to the Three Sisters.

They're bigger than they look

Time for a history lesson.... apparently the Three Sisters were three aborigine girls who wanted to marry outside of their tribe. The tribe's witch doctor turned them to stone as punishment, and then died before they could be turned back to humans, so they were stuck like that. They must have been big girls though, the rocks are massive!

We then did the proper tourist thing and headed over to Katoomba Falls, to have a ride on the glass-bottomed cable car, ride down the steepest railway in the world and then come back up in another cable car. Then it was back to Sydney on the train and back to the noisiest hostel in the world. I think I could probably have persuaded Sarah that we needed another stay in the Shangri La, but thought it best not to or we'd have to severely shorten the rest of the trip!

The next day we took the bus to Avalon beach, which I'd always fancied visiting since I first saw it on a surfing video about ten years ago. We had also been informed that this is the beach where they film 'Home and Away'. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side, so after a two hour bus journey we arrived just in time to get wet in the heavy rain and strong winds. It was just like summer at home. There was no sign of Alf or Sally on the beach. We made our way back on the bus via Manly, so that we could get the ferry back across Sydney harbour to Circular Quay. It was a lot colder on the ferry than last time we were there.

So that was Sydney, a brief visit as an excuse to stay in a nice hotel really! We'll be back for New Year's Eve though with Dai and Di, so that will be a much more lively affair!

So we waved goodbye to Western Australia and headed to Melbourne. It had only taken a few days back in Perth to get used to the weather (much warmer than the South West) so it was a bit of a shock to get off the plane in Melbourne - although the sun was shining it was cold. We found our way to our hostel in St Kilda (a suburb of Melbourne) and set off straightaway in search of a supermarket and some food. On the way back the wind was so cold I thought I might freeze before we got home. This was not the Australian plan!

We had two days in Melbourne before heading off down the Great Ocean Road. We spent Monday getting to grips with Melbourne's public transport system (they have electric trams that whizz about everywhere - wicked!) and getting in some free visits around Federation Square. We visited ACMI - the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (a showcase of things like film images projected onto thin air that you could then walk through and lots of video booths where you could watch short films or read interactive stories) and St Paul's cathedral (we'd timed our visit perfectly because only the night before they had pulled down a screen that had been obscuring the altar and beautiful stained glass window for the last eighteen months), and then moved on to Parliament House, where we managed to get on a free tour, with a very interesting and amusing guide. We were able to sit in seats normally occupied by very important people and Gareth made himself very comfortable as Speaker of the House. You did get the sense you were naughty children being allowed to run riot while the teacher was out of the room.

"Order, Order! Let the honourable gentleman speak"

We also fitted in a quick beer in Young and Jackson, Melbourne's oldest pub, which apparently houses a very famous nude painting that caused huge controversy when it was painted back in the dark ages. We did have a quick look around but it was nowhere to be seen. I think it may just have been a ploy on Gareth's part to have a quick beer...

Back in St Kilda we walked down the pier where we spotted some dinky penguins hiding in the rocks and then stopped for drinks in one of the cafe bars along the beach. St Kilda is full of beautiful people (I don't know how we sneaked in) and the thing to do when you're there is watch these beautiful people all day long. I don't know whether you've ever done it, but it's quite tiring watching beautiful people rollerblade, cycle or run along the beachfront. All that exercise really takes it out of you. We decided we preferred the other thing you're meant to do in St Kilda - eat delicious cakes from all the fabulous Continental style bakeries on Ackland Street - yum.

Next day we decided we would first head over to Queen Victoria market to get ourselves some things for a picnic. It's a monster of a market, with hundreds of stalls selling everything you could wish for, from pet food, to sunglasses, to Ugg boots - but we were only interested in food - you know Gareth and his blood sugar swings. Half an hour later we had organised ourselves with some bread, Tasmanian Brie and grapes and headed off to the Royal Botanical Gardens.

"I'm not asking fifty, I'm not asking twenty, yes mate, any two for a pound"

Well, it was a warm day and a long walk to the gardens. It took us some time (and nearly a divorce) to cross one particularly busy road across the Yarra River but eventually we arrived and found ourselves a nice shady spot to eat. Sadly the shade came a bit late for the Tasmanian Brie which looked a bit more like cheese fondue when we opened the bag and smelt a bit like Gareth's shoes after a long day on the road.

I must admit that I still prefer Kings Park in Perth but the Botanical Gardens are beautifully kept and we must have spent a couple of hours there, just relaxing. When you lay down in the grass you could almost have been in the National Botanic Gardens of Wales, had it not been for the skyscrapers in the distance, the searing temperature and oh... also the fact that all the plants looked healthy and there were no comedy farmyard animals wandering around.

Another hard day for two globetrotters

Next day we picked up our hire car to drive the Great Ocean Road. I think Gareth was pretty gutted when he discovered that we weren't getting another one of those Kia Rios that he loves so much but a Toyota Corolla instead. The Great Ocean Road is one of the most spectacular coastal drives in the world, with differences of opinion about where exactly it starts and finishes - our guidebook said it started in Torquay and ended in Warrnambool and that was good enough for us.

We decided to spend our first night in Torquay and fixed ourselves a room in a little guesthouse. The owner was friendly but a bit obsessed with the sharks that he said were waiting to eat us in the water around Torquay - it certainly put me off going for a dip. Gareth, fearless as ever, wasn't put off so we headed to a place called Jan Juc in search of some waves - but the surf was pants. No dinner for the sharks that night anyway.

Next morning we visited Torquay's surfing museum, then set off for Bells Beach. At last there was some surf for Gareth who was a very happy bunny. From Bells Beach we drove on through Anglesea, Lorne and eventually got to Apollo Bay, where we stayed the night in a fab little place called Angela's Guesthouse. When we arrived Angela showed us our room which was sparkling clean, with a balcony that had a view of the sea. Angela said that if we would like breakfast it would be ten dollars extra and she would bring it up on a tray to eat on the balcony. Well how could we say no?

Somewhere along Great Ocean Road we must have got a bit lost..

For our last day on the road we'd left a lot to pack in. From Apollo Bay you leave the coast and enter the Otway National Park, where we took a quick detour to see Cape Otway and its lighthouse and then walked to Triplet Falls, a beautiful waterfall in the middle of rainforest. After this the road goes back to the coast and you reach the Twelve Apostles, the huge rock stacks that come up out of the sea.

Along most of the road, if you pull into a viewing point there's a really good chance you'll be the only people there but the viewing platform for the Twelve Apostles was absolutely packed - with other people and also with flies. I don't think we've mentioned how awful the flies in Australia are - they try to get in your nose, your eyes, your mouth and your ears and they particularly like Gareth. I have never seen anything like it before - they were swarming around him and he was trying to cover his face, unsuccessfully, with his fleece. I did the only thing any good wife could do - I gave him my bandana - and for the first time in our trip he took it happily. (I knew I would break him eventually.)

Yes, count them again.

It's strange when you see in front of you, something you've seen so many times before in pictures and the Twelve Apostles are striking and impressive - but it was so busy and the flies were unbearable so you couldn't really take it in.

We finished the drive in Warrnambool (this place name sounds expecially good if you say it in a Bristol accent, as Gareth did to the lady in the Visitor Centre, who nearly wet herself laughing), where we spent the night, before driving back to Melbourne via the Princes Highway next morning.

Getting back to Melbourne the first thing you noticed was the smoke - while we'd been away bushfires had been raging and the city was covered by grey. The second thing you noticed was the temperature - which was also raging. After returning our hire car we went to Melbourne Cricket Ground, nearly dying of thirst during the tour. The ground is very impressive (though probably the highlight for me was visiting the Changing Rooms where all those yummy cricketers have been before). Gareth was very excited to sit in the commentary box where BBC radio will broadcast the Boxing Day Test.

"and Flintoff bowls to Ponting from the pavilion end..."

Next day it was even hotter - we later found out that it had reached 42 degrees - too hot to do anything outside, so we went to the cinema instead. Later on, we got ourselves as glammed up as we can within the limitations of our rucksacks and went to the Crown Casino. It is a massive place, part of a huge entertainment complex (including the cinema we'd visited earlier) and was the most blingy place we'd seen since Bangkok. We made a deal before we went in - we'd spend a maximum of $50 in the casino and save any winnings. In true James Bond style we headed straight to the Roulette tables where Gareth got stuck in - and he's a natural - we came back out of the casino with $95! He's available to hire for special occasions and can even tie a proper bow tie!

So that was Victoria, lots of fun, hot, cold and sharky and we didn't spot a single koala while we were there. Next - Sydney.

So we headed south from Perth towards Margaret River, via the 'city' of Bunbury for a long weekend. We decided after much investigation that the easiest and cheapest way to get there would be by train. This was mainly due to the fact that the supposedly greatest surfing nation on earth has a tendency to make it either difficult or expensive to travel with a surfboard. I have to admit that as soon as we started to find out the charges for taking a surfboard on the train or bus I began to wish that I had waited until we reached Queensland to buy a board!

When we booked the ticket we were told that we were lucky and had got the last seats in the carriage that carried surfboards and bikes. Phew, what a relief. It was only when we got on the train that I realised what a joke that was; there were no other boards or bikes on the train and mine went in the overhead luggage carrier!

Anyway, we arrived in Bunbury and sought out the Wander Inn, our hostel for the next few nights, only to find that the reception was closed from 12 to 4pm, so we couldn't check in. Our room was OK, but the hostel seemed to have a number of more permanent residents who weren't travellers but sat around smoking and doing nothing all day.

That evening I volunteered to make dinner, Chicken Pilaf. This was the first time that either of us had cooked since we left (apart from the famous Thai cookery course) as it was so cheap to eat out in Sri Lanka and Thailand that it wasn't worth cooking for yourself, and none of the accommodation we stayed in had any cooking facilities.

I immediately hit upon a problem when I tried to find a pan to cook dinner in - there weren't any! I headed off to reception to ask where I could find one and was told by the owner that I would have to hand over my room key in exchange for a battered old saucepan. It was hardly something that I was going to steal! I was sorely tempted to tell him that it wasn't flippin' Le Creuset, but thought better of it as we were booked to stay there two more nights.

The next drama that we had didn't emerge until the next morning when Sarah went to check the washing drying on the line. Only not all of it was drying on the line. Someone had stolen three pairs of Sarah's knickers, which was a particular problem as she was only travelling with four pairs in the first place. What kind of weirdo would steal someone's pants?

This really summed up the Wander Inn, a bit rough, and Sarah spent the rest of our stay wondering who else in the living room was also wearing her pants, female or male?

The only good thing about Bunbury

On Sunday morning we decided to go down to the Dolphin Discovery Centre, where we discovered that the dolphins weren't coming out to play. We were hopeful that they might make an appearance the following day, as it was my birthday and our last day in Bunbury, but again a no show from Flipper. Don't they realise that we are on a very tight schedule?!

From Bunbury we took the bus down to Margaret River, where we were picked up to go to the Surfpoint Resort at Gnarabup. It was then that we learned that you really need a car to get around the Margaret River area and that the surf was flat!

We amused ourselves the following day by renting a scooter again and headed off into town to explore. It cost roughly twenty times more than our Thai racing machine, but this time we had helmets and they wanted to see a driving licence, which was reassuring.

Now where did I park my moped?

The next morning I retraced our steps north on the bus to pick up a hire car. It was a Kia Rio, the car of choice of people who don't like cars. It was actually an upgrade from the bottom of the range car we had ordered, because they didn't have any of them in stock, I dread to think how small that would have been. Good news, the board fitted in the car....there was room for Sarah on the roofrack. Once again we were mobile, so we headed straight to a farm in the middle of nowhere to live like hippies for five days. As you do.

Yes, we had decided that in a bid to save money, the planet and bring some moral justification for taking six months off work, we would spend some time WWOOFING. For those of you who don't know what that is, it has nothing to do with dogs, but actually stands for 'Willing Workers On Organic Farms'. Unfortunately it should have been WWSETLING, 'Weirdos in the Woods Searching for Extra Terrestrial Life', or something like that. Yes, I know it's not as catchy, but it's more accurate. Crop circles, you know the hoaxes that were exposed many years ago in Britain, well the news that they weren't created by aliens doesn't seem to have filtered down to South West Australia.

Sarah spent five days cleaning kitchen cupboards, one of her favourite household chores, and I spent five days building a fence that was twenty foot long and I could have built in five hours if I'd been doing it on my own! (It wasn't actually finished when I left.) Sarah also spent one day learning to sculpt...or was it learning to dust sculptures, she's still not sure. They were actually a very nice family and made us very welcome, but we are now no wiser as to the ways of organic farming than we were before we started. We did manage to fit in a few quick trips around Margaret River while we there, to Redgate Bay, a beautiful beach with white sand, completely deserted, Hamelin Bay, completely packed out with school leavers and flies, and also to Augusta and Cape Leeuwin, where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet. Very wild and windy.

It took me ages to do my hair this morning!

After we left the WWOOFERS we managed to fit in a day visiting a few wineries. Well it would have been rude not to! We sampled a few in various locations, but it was definitely Sarah who got the most out of it, as I was driving and had to spit most of them out. (It'll be Sarah's turn to drive when we visit New Zealand's wineries.)

Labour shortage in South West Australia leads winemakers to resort to desperate measures

We spent another night in Margaret River and met up with Sarah's friend Matt and his girlfriend George, who it turns out, I worked with when I was working for BT in Bristol, small world, as they say. (Good luck Matt and George - you should be somewhere on the Nullabour Plain by now on your way to Adelaide we think.)

The Margaret River area is renowned for three things, wine, surfing and caves. We had tried the first two so on our last morning we headed off to the Lake Cave to learn about stalagmites and stalagtites. It was actually very impressive, but one cave is more than enough for me, so we headed through the famous southern forests of karri trees to Pemberton. There wasn't much to see there, so two toasted sandwiches later we were headed for Walpole where we were booked in for the night at the YHA.

I decided to start a new paragraph to describe Walpole, but it doesn't really merit it. Sarah described it rather aptly by saying that it was like driving 100 miles to stay in Porthyrhyd for the night, but without the pubs. For those of you who don't know Porthyrhyd, let's just say that it's small and there is no reason to visit it.

The next day we headed straight for the Valley of the Giants and its Treetop Walk. This was very impressive as it was a 500m long walkway through the Tingle trees - 40m above the ground at it's highest point. It had a tendency to sway a little when you walked on it, which was mildly alarming at times.

Looking very pleased with ourselves

We then followed the advice of one of our WWOOFING hosts and headed to a spot called Conspicuous Cliffs. This involved an 8km drive along an unsealed road, think red dirt and ruts, which our hire car was neither designed nor insured for. It was worth it though, it was by far the best beach that we had seen so far on the trip and it was completely deserted. It was very windy, but we managed to eat our picnic on the beach, although our sandwiches were very sandy!

Comes complete with squeaky sand

We were very careful while walking along the beach as the night before we had been warned by a local to watch out for King waves. These are freak waves which occur in the Southern Ocean and have a tendency to take fishermen who are standing on the rocks by surprise and sweep them away. Phil, our friendly local advisor, didn't know why they are called King waves, but we have found out since that there is actually an apostrophe missing from the front of King. This is because it's actually an abbreviation of the last words uttered by a fisherman shortly before being swept to his death. The full version is "Oh no, look at the size of that ***king wave!". I'd like to apologise for my language, I have been in Australia quite a while now and I seem to be picking up the local accent...

That evening we did our usual trick of leaving it to the last minute to book somewhere to stay, but this time we fell on our feet. We arrived at the Cruize Inn in Albany to find the best hostel we've stayed in yet, it was very comfy and quite small and all the time we were there we saw no fights, swearing and the police weren't called out once (unlike in Bunbury, where they were called out twice). We celebrated by having fish and chips by Middleton Beach, which was lovely, but sadly there was no surf. Apparently it had been really good on Monday. Typical.

The next day we managed to fit in almost every tourist stop and sight in the area before heading off to town to get Sarah a book and me a new rucksack. We also found somewhere that did a lovely cup of tea, so that made us both very happy!

It was very cold and windy at the edge of Australia

After all too short a time in Albany we headed back up to Perth, dodging a plague of locusts on our way. Well, trying to anyway, but there were quite a few attached to the front of the hire car when we handed it back. Albany was really very lovely and we could have spent much longer than we did there. The climate was much more pleasant there than Perth and Kristin summed it up perfectly when she said that Albany was where they should have built Perth!

We headed back to David and Kristin's in Perth on Friday, which just gave us enough time to visit Lawrence, Sarah's grandfather's cousin, for a cup of tea.

I also managed to see Sebastian play cricket on Sunday morning. He's going to be playing at the Waca during lunch on the Friday of the third test, so keep an eye out.

Sunday morning we waved goodbye to our new found family. Hopefully we will see them all in Wales soon ...

Next stop Melbourne......

So, from Singapore our next destination was Oz - for three months and the bulk of our trip. Our first stop was Perth in Western Australia. We had a great flight, leaving at 9.30am, lasting only four and a half hours and best of all - no time difference to adjust to. It took us nearly as long as the flight to clear customs - Australia has very strict rules on what you can and can't bring in - there was a lovely little beagle sniffing all our luggage and we had some wooden things in our bags that had to be declared and checked over by the customs officers.

Eventually we got through to the Arrivals Hall where David, and his son Sebastian were waiting for us. We haven't worked out exactly what we are, whether it is first cousins removed or second, third, fourth cousins - who knows - but what we do know is that David's father Lawrence and my Grampa are first cousins. We got in touch before we left the UK and despite never having met us before, David had offered not only to collect us from the airport but to let us stay with him when we first arrived. We left the airport and drove to Mount Hawthorn, a suburb of Perth, where we met the rest of the family, Kristin and Stefan. It is a long time since I have had to introduce Gareth to family members and good on him, he behaved himself well.

In case you have forgotten what we look like, it's from the left: Me, Gareth, Sebastian, Kristin, David and Stefan.

Unusual for us you might think, but we made no plans at all for our time in Australia (except that we need to get to Dai and Di, wherever they might be, in time for Christmas dinner and mince pies) so next morning we decided to start by getting the bus into Perth for a look around. It didn't take long before we found City Beach surf shop and Gareth was the proud owner of a new Dale Chapman 6'5" surfboard. I managed to restrain myself in the face of bikinis, flip flops, and beach bags on a scale I've never seen before.

Surfboard mission accomplished, we left the shops and walked off in search of inspiration. It didn't take long to find Swan Bells, an impressive looking building that was one of Australia's Millennium projects and is one of the largest musical instruments in the world. Twelve of the bells came from St Martin in the Fields in London. I have never thought of bell-ringing as the most dynamic hobby but it was pretty amazing to see this petite white-haired lady, who didn't tell us her age but gave away she was at least in her seventies, ringing one of the heaviest bells (weighing 863kg - same weight as a Daihatsu Sirion apparently). While we were there we had the chance to chime some of (much) smaller bells ourselves (and we have a certificate to prove this!). The main difference between ringing and chiming bells is that when you ring a bell it starts and finishes in an upside-down position whereas when you chime it you start in a normal bell position and really just wiggle it from side to side - so it is a lot easier (as our bell-ringer lady was at great pains to tell us - I think she wmight have been a battle-axe teacher when she wasn't bell-ringing). I'm sure that Gareth and I could learn to ring the bells too but apparently it takes between three weeks and three months and we only had that afternoon to spare.

Afterwards we walked down to the Esplanade and as I sat marvelling at the number of jellyfish in the water (jellyfish in a river??) Gareth was marvelling at a sight of his own. Sitting behind us in a posh looking restaurant was ... wait for it .. Toady from Neighbours.

Yes, Gareth and I do come with an in-built celebrity radar...

To finish the day we walked over to the Western Australia Museum. I'm not normally a big museum fan but I had read in Bill Bryson's Down Under travel book that it had a fantastic collection of stuffed animals - well you all know how I love something cute and cuddly. Best of all, entrance was free! It is quite a cool collection, they had a tiger, an elephant, a koala, a platypus, a seal, a sealion plus loads more - and in the middle of it all a massive bison that was a bit scary. I don't like the way their eyes look at you... There was plenty more to see in the museum, including lots of beautiful butterflies, information on European settlement and an explanation of the Dreaming (how Aborigines explain how Australia was formed) and I know I should have paid more attention but after the stuffed animals, the only thing that got me going was the lifesize Tyrannosaurus Rex replica. I was looking forward to seeing Megamouth, a massive shark that was supposed to be on display in a giant preservative bath but we never managed to find it. It was a bit disappointing as I had already discussed it with Sebastian who had told me it was very cool. Never mind, plenty more sharks in preservative baths to see.

David and Kristin live just off Scarborough Beach Road so next morning it was a short bus ride to test out Gareth's new board. The waves were pretty small and I missed Gareth catching his first wave as I was too busy texting Dai and Di but I got his next one and I think you'll agree that I'm improving in the surf photography stakes.

Next stop was a haircut for both of us. Gareth's hair had been getting a bit crazy and it's nice to be able to see his face again. Somehow I went in with long hair and despite just asking for a trim I was scalped. Oh well, it takes less time to wash now.

With much lighter heads, we headed over to Fremantle, a small port town south of Perth with lots of nice coffee shops and fantastic ice-cream, yum. Sebastian had already told us about the Maritime Museum there so we went over to have a look - got in free since it was the second Tuesday of the month (I love a bargain). If you like boats it's quite impressive - they've got Australia II - the yacht that won Australia the Americas Cup and Parry Endeavour - the yacht that took lone yachtsman Jon Sanders three times around the globe. Gareth thinks he can't have many friends. The museum really is a bit of a giant boys toy and at one point I left Gareth behind in the mock-up submarine muttering 'Captain, I have the con' to go and watch a video about the Swan River.

The poor river has taken a bit of a battering over the years with parts of the bank blasted away to make it easier to navigate boats through. All of this has caused the river to change from freshwater to saltwater - with a significant effect on the original fish and plants - explaining the jellyfish I'd seen the day before. Outside the museum is the Thank You wall where the names of all the first European settlers to reach Western Australia are listed on gleaming tablets. I liked that but I still think Gareth's favourite bit was the submarine.....

Wednesday we got up early for train journey and a morning of education - at the Western Australia Aquarium, or AQWA. Sebastian had primed me for this so I knew what I was looking our for - sharks, rays and most importantly, the Danger Zone. This was going to give me all the information to let me safely get into Australian waters (I stayed firmly on the sand at Scarborough the day before - you need to be informed here before doing anything reckless like paddling).

Well I'm not sure whether it was a good idea to walk through the Danger Zone as it certainly confirmed one thing - there are a lot of nasty things in the sea out here - and they're not all sharks. As we walked through we passed tank after tank with nasties - I think this was the full list: sea snakes, lion fish, cone shells, blue-ringed octopus, and a stonefish plus big displays on sharks, box jellyfish and pufferfish. A lot of these little critters sit quietly in their tank looking harmless so they also play video footage so you can see them in action. The blue ringed octopus is titchy but can kill 10 people!

Luckily the Danger Zone didn't affect our appetites too much so after AQWA we got some fish and chips at a cafe overlooking the beach and then got the train back into Perth for a look around Kings Park.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet is Perth's fantastic public transport arrangements. Apart from the fact that buses and trains run on time, are clean and the staff are friendly (which would be a good start for us in the UK), within the centre of Perth there are three CAT bus lines, that take you from place to place for FREE! There are also other free buses that service other areas. Guess what, Perth doesn't seem to suffer very much from traffic jams and you don't see many cars in the centre. Isn't that a clever idea? I think we could learn a thing or two from other countries public transport services y'know.

So we got our free bus to Kings Park, which is four square kilometres of natural bushland in the city, and is beautiful. I could have spent hours there. Perth is a long way to go for a beautiful garden but if you're near here ever, visit it. You approach the park down a tree lined avenue - the trees here are nearly eighty years old and all have plaques to say who planted them. At the entrance you get a spectacular view of Perth and the Swan River. This is one we did on the timer - as you can see, the view is pretty fab.

The park is so big there was no way we could see that much of it in just a couple of hours but we did the Tree-top Walk (16 metres above the ground at its highest point) and came back through the Water Garden walk. We made another exciting discovery at Kings Park - in Australia you can get Cadbury's Picnic ice creams - yum again.

We'd already decided that on Friday we would head down south by train so we spent Thursday on Rottnest Island, which is about 20km off the coast from Fremantle. We took the ferry across, it took about 45 minutes and was much smoother than anything we'd been on in Thailand. There are hardly any motor vehicles on Rotto so we hired bikes and snorkelling kit and headed off to explore. It's a great place to cycle for someone like me, (who really can't cycle very well) because despite there being a few hills, they're quite gentle and you can normally work up enough speed coming down the hill below to fly up the next one. We didn't get very far though before we ran into trouble - Gareth's bike had a flat tyre.

Should have taken the bus.....

Gareth was about to cycle back to the settlement on my bike when a Ranger (wearing a polo shirt and driving a little jeep, not on horseback and wearing a poncho) came past and radioed the bike shop to send a replacement. Twenty minutes later, we were back on the road. We stopped at a beach called Little Salmon Bay, to do a bit of snorkelling, sunbathe and eat our picnic. Except that the 'picnic' was really just a giant bag of crisps and I'd eaten most of them waiting for the replacement bike. Snorkelling it was then.

The memory of the Danger Zone from AQWA was still raw in my mind so I was a bit nervous getting in the water but it looked so inviting - crystal clear - it reminded me of gin! In only knee-deep water, when you looked under with your mask there were fish a foot long and when you swam a little bit further out to the reef you started to see loads of colourful tropical fish and we saw a cute red octopus - I don't think he was venomous but as soon as he noticed us he wobbled off to hide in some rocks. After diving, snorkelling feels restrictive because you can't swim into the water but it was still very good. We spent the rest of the afternoon sunbathing before cycling back to the settlement, spotting a few quokkas along the way. Quokkas are small marsupials - like kangaroos and wallabies they carry their young in a pouch. They're normally quite shy - but on Rottnest they're tame and friendly and there are loads of them - although we only saw four between us - but they were four very cute ones. I would like to bring one home for Owen if I could but I can't see us getting through customs. Then it was the ferry back to Fremantle, the train to Perth station, and finally the bus to Mount Hawthorn.... public transport is great but it will be nice to get a car!

So, a busy first week in Oz and we have packed in quite a bit in Perth. Now we head south to Margaret River and beyond in search of surf for Gareth and wine for me. Bring it on!

So onwards to Singapore, a pretty straightforward journey from Bangkok, and a very comfy ride in a brand new Mercedes taxi to get to Lee Ann and Duncan's apartment, quite an improvement on the Tuk Tuks that we've become used to! We hadn't seen either of them for eight years, so we were really looking forward to catching up.

First things first, a cup of proper Tetley tea and we were ready to start exploring. Out we went to Club Street for a few drinks and then onto a great place, with the most strange selection of foods on their menu that I have ever seen. Duncan and I decided to go for the Roast Pork (a spot of local cuisine obviously) along with a pint of Guinness, it made a change from all the lager we had been drinking.

We really packed things in while we were in Singapore, on Thursday we explored Orchard Street and Sarah got a bargain dress for $27 (about eight pound) and then we went across to Sentosa island on the cable car. It was very, very high up there. We had a look around the island and saw the the most laughable musical fountain display. Not a great reward for getting absolutely soaked in very heavy rain!

We were going to have a quiet night in with a chilli crab takeaway that evening, but at the last minute Lee Ann got a call from her friend Jaymee saying that she had got us on the guest list for a Kelly Rowland gig (one of the other two from Destiny's Child) which was at a private function that night. Party on! The party was at the old British army barracks, which have been turned into a club. They had set up a small stage out the back and we sat in the VIP area, tucking into the free food and very weak Watermelon Martinis and being photographed by the paparazzi (no, seriously, keep an eye out for us in Hello, OK, Heat etc.) Kelly Rowland was very good, but was only on for about 15 minutes. If any of you don't believe us, here is the (slightly fuzzy) proof.

Afterwards we headed off to a karaoke bar, which has little booths that me, Sarah, Lee Ann, Duncan, Jaymee and our new friend Carl all crammed into. It was great fun, because you don't have to stand up on a stage in front of a whole club to do it, and they kept bringing more food and beer out all the time! The highight of the night was, without doubt, mine and Duncan's note perfect rendition of 'Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me'. Elton John and George Michael have nothing on us.

On Friday we went to see The Departed in the Gold Class seats in a new cinema. There are only about 25 seats in the theatre and they are all electric reclining seats that are so comfy it is like watching it at home in the living room, but better! You even get a snuggly blanket! It was also a very good film. Roll on Casino Royale in Oz!

We followed this by going to another VIP event, the opening of a new Esprit store in Vivo City, a massive shopping and entertainment complex. More red carpets, free drinks and nibbles, served by half-naked men (the top half). No wonder Lee Ann has stayed in Singapore so long.

The plan was then to go for a quick drink at Duncan's friend's party in a Turkish Bar, the Kasbah - but we ended up staying the whole night. More Stella. Well it was rude not to join in the celebrations.

After that Lee Ann and Duncan took us to Lau Pas At. This was a huge open air buffet, with loads of stalls selling a huge choice of food, including Chilli Stingray. I decided against it as I had recently travelled halfway around the world to go diving with stingrays and I thought it was a bit cheeky to then go and eat one. We ended up trying Rojak, a weird sweet and sour mix of every piece of food going, some delicious chicken wings and satay sticks, and mugs of very sweet tea, made with condensed milk that has been thrown around like a cocktail.

Saturday was our last chance to pack in everything that we hadn't done before, so obviously it rained.

We still managed to get loads done though, we saw some dragon boat racing while taking a cruise down the river, ate in Chinatown, bought an umbrella, and visited Raffles. As we had been eating and drinking almost non-stop for three days now, none of us was really in the mood for cocktails, even the famous Singapore Sling, (I know, you're surprised, Sarah turning down a cocktail).

In the afternoon we visited the Tea Chapter to sample some of the Oolong tea that the Queen drank while she in Singapore and to be taught how to make it properly. This process is quite long and complicated and to be honest I prefer Tetley in bags, but it was still good fun.

Next stop the Singapore Night Safari. The only time that day that the rain eased a little, which was helpful, but the wetness gave it more of a jungle feel anyway. We feasted on Bongo Burgers first, the Bongo is a type of African deer, and is almost certainly endangered, so my guess is that they weren't made of real Bongo, although I can't be sure. Maybe that's why they're endangered. Then followed the safari trails, which are very dark, but very well done, at one point we were about a foot from a Tiger on the other side of a pane of glass, it was massive and looked amazing (and maybe a bit hungry).

So we had a great time in Singapore and were very well looked after by Lee Ann and Duncan. We've agreed that we won't leave it eight years until the next time we catch up!

We've had more complaints about being slow updating the blog ... that's because we've been so busy learning to dive. More about that in a minute. Seeing as we have spent the week being 'buddies' to each other this blog entry is a joint effort.

We left Chiang Mai as planned on Sunday morning, flying with Bangkok Airlines to Koh Samui. At Chiang Mai airport there was a customer lounge offering free drinks, cakes and internet access so we made the most of that - our trip motto being 'Eat when you can, you don't know where the next meal is coming from'. The flight was uneventful although we had a slighty bumpy landing as it was a propeller plane rather than the Boeing 747s we've got used to over the last few weeks. Samui airport is very, very small - just a roof on stilts, the titchiest luggage belt EVER and a desk selling bus and ferry tickets. We hopped on a bus for Mae Nam, a little village a few miles up the coast. Mae Nam isn't really a tourist destination, I think most visitors are either avoiding the rest of Samui or using it as a base to get the ferry on to one of the other nearby islands, which is exactly what we planned to do.

All the accommodation in Mae Nam is on the beach, so with heavy rucksacks on our backs and under a red hot sun we trudged up and down the sand (and occasionally through the sea) looking for somewhere to stay. Along the way we found some extremely nasty huts and our first ladyboy, who had the longest, leanest legs in the shortest hotpants ever, but sadly couldn't hide his stubble and an extremely low voice. (During our stay in Mae Nam we heard that the ladyboys hang around ATMs at night trying to pick up Western men - I think it's the only time ever that Gareth has needed me to accompany him for protection).

Eventually we settled for a nice little mini-villa (Gareth thinks this is over-selling it) with a clean bathroom, bedcovers we could sleep under and a little verandah where we could sit and listen to the sea. Well we could have done if we didn't have to dodge all the mosquitoes. Our plan was to stay in Samui one night and then head off to Koh Tao but it was so nice to be back in a comfy bed after the concrete slab we had slept on (or not slept on)in Eagle House 2, that we decided to hang on another night and spend a lazy day on the beach instead. It's a hard life.

Tuesday morning we were up early to catch the 8am catamaran to Koh Tao. We don't normally suffer from seasickness but our 90 minute crossing was pretty choppy and they started handing out sick bags halfway through. Luckily neither of us needed one but we were really glad to get back on dry land.

Now the sole purpose for our visit to Koh Tao was Gareth's Big Diving Plan. This was the plan he'd been working on from the start of us planning this trip. Whereas Gareth is a proper water baby, I am most definitely not but Gareth's Big Diving Plan was for us both to get our Open Water Diving Certification.

I had already thought about the pros and cons of this crazy idea:

PROS
1) It might be fun (a bit like the train journey to Chiang Mai)
2) It would give me bonus points for being a good wife
3) Gareth would have a dive buddy
4) It would be a chance for me to feel the fear - and do it anyway

CONS
1) I hate water in my face, up my nose, in my mouth
2) I hate being out of my depth in water
3) I'm scared of what might be in the water e.g. sharks
4) I'm scared of being eaten by what is in the water e.g. sharks

I had put Gareth's Big Diving Plan to the back of my mind and decided I would cross that bridge when I got to it. Well now it seemed that it was time to cross that bridge, or rather that pier, as a smiling Thai chappie, wearing a bright yellow t-shirt saying 'Easy Divers' approached us as we stepped off the catamaran. Normally we do a Barry John style sidestep away from anyone trying to sign us up for anything but he had a nice smile and wasn't too pushy and as usual, we had nothing else organised. Easy Divers had all sorts of things to choose from, they did specialist courses, fun dives, night dives (...why anyone would consider getting in the water at night was nuts in our opinion but whatever floats your boat I suppose...). Minutes later we were signed up for the PADI Open Water course, starting that afternoon. So began five days of spending so much time on boats that we when we were back on land we never stopped swaying.

Our instructor Zigor was from the Basque region of Spain. (One night over a beer he confirmed something that I (Gareth) had long suspected. It's not just Welsh football supporters that think John Toshack is a useless manager, they think it in Spain as well!). By the end of of the four days he had persuaded us to go on and get our Advanced Certificate. This would only take two more days and five more dives, one of which was a dreaded night dive.....

Saturday morning we started the Advanced Course. One of the dives was a navigation dive where we had our first, totally silent, underwater domestic over the right direction to go in. (We were working from different information!- Gareth). We were then left by Zigor to explore the reef on our own for half an hour, then find our way back to the boat. Gareth - If I'm honest, I have to admit that this dive was the one I was most nervous about, which is probably a bit strange, because the following day we were supposed to be going diving with SHARKS. I have a greater fear of getting lost than of being eaten alive!

I never thought I would say this, but I was disappointed the following day when we didn't see any sharks. We were doing our deep water dive, down to 30m and were told that we were pretty much guaranteed to see sharks. Unfortunately the visibility at depth was very poor, which is a shame, because if you know you are surrounded by grey reef sharks, you might as well be able to see them. A few other divers saw a couple, but they were hiding from us. Maybe they were scared!

All that remained was for us to do a night dive. As we mentioned earlier nobody in their right mind would dive at night....would they!? Well here is the proof that we did!

There was a pretty scary moment for me when I couldn't keep up with the rest of the group (it's always the one at the back that gets taken isn't it). Gareth was ahead of me and his torchlight was getting weaker and weaker - eventually it completely disappeared and I was on my own, in the dark, 12 metres down. Or so I thought ... turned out I had been floating upwards and that was why I couldn't keep up with the lights. Luckily they found me and we carried on, with me and Gareth linking arms so I couldn't disappear again. We did the coolest thing at the bottom - we all switched off our torches and waved our hands around. It causes the plankton to phosphoresce and it looked like underwater fireworks. Magic!

Monday was our last day in Koh Tao and we decided to use it for a bit of exploring. We'd spent all our time in Mae Had but there were loads of other places around and the best way to do that is by moped. It's a bit scary how easy you can hire one - it costs less than three quid for a day's rental and they're not interested in seeing a driving licence - just your passport. Luckily 'Safe Hands Gareth' was in charge.

We'd had an idea to have a look at some of the viewpoints on the island but we quickly worked out that with two of us on board, the moped wasn't too good at hills. Instead we found ourselves at a beautiful beach called Shark Bay, with bright blue water and white sand. Tough day.

Tuesday it was time to head back to Bangkok - a 90 minute ferry to Chumporn and then an eight hour bus ride - so please don't think this trip is all sunbathing and beer! We headed back to Rambuttri Village Inn and got a last meal of Pad Thai and spring rolls on Khao San Road.

So our time in Thailand has come to an end and we've enjoyed it more than we expected. Koh Tao was definitely the best and we were both sorry to leave. The food is delicious, people are friendly and we avoided all the tuk-tuk scams.

Next stop Singapore!

I thought that after all these entries from Sarah, it was about time that I put pen to paper, or finger to keyboard. So here goes...

We decided some time ago that we would take the overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, rather than fly up, which would take about an hour. There were several seemingly good reasons for this decision:

1) Sarah loves taking the local public transport
2) It would save us paying for a night's accommodation
3) It would be fun
4) We had obviously forgotten how much we hated our last overnight train journey. (London to Edinburgh - don't do it)

We pitched up at the station and boarded no problem, accepted our complimentary (or so we thought) orange juices and made ourselves comfortable in a cabin just large enough for an oompa loompa travelling alone.

Soon after leaving Bangkok, a very friendly steward (the same one that gave us our orange juices) appeared in the doorway brandishing a menu. A quick glance answered our unasked question; no, the food isn't included. We had already bought some snacks to keep us going, so we politely indicated that we wouldn't be partaking of his culinary delights. This had the effect of changing his attitude completely, it was almost as if we were no longer welcome on the train and should get off immediately.

Then he enquired, 'Do you want to pay for the orange juices now or later?'. These were the same orange juices that were handed out at the beginning of our journey in a fashion that implied they were complimentary. Apparently they were 80 baht and he wanted 10% 'commission'. Cheeky git! (No, he didn't get any commission). He must have passed the word around the train staff that we were tight, because from that moment onwards we were made to feel like a pair of vagrants that they would like to move on to somewhere else. Despite the fact that we were actually travelling in first class!

Anyway, we got very little sleep that night as the air conditioning seemed to have been switched to arctic. All we had were thin sleeping bag liners to sleep in because the blankets that were provided seemed to have been dragged along behind the train before they handed them out.

At least when we arrived in Chiang Mai the sun was shining and the driver from the hostel was waiting for us. We stayed at Eagle House 2, which according to the Lonely Planet is "the better of the Eagle twins", although when Sarah read this out to me I mistakenly thought that she had said that it was "the better of the evil twins". On reflection, I'm glad we weren't staying in the other one.

Our yardstick for accommodation standards has become the hellhole that we stayed at in Negombo. By this measurement, Eagle House was above average, but only marginally.

Desperate not to stay in our room a moment longer we launched ourselves into a one day Thai cookery course, taught by Mr Visutt, who spoke very good English. Sadly, he seemed to have learnt it from watching Dr Who in the Tom Baker era, because his presentation style was very similar to that of a Dalek. Although, I never managed to get him to say 'exterminate, exterminate!'

It was a very good course and hopefully one day Sarah will put it to good use by cooking dinner.

Chiang Mai is a very pleasant city, much calmer than Bangkok, apart from the night bazaar, which is a bit like going to a huge market where they only allow stalls of three different types; hippy beads stalls, fake Rolex stalls and the universally popular 'dead cockroaches in a lovely mahogany frame' stalls (Sarah's personal favourite). Repeated ad nauseam until my blood sugar dropped so low that we had to go and find something to eat (unusual).

There are certain things that all travellers seem to do in Chiang Mai and probably the greatest of these is to go trekking. You can do treks that last anywhere between one and seven days (even longer if you get lost). Sarah and I decided that a one day trek was the best bet for two reasons, firstly, we had very limited time in Chiang Mai and secondly, why would any sane person choose to sleep in a hut in the jungle, being bitten to death by mosquitoes when there is a perfectly good bed in a hostel available? Or are we just not getting into the spirit of things? It seemed that we were wrong, as the city was full of Ray Mears wannabes, just dying to disappear into the hills for a spot of light rambling and starvation....

Our 'trek' first pitched up at the Mae Ping elephant training centre and we walked down to meet the elephants (this was probably the most walking we did all day). It was at this point that I truly surpassed myself in the David Attenborough stakes. Presented with a large bunch of bananas I was informed that I was free to feed them to the elephant standing rather impatiently next to me. So I peeled a banana and gave it to her, she seemed pleased with this system, so I repeated it and again she looked very happy. It was after the third banana that our guide suggested that the elephant might also like to eat the skins! I have to be honest and admit that it took a few seconds for the significance of this statement to sink in. Elephants obviously don't bother peeling bananas in the wild. I don't think they have the manual dexterity.

The rest of the morning passed without major incident, we went for an hour long ride on a twenty five year old elephant with a name that neither of us can remember, but definitely sounded a lot like Taliesin. I don't know whether the training centre ran out of Thai names, but I was a little surprised that their immediate thought was to start using the names of Welsh princes.

The elephant centre was actually very good. After we visited the elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka I was a little concerned by the way the keepers treated the elephants, they didn't seem to have any kind of interest in the elephants beyond getting tips from visitors and were quite happy to give them a good few whacks with a stick for no real reason. Mae Ping was very different, the elephants seemed to be happy and very well looked after. The keepers seemed to have very good relationships with the elephants and our 'driver' was constantly talking to Taliesin throughout our ride.

This was followed by a leisurely bamboo raft trip down the Mae Ping river where we came across the world's most dedicated sales team. Three teenage girls stood chest deep in the river trying to sell hats to the raft passengers as they went past. Unfortunately for these budding entrepreneurs I already have a hat and they were selling the exact same court jester style hats that everybody had been trying to sell us on our elephant ride twenty minutes before.

We narrowly avoided a visit to a snake farm in the afternoon, ending up instead at a butterfly farm. There's an hour of my life that I will never get back.

That was it for Chiang Mai apart from an evening spent brushing up our pool playing and Chang Beer drinking skills, obviously we're still working on the latter.

We've moved on to Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand now and we're relaxing by by the beach. Stay tuned for the next installment.

We arrived in Bangkok tired and stinky after our overnight flight from Sri Lanka, and with no bed for the night. Lonely Planet's guidebook gave fantastic instructions on how to get away from Bangkok's Don Muang airport but unfortunately we landed in Suvarnabhumi airport, which opened only last month. Luckily there was an airport bus outside so we hopped on and I promptly fell asleep. After about 30 minutes I woke up, just as we got into Bangkok itself. Despite the air conditioning on the bus, sitting in traffic in the sun was making me feel like I was being baked alive.

We had a plan for getting a room - a hotel on Soi Rambuttri, a few minutes away from Khao San Road. I had high expectations from the write-up in our trusty guidebook and was so pleased when the girl on the reception desk said that they did have a room available, gave us a key and invited us to take a look.

Lonely Planet describes the Rambuttri Village Inn as the Holiday Inn of guesthouses - well it looked more like the Ritz to us when we walked in. Air-conditioned, with our own bathroom with hot water, a TV, bedcovers we could actually sleep under and best of all, a rooftop pool, all for a tenner a night. We checked in for three days.

That night we headed over to Khao San Road which is basically traveller heaven. The road is lit up by neon signs and more shops, stalls and street food sellers than you can count. Narrow alleyways with even more shops and places to eat branch off the main road. We wandered about and got ourselves some food - which included the nicest spring rolls I've ever tasted and it cost us 55 baht - less than a pound.

Khao San Road seemed to have a magnetic pull as no matter where we started, we ended up back there every night of our stay in Bangkok, trying more of the street food. Banana and chocolate rotis one night for 20 baht each - 14p - and they were divine!

Next day, we started with a lunch that had so many chillies in it I thought I was going to collapse and die face down in my dinner. After I had recovered from that, but still with a nasty ache in my stomach, we set off for a spot of sightseeing. Bangkok has more than 500 temples and although we had no plans to see them all we thought we should make an effort to see at least one. Resisting the urge to get a tuk-tuk, we walked over to Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha) and Grand Palace (Phra Borom Maharatchawong), a former royal residence. The place is true bling. I had seen pictures but seeing is believing. It was like walking around a fairy story.

Bright gold buildings with coloured glass and ornate decoration - and you can see temples like this everywhere in Bangkok. Rising up out a boring grey cityscape will be a gleaming golden chedi, or tower.

That evening we decided to find Chinatown - best seen at night apparently. In an attempt to burn off some of the extra calories we're taking in with all this delicious food, to save a bit of dosh and seeing as we had plenty of time, we decided to walk there. It was a long walk and we got lost a few times along the way. It didn't seem to matter how much further we went, there wasn't any sign of the hustle and bustle we were expecting. Then we noticed that there were lots of Chinese signs above the doors and shops, but they were all shut.

Have you ever come home after a terrible at work, exhausted and fed up and with no food in the fridge? You know exactly what you want, a Chinese takeaway - duck pancakes with hoi sin sauce and then crispy fried beef and rice. So you get in the car, drive down to the takeaway and your heart sinks when you realise it's Monday night and they're shut.

Yep, it was Monday and it seems the 'No opening on Mondays' rule applies in Bangkok's Chinatown too. I was very grumpy and then ... it started to rain. We ditched our no tuk-tuk policy, grabbed the next one and made our way back to Khao San Road as the heavens opened and the rain came down.

Tuesday was public transport day. Most people who know me will be aware of (and those unfortunate few that have been abroad with me will have experience of) my great love for testing out public transport in foreign countries. Bangkok has a wide choice of public transport, although it's not very joined up. We hadn't really got over our experiences on the buses in Sri Lanka (I still have a big black bruise on my calf from where I fell backwards and whacked the seat on one trip) and we weren't keen to sit in traffic anyway so we decided to go for the river taxi instead.

The Mae Nam Chao Phraya river separates the city east and west and various canals (khlongs) come off it. We got on the Chao Phraya River Express and travelled about 30 minutes down the river. I can't say I would like to have a swim in the Mae Nam Chao Phraya but it was a pleasant enough journey and a different way to see the city.

After getting off we found the main post office to send a few things home and lighten our rucksacks a bit. (When we checked in for our flight to Bangkok my bag only weighed 11.5 kilos and I'm determined to make it lighter ever time we fly.) Next stop was the Skytrain - a 'overground' line with airconditioned carriages and fantastic views over Bangkok. There are only two lines and the entire route is printed on the back of your ticket so its really easy to use. We got off at the end of the line, Mo Chit, for Chatuchak market. It's supposed to be the mother of all markets, with zillions of stalls selling all sorts of things, from handmade Thai silks to live snakes. I had a feeling we wouldn't be able to stomach it for long. We needn't have worried - when we arrived we realised it was a weekend market - and it was Tuesday. Great. Yet again I was grumpy but this time we were too far from home to get a tuk-tuk back. In fact we were miles away, off the Central Bangkok map we'd been using.

Rather than get back on the Skytrain we decided we'd use the afternoon to have a look around some of the malls near Siam Square and make our way back to Chinatown to make up for the night before. I wish I had come to Bangkok on a two week holiday with a credit card to max and not on a 6 month trip where every penny counts. There are so many fabulous shops here.

We spent most of the afternoon looking for a hat for Gareth. This has been an ongoing saga since we left the UK. Despite all our planning, the one thing we didn't get sorted was a hat for Gareth. In our excitement at Heathrow, we rushed through to Departures before checking out the shops for a hat and we forgot that all the shops after that are Chanel, Harrods etc. I think Gareth tried on 90% of the hats in Sri Lanka - they all have pea heads and every baseball cap made him look like Elmer Fudd. It was the same in Bangkok. I have offered him a loan of my bandana but he's not going for it..........

What seemed like a hundred miles of walking later, we found our way to Chinatown, all lit up and very busy. We wandered around for a bit and then decided it was tuk-tuk time again and got dropped off again in Khao San Road. At last we found Gareth a hat! After all that walking we stopped for a Thai foot massage on our way back to the hotel. It's the first one I've had in a disused Shell petrol station that doubles as a makeshift cocktail bar but it was wonderful.

Today we're having an easy day, Gareth is lounging by the pool as we speak, before we get the overnight train to Chiang Mai. We'll let you know how that goes soon!

After our excitement in Kandy and our unplanned night in Negombo (in a room with the grottiest bathroom and the most dodgy wiring we had seen so far in Sri Lanka), on Thursday all we wanted to do was get to Kandy and make up for lost time.

The original plan had been to take the train for what is supposed to be a truly picturesque journey up through the mountains, but getting the train from Negombo was getting so complicated we decided to get a bus instead.

The bus journey took just over three hours and cost about a pound for three seats - one each for us and one for the bags. We were exhausted by the time we arrived - any road journey is an experience in Sri Lanka but bus drivers are notorious for their constant daredevil overtaking and sounding of their horns. They seem to have different horns for different purposes, a short sharp beep to say 'Get out of my way', a musical one to say 'Hiya mate, see you later for a beer' and a really loud one that they sound over and over and over again. I think this one was specially designed to really annoy all the tourists on the bus and give them a headache. The buses are also filthy and you get off with black dust all over your hands, your face and up your nose. Despite all this, the views were spectacular as the bus climbed higher and higher up the steep twisting road, although it paid not to have a seat right next to the window, especially if you didn't have a head for heights.

I'd read in the guidebook that Kandy's considered to be the only city in Sri Lanka, other than Colombo. Our only experience of Colombo had been the night before, when our van had overheated and broken down at the edge of the road in rush hour traffic. Everything looked grey and I had nearly choked to death from the fumes from all the traffic. Kandy was totally different - lush green vegetation and loads of colour and pleasantly cool (I have decided hot countries aren't really my thing) after the sweltering heat of the South. It was hectic and as we got off the bus with rucksacks on our back, trying to look in the guide book as discreetly as possible to find our way to the hotel we'd booked, it was the usual onslaught of locals offering us tuk-tuk rides and everything they were selling, except about a hundred times harder. There were shops, stalls and people sitting on the pavement selling just about anything you could ask for. In fact the only thing we didn't see was a hostess trolley.

We eventually got our bearings and found our hotel, the Olde Empire and indeed it was old, Gareth does believe that the owner dated back to the Raj. Our room was a bit dark and dingy but opened onto a lovely balcony with loads of comfy chairs and a view of Kandy Lake. While we were there we met Kate from Bristol, doing a couple of months of volunteering in Sri Lanka before meeting up with her boyfriend in India for another few months. It was so nice to meet someone that we could have an easy conversation with. Kate had already been in Kandy for a week and worked out the local scams, best places to eat and fastest internet connections (believe me we have found some slow ones!). She also introduced us to our first proper bar, called The Pub. It had the best toilets we'd seen since Changi airport, with a tiger print toilet seat and toilet paper. To make sure we got as much use as possible out of these gloriously clean toilets we had a few Lion lagers (and went back the next night for a few more!).

With only two days left in Sri Lanka we still hadn't seen any elephants so on Friday we decided a trip to Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage was in order. This involved another filthy trip on the bus and changing buses at some random junction but we found it alright and it was definitely worth it. The Orphanage opened in 1975 with seven elephants and there are now more than eighty elephants, with various deformities. One has lost an ear, some have wonky or missing tails and there was one with only three legs, who we nicknamed Tripod. He didn't move much. When we first arrived we passed two huge old elephants and were encouraged to approach them by the Sri Lankans working there, who also took our camera and snapped us with Raja, the oldest elephant in the Orphanage.

When we got the camera back this guy started saying 'Tip, tip' so Gareth took a 10 rupee note out of his pocket and this guy said 'No' and what sounded like 'Coins'. The coins are in such tiny denominations they're worth barely anything so Gareth went to give him a handful - and he replied "No, one hundred'. So Gareth told him to bugger off because we could take our own photos for that much. It's not a bad photo anyway...

After spending a bit of time watching them roam we followed them down to the river to see them being bathed. I have been quite restrained with the photos up until now but when I got back to the hotel I counted that we had taken 56 photos of elephants. We've shrunk this down to thirty-something now but you'll all be pleased to know that unfortunately we don't have enough of an allowance to put them all up here. You can see the rest of them when we get home!!!!

We had planned to get loads done on Saturday as it was our last day before flying to Bangkok. Best laid plans and all that. We got up early so I could try a Sri Lankan breakfast but I couldn't face fish curry first thing so we just had some bananas. We also planned to get an Ayurvedic massage and steam bath to flush out some of the dirt in our systems after those bus journeys, but the place was closed so we stayed grubby. Instead we visited the Temple of the Sacred Tooth, or Sri Dalada Maligawa, where the Buddha's tooth is supposedly enshrined. Nobody knows whether it's really there or not but I think Gareth and I both know the answer. It was an impressive building anyway.

The Temple is busy all day with locals visiting with offerings and we managed to time our visit to coincide with a service. There were hundreds of people milling about with flower offerings and me and Gareth looking a bit lost, wearing MP3 players giving us the history of the temple in English. We always try to blend in.

So our time in Sri Lanka is up and we have both really enjoyed although it has been trying at times. It's a great place to visit but not without its challenges, dirtiness being one of them. It will take me a long time to forget the filthy stinking toilet I visited in a seemingly clean cafe, after eating some short eats there.

We have seen some funny things, people walking through knee-deep puddles of muddy water in bare feet but wearing a plastic bag on their head to avoid the rain. Cyclists carrying open umbrellas as they pedal down the road. Many, many dogs, who all bore some resemblance to either Maddie or Jess. I'm sure we'll come back one day but it will be with a big bottle of Dettol and lots of wet wipes.

Aayu-bowan from Sri Lanka for now!

We have had a few complaints that we've been a bit slow with the blog - give us a chance - this is our first week! Anyway we now have lots to report so get yourselves a cup of tea and if you fancy it, a cherry bakewell too.

Our journey to Sri Lanka was long and boring. Slight hitch with a cancelled train from Swansea but we made it to Heathrow with plenty of time and met up with Fi for a quick gossip before check-in.

When we got to Singapore we spent the best fiver of our lives (before we got to Sri Lanka) on a shower which left us feeling a bit more human again and then it was back on the plane for the four hour flight to Colombo. Coming in to land, Gareth's trusty watch broke and I've persuaded him that this is a sign that time is not important to us now. Except when we need to catch trains, planes and buses of course. As we touched down on the runway (only minutes away from Friday the Thirteenth) it was drizzling with rain. Once we'd picked up our luggage and got ourselves some rupees we met our taxi to the hotel and settled back in our reclining chairs for the journey ahead, a 2 hour drive down the coast to Hikkaduwa. The further we went, the heavier the rain got, and eventually turned into a thunderstorm that made your brain rattle. Sri Lankan driving is something else, lots of tooting, constant overtaking and our driver dodged knee-deep puddles, tuk-tuk drivers and wandering dogs all the way. I nodded off to sleep as I guessed that Gareth was stressed enough for the both of us. We eventually reached our hotel more than an hour late, at about quarter to four in the morning and climbed into bed for some much needed sleep.

Next day we woke up late (unusual for me some might say) and did a bit of exploring. Hikkaduwa is a small town which is based around the coast road that runs from Colombo to Galle. As you drive south, there is jungle on your left and the sea on your right - and the road is lined both sides by a seemingly neverending supply of places to eat, stay or shop. We stopped at Rita's, a guesthouse and restaurant on the beach side and had our first taste of Sri Lankan food, fried rice. We both had portions that would easily have fed three and it cost about 200 rupees - about a pound. The food prices here are unbelieveable - bottles of Coke 40 rupees (20p), 80 rupees for a big pot of tea (40p) and all sorts of mini-snacks (called short eats) starting at about 8p. Best of all, Lion lager in 600ml bottles for 120 rupees (60p for those of you who haven't worked out the conversion yet). We've had a few of those I can tell you!

There's not much to do in Hikkaduwa except relax really, and it didn't take too long before we realised how easy it would be to spend our whole ten days there on the beach. Everyone is friendly and easy-going and you feel at home there very quickly.

On Saturday, Gareth hired a board and hit the surf while I did a bit more relaxing at Rita's with a pot of tea. I did try to get photos of him but was being a bit hassled by two dogs who seemed to live in the restaurant so I only managed to get one of him halfway there. I'm sure I'll improve though.

The hotel Gareth had booked for us (the Amaya Reef) was great - air-con, balcony, miniature toiletries and hot water - but after our first two nights was up we thought we needed to get a bit more into the backpacker spirit so we found a place a few doors down, Blue Note, where we got a cute little cabana on the edge of the beach with none of the lovely features of the Amaya Reef. We had to use the mossie net, pegless washing line and universal travel plug but it only cost us 1500 rupees (you can work it out, cheap). Found some little bug in the bathroom in the evening but at least it wasn't a cockroach......

On Monday morning we organised for a tuk-tuk (a three-wheeler vehicle, a bit like a cable car with wheels and without all the safety features) to take us to Galle. Galle was a Dutch fortress town and we got dropped off by our driver inside the fort, armed with our Lonely Planet guide and a list of potential guesthouses. The first was no longer a guesthouse, the second was revolting and the third was Mrs Wijenayake's. We checked in for two nights at the princely sum of 900 rupees a night.

Well this is our view of Galle - there is not much to see or do. Once you have looked at the cricket ground (ruined by the tsunami) and walked around the fort you might as well leave. We were hassled all the time inside the fort by people who latch on to you and won't bugger off again. On Tuesday we got a tuk-tuk to Unawatuna, about 15 minutes along the coast and spent a lovely day there on the beach.

The water is clean and calm and supposedly very good for snorkelling. We were approached by a guy wearing nothing but swimming trunks and a snorkel and he said something that I didn't quite hear - I guessed he'd asked if we wanted to hire snorkelling kit. Gareth said 'No, we're not interested' and pulled me away but this guy persisted. I thought Gareth was being unnecessarily rude to this poor chap so I said 'Maybe later!' and Gareth grabbed hold of my arm and said 'Sarah, he just offered us drugs!'. I must get my ears syringed....

Wednesday was going to be our last day in Galle - we planned to get the train to Kandy in the afternoon. We both woke up early and were lying in bed when we heard an almighty bang that seemed to shake the roof. Then there was another one. And another one. I thought maybe it was thunder, there had been a lot but it didn't really sound the same. Next came the rat-tat-tat-tat of machine gunfire - and Gareth got out of bed to see what was going on. Turned out the Tamil Tigers had sent three suicide bombers disguised as fishing boats to attack the Navy Military Base on the edge of the fort - about 200 yards away. Pretty scary. Under these pleasant circumstances we met the rest of the lodgers at the guesthouse, and most of Mrs Wijenayake's extended family. I thought that 'tea and toast' was a very British response to crisis but they do it in Sri Lanka too. A curfew was imposed on Galle so we were stuck inside the house and our plans for getting the train to Kandy squashed. A good point was that I finally finished this book I've been struggling to read for ages! At about 3.30pm a van arrived to collect Yvonne, a Dutch girl who was also lodging there. Yvonne had been doing some voluntary work and the coordinator had arranged the van. We hopped in too and were taken to Negombo, north of the airport. It was another nightmare journey which lasted 6 hours in baking heat and included a breakdown on the edge of the road in Colombo in rush hour traffic, but at least we were out of Galle.

So all in all it has been a fun first week. We've left Negombo and are now in Kandy in the hills, where it's raining but lovely and cool. But that will be another story...........

From tomorrow we'll be computer-less so this will be our very last UK entry on the blog (for a while at least).

Work finished for us both on Wednesday so now our trip is a lot more real and the list of things left to do is shrinking all the time.

Friday was DD day - I met up with the girlies for our big trip to London. The trip started with a lovely bottle of champagne on the train to Paddington and a quick lunch in the hotel before we headed to Covent Garden for a drink before the show. We managed to find the only pub in London that didn't stock blackcurrant so Lizzie missed out on her second favourite tipple, cider and black. Then it was over to the Alwych Theatre to find our seats....

The show was fantastic, we all loved it. As Nia said, she had the Time of Her Life. I think the grins in the image below backs this up!

After the show we had some food and and then headed back to the hotel where we were all tucked up in bed at the ridiculously early hour of 10.30pm - paid off next morning though as we hit Oxford Street and its shops. Seeing as I have NO space in my rucksack for anything else, I concentrated on getting Nia, Eleri and Lizzie to spend their money and I think I was very successful! It was a fab weekend and I really enjoyed.

Me and Gareth spent about 3 hours this afternoon going through the packing (again) and checking we have absolutely EVERYTHING we need. Our kit looks disturbingly small though - I have a feeling it's all going to be rattling around in Gareth's huge rucksack ... maybe I will manage to sneak a few 'luxury' items in after all!

That's all the news for now - I think this is a sensible place to sign off. Our adventure starts properly on Wednesday morning when we set off, trek-style, for Llanelli train station (Gareth thinks we're getting a taxi but I think we should start as we mean to go on) and find our (get this!) First Class carriage seats (a lovely unexpected upgrade courtesy of all the other Reeseys) for the journey to London Paddington. Let the fun begin!

It's been a busy couple of weeks for us.

After a bit of a panic moment at the beginning of last week when it dawned on me just how much we had left to do before we set off, the good news is that we're now much more organised all round. We both have rucksacks, everything fits in the rucksacks and so now all we have to get through is the half a million or so jobs on our 'To do' list. It just seems that everytime we manage to clear a few more things off the list, we find a new set of things to do, keeping it around the half a million mark most of the time.....

After a few weekends UK-trotting, we stayed at home last weekend and Gareth whipped up a top curry and his now world-famous homemade onion bhajees (well almost world-famous) for the whole of the Rees Clan - and it wouldn't have been a proper night in without a bottle or two of champagne (I feel weak at the thought of no fizz for six months).

Our last full week in work flew by and Friday night I met up with the girlies for dinner and Dirty Dancing lessons before next week's trip to London. Eleri came well prepared with a bottle of fizz but drama of dramas - we couldn't open it, despite Nia's best efforts with a butter knife. We enjoyed anyway and I'm sure we'll make up for it in London.....

Saturday night we were in Southampton to celebrate Lynn and Jon's joint 30th birthdays and their engagement - big smiles all round. Got lots of top travel tips from Lynn's friends who between them seem to have travelled everywhere on earth and certainly everywhere on our route, which was great.

Carmarthen on Saturday night didn't know what had hit it when six classy chicks hit the town to celebrate Fi's birthday a bit early. I didn't know what had hit me Sunday morning when I woke up at seven (we finally got to bed after five) and had to get up to go to Leicester.

It was a fab night out though, starting off with our fab party table and balloons (all lost somehow an hour later on our walk to the pub) followed by lots of dancing and falling over by some, then finally a bit of kitchen karaoke and the traditional barefoot orange, lime and lemon-squashing ceremony before bed. At least our feet smelt nice!

After the excitement of the Murder Mystery night we headed up to Staffordshire with Dai and Di for our big day out at Alton Towers. Crammed in plenty of rides and lots of walking (expecially as the cable car wasn't working - 'technical difficulties' - something we would hear a lot more of as the day went on).

Towards the end of a very long queue for Spinball Wizard there was a very hairy moment as the ride completely stopped with four cars in various positions along the track. After they got the ride working again we decided that with only about two minutes before we got to the end of the queue we should risk it and we all survived!

After lunch Dai and Di got a good soaking on the Log Flume (we used the excuse of Gareth's poorly back to sit at the back of the ride - a good move) and after a few more technical difficulties on some of the scarier rides (making us wonder if we were some kind of curse) our plan was to get coffee and cake. On the way we passed the Teacups ride and decided to give it a whirl - what should have been the most tame of all the rides turned into a stomach-turning two minutes as Dai spun the wheel like crazy - leaving us all looking a bit green when we got off.

Our last ride was a few seconds of pure adrenalin on Oblivion before we grabbed our long awaited coffee and cake and stock up on sweeties and crisps for the journey home to Wales. When we lay our heads on our pillows and switched off the lights for bed, the room still felt like it was spinning!

Another week closer to departure and another busy weekend. Saturday night we stepped back in time to a Murder Mystery evening set in 1912 - cast for the evening (L-R):

Oscar Hemmingway III
Sister Morticia Lewinskaya
Georgette Michel
Bunny Mandelson
Agatha Eton-Hogg
Douglas Eton-Hogg MP

As the night went on we got more and more confused about how our characters were all involved in the murder and our accents got better and better the more wine we ploughed through - except for Dai whose Texan drawl started to sound like its batteries were running out by the time we got to dessert.

And whodunnit? Di - the crazy fake nun from Chicago of course!