USA Seattle/Bremerton When I left you last I had just endured US immigrations and eventually arrived safely in Seattle airport where Bob and Carol (my host parents from when I lived in America for 6 months aged 18) were waiting. It was really lovely to see them again. Despite being incredibly tired (having not really slept the previous night) I managed to stay awake a couple more hours to catch up and have some dinner. Actually felt strange eating the type of food I am used to at home (potatoes, meat, gravy etc) having survived on Tacos for the previous week [View Full Entry]

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Guatemala My last night in Guatemala was spent watching the Super Chivos (Xela) play football in a classico (derby match). It was a pretty good night, met up with another guy from the treck to Todos Santos (Michael) and headed out for some dinner before the footie followed by a convincing win from Xela. At the game we met a couple of others from the Todos Santos treck and despite a city wide alcohol ban (due to it being election day) managed to find a bar after the game that let us in for a lock in (one of the things [View Full Entry]

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Gautemala At the end of the last blog I was approaching the end of my time at Lago Atitlan but had extended my stay for a couple of day haviong found a nice quiet hostel to relax in. My plan to move to the quiet town of Jaibalito on Lago Atitlan worked quite well for the first two days and I managed to get a little Spanish done as well as visiting a few more villages around the lake either on bike or by foot. On the Friday however I met up with some friends from La Iguanas In Santa Cruz [View Full Entry]

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Costa Rica Costa Rica was never on our original plans as somewhere that we intended to visit but when it came to booking our flight from Lima to Guatemala City the cheapest option was routed through San Jose. So we thought why not, and on the spur of the moment decided to pay the extra 20GBP odd in taxes and stop in for three nights. San Jose is the capital and largest city in Costa Rica (which itself is a pretty small country c.4.5m people). We stayed in an area called San Yoses which is a pretty student suberb and we [View Full Entry]

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Southern Chile Santiago After a long flight from Auckland we landed in Santiago, Chile. Fraser did not sleep at all on the plane, largely due to the fact that he had one of the largest men in the world in the seat next to him - his belly and arm were partly in Fraser's seat and his elbow was digging into his ribs. We think he should have paid for a couple of seats. Anyway, we negotiated a taxi from the airport (paying well over the odds but knackered so went with it) to Hostal de Sammy, along with an Irish [View Full Entry]

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New Zealand - North Island Wellington We got a ferry up from the South Island to Wellington and had a few beverages on the ferry whilst playing cards, so when we arrived we were quite keen on a night out. We stayed at a really nice YHA and were lucky in that, as there were 5 or us (the three of us plus Hazel and Cathi from the Kiwi experience) they upgraded us to private ensuite dorm for just the five of us. This was pretty nice for a change as it meant your sleep wasn't frequently interrupted by people [View Full Entry]

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New Zealand Hey all hope all is well at home. Here is the latest installment of our RTW trip. We have now been in NZ for a while. The map above shows the route we are taking around NZ. We are using the Kiwi Experience bus which is a backpacker bus that loops around the two islands of NZ. The bus has a few free excursions / walks and also shows you a few places you might not otherwise see. You can hop on and off at the different stops providing you make sure you are booked on one of the [View Full Entry]

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Australia (continued) Having stayed longer than expected in Byron we skipped out Surfers Paradise and Noosa. We had heard mixed reports and weren't too dissapointed to have skipped Surfers when we drove through it on the way to Brisbane. Didn't look a touch on Byron. Brisbane As the bus pulled into Brisbane, I wouldn't say it was an aesthetically pleasing city: brick skyrise; crane; brick skyrise; crane....... Checked into our hostel and walked around much of central Brisbane in around an hour. Andy noticed there was a rugby match on at the Suncorp Stadium between the Queensland Red [View Full Entry]

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Vietnam Hue Ok - it's been a while since the last update so prepare yourselves for a large instalment with around 100 photos! So, last time we left you, we were heading off on a 14 hour bus ride to Hue. This was surprisingly unpainful for all, and even Andy and Fraser managed to get a couple of hours sleep. Arriving in Hue before lunch we did the now customery search for a guest house. We made our way to the area known as backpacker alley and looked at a few rooms before being persuaded by a friendly local to stay [View Full Entry]

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So the last update was from Ko Pha Ngan and since then the group has shrunk back down to the original three. This coincided with a dramatic drop in quality of both accommodation and daily spend. From Ko Pha Ngan the route has been bus up to Bangkok (with a side trip to Kanchanburi) followed by Vientiane (Laos capital), Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang. Several very long, incredibly scenic and at times incredibly uncomfortable bus journeys were taken. Marie and Fraser then took a short romantic break from Andy (possibly to avoid the snoring) taking a different route to the eventual [View Full Entry]

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