In our week long break between retreats, we took a ferry over to Morocco (North Africa). Arriving in Tanger, we had a few hours to spare before our overnight train departed for Marrakech. Our first impressions of Morocco was that was an intense place. In the cities things are non-stop. Market stalls open early and trade late into the night. Everyone wants something from you and will stop at nothing to get your full attention. First, they test out up to six different languages until they figure out your nationality. We were very impressed with the number of languages that the [View Full Entry]

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Granada and the Alhambra After another bus ride we arrived in the city of Granada. Walking out of the bus station we were immediately taken aback by the scenery. Granada is the most European-looking city we have seen so far in Spain. It's a maze of cobble stoned alley-ways weaving their way up a hill towards the amazing Alhambra that overlooks it. Beyond the city you can see snow-capped mountains, despite the warmer weather. Our luck continued as we made our way to the hostel we had booked, which could not have been more conveniently located, around the corner from one [View Full Entry]

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After our adventures on the farm, we headed East to Almeria by bus. The change in scenery was quite dramatic, with the seamingly endless blockade of beachfront hotels and resorts finally giving way to smaller villages and eventually some coastal cliffs. Almeria and the sorrounding area is mostly famous for being used as the movie set for many Spaghetti Westerns (Western movies made very cheaply in the 60s and 70s), this being the main reason for us traveling here. So in that vain we´re going to present The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Almeria: Firstly the Ugly. Although the [View Full Entry]

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Well with another busy week of work done and dusted, we headed out to a little farm North of Malaga, where we were to live and work with a nice Spanish family for two weeks. Or so we thought. Upon arriving in the town of Colmenar we were greeted by our gracious host, Adam. Adam, although being a very inviting and interesting person, could not be less Spanish. In fact our Spanish was probably on par with his. Not to be deterred we decided that if couldn´t learn Spanish then we´d learn about organic farming. Lesson 1: S*¡t happens 2 days [View Full Entry]

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We have just spent the past two and a half weeks traveling around the countryside in Southern Spain (Andalucia province). Before we left Malaga we sent the last night enjoying the atmosphere of the Festival de Malaga which was a week long multicultural festival. There was also an international film festival on at the same time. We enjoyed a variety of tapa dishes from around the region, and also many varieties of beer and wine. Our next stop was a little town called Tolox, which is a small town situated at the foot of the Sierra De La Nieves (a large [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Malaga, Spain, about a week and a half ago. We were amused by the passport checking station as they barely even glanced at our passports. A blank page was opened for a split second, just enough time to stamp. Those with Spanish passports simply held them up and they were ushered through without even looking at the photo! We immediately fell in love with Spain - it was nice to be in a place that was even more laid back than Australia (and warmer than England haha!) Little did we know that we had arrived on the first [View Full Entry]

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Having decided that we had enough of Olde London Towne, Ali and I hired a car and took off down to the country, but not before a quick trip to Greenwich to stand on the prime meridian and sychronise my watch. We headed down about 2 hours South West of the city to a lovely little town named Wimborne Minster, which is situated about 25 mins north of Bournemouth and Poole, two towns on the English south coast. We were staying in Wimborne with Tilly and her family - for those of you who don't know Tilly she met Ali's sister [View Full Entry]

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London. Cold. So very cold. After a fairly cold welcome to the UK, we managed to navigate our way to the tube, take two trains on two rail systems and a cab, and made it to Lisa's studio apartment where we are staying and were very warmly welcomed and happy for it. Our first priority in London was warmth. I was lucky and picked up a winter jacket on the first day here, but for Ali it has been somewhat more of an ordeal. Three days of pretty intensive shopping around at every department store in almost every suburb, borough and [View Full Entry]

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Dubai is one of the most interesting and different places we have seen. It basically looks like a brand new city of skyscrapers that has landed in the dessert amongst some very traditional buildings. Stu would describe it as a place of extremes. It has an extremely old and traditional culture infused in an ultra modern setting. We experienced some of the cheapest and best food we've had in the world (about $3 for both of us including drinks) and some of the most expensive western food (about $250 for dinner). There are lots of westerners here, probably as many as [View Full Entry]

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We're about to say goodbye to Phuket and head to Bangkok. It's been awesome here, and despite the weather forecast being thunder storms for our entire holiday (according to the Thai Meteorological Department before we left) we had great weather, sunshine for most of the time. Highlights of the trip would include our Thai cooking class, held at our hotel. As you can see from the photos, we were very popular with the hotel staff. I think we had a crowd of about 10. We learnt to cook Fried chicken in panadanus leaves, Tom Yam Goong, and red curry with Pork. [View Full Entry]

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