Hellmania

Hello friends, at last the final installment of our Asia trip. We are now in the South of France taking a well earned break!!! (I can feel your groans from here!). It was another early morning when we departed Quy Nohn for Hoi An and the bus trip was scenic but uneventful, or so we thought! We stopped for morning tea at the roadside (a “happy break”) and I started talking to a monk who was travelling on our bus. It turns out he lived in Perth for 8 years studying at the Marangaroo Buddhist temple (I didn’t know there was one there either). We had a chat about life, the universe and bits in between before reboarding the bus. We further chatted at lunch (yes this was a Vietnamese 4 hour bus ride) where he ... read more

Thankfully our driver managed to miss everything that hurtled towards us on our journey from Ko Chang to Aranya Prathet, the Thai border town with Cambodia. We reached the border at lunchtime and were deposited at a restaurant. Our guidebook advises that there is a bit of a scam at this crossing where tourists are taken to a (cousin’s?) restaurant where visas are arranged. Yep, this happened to us and there really is no way around it unless you forego your onward bus. They sting you US$36 for the visa, whereas at the border it is US$20. It is annoying, but sometimes you just have to accept their “way”. Although we didn’t let them get away without a bit of an earbashing. At the border in Cambodia there is a money exchange offering 4000 Cambodian reils ... read more

Hello folks and welcome back! We left Perth bright and early on Thursday morning, well I say bright and early, it was actually 7:00am, but the sun had been up since 4:30am thanks to those athletic types that want to exercise at some ungodly hour and who canned daylight savings. Heading through the suburbs of Perth we saw no one out and about (no exercisers, so who did vote against daylight savings then??) but met busy traffic on the Tonkin Highway. Our itinerary took us via the Brookton Highway to Hyden and the famous Wave Rock, which was surprisingly larger than I had anticipated. However I would not recommend it as a day trip. It is also very similar to rock formations adjacent to Ayers Rock (Uluru). Beyond Hyden the road is unmade and the Rav ... read more

Good morning blog readers! Yes I know it's Monday morning about 8:30 for you guys, but honestly we do forget what day it is and it is purely a coincidence that we post our blogs on Sunday, honest. Well, perhaps not this one!!! This blog takes us from Venezuela, which we didn't like, to Santa Marta and the Lost City in Colombia, which was excellent. Hope you enjoy the trip! As usual, immigration at airports takes quite some time and our bags had seen a few laps of the conveyor by the time we arrived. We were soon approached by “changey money” vendors, which is not surprising and is unfortunately a must in Venezuela. Johnny became an immediate “friend” (or so he thought) and led us through the airport to the tourist information booth where a ... read more