Yasus everyone! We arrived in our first European destination, Athens Greece. After a four hour flight from Bahrain we flew over Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Greek Islands before descending over the Acropolis and other awesome sights in Athens. We were pretty stoked that the weather was a comfortable 32C, sunny and dry! After catching the metro with all our gear to Omonia Square (home to many drunks, prostitutes, beggars and druggies) we finally found our hostel . The area in Athens we were staying is quite multicultural and quite noisy with people drinking 24/7 on the streets. Very sociab [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Bahrain (small island country off the coast of Saudi Arabia) at 2am one night after a 7 hour flight (delayed again!). Flying over India, Dubai and Myanmar was great, although take off was intense amidst a thunderstorm with lightning strikes every 10 seconds for at least an hour. At 2am, walking off the plane all dazed and tired, we realized it was kinda hot. 43C in fact. Waking up the next day in our cheap hotel we looked out the window into the nearby buildings and realized: we are in the desert! White houses, flat, sandy landscape and [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Bangkok early one morning by bus we thought arriving in Siem Reap, Cambodia would be a straightforward journey. Wrong wrong wrong! After busing to the Thai-Cambodia border crossing the border took an hour or so at immigration. As soon as we crossed the border everything changed so dramatically. The landscape became flatter, the children skinnier and the people far poorer. We had been warned about the trip to Siem Reap and thought maybe we would be there before darkness, but that wasn’t going to happen. The 150km journey can take from 3 and a half hours to 7 in a [View Full Entry]

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We came to Phuket via boat from Phi Phi Island (1 and a half hour journey). Arriving here our luggage broke (go Asian ‘streets’) and the coach driver dropped us at a five star resort…guessing he heard wrong! We decided to stay at Kata Beach, which is probably the nicest beach in Phuket and not as touristy and busy as Patong Beach. The beaches are more like home, and even had surf for two days while we were here! A very cute Thai kid was showing the tourists how it’s done. Patong Beach is probably the most touristy place we have [View Full Entry]

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On a spur of the moment decision we decided to go with our English friend Amanda and an English guy, Kevin, to Thailand and try to get some great weather. After squishing up in our rental car we returned it and hopped on a boat from Langkawi to Satun, which is a town in southern Thailand. We had heard it is easy as pie to cross the border here, so after a quick boat trip we were hauled onto a bus and a few hours later were driving through southern Thailand. Because of our sicknesses we were becoming pretty behind [View Full Entry]

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Penang through to Langkawi (leaving Malaysia) Another bus trip later and we arrived in Penang (or Georgetown), which is an island in the north-west of Malaysia (attached by SE Asia’s longest bridge). Georgetown is known for its historical buildings and English settlements, apparent in the many old churches. Unfortunately Penang is probably going to be remembered in a less than enthusiastic way….due to food poisoning, lethargy, small bouts of homesickness (Jane) and of course the heat (so forgive the b-grade photo selection). Firstly we get out of the bus and stumble around [View Full Entry]

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The 6 hour bus trip from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur goes through a fair amount of southern peninsular Malaysia. Aside from the occasional village tucked underneath the acres and acres of palm plantations, there’s not much change to the landscape. The bus stopped for us at the border for customs (more police and security wandering around with rifles) where we could stand between Singapore and Malaysia looking ahead to all the mosques and back to the Singapore skyscrapers. The bus trip was our first ‘encounter’ of the trip; as the booking on the net had said 1000 o’clock d [View Full Entry]

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Ok so we finally arrived in Singapore after a long day for us. Up at 4.30am for a two hour flight from Cairns to Brisbane, then a five hour wait at Brisbane airport. Then finally on our eight hour flight to Singapore. Poor Matt! But he was great and we had pretty good food and movies on the flight and the scenery was really interesting. Flying along the coast of Australia, through the red centre, over Kakadu, Darwin and then the large Indonesian volcanoes before landing in Singapore. Landing at 8pm gave us a fair indication that Singapore does not ever [View Full Entry]

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Finding Nemo Well second day in Cairns and wow…did we find nemo and much more! Firstly we drove up past more sugar cane and banana plantations from Mission Beach one sunny morning (we really can’t get by without air con from this point). The scenery is beautiful through the tablelands from Mission Beach to Cairns (and beyond) with mountainous rainforest following the route north. When we arrived in Cairns we thought it was beautiful, a city where visitors can actually do things, not like many other cities which are great to live in but not so picturesque for tourists. We decided [View Full Entry]

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We completed our longest drive (650km) from Yeppoon to Airlie Beach on Friday. So we were slightly wasted after that, but enjoyed the scenery. At the Mackay district the land changed from dry, brown, hot and flat to beautiful fields (after fields) of sugarcane and dramatic hills. This continued all the way to the Whitsundays, where the big ranges look similar to Milford Sound (but with slightly warmer temps). We got bad news when we arrived that the weather for the next four days (the length of our stay) was going to be rainy. So we decided to risk it early [View Full Entry]

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