Jo and Graeme

Last Friday we flew from Phuket to Bangkok, the last stop on our round the world voyage. We braved Air Asia (one of Asia's budget airlines) once again - it was fine apart from the unallocated seating, so it felt like getting on a bus as people scrambled for the best seats... We had a busy old time in Bangkok visiting temples and night markets. The city is home to lots and lots of Buddhist temples, the best of which are near the river and within easy walking distance of each other. First up was Wat Pho - famous for it's enormous reclining Buddha (or lazy Buddha as one Thai tour guide put it). Wat Pho was pretty spectacular - the temple buildings ornate with jewels and intricate murals, and the most fantastic statues guarding the ... read more

After Singapore Malaysia is the obvious place to travel to, but with limited time we decided to just go to Kuala Lumpur. Getting to KL from Singapore is easy - you can take the bus or the train and it's only a few hours. We opted for the train and discovered that Britain is about the only country left in the world where train stations are still in city centres. Singapore's train station is on the outskirts of the city centre and is decidedly faded - a remnant of colonial times, it even had a waiting room for VIPS - how many VIPS travel by rain these days?! The express train turned out to be anything but express, it crawled through the countryside, but it was comfortable and inexpensive. As we got into Malaysia the visibility ... read more

We're just back from a fantastic 3 days in the outback visiting Australia's most iconic attraction - Uluru, or Ayres Rock as it's commonly known, as well as the Olgas and King's Canyon, and experiencing a bit of outback life, and it was great! We started from Alice Springs very early on Monday morning, as Uluru is a 5 hour drive from Alice. Our first afternoon was spent doing the base walk around the rock; the local Aboriginal tribes discourage people from climbing it as it's a sacred site to them, but plenty of people still do the climb. We decided not to partly out of respect for the locals, and partly because it's bloody steep and we weren't sure that we were feeling that energetic! The base walk was enough exercise for the first day! ... read more

Our whistle-stop tour of Australia has thankfully slowed in pace a little and we're currently chilling out in Melbourne. Here's an update since the last blog: After the magical sailing in the Whitsundays we were meant to be getting an overnight bus to Hervey Bay, but the thought of getting on a bus after 2 nights on a boat, with no shower and covered in salt from all the snorkelling was too much, and we postponed our bus trip to the next day and found accommodation in Airlie Beach for one last night. This also meant that we were able to join the rest of our group from the boat for a few drinks that evening, before everyone went their separate ways. The next morning Graeme, Jamie and I caught a bus to Hervey Bay for ... read more

Hello all! Just a quick update as we're waiting for a bus to collect us for our 2 day sailing trip to the Whitsunday Islands. Last time I wrote we were in Canberra; from there we flew to Cairns to begin our 2 1/2 week trip down the Queensland coast to Brisbane. We didn't spend much time in Cairns, we used it as a base to visit Cape Tribulation (a gorgeous area of beach and rainforest about 3 hours north of Cairns) and to visit the Great Barrier Reef. We spent a day on the reef last Friday - it was AMAZING! We snorkelled with all sorts of sea creatures, including a couple of sea turtles and a sea cucumber. The sun was out and the ocean was warm, it was bliss! After Cairns we travelled ... read more