Paradise Lost So maybe we don't qualify to get into Paradise just yet. We tried hard to find the Lord of the Rings film location. Pushing our van to its limits driving on a dirt track and fording streams. But Paradise did not reveal itself. The area around Queenstown and Glenorchy could be described as a paradise in itself. More photo opportunities than you could shake a stick at. We decided it was time to get David a proper horse so we headed for a half day trek at the foot of the Misty Mountains (more film locations) and introduced David to Murray, a long haired hippy who at least also had long legs. Our trek was guided by someone who had ridden as an extra in a LOTR battle scene so she entertained us with ... read more

Happy New Year New Year, new continent. Almost as far as we'll get from home, yet a whole lot more like home than anywhere we've been so far. Except that it wasn't minus 4 on New Year's Eve. And you can plan a barbeque (complete with shrimp of course) further than 12 minutes in advance. Also a lot more homey than anywhere we've stayed, thanks to the excellent and endless hospitality from Alison and Shay (thanks again guys!) - it's handy having family in far flung places. Especially handy when they can direct you to a rather fine spot for catching the New Year fireworks over Sydney Harbour. We were lucky they were willing to take us out in public after David tried to walk through a glass door at the back of their flat. He ... read more

There are those who would throw up their hands in horror but we decided that Ho Chi Minh was just another big city and chose to spend our time in Vietnam elsewhere. Yes, I'm afraid we missed Saigon. History Lessons Our first stop on the way South was the historic capital city of Hue. Some of the more recent history is not of the picturesque kind as we discovered on our day tour of the surrounding "American" war relics. We saw the stuff made famous by the movies: the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the Vinh Moc tunnels and a former US airbase. The trip down the tunnels was made more authentic by the fact there was a powercut so we had to share torches. A claustrophobic experience to say the least - especially given they were designed ... read more

Sabaidee from the Land of a Million Elephants, the former royal capital of Laos, Luang Prabang. Standard dormitory question and answer session tends to go along the lines of "where have you been?", "how long have you been travelling?" etc etc. Then some people will ask, "so which country's been your favourite then?" It always seems like such a silly question. Our answer is generally along the lines of "the places we've been have all been too different to compare." Only from now on, I think Laos might slip out there as a potential favourite ahead of the other half dozen countries we've been to in the past three months. It's possible that if this place was any more laid back, the stray dogs might take over. If they could rouse themselves from their sunshine slumber. ... read more

There are no puns and no jokes about what we saw this week. In fact we don't really know what to say. We visited Choeung Ek also known as the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng or the S-21 detention and torture centre used by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. The first sight greeting you at Choeung Ek is the memorial stupa containing the skulls of 8000 of the victims. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the site is trying not to step on the bones and rags still protruding from the paths around the mass graves. You can still see the "magic tree" from which a loudspeaker was hung to drown out the victims screams and the "killing tree" used to execute their children. If you want to know more about the history have a look at ... read more