We crossed the border by bus back into Thailand a week before we are due to fly home to bonnie Scotland. As we drove into Bangkok we felt a bit overwhelmed by the enormity of the city, huge modern skyscrapers rose up into the night sky illuminated by neon lights. It was as if we had travelled into the future, a bit strange after rustic Cambodia. We spent a few days in Bangkok staying in the Banlamphu area near Khao San Road, a favourite backpacker destination. We hated it, it was busy, full of overpriced bars and restaurants and the people [View Full Entry]

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Cambodia, our 13th country and the last destination (not counting bonnie Scotland itsef of course) before we cross the border to get our flight home from Bangkok. Another country we had heard great things about from fellow travellers so we were looking forward to exploring as much as our limited time left allows. We arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, on the 23rd of December in time to get booked into somewhere nice for Christmas. We had decided that as a wee Christmas present to ourselves we would try to find somewhere a bit nicer than the usual backpacker haunts. The [View Full Entry]

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After the excitement and open air of our motorbike adventures it was back down to earth with a bump. The overnight bus across the border to the city of Hue in Vietnam was a real ordeal. We arrived in the early evening at the bus station not wanting to be late, as normal we ended up waiting around for hours for the bus to arrive. It pitched up looking rather worn out and ready to retire from life completely, but after some swift negotiations we boarded. It was packed full of locals, or Vietnamese heading back home after shopping trips to [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Tha Kaek with fairly open minds, as we mentioned before the town itself is not picturesque. The reason for visiting is the nearby National Protected Area (NPA) called Phu Hin Bun, having read about this area it promised some great scenery and so we arrived in Tha Kaek, making our way to a lovely guesthouse with a restaurant and pleasant leafy gardens to relax in under shade from the hot sun. A great place to base ourselves in comfort while we decided what to do with ourselves. There were really two options to explore the NPA, firstly we [View Full Entry]

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We floated across the mighty Mekong river in about 2 minutes flat, hey presto, we were in Laos! A big deal really because we have both been looking forward to traveling through Laos for ages. Without further ado we took a wee Songtheaw (tuk-tuk) ride to catch a bus to the north of Laos to a town called Luang Nam Tha, where we hoped to go trekking into the jungle for a few days! This long twisty and grueling bus journey was our first taste of Laos. We were surrounded by locals, only another couple of falang (tourists) on the bus [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to our elephant experience! It was a big decision to visit the Elephant Nature Park, but we both felt it was something we simply couldn't miss out on. Looking back that has certainly proven to be correct as it is by far and away one of our most memorable moments to date. The project was set up in 1990 by one small but big-hearted woman called Sangduen Chailert, but she is nicknamed 'Lek' which means small in Thai. She decided to set up the park in response to the maltreatment of elephants across Thailand and South East Asia. The park [View Full Entry]

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We crossed into Thailand from Malaysia by what seemed like an easy well trodden path, well at least according to the venerated Lonely Planet book. This could perhaps be deemed partly true, but the fact is the Lonely Planet is wrong so often that we have come to doubt its accuracy and this proved to be just such an occasion that it was wayward in its advice. In short the journey involved organising 3 bus journeys with stops, one overnight in a dive of a town, where it seemed the locals had never laid eyes on a westerner before. But at [View Full Entry]

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We stepped out of our hostel into the hustle and bustle of a busy street filled with people, cars, rickshaws, Bollywood music and the air infused with incense and spices. We stopped off at a street cafe for some roti canai, a savoury bread dipped in a variety of colourful, spicy and fragrant sauces. We strolled around the corner to find a beautiful Hindu temple, incongruent with the modern office blocks and skyscrapers in the distant skyline. Taking off our shoes we entered into the temple to be dazzled by the striking images of the various deities, people placing offerings around [View Full Entry]

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The turquoise blue waters of Fiji were added to our itinerary as an after thought really, "Why not go to Fiji" said the fellow at STA travel, "OK" we agreed enthusiastically, Fiji it was! As our plans have taken shape in our minds and with further research Fiji did not actually sound as appealing as one may think, it's expensive and it ate into precious weeks we felt we could have had boldly exploring South East Asia. We laughed at ourselves often, we must be the only people on the planet to complain about a trip to the Islands of Fiji! [View Full Entry]

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After a few more days enjoying Ian's hospitality (and teapot) we were back on the road heading to the North Island. To do so we hired another vehicle on a bargain basement relocation deal from Christchurch to Auckland. This time our mode of transport was called a Spaceship, a bright orange people carrier which had a fold down bed and a wee stove. Not quite as sophisticated as our campervan... or quite as comfy but perfect for our needs. We only had ten days to get to Auckland and then we were meeting back up with Ian for a week's holiday [View Full Entry]

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