Lou: Wow, can't believe we're nearly at the end of our trip! It has flown by for us, hope you have all enjoyed getting a taster of our travels from the blog. Mark left you in Delhi, where, as he says we were limited what we saw because of foreigner pricing gone mad, but the shopping was very good! From Delhi we headed to Jaipur 'the Pink City.' It wasn't really pink to be honest, more orange! Again foreigner pricing meant the fees prevented us from going in to a lot of the buildings, but when putting these prices on, the [View Full Entry]

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Mark: Well, we've been in India for 2 months so I thought it was about time I filled you in on the adventure so far! When Louise left you we were leaving Malaysia, and immediately upon touching down the change was enormous. For starters, it took forever to get through the tiny airport at Trichy! We were starting our journey there in the southern province of Tamil Nadu. When we got checked in and ventured out for the day, the fact that we were in India really hit home. It truly is a feast for all the senses.... the smells (incense [View Full Entry]

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Lou: Well Mark left you in Hong Kong, where we found it impossible to leave! Meant to stay only 4 days and ended up staying 10. Hong Kong was such a nice break from China - people didn't stare at us, shove us out of the way, steal our seats, hit us in the face with their umbrellas or try to rip us off at every turn, and everyone spoke English! It was also really nice to see some non-Chinese faces, as there are big Indian, Pakistani and West African communities in Hong Kong, being from such a multicultural city back [View Full Entry]

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Mark: Well, it's been a while since the last entry, so figured I should really fill you in! The week we had to spend in Bangkok was fine, if a little boring for us. We've been to that city 4 times now on this trip alone (6 in total for me), so there really isn't anything left for us to see. We did manage to finally make it up the Golden Mount, get a new phone at last, and were taken to the inevitable ping-pong show by Natt. Seriously it was all his idea, he's a terrible influence.... And then, after [View Full Entry]

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Lou: First of all, we've had a bit of a change of plans (again!) A few things all happened at once - the place we were supposed to be staying for free whilst we looked for work in Melbourne fell through, some good friends went to China and kept emailing us about how amazing and cheap it was, and we made some new friends who had traveled round India and were telling us how amazing and cheap that was. We also spoke to some people who'd just come from South America and told us to expect prices to be about 3 [View Full Entry]

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Mark: Hello again! It's been a while since our last update and lots has happened so time to fill you guys in... Leaving Sumatra we headed to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital on Java. It is crazy to think that this is even the same country as Sumatra to be honest, the contrast is enormous. Sumatra had such a slow relaxed pace, whereas Java (and especially Jakarta) is just mad. Jakarta is a huge metropolis, absolutely booming, bigger even than Bangkok, but to be fair exactly what we needed. We hadn't stopped for about 4 weeks at this point, so to able [View Full Entry]

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Mark: Time to fill you all in on our Sumatran adventures and bring you up to date I think! Leaving Malaysia and all that amazing food was done with a heavy heart, and the journey to Medan on Sumatra didn't make things any better! The 5 hour ferry crossing was done on incredibly rough seas, and we were both very ill. To be fair though, I saw plenty of Indonesians with bags around their faces, so I didn't feel too silly! The ferry took us into Medan, a very uninspiring city which lacks any big draw and is primarily used as [View Full Entry]

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Lou: Well before and after our whistle-stop tour of the Philippines, we were in Malaysia. Doing what? I hear you cry... Well, er, mostly eating... We headed from Singapore to Melaka in southern Malaysia on an amazing bus. After the coffin-style seats designed for pint-sized people in Vietnam, we practically had an armchair each on the bus to Malaysia! They even reclined and had flip-up foot rests. Our trip to Malaysia was off to a good start! We arrived in Melaka and found somewhere to stay, the owner of our guesthouse, Zen, was an absolute legend. I asked him where the [View Full Entry]

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Lou: Since Mark last left you in Singapore, we headed briefly to Malaysia before flying to the Philippines. Our jaunt to the Philippines didn't get off to the best of starts as it was a bit of a saga just to get to the airport in Kuala Lumpur. We got on the metro to the station Lonely Planet would have us believe airport buses ran from, only to be informed they didn't run from there any more. So we went back and got on a different line to another station to get the train to the airport. This turned out to [View Full Entry]

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Mark: Well, when I left you last, we were on our way to the bright lights of Singapore. And bright lights they were! Though we were worried we wouldn't get there at all, due to our phone being broken in a massive thunderstorm coming from Samui back to the mainland, so we were without an alarm clock! Luckily though, we got a wake up call, and made it to the airport in plenty of time. For me, the first time in 3 months that I would be entering a new country! I was sceptical to be honest, as everything I've heard [View Full Entry]

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