El Solar del Convento in Salta is fantastic! Bubbly on arrival and a massive 220g steak each - we´ve had a fab evening! Sell your house and come to Argentina NOW!!!!! [View Full Entry]

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We´re now in South America and loving it! We flew from Auckland to Santiago on the 2nd April but arrived in Chile before we´d left New Zealand which wrecked our body clocks for a couple of days and it immediately became apparent that not knowing any Spanish could be a problem. We´d learnt a few phrases from a CD and book Jose had bought us but the first question threw us and we were only asked if we wanted rice! It also became clear very quickly that the transport costs given in our guide book had doubled.... Santiago is a big, [View Full Entry]

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Flying into Christchurch was amazing in itself with fabulous views of the Southern Alps beneath us. This was going to be good. We only had 1 night in Christchurch when we first arrived as the next day we were bound for Methven in the Canterbury Plains where we stayed in a great YHA and woke up at 5am the next morning to go up in a hot air balloon! This was a wedding gift from Roger and Diane, and was absolutely brilliant! Thank to David's lucky round face (well, that's what he was told in India!) we had the perfect weather, [View Full Entry]

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Helloooooo to one and all! Sorry this is sooo late, we've been too busy having fun! We're currently in Nelson in the northern part of NZ's South Island but need to think back to Queensland to bring you up todate! So we left Airlie Beach after having had a great few days and then spent a wet 2 days paying ping pong in Mission Beach before getting the bus to Cairns. Here we stayed with friends Ray and Madeleine and their 2 boys Zachary and baby Owen. We had a fun 3 days/nights with them all and it was great to [View Full Entry]

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We travelled first class over night on the train to Singapore where our friend Jose was there to meet us. We had 4 great days staying with him and Vicky and we ate loads! As a wedding present they took us for a buffet dinner at the luxurious Shangri-La Hotel - all you can eat seafood including lobster and crayfish, sushi, western, Chinese and Indian dishes, a chocolate fountain and umpteen yummy desserts. Amazingly we still managed to have room for a few drinks with Vicky and her workmates afterwards in Clarke Quay. The 2 of us had loads of fun [View Full Entry]

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Happy New Year to one and all. Hope you had a great time and a very merry christmas. We wish you all a fab 2008. Lots of love from The Millsys [View Full Entry]

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Before we start, we have some bad news ....... we're sorry to have to let you know that the Mills gerbils are no more....! Thanks to Philip, George, Archie and Harry for looking after them during their last couple of months!! Ok, so way back on the 17th November (yes, we're that behind!) we took an overnight bus from Vientiane in Laos to Chiang Main in Thailand. We actually made a rare decision and went to the guest house recommended by our taxi driver - just outside the old city wall with a tiny freezing swimming pool, we paid 400 Baht [View Full Entry]

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So where were we........ We decided the best way to cross the Cambodian border was as part of an organised trip, half by boat half by bus. This meant a hassle free crossing and a bit of fun along the way. The trip included a tour round some local "factories" where we saw them make coconut sweets, rice paper and rice crispies, the best part was getting to try everything - really tasty stuff. They also make rice wine at the same 'factory' and we of course sampled this too - not so nice. Paul and I also got to try [View Full Entry]

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So the day after David's birthday we packed our bags again, this time cramming everything we'd need for 3 days trekking into our day packs as we were off to Sapa in the far north west of Vietnam. After spending the day walking round Hanoi we caught the overnight train to Lao Cai, a few miles from the Chinese border, and arrived just as the sun was coming up. We then got the tourist-packed minibus to our hotel. The hour long journey to Sapa (1650m) took us on windy roads past some great scenery - hills, paddy fileds - all covered [View Full Entry]

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So, Vietnam.... We love it! We arrived at Ho Chi Minh, aka Saigon, airport on the 10th of October (yes we're a tad behind on the blog updates) and stepped out of the airport to find our transport to Phan Ngu Lao St., the main backpacker area. Immediately we were swamped by a hoard of taxi drivers all saying that the buses had finished for the night and that it would cost 120,000 Dong (4GBP), which was about twice what we were expecting by taxi. We got talking to a french couple, Matt & Pascal, who were in the same situation [View Full Entry]

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