Hello and welcome to what should be our final blog, covering Southern Thailand and Hong Kong. After our 'Tour of Duty' in Viet Nam and Cambodia we decided to get a few weeks R&R in on the beaches of Southern Thailand. Our first stop was the island of Koh Lanta which unfortunately turned out to be closed. The dry season officially starts on the 1st November and as we arrived a few days before this date things weren't quite up and running yet. Still, we had a good time just relaxing by the pool, inbetween some days of torrential rain. After Lanta we caught the ferry to Koh Phi Phi. The smaller of the two islands, Phi Phi Ley, was used as the setting for the film version of 'The Beach' and the scenery on both ... read more

Xin Chao from Viet Nam and welcome to the first of a 2 part special covering Viet Nam and Cambodia. We landed in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and had a couple of hours to wait for Tina's father, Brian, to arrive. He joined us for Viet Nam and Cambodia and Tina was really pleased to see him as he'd brought supplies of chocolate from the UK!! The centre of HCMC is still referred to as Sai Gon and our hotel was right in the heart of the downtown area of District 1. Sai Gon is a wild place throbbing with people and countless motor scooters. Walking down the streets is what I'd imagine living in a bee-hive would be like, with a sea of humanity swarming around you all going about their daily business, be ... read more

Hi all, just a quick update covering our last couple of weeks in Singapore and S.E. Malaysia. After a pleasant 8 hour flight from Brisbane we landed in steamy, sultry Singapore - 'The City State' just 36 miles north of the equator. Tina's never been before but my last visit 15 years ago was as a penniless backpacker and my memories were not that fond. Fortunately, this time around was much better. Singapore is a striking blend of the ultra-modern opulence of the downtown business district, with its skyscrapers and the plush top-end shopping malls of Orchard Road, contrasted with the shabby racousness of areas like Little India and Chinatown with their street-front eateries, chinese baroque architecture and burning offerings and incense sticks on every street corner. Staying in a Chinese enclave to the east of ... read more

Hi all and hearty greetings from Mission Beach. Another quick update of our exploits over the last few weeks. Arriving in Tropical North Queensland after weeks driving through the outback we noticed an obvious change in the scenery. As we headed north up the coast from Townsville we were driving through fields of waving sugar Cane, banana plantations and fields of pineapples. On the inland side jagged mountain ranges were clad with misty rainforests which in some places tumbled almost to the sea. Very similar to Fiji which is no surprise as we are on the same latitude. The weather too was hot and steamy even though this is the start of the 'dry' season. It all made a pleasant change. Cairns was to be our base for a couple of weeks. Cairns is a fairly ... read more

Well, we left Melbourne suitably refreshed and ready to hit the road again. Our first destination was the Great Ocean Road. It was built by servicemen returning from the first world war and the aim was for it to rival Northern California's Ocean highway (Route 5 ?) and in my opinion it certainly does. Great craggy, wild coastlines and limestone columns jutting into the turbulent ocean below. The most famous limestone columns are 'The Twelve Apostles' and also 'London Bridge', which has indeed fallen down. Our hopes that we could enjoy a warm autumn in southern Australia looked good at this point but were soon to prove chuckle-headed. A cold front swept in from the Antarctic and dumped 20cm (8 inches) of snow on Canberra and although we were a bit further south we were left ... read more