SamClaire

Arriving into Santiago in the early hours of the morning, Claire decided straight away that she did not like South America as she could not speak the language (Spanish) and no-one seemed to speak any English! In contrast Sam's mind was made up five minutes after leaving the airport, when the taxi driver and Sam started discussing various football players using a combination of sign language and Sam's limited Spanish. We stayed in Santiago in the area aptly named the “London quarter” for a day and a half and spent most of that time sleeping and trying to get over the jet lag (as it was a ridiculously long flight from Auckland to Santiago!). Soon we were back at the airport and onto our flight to Quito, Ecuador. Arriving late at night we instantly loved our ... read more

So this blog continues in Oz but this time on the west coast! We started our journey by flying back to Darwin. Having already visited there we decided to leave the very next morning and booked online a Greyhound ticket to take us on a 6000km epic journey down to Perth. As we packed our things and readied ourselves, we discovered to our horror that the bus had not been able to leave for the previous 3 days as the whole of northwest Australia (particularly the Kimberleys) was under water - yes summer is also the wet season in Oz! We crossed our fingers and hoped we would make it to our first destination Katherine and luckily we did! We only stopped overnight in Katherine but this was long enough to visit the beautiful gorge and ... read more

On our flight to Japan we could hardly believe that we had been away for 3 months already and were embarking on the next stage of our trip! We arrived in Osaka late at night and had to quickly get to grips with the Japanese train system, not as easy as you would think, especially with bags the size of Russia on our backs, but also the fact that our Japanese rail passes were apparently out of date before we even had a chance to use them…ooops! After some great blagging skills we managed to get on our way. The bullet trains in Japan are awesome and give Virgin trains a run for their money as they are on time, clean and so so fast! Our first night in Japan was spent at one of the ... read more

Firstly apologies for taking so long to write this blog entry but in the words of Sam and Jim "we have been caning it "! We left you last in Phnom Penh, from here we traveled down to the south coast of Cambodia to Sihanoukville and for the first afternoon we were very lucky and had gorgeous weather so spent some time on the beach with a few cheeky beers! However, from then on it proceeded to pour down with rain, so after a couple of days we decided to head back to Phnom Penh. From here we headed north to Kratie (on the way Sam willingly decided to sample the local delicacy in Kompong Cham, of giant spiders…mmmn tasty! Claire declined this savory delight…) to see the rare fresh water Irrawaddy dolphins in the Mekong ... read more

So, where to start... we arrived in Bangkok about 3 weeks ago & headed straight to the backpackers paradise of Koh San Road. We struck it lucky at the My House Guesthouse as it sold porridge to die for and showed good films every night (all for 250 baht per night - 3.5 GBP). Whilst in Bangkok we took a trip out to the floating markets at Damneun Saduak. Although now only around for tourists it was still quite an experience, floating down a river in a canoe with an old Thai chap armed only with a paddle. It was amazing to see whole meals being prepared on a tiny stove all on a small wooden canoe. We also took a trip out to the ancient ruined capital Ayutthaya by local train. Ayutthaya is a stunning ... read more