After some serious travel days and a few days trekking around hot cities we were in need of some laid-back island time. Ko Samet is easily reached from Bangkok and as we've been there before we knew exactly where to head once on the island to get the accommodation we knew we liked. Luckily they had a vacant room so by after checking in we were straight down onto the beach for a cooling dip in the sea. We've spent two days on our favourite beach a short walk away from the crowds and enjoyed some snorkelling although we didn't get to see much other than a few small fish and some blue lipped clams and of course plenty of black spiky urchins. We plan to spend a couple more days here before heading back to ... read more

In the space of just under 24 hours it seems like we've been transported to another world. As we left home on the first day of the new year a cold wind howled, the rain poured almost vertical and the sky was a dark slate grey colour. At 3.30pm on the second day we were sat on a bus backing out of Kuala Lumpur International Airport bus station. Instantly we felt the warmth from the sunshine through the bus window. Instead of watching bare forlorn looking trees as we passed by, as we had done in England, rows of palm trees made a beautiful backdrop against a deep blue sky. At last we've escaped the British winter!! January 3rd We grabbed some breakfast on a rooftop cafe before making our way on the monorail to the ... read more

Our time in the States has almost come to an end, we have just 5 days left. When we booked to come for the months of December and January we had no idea really what kind of weather we were going to experience all we knew was that we wanted to get away from our terrible weather in England for a while. Well we certainly did that, although we have had a few days when the temperature dipped and we needed to wear coats (even a scarf one day which is usually unheard of here!) in general it has been mild or even hot. We have spent a lot of time exploring the many mountain trails here, almost to the point that we recognise all the peaks now and can honestly say that we’ve conquered most ... read more

Merry Christmas to everyone! Well another year has almost come to an end. It’s been quite an eventful year for us, out of 12 months we’ve only actually spent 4 months in Britain. In January we set of to travel around S.E. Asia for 4 months then in June we came to California just in time for the birth of our first grandchild. We stayed for 3 months watching her grow from a newborn into a little person and also helping with the new house renovations. Gary and Milena joined us for our last two week there and we all enjoyed a real family reunion. At the end of November we returned to California to catch up with Sharon, Scott and Kyla. We will be here until the end of January hopefully missing the worst of ... read more

Still lots of back tracking to do but for those of you not interested in house renovations and baby photos- look away now. I know this isn't strictly a 'travel blog' but we are half way round the world and many of our friends and family are interested to see what we've been doing here and to see how Kyla is growing up. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once the birthday celebrations were out of the way we needed to start getting the house fit to live in. Gary and Milena were due to join us in one weeks time and would be staying in the house. Stan and I decided to move in giving us more time to do the finishing off jobs. We took a mattress from Sharon's appartment and added a few upturned boxes which was all ... read more