We've reached the halfway mark of our travels and it's time for the difficult bit. We will need to speak Indonesian as much as possible and expect to get stared at a lot as very few Europeans venture as far as Maluku where the Banda Islands are. We flew to Makassar, Sulawesi on 3rd January, the hope had been to get the Pelni Ferry to our final destination the Bandas. It had been impossible to get a schedule before hand so we had to just hope we wouldn't have to wait too long. Unfortunately when we arrived in Makkasar it turned out that a ferry had left just 3 days ago and the next one was probably on the 22nd but no guarantees. Makassar was not a place to hang about, a very noisy, dirty city ... read more

Happy New Year! We are now in Kuala Lumpur and are looking forward to the celebrations here tonight. We had a mammoth few days of travel to get here. As we were told the weather has been bad here, we saw quite a lot of flooded fields as we travelled down, we spent 2 days on the island of Langawi, Malaysia to break the journey but it rained all the time. So we certainly did the right thing staying where we were for Christmas. New Year update. Just a quick update to show you the fireworks, it was a crazy affair with millions of people at the Petronis Towers. ... read more

we have travelled south down the peninsular of Thailand and we're now on a small island off the West Andaman coast. This island is simply gorgeous, white sand crescent shaped bay with a scattering of bungalows but otherwise undeveloped. Everywhere you look butterflies flutter about. Hornbill birds sqwark from the treetops and crickets sing you to sleep. The only roads are just a metre wide meaning the only transport are mopeds. We've rented a superb bungalow up on the hillside overlooking the bay. We've had a few visitors namely a nine inch gecko, a frog who loves our toilet, and a homing snail who comes back every time I sweep it off the verandah! We've hired a moped for the duration, th and visited the next bay last night where we bumped into Avalina from Finland ... read more

We delayed going to Ko Chang until tomorrow as we were told it was the King's 83rd birthday so big celebrations here. Fireworks were let off over the river and roads were closed as thousands of lanterns were set off in his honour. I have never seen so many people in one place, think every single Thai person was here! Mostly wearing pink shirts for some reason. Men and women alike. Enjoy the photos we really are off to a beach tomorrow!... read more

We have quite a few family and friends getting married soon so this blog is dedicated to them. Seems like we hit on wedding fever in Hanoi . We came across several weddings all taking place around the lake. Brides everywhere you looked were having their hair and make up done at the side of the lake. All seemed very grand affairs so thought I'd add a few photos. ... read more