andrewandlara

I have just realized that I never finished uploading these S. America photos, which is a shame because there are some beauties in here! First was the bus from Cuzco, across the mountains to the Bolivian border at Lake Titicaca. Then from the border to La Paz - the capital city at the highest altitude in the world, incidently. We stayed in La Paz a day too long by accident because we missed the bus to Salar. But it was not the end of the world because a day of down time in between these excrutiating long jouries was actually a blessing. The Salar de Uyuni is in the south of Bolivia and we got there by a bumpy arsed bus over night and over the mountains from La Paz. This place is like the surface ... read more

So, here we are, home at last. It seems fitting to end our blog with another first.. I am sitting on the sofa in my PJ’s writing this blog on my laptop back in blighty..yep…no more fancy (Japan) or not so fancy (India) t’internet cafes for us. In fact the only cafs we will see for the foreseeable future are the greasy trucker spoon types, and indeed my very favourite caf in Walford on the tele. This behemoth of a trip is finally over. In a pre-emptive strike we are going to sum up, add our highlights and some of our favourite pics of the last year. Hopefully it will answer some of your questions and let our lucky bugger mates who are still away prepare themselves for their return - you are all coming back ... read more

LA. The City of Angels. A comically large white sign, the club that killed River Phoenix, the B'ball courts on the beach from White Men Can't Jump and those huts from Baywatch, Beverley Hills, South Central gangland and, of course, Rodeo Drive, Baby. How can you see all this in just one day. The city is almost as big as London - and you don't do all that in a day, do you? Well, We had a good tip for a tour guided by a bloke called Benny D, or Kenny G, oh yeah, Micky Z, that's it. The tour covered the lot and good amount of stars' houses around the place, e.g Madonna, Christopher Walken, Mel Gibson and Britney Spears to name but a few. The driver, Mr Z, had an interesting take on everything ... read more

In the words of the Kaiser Chiefs...."Oh my god I cant believe it, i've never been this far away from home!" Well, we are now officially the furthest we have been away with a whopping 11 hour time difference and a mental 13000 miles from home. Weird, considering last week when we were in Indo we were comparitively close - just a direct flight from Singapore in fact. To get to Fiji we had to cross into New Zealand briefly, just for a few hours and long enough to get a warning for joking about bombing planes. Suffice to say Lara is not any longer particularly welcome on Air NewZealand after she mentioned in passing that their incompetence and incorrect information meant that she could put a bomb in her bag and blow up the plane. ... read more

Yes, back again. We liked it soooo much the first time (bar the disgusting dorm) that we had to come back for more. This time we opted to stay in a much nicer hostel that we found with cleaners, a pool and only 6, not 16, to a room. That does not meen, however, that Lara and I are staying in the same room. oh no. It is peak season here with not a cloud in the sky and not a degree below 30. This is proper weather and a welcome change from that crap out East. the place is packed and no prisoners are taken when trying to get into a hostel or onto a tour (later). The main reason for being here is that Bali (Indonesia) is only just over 2 hours away and ... read more