Five old farts on surfari. The mean age of 51 was only that low because our 45 year old puppy Jeff decided to tag along. The plan was simple, 5 days wallowing in Bali as an entree to the more serious surfing side of things on an island off the coast of Frank Sumatra. Stretching the memory strings back almost 30 years to my first jaunt to Bali, I began transposing the 1 dollar a night losmen against the 3 bedroom luxury villa in which we were now bunkered down. Were we going soft? Then the food. The "Bali Belly" syndrome [View Full Entry]

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So I did manage some really fun waves in Taranaki and like many parts of the New Zealand coastline, accessing these waves can be more of a mission than pulling up in the car directly in front of your favourite break. My own little hideaway point involved a minor adventure. It starts out with a jaunt across some private farming land, then: "Gary, I think these fences are electrified." "Yes, but these sections here are packing tape and you can't put an electric current through pack... OUCH! OOO that smarts." Remembering the incident at Fox Glacier, Penny was careful not to [View Full Entry]

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God created the wetsuit. Neoprene is king if you intend surfing in NZ's South Island, perhaps even more essential than an actual surfboard. As for the surf itself, 1 day of fair to reasonable waves. While the surf hasn't been the stuff on magazine covers, uniqueness of the two sessions made up for it, at least partially. I've never surfed before with a backdrop of snow capped mountains as I did in Kaikoura and the water itself is a weird milky colour I assume has something to do with the black sand. Surfing in Hickory Bay also involved a beautiful 1 [View Full Entry]

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Fortunately for the Sounds in Fiordland, there's plenty of rain to like, something in the vicinity of 7-9 meters annually, about a third of which seemed to fall while we lolled about for a few days in the area. However, extreme rain in this neck of the woods isn't the grim reaper for holiday goers that it would be in other tourist hot spots. The large volumes of water create hundreds of waterfalls that only appear after/during such downpours and the low hanging clouds clinging to the mountains also provide an aura that some might describe as eerie, others romantic. The [View Full Entry]

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A cheap shot but who can resist taking the puss out of the keewee accint? It's not so easy, in fact well nigh impossible, to be cynical concerning the South Island's environmental backdrops. For a bloke normally averse to sitting behind the wheel, I've taken quite a shine to slowly cruising amongst New Zealand's majestic alpine scenery. Every bend in the road leads to the requisite oohs and aahs from the front seat. One easy hour out of Christchurch and the full roll call of scenic boxes are being ticked off: . precipitous mountains - tick. . waterfalls that hang like [View Full Entry]

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To go or not to go, THAT, was the question. Aung San Suu Kyi said "don't come" based on the theory that tourism only reinforces the ruling junta's behaviour. The troubles of a couple months back didn't make the decision any simpler. Why then, are we here? Selfishly because we wanted to. We can also justify it because there are plenty of arguments in favour of visiting, most notably, the rank and file people of Myanmar need the funds. Like the majority of independents we avoided wherever possible channelling our dollars into government coffers and rather into the pockets of those [View Full Entry]

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Is it the measles? Is it bed bugs? Nah, I think it's a simple heat rash. Bangkok is hot and humid and the poor body aint used to it. At least I'm better off than Penny who is flu ridden, the remnants of a bug she picked up way back in Dubai. Bangkok was always going to be difficult to enjoy when your health isn't all rosy. It is even more difficult to appreciate when a disordinate amount of time is spent running the beurocratic red tape that is the Myanmar visa merry-go-round. Any more complaints? Well while I'm on a [View Full Entry]

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Not happy again Jan. Hong Kong is part of China, according to the pundits, so how come when we do this blog, the entire map of China isn't filled in red. Just HK. I was hoping for the opposite to present the illusion we'd covered more territory than actual fact. Speaking of HK - chaotic, noisy, polluted and plenty of people speaking a language that sounds like a tin can being kicked down the street. Things didn't start off too well because my darling wife thought it would be a lovely idea to share her flu that she picked up in [View Full Entry]

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A couple of lightning blogs will be ripped out during the next week or so as we inch our way home to the land of milk and honey. First up, the UAE, or more specifically Dubai. Twoish nights here hardly justifies a blog but by including it we get to fill in another country in red on the blog's world map. What do you say about a place you only spent about 40 hours in? Plenty, because I'm a charlatan and don't need a lot of information to develop a whole bunch of uninformed opinions. I'll just fill in the gaps [View Full Entry]

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Bombing of US Navy vessels, kidnappings of foreign tourists, tribal warfare including car bombings. This genre of headline had a lot of people asking, "why the hell are you going to Yemen?" I initially put these enquiries down to western ignorance to the everyday reality of this corner of the world. When residents of other Arab nations we have visited asked the same question, I'll have to confess some lingering doubts concerning the wisdom of visiting this country. "So answer the question Yeatesy, why did you go to Yemen?" Glad you asked but I'm not quite sure. Maybe I should simply [View Full Entry]

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