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18th July 2009 First up in Hanoi was a visit to the House of Literature, the oldest university in Vietnam. Before entering Alex, in his wisdom decided to barter for a bottle of water outside the grounds. Thinking he was in for a good deal, confusion over the many naughts on their currency meant that we nearly paid 500,000 dong (about 16 pounds) instead of 5000 dong. Lesson learnt, don't barter for water on the streets of Vietnam, its cheaper in the shops! The grounds were particularly beautiful, with a series of courtyards, that led to a temple. The university was set up by Confusicus and the temple was dedicated to him. Scholars that went through the university took several sets of exams, the final set were questions asked to the individuals by the king himself, ... read more

12th July 2009 With only one day to explore Singapore we headed to the harbour where we saw the famous symbol of the country, the Merlion. After walking around the centre of Singapore for a while we headed to Little India to check out a couple of Hindu temples. The one we saw was very colourful, with statues of the gods lining the outside of the temple. We headed to a nearby park for a sit down and we were treated to a chinese dragon display by a troupe of kids. We then headed to the night market for our first taste of street food in Asia. As luck would have it we sat near an old british guy who was commonly on business in Singapore and let us try some stingray. He then took to ... read more

3rd July 2009 Airlie Beach is known as the gateway to The Whitsundays and as such there isn't very much to do there and there is barely even a beach. Never the less as always we found a way to fill our day by walking around the coast on the bicentennial walkway. This was a very nice walk around the bay through parks and great views of the coastline. Conveniently it also took us to the local large supermarket to buy our dinner and some beers for the evening. 4th July 2009 One of the other perks of Airlie Beach is the man-made lagoon which is a good substitute for the lack of decent beach. Here we spent the day relaxing in the sun after we had a picnic. It was nice to have a day ... read more

27th June 2009 We definitely needed to recover after our horrific journey, but not before we found a hostel to rest our heads. After we checked in we pretty much slept for 5 hours straight. Upon waking we decided to grab some lunch from the bakery and eat it on the beach. With our bellies full we walked along the beach to a viewpoint, navigating our way over the outgoing tide. We were told that there were dolphins in the distance but all we could see were surfers and rocks. Continuing on we headed further round the coast to another headland and where we sat in the sun on the rocks, watching the world go by. 28th June 2009 Making more of today than we did yesterday we got up early and walked to the most ... read more

19th June 2009 We arrived late into Sydney, settled into our hostel and, after some food, headed to bed. 20th June 2009 Despite having spent most of yesterday traveling we decided to head to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains (2 hours by train from Sydney). The reason for this was that the lonely planet had informed us that there was a Winter Solistice Festival, which we had arrived just in time for. We wondered around in the misty rain watching local school children and various other groups performing before the climax of a fireworks show. It was interesting to mix with the locals although one guy was a little too strange for our liking. After a few beers and pizza we headed back to Sydney on the last train home. 21st June 2009 Today we decided ... read more