been a while so i will backtrack a little... after shanghai we went to hangzhou, a pretty place by the side of a lake (the original of 36 'west lakes' throughout china). it was actually a huge city - but we were staying and living in a small nice part of it, didnt even realise the size of the place until we climbed the pagoda! unfortunatly it rained a fair bit while we were there and so stayed in the hostel watching DVDs and eating :) thankfully we did get one good day of sunshine when we climbed the pagoda. [View Full Entry]

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here we are in the last month of our trip! first impressions of china were good, crossed over the border smoothly and ended up in nanning for the night, moved on pretty sharpish as its just a faceless city (from what we saw!) although we do have a memorable experience of possibly eating dog... it wasn't pork or beef but was very meaty and not too bad! from nanning we set off to yangshuo, a smaller chinese town with beautiful scenery. we've been really suprised by how much of a city all the palces we are visiting are - the [View Full Entry]

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after hoi an we went to hue which was vietnams political capital 1802-1945 so there was a lot of historical places to visit. the imperial palace was really nice and sprawled for acres with lovely gardens and chinese influenced buildings. amongst other sights were the japanese covered bridge and an ornate temple where we watched some monks chanting one of their daily worships which was unexpectedly mesmorising. finally, we visited ming mang tomb which was also very beautiful. from hue we caught the sleeper bus to ninh binh (although we didnt get much sleep though on account of the driver [View Full Entry]

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our horrible 14 hour overnight bus journey with no sleep left us so traumatised we've been doing some serious retail therepy to cast it from our minds!! six days may sound like a long time here but believe me there are lots of things to do- shopping the main one! we have been staying in a really nice hotel complete with bathtub, balcony and pool and passing the days in the gorgeous Hoi An oldtown. we have bought so much stuff, proof of our madness: 2 suits, 2 shirts, 2 skirts, 3 pairs of handmade sandles, 2 winter coats and [View Full Entry]

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hello from vietnam!! first will fill in about the rest of cambodia... from phnom peng we went down to the coast to wait for our vietnamese visa to kick in. kep was our virst lazy destination, just a tiny town and lots of seafood! we visited a gorgeous Rabbit island to top up the tans for the day which was really nice. next we headed along to Kampot, another smallish town near the coast. randomly met a girl who did my course at uni and her boyfriend on a dirt track to nowhere and became firm friends.. we were even [View Full Entry]

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the water festival in Chang Mai was great! we got thoroughly soaked within minutes of setting foot outside the door each time but spirits were high and it was amazing luck for us to be there over the festival. one of our days there we did an excursion including an elephant trip through the jungle, notice how dad is sitting on the head of their beast (and not on the chairs)! another highlight was the bamboo rafting trip, i was expecting a canoe type thing but instead got 10 peices of bamboo tied together! we got absolutly soaked by all [View Full Entry]

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hi! in thailand now as the title suggests - my parents and chris (brother) have come out to meet us for 3 weeks so we're all on holiday! before we met them we did our advanced diving course on the perinthian island of Kecil in malaysia. it was amazing, we were in a beautiful little bay right next to the dive school with clear warm water and a good bunch of people. we saw loads of fish and some turtles and learnt loads of stuff too! is great having the parents here - i was pacing up and down for [View Full Entry]

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this trip is going way too fast! in asia already! from cairnes we flew to singapore - a city we both enjoyed. i have never seen so many malls or food places.. the food is great - the hard part is choosing - malaysian, chinese or indian?? a firm favourite is to find one of the hawker stalls with duck, chicken and pork hanging which they prepare for you with rice or noodles for about 50p. we drank with style in ex-pat heaven ordering gin slings on Raffles balcony surrounded by shells of the peanuts they give you. all very quirky! [View Full Entry]

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Had a great couple of weeks here on the East coast, the Whitsundays were a real highlight, 'paradise' with white sandy beaches, the great barrier reef, sunshine and friends! Our boat was really nice and we soon got used to sleeping in the tiny cabins with the waves lapping all night long. We were lucky with the weather and also had the most amazing sunset one night (see pics). The scuba diving was great - saw some pretty fishes and i even petted a fish called Willie! Quite excitingly i survived a shark sighting - Ol was expecting me to freak [View Full Entry]

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its been a while so i'll have to cast my memory back to new zealand.. we lasted out our last few days at a nice beach town in the Bay of Plenty area and ol had his long awaited surfing lesson and i sat on the beach with all the other girls in the sun, surfing beaches must look like single sex ones! One night in Auckland finished off NZ for us and we flew to Sydney. We both really liked Sydney - its got a lot of culture and buzz around it unlike anywhere else we've been in Oz. Day [View Full Entry]

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