http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/mrandmrssimmonds/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from mrandmrssimmonds en-us Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:04:11 +0000 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:04:11 +0000 Gemmarsquos relatives bought us a climb up Sydney Harbour Bridge for a wedding present so thatrsquos where we headed this morning. Itrsquos an incredibly wellrun trip with a lot of attention paid to safety detail the private company that had the initial idea of running these climbs had quiet a job to convince the authorities that nothing would get dropped down onto the passing cars far b http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/Darling-Harbour/blog-136720.html After breakfast in bed Marmite on toast served by Gemma we walked to one of Sydneyrsquos many bays had a quick look around the yacht club and then boarded the Bondi Explorer. This is like those hoponhopoff things in London and everywhere else in the world and drives a 2 hour route from the city centre and taking in the worldfamous Bondi Beach. Our first stop was at Watsonrsquos Bay http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/Darling-Harbour/blog-138932.html We had a busy final day in Australia planned beginning with a ferry ride to Olympic Park. The ride there was pretty scenic and we must have passed thousands of yachts moored in various little bays along the way. One English gentleman got kicked off for trespassing in a lsquocrew onlyrsquo zone in order to take a photo and the 2 staff who reprimanded him had obviously missed the lsquohow t http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/Darling-Harbour/blog-138935.html Today meant we went on one of our last guided tours of our year away. This we did in the exact way we have liked all along privately. We drove the 70km out of Saigon to Cu Chi which is home to a labyrinth of tunnels that the locals have developed since the French resistance and grew with avengence in the Vietnam war. The tunnels played a major part in the survival of the guerillas and prolongin http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-176676.html The day began just before we landed in Singapore at 345am. Once in the arrivals hall we did what any selfrespecting luxury traveller would do and found a quiet corner unrolled our sleeping bags and went to sleep for another 3 hours before getting the unfeasibly clean Mass Rapid Transport system into town. Wersquod chosen the Little India area as our base and our hostel was called lsquoThe I http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Singapore/blog-140767.html There are 3 main types of backpacker. Therersquos the up first thing pack in lots of sightseeing and activities and relatively early to bed. Then therersquos the opposite sleep most of the day get up in the afternoon and then go boozing each night. Finally there is the strangest of the lot who get up late go to bed early and spend the handful of hours in between lounging around the hostel http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Singapore/blog-140768.html We had seen a leaflet advertising an exhibition of lsquotechnology of the futurersquo at Singaporersquos Science Museum. Since Asia is generally far ahead of the UK in all things technology we thought this would give us a glimpse a long way into the future but unfortunately we were bitterly disappointed. The exhibition was nominally in its final week but theyrsquod obviously decided it ha http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Singapore/blog-140769.html So itrsquos St. Patrickrsquos Day and the Irish have got even more excuses than usual to get drunk their new status as one of cricketrsquos top sides and Darrylrsquos stag weekend. Little sign of it here in Kuala Lumpur though itrsquos a Muslim country and so much so even our hostel is alcoholfree. We were up early and went to the Petronas Towers the extallest buildings in the wor http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Wilayah-Persekutuan/Kuala-Lumpur/blog-140771.html Following yesterdayrsquos aborted attempt this morning we arrived at the Petronas Towers earlier and joined the already quite long queue for tickets. The twin Petronas Towers named after the Malaysian state oil firm that completely occupies one of the towers are joined at their 41st floors by a 2storey lsquoSkybridgersquo which featured in the Catherine ZetaJones film lsquoEntrapment http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Wilayah-Persekutuan/Kuala-Lumpur/blog-140774.html Another quiet day so not one that takes much effort to recount. Plenty of time by the pool in the sea and on the beach. Our last sunset on Ko Tao turned out to be our best sunset and Gemma has now taken over a zillion photos since we left the UK. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South-West-Thailand/Ko-Tao/blog-143342.html Or at least it would be if Ed was still working. Todayrsquos date has been firmly etched in the mind for many years now and this time around it brings into sharp relief just how expensive a year travelling more or less the entire world can be. Oh well therersquos always next yearhellipTo take our minds off money matters we left our hotel shortly after 5am in the tuktuk wersquod rented fo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/North/Siem-Reap/blog-149445.html Another selfinflicted early start but it has to be said they are a lot more bearable after sleeping in an airconditioned room. As we said a couple of days ago the road from the Thai border at Poipet to Siem Reap is dreadful by any standards and wersquove seen some pretty bad ones and we opted to travel on it. The road from Siem Reap to the capital Phnom Penh is by all accounts quite good http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/North/Siem-Reap/blog-149446.html Wersquod arranged for our taxi driver Alex from a couple of days ago to drive us around for the day and first thing was the drive out to the Killing Fields. This is where people were taken for disposal once theyrsquod been tortured at S21. Alexrsquos father was a pilot which meant he was educated and therefore a potential threat to the Khmer Rouge regime and therefore he was killed at t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Phnom-Penh/blog-149448.html Having done a fair bit of sightseeing over the last couple of days we discovered that the posh Phnom Penh hotel would let us use their pool for the day for 5 each. This was too good to refuse so we spent the day reading our counterfeit Hong Kong guidebook and swimming. When lunch arrived Gemmarsquos spring rolls were just fine but when the waiter removed the silver dome from Edrsquos plate http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Phnom-Penh/blog-149449.html So we made our decision we decided to buy the screen but take it back ourselves on the flight. Lufthansa said this would be fine although excess baggage is charged at GBP20 per kilo. And the screen weighs 26kg So the dayrsquos first task was to see just how light we could make our rucksacks by ruthlessly ditching anything unnecessary andor heavy and shifting the remaining heavy things like http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Hong-Kong/Hong-Kong-Island/blog-149453.html Our busy morning actually went according to plan what with checking out of the guest house picking up Gemmarsquos dress and Edrsquos shirt we had had made picking up the screen and meeting the prearranged minivan to take us to the airport leaving just 1hour before our flight. Hong Kong airport is fab new convenient efficient. Neither of us have ever had such a quick and hassle free chec http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Hong-Kong/Hong-Kong-Island/blog-149454.html Todayrsquos weather was glorious and the walk down to the Kremlin though cold was fresh and well needed. We had a very informative tour within the Kremlin walls seeing the buildings places of interests and the inside of Russian Orthodox churches and cathedrals.The piece de la resistance was the two exhibits of the Diamond exhibit and also the Armoury museumhellipThe Diamond exhibit is two http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Northwest/Moscow/blog-149459.html After a very good long nights sleep we were refreshed and ready for the relaxing day ahead. It was fantastic to read chat and watch the Russian countryside go by. Life aboard the train is not terribly varied but at the same time there is always something to look at and it's nice just having so much time on our hands. And after crossing countless timezones in the previous few days it was great to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/blog-149460.html Today was pretty similar to yesterday life on the train is not very varied like we said. The theme for the day as it were was heading up into the Ural mountains which we passed later in the day the dividing line between European Russia and Asian Russia and we were expecting an impressive range. Strangely there's nothing to them though and they have got more in common with the South Downs tha http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/blog-149462.html If someone could come up with a good use for the zillion upon zillion silver birch trees we have passed they would be awarded the Order of Siberia. The trees we saw today had less snow around them and were enjoying a beautiful spring day but the view didn't change all that much. We are looking forward to getting off the train for longer than 15 minutes although the earlymorning departure tomor http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Novosibirsk/blog-149463.html