Chris here (for a change of writing) . The first part of Christmas day was spent on a bus between Kampot and Phnom Penh rattling along - local bus taking 5 hours. Unfortunately on arrival at our hotel I found my card holder and phone, which didn't work anyway, had gone missing and so the rest of the day was spent on the internet phone which is so unbelievably bad, trying to cancel credit cards. Lots of being put on hold and whats and pardons and I cant hear yous. Steve & Carol were also trying to get the mobliles working which also resulted in lots of tearing out of hair andrepeated dropped out calls. Can you imagine talking to an Indian call centre via Cambodian internet phone? It was one of the most frustrating things ... read more

Left Phu Quoc on early plane bound for Rach Gia. Grabbed a taxi (so new it still smelt of plastic) and off we went to Ha Tien. 100km and 2 hours later we arrive. Not much English is spoken in Vietnam in general but in Ha Tien no-one speaks any!!!!!! Luckily in first hotel we tried to get a room at, after some funny/exhasperating attempts at conversation a Vietnamese woman on holiday from Sydney interrupted her lunch to come to our aid. So we got accommodation. Next to try and see some sights - 3 motos, no English but we did manage to go to the Cave Pagoda and also the local beach. Supposed to be lovely but is black sand and stones, not very appealing but the most beautiful countryside to get there. (And the ... read more

September trip 2007 to Malaysia Trip built on frequent flyers so the flights are a little long winded but still - cheap too. Left Adelaide Thursday 20th September at 8.30 am. Flight to Perth, then 2.5 hours till flight to Singapore. Arrived at 4.30 and got a taxi to city as with 2 people same as getting bus/train. Got dropped in Little India and wandered a bit to find accommodation, surprisingly many places full. Shower, drink in backpackers and off to eat - Indian. Singapore has changed dramatically since we were here last in 1992. There is less and less old stuff and more and more high rises. Found it very expensive too, many things not so different to Australia, although some electrical is cheaper. We were told to head to Lavender St bus station to ... read more

Redundancy - a blessing in disguise. In May this year I was made redundant so decided to make our hobby of property renovating and subdividing into a full time income. Scary. Still we got a couple of properties done and decided to take a break. After all why not we now had no boss to tell us we couldn't. We decided to go bush and beach for 7 lovely weeks. Especially for some friends of ours who have not travelled we decided to write about our experiences. BPart 1/B Left a little late due to being completely un-organised. Driving up through the Adelaide suburbs in our new (to us) old HJ61 Landcruiser, we stopped to fill the fridge with groceries as we planned to spend quite a few days away from it all. This was our ... read more