What on earth are we doing?

“…We never take any risks…” was the conclusion of the evening that will change our lives. Life was becoming one long and boring routine – same thing day in and day out, week in and week out. The highlights of any week should never be what is happening on Eastenders and what is on special offer at the supermarket…so we decided to do something about it.

We have sold our house and all the years worth of accumulated clutter that comes with that, bought ourselves a backpack each and we’re off to explore the world.

We decorated the house from top to bottom, it broke my heart to paint my ‘Sexy Pink’ kitchen ‘Porcelain’, but apparently its not so popular with buyers…can’t think why. We’ve done a long line of boot fairs to get rid of the clutter, and have gone to the doctors to get the necessary jabs.

With the way the housing market has shot up since we bought our 3 bed semi it seems madness not to make the most of the equity and just do it, after all -when else would we ever make that much money for doing nothing?

Some people think we’re mad (you know who you are!) and point out that the children really shouldn’t miss out on that much school at such an important time in their education, but they will come back with such a wealth of knowledge they you have to experience to comprehend and absorb. I’ve been in touch with the Local Education Authority about the practicalities of keeping up with their school work, which I will be in charge of on the road, and although you can’t take the kids out of school for more than 2 weeks holiday a year taking them out for a year (or so) is no problem.


Where are we going?

We all sat down together to brainstorm a wish list of where we all wanted to see in the world and then see how best to link them together. Rhiannon spoke about rainforests, the pyramids, icebergs and kangaroos. Kyra thought about it for a minute and said that she wanted to see ‘sharks, sting rays and other such water beasts’. After we had finished laughing we added the Galapagos Islands to our wish list, she’ll be able to see some water beasts up close – but nothing too beastly hopefully!

We quickly realised that our wish list of things to do, places to see would take far, far longer than we had. The first thing to go was Rhiannons icebergs, far too much to carry in the way of clothes – and too bloody cold! We decided to leave out anywhere that may be do-able as a family holiday another time and these places are generally more costly to travel in anyway, this ruled out Europe, North America and Canada, and probably means only a small amount of time in Australia. We also decided to miss out the ‘stans’ and the Middle East in general. This still left a whole heap of planet, and as Africa is so huge we agreed to give it a miss this time, but hey who knows what the future brings?

The only thing was to string them all together, the grand master plan then:

· Ecuador (the kids are on a promise to try guinea pig – a fiver says they back out)
· Galapagos Islands (a budget busting week sailing around the islands)
· Peru (got to see Manchu Picchu)
· Bolivia (Salts flats, La Paz, Lake Titicaca)
· Chile (just for a couple of days before our flight across the Pacific)
· New Zealand (2 weeks on the North Island, must try out Zorbing)
· Fiji (bit of a selfish one for me, have always wanted to go there and the RTW ticket makes it free!)
· Australia (visit relatives in Melbourne, Dan fancies a look at Sydney)
· Singapore (just because our ticket will take us there)
· Java (sunrise walk along a volcano crater, Komodo Dragons)
· Sumatra (will include seeing Orang-utans in the semi-wild)
· Malaysia (will include a well deserved rest on an idyllic paradise beach for a week…or two…or three, I just can’t imagine the novelty EVER wearing off – unlike the girls patience)
· Thailand (golden temples, floating markets, elephants…the girls can’t wait for this one)
· Laos (Luang Prabang, Vientien, lots of monks) estimating 2 weeks
· Vietnam (Hanoi, Ho Chi Min City and whatever we can fit in in-between)
· Cambodia (Angkor is a must, still undecided if the girls are too young for the killing fields museums – we’ll see)
· Burma (we will sing ‘Nelly the Elephant’ while on the road to Mandalay!)
· India (so much to see, do and experience, we’ll tailor out itinerary to suit the weather when we get a bit closer, but want to include Sri Lanka) allowing 2 ½ months
· China (Yangtze River, the Great Wall, Terracotta Army, rice terraces…tonal language…good luck!)

Estimating a month each unless otherwise stated, as much overland as border crossings/budget/kids patience will allow

Our round-the-world ticket will take us as far as Singapore, and then we will just ‘wing it’. We initially dismissed RTW tickets as they limit you to a year and we plan on carrying on exploring for as long as the money lasts, and don’t want any pressure to keep on moving to meet flights if we are enjoying ourselves. However, the tickets we are getting cost less than just buying single tickets from London to South America and then to Australia as we had initially planned (and less visa hassles) so it seemed daft not to also add New Zealand, Fiji, internal flight in Australia, Singapore, and from Bangkok to London and spend less! Another good point is that if we have had enough or outrageously overspend we have a ticket back to London booked and paid for, if not we just don’t use it. Many thousands of thanks to Lien at Trailfinders in Canterbury for cluing us in on that one.

I think having a bit of structure and definite plans at the beginning of our trip will be good for us before we get in the swing of it all, after Singapore we have an idea rather than an itinerary. We just don’t know yet where we will enjoy more than we thought and want to stay longer, or where we may decide to miss out in order to stay longer, or where we will find ourselves wanting to make a hasty exit. At the end of the day we’ll have the lap top to make any travel arrangements we need as and when, and if we find ourselves stranded for a few days here and there while waiting for arrangements to be made/connections to be met so be it.


Budget

Budget wise we have decided to set aside an amount for each country based on our daily budget. We aren’t setting a strict timetable, so all the time we are enjoying ourselves we will stay for as long as the money lasts – if that means we have set aside enough to stay a month but stay 2 weeks and the money has gone, or we can make it last 6 weeks then so be it. This way around we won’t get to then end and have to miss out China because we have run out of money.

We have set an average budget of £100 per day. We have a separate fund for flights and long overland journeys, visas and associated costs, and a poorly fund for when we aren’t feeling well and need to book into somewhere a bit more expensive (I’m sure there will be times when we would give our right arms for a room with an en-suite western toilet!)


Update

The tickets are provisionally booked for 08/12/06!!! We can’t pay for tickets until completion so it may be a day or two either way.

We are now on our third buyer as the first two had to pull out, the first lost their buyers so had to pull out and the second fibbed about her financial position and had to pull out. So…we swapped estate agents and they found another buyer quick smart. We ended up having to drop a few grand off the asking price over rather petty issues but many many thanks to Dan at Milton Ashbury estate agents in Cliftonville, Kent for saving the day on more than one occasion, he certainly pulled out the stops and I do believe I have finally found an estate agent I actually trust! We could have just put it back on the market and held out for top dollar but we just couldn’t face starting again after getting a couple days from exchange and anyway we are getting over two and a half times what we paid for it 6 years ago!

This does mean that our plans have changed slightly. We are now going to drop the Galapagos islands as they are incredibly expensive to visit, we were going to budget £4,500 for that week so the girls will have to find some water beasts elsewhere! Another deciding factor was how Kyra reacted to a slight swell on the Dover-Calais ferry this summer…not too sure if I want to be stuck with her on a boat for a week… We are also planning on cutting the budget for Sumatra and Java back to three weeks each.


At Last!

So we have booked the tickets and we are off on 07/12/06!!!

I can hardly believe we are finally here! We flew into Lima, Peru on 7th and got picked up by our hostel, where we stayed until our flight out on 9th to Quito, Ecuador. Lima is really not all that, but we are enjoying Quito.

Getting a cab to drop us in the City centre without really knowing where we were or where we were going to be staying that night and armed with nothing but a phrase book was just about the bravest thing I have ever done. Once we found a hostel (not as much of a mission as we thought it would be) we headed out for dinner. As we weren’t really too sure what most of the menus outside places said we thought stopping somewhere with pictures above the till would be a good idea… hmm that was the second bravest thing I have ever done, we’ll be booking some Spanish lessons in the very near future – enough said!



Yesterday we went to Mital Del Mundo which is tourist centre on the equator, its actually in the middle of nowhere and about an hour and 3 bus rides away from Quito. We had fun jumping between hemispheres and doing the water down the plug hole test and lots of other cool stuff like that.


We will be heading south in a couple of days – we’ll see where we end up. We have to be in Quayaquil for our flight back to Peru on 5th January but apart from that we don’t really have any plans set in stone.


17/12/06

We spent a day in Latacunga on the way to Banos, the drive was very scenic but Dan found the whole thing quite nerve racking as there were no crash barriers (apart from one stretch that was covered in dents!).

Banos is lovely, it’s a small place with volcanos all around us feeding the hot springs with (rather murky looking but apparently good for you to bathe in) water. The showers next to the hot pools are fed from the waterfall running down along side them, as is the smaller pool which is bloody freezing, especially after the hot pool but all part of the experience.



Yesterday we went on a 2 ½ hour trek on a horse which took us just outside of Banos and we ended up at another waterfall but unfortunately the weather wasn’t up to a quick dip (the temperature was 32 degrees the day we booked it). We had a fantastic morning, although some of the sheer drops looked a darn sight scarier from the back of a horse than they do from a bus!

We all have sore backsides but not as bad as we thought they’d be although Dan wishes he had positioned his boy bits differently when the horses were trotting…we might do a night time horse ride to a local volcano later in the week once we’ve healed up.



Today me and the kids jumped off a bridge! We went on a trip to some nearby waterfalls, which involved 2 cable car crossings high above a gorge with fantastic views of waterfalls, and a bungee jump (not head first) off a bridge.

Dan chickened out on all 3 counts, though we did talk him into sitting in the roof of the bus, until he saw the drop and the narrow roads that is, then we all had to go back inside.



Tomorrow we plan to hire some quad bikes to tear around town in, then the day after we are off to Riobamba to ride the Devils Nose Train


22/12/06

In Riobamba we went on the Devils Nose Train, named after the mountain at the end of the journey. The mountain is so steep that the train has to go through a series of switchbacks to get to the bottom - the whole reason for the journey in the first place. It was a bit hair raising in places as the steep drops look a darn sight scarier when you are sitting on the roof with your feet dangling over the edge, but great fun and we took some fab pictures of the scenery along the way.

It was an early start (left the station at 6.30am) but well worth it. We also had our first "small world" experience when we found ourselves sitting next to a guy we met on a bus last week.



(Taken from the train roof)

There wasnt a lot else to keep us in Riobamba so we set off the next day. 4 hours into a very rainiy 5 hour journey to Cuenca the bus had to stop and turn around and go back to Riobamba. We were told there had been a mud slide ahead that had caused a crash and the road to be closed. The unpaved mud road that made up 2 hours of the journey on the way back gave a whole new meaning to the word scary, especially as there were rather large, sheer drops with nothing but maybe 50cm of grass between the edge and the road...


28/12/06

Christmas this year was a bit different from the usual. We went to a lake on the edge of the nearby National Park and went fishing for trout for our Christmas dinner!



Dan caught 3, Kyra caught 2 and Rhiannon caught 1, we all had a good time but the girls refused to hold them for a picture. They helped us cook them, then also refused to eat them. If they had been covered in batter and deep fried I expect they would have woofed them down, but having helped gut them and then looking at them sitting in their plates...well what did you excpect?

Yesterday we went to the Ingapirca ruins, which are some Inca ruins an hour or so outside of Cuenca. We went there on an organised tour as they are a bit out of the way, but it was well worth the money as the guide explained everything there and told us all about the Inca civilisation as we walked around so we got loads more out of it than if we had just wandered around on our own.

02/01/07

Happy New Year! We are currently in Vilcabamba, a little town a few hours south of Cuenca. It is so incredibly hot and humid here we decided to "splash out" and book into somewhere with a pool. This place also has a sauna, steam room, poolside bar, restaurant, and our cabin has an upstairs for the kids and a balcony with a hammock. All around us we are surrounded by huge lush green mountains and it is very quiet. Pure bliss for just $9 each per night.

Yesterday we went on a horse trek around the area and up into the hills. We all had a great time apart from Dan who had a very stubborn horse who didn´t get the idea of slow. We thought it was hilarious and when it did slow down we took great delight in sneaking up behind and clicking it its ear encouraging it to go galloping off again! He is now walking like John Wayne.

05/01/07

Our last day in Ecuador. We arrived the night before last in Guayaquil and intended to spend the day yesterday looking around the city, but where as Vilcabamba was just hot and humid but bearable, this place is not bearable at all. We ended up not straying too far from the hostel and we all felt a bit poorly anyway - we are blaming what we ate and drank at the bus station on the way here!


Budget

days spent in Ecuador = 30
average daily spend = £55.30

08/01/07

We have been in Peru for a few days now. We stopped in Lima for a day and then onto Pisco. It was a bit of a dive to be honest so we only stopped over night but that was OK as the only reason we went there was to go on a tour of the Islas Ballestas (aka poor mans Galapagos).

We went by speed boat to these islands which were choc a block full of birds - pelicans, boobys, penguins and a few vultures. The rocks were covered in so much poo that the government scrapes it off every few years to sell abroad as fertiliser, apparently in the 19th century wars were fought over the rights to the bird poo islands! The smell was out of this world.

We also saw loads of sea lions colonies up close, and a few were swimming around the boat. We spent quite a while sailing around the islands arches and caves and it was a good day out. In the afternoon we went to the Reserva Nacional de Paracas, again on an organised tour, and stopped for lunch at a small fishing port and just chilled out.


10/01/07

We have just spent a couple of days in Huacachina, which is a tiny resort built around around a picturesque lagoon, and surrounded by enormous sand dunes.

As it is in the desert it is quite hot so we had to book into somewhere with a pool, although you could swim in the lagoon as well. It was a very relaxing couple of days, apart from the sandboarding that is.

I still can´t get over the kids bravery. We took a dune buggy ride way into the dunes where we stopped for a go at sandboarding. The boards are actually bits of ply with velcro straps bolted through and lots of wax smeared on the bottom. The first couple of turns were fun, we went down on our tummies (not good enough at balancing to go on our feet!) and the buggy drove to the bottom to collect us and take us onto the next one. They got progressively bigger and steeper, and I chickend out after 3, Dan after 4.

The kids had a whale of a time, and when we stopped at the last one I honestly thought the man was joking when he asked with a laugh who was brave enough to have a go at this one. We laughed when Kyra jumped up and volunteered, but soon stopped laughing when he waxed up her board and we realised he wasn´t joking after all... it was soooo high that we couldn´t even hear her screams by the time she was half way down! Rhiannon was up next, and as you can see from this picture, you couldn't even see her by the time she was half way down.


12/01/07

Today we flew over the Nazca lines. It was fantastic. We went up in a little 5 seater aircraft and Dan sat in the front next to the pilot. The lines themselves stretch for miles it seems, and are dead straight. The pictures were amazing to see, from the ground they are so big that you can´t make them out but from the air they are just amazing.

The aircraft was a little bumpy and each time we flew over one of the pictures we banked one way, then doubled back and banked the other way so we could all get a proper look. Unfortunately Rhiannons stomach wasn´t quite up to it, thank God for sick bags! To cheer her up we bought her a Nazca Lines T-shirt so now she looks like a proper tourist.

In the afternoon we went to a local Inca cemetary and saw some skeletons up really close. There were 12 burial chambers in the ground opened up to peer into, but the area had so many more that there was a path to follow between them so you didn´t inadvertantly fall into another. Unfortunately grave robbers had opened loads of them up a while back so all the treasure is missing, this also means there are loads of bits of bones lying scattered around in the sand off of the marked paths. I´m not too sure if seeing them lying around like that was more freaky than seeing the skeletons up close some complete with hair and dried up eyeballs...


17/01/07

Nazca itself wasn´t all that so we were supposed to get a night bus to Arequipa the same evenig as we flew over the Nazca Lines. It was supposed to leave at 11.30pm but was running a bit late so didn´t arrive at the bus station until 2.00am and then the 9 hours journey was just over 10 hours. We had planned to get another long distance bus from Arequipa to Cusco that was supposed to take around 14-16 hours, but other people have told us this too often takes a bit longer. We have decided to book a flight instead!

Arequipa is lovely, we have found it to be quite chilled out and its full of huge old colonial buildings that are lovely to look at and wander around as there are loads open as museums and the like. The altitide got us a little bit when we first arrived, but we were soon fine. Sunday afternoon was spent in the central square with a couple of bags of bubble mixture and some bird seed, it was choc a block full of people doing the same thing so it was nice to just sit and watch the world go by while the kids made friends. Incidentally, Mary Poppins would be impressed as it still only costs tuppence a bag to feed the birds.

We took a 2 day tour to the Colca Canyon to see condors in their natural habitat. The drive there was very interesting as our guide Carlos was fantastic and stopped a few times to explain all about the flora and fauna we were seeing along the way. The journey took us over 4900m above sea level at its highest which killed us all with altitude sickness. On the way we stopped and our guide suggested everyone buy some coca leaves, and he showed us the correct way to make up a wad with ash in the middle and chew it up to help combat the altitude sickness. It tasted a bit awful and made your mouth numb enough for a filling but it did help. We also stopped for coca leaf tea which also tasted pretty bad but also helped.

The town we stopped in overnight was tiny, but we did go to the local hot water springs for a soak. It was raining and freezing cold but it was bliss to sit in the steaming hot water, so hot in fact that we had no choice but to order a cold beer and sit around the edges just relaxing. Tough life.

The next morning was the trip to the canyon, which Carlos told us is now officially the deepest canyon in the world after some scientists with fancy GPS equipment declared it so last year. We got to see loads of condors up incredibly close flying above our heads and perching on a rock not 10m away from where Dan was snapping away with the camera. For all their size they are amazingly gracefull looking as they soar around on the thermals.


20/01/07

We are now in Cusco which we have all been looking forward to. Yesterday we wandered around town and marvelled at the Inca walls dotted around town, tomorrow we are going on a tour of the sacred valley, Monday we have booked in for a morning of off roading with a guide up some local mountains on quad bikes (kids have to share with us though as they aren´t automatic), Tuesday is Machu Picchu and the whole reason for coming here, and Wednesday we fly to the Amazon Rain forest for 5 days. We did try to book up tandem paragliding up in the local mountains but they won´t take kids under 10. I think Dan is secretly delighted about that as the kids had shamed him into agreeing to join us after chickening out of the bungee swing in Ecuador, now we are just going to leave it until they are old enough to do it as well.


23/01/07

Today was the day! We booked onto the Vistadome train so it was a bit more comfy and it had a glass roof for better views on the way. We left at 6am, and once we reached Aguas Callientas we had to get a bus upto Machu Picchu. What with the entrance fees as well it was an expensive day, but well well worth it.

Machu Picchu is magnificent, pictures cannot do it justice, although the memory card is full so we had a jolly good time trying! We spent about 3 1/2 hours wandering around, and could have easily spent another 3 1/2.

The views were spectacular and the site itself is awe inspiring, I dont think words can do it justice either so I wont even try.
















30/01/07

We got back from the jungle yesterday, I dont think I have ever been anywhere so hot and humid in my life, it hit you like a brick wall when you stepped off the plane.

We stayed at Inotawa Lodge for 5 days and had a fantastic time. We got collected from the airport, and after a 40 min ride to the port had an hour and a halfs journey on their long boat to the lodge.

There were loads of things organised for our stay, the first night we went out for a walk we were lucky (?) enough to find a tarantulas nest so our guide pocked it with a stick so we could see it come out looking rather p´d off... We went out another night especially to look for them and we all took turns poking the next with a stick to make it come out. This extreme exposure has done nothing to cure my fear of spiders.

The next morning we went to a local clay lick to see parrots, parakeets and macaws up realy close, we were tucked away in a hide and as it was a 4.30am start the kids soon got bored of being quiet and fell asleep!

After going back for breakfast we went out piranah fishing which was great fun, everyone caught one but me. That afternoon we went for a walk around a local farm, and on the way back when it got dark we turned off the boats engine and floated around looking for Caiman, but (luckily?) we only found some small ones .

The next days were equally busy, however, as our group was only just us for the last 3 days, the last couple of afternoons we decided to give the organised activities a miss and lounge around after lunch in their hammocks while the kids played with the pet monkey, Pepe. The girls now wants a pet Howler monkey.

Our guide, Wilson, also showed us around Puerto Maldonado as we decided to spend a day in the city as well. While we were there Kyra decided to try a freshly barbequed caterpiller, I say freshly because its brothers and sisters were still wiggling in the pot next to the coals. Then last night she decided to order a whole guinea pig in the restaurant, she thoroughly enjoyed it and kept making comments like ´look how sharp its claws are´ and ´cor, its teeth are a bit grubby´ and ´look at its cute little ears - should I eat them?´. I still can´t make her eat vegetables.


04/02/07

Today is our last day in Ecuador. We are in Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, and have just got back from a 2 day trip to the islands.

We visited the floating islands, which are very over commercialised but still worth a visit because they are so unique. The islands are made up of special reeds that are replenished from the top as they rot from the bottom, we were told that the bottom 6 inches of the reeds used to make the islands were edible, so next time I looked Kyra was munching on one, at least they are almost vegetables.

3 hours journey later we arrived at the island of Amantani, where we stayed overnight with a local family. It was festival time so the main plaza was heaving with 8 different brass bands trying to out do each other with different music and hoards of people dressed up and dancing to the music. It was realy good fun, and we dressed up in the evening in traditional clothes and joined in.

The next day we stopped off at another island called Taquile, where we stopped for lunch. It involved a bit of a walk up to the restaurant, and the altitude is a killer, still we will get used to it.


Budget

days spent in Peru = 30
average daily spend = £88.50

09/02/07

We are now in Bolivia in Copocabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca. We have just spent the night on the the Isla Del Sol, or Island of the Sun, where the sun was supposed to have been born, and where the first ever Incas were supposed to have made their first ever mystical appearance.

There were 1000 Inca stairs from the port to the village where we stayed, as I may have mentioned before the Incas didn´t seem to go in for Health and Safety laws in a big way so the stairs were all different widths and depths and what with the altitude being around 4000m above sea level the going was pretty tough. So much so that the next day instead of trecking across the island as planned to get the boat home from the north, we hung around for the morning and went home the way we came! In the true nature of supply and demand the boat back cost more than the boat there, but as there was only one company running the route and they didn´t sell return tickets to begin with all the passengers had no choice but to moan about it and pay up!


11/02/07

We are now in La Paz which is the highest capital city in the world. It is jam packed in and up the sides of a huge crater so as you arrive by bus from the top you get a spectacular view of the city.

We are staying by the witches market which sells all sorts of odd bits and bobs for spells. Among the bits on sale were dried frogs covered in glitter, various amulets for good luck, and dried llama feotuses that are apparently used to bury at the site of any new construction to bring good luck to the building. Dan says he may send one home to the boss for his next big construction project, but I´m not too sure if it would get through cutsoms OK.

There is loads to do in and around La Paz, we went to the zoo (a bit ropey but the kids liked it), we went quad biking again and this time let the kids drive while we hopped on the back. We went to The Valley Of The Moon, which as you can see has the most bizarre rock formations to wander around, it felt like we were on a film set. The childrens science museum was a bit of a let down, all of the exhibits were in separate buildings which were all locked up, on the way out we didn't even get a chance to complain, we were just handed our money back - so why bother opening in the first place?











14/02/07

We have just survived the bus journey from hell, it was supposed to be 7 hours but ended up closer to 23 hours. We had to drive from Turija to Tupiza along a narrow unpaved road up through the mountains, not too bad when the weather is good as it was when we left, but it started to rain rather hard after a couple of hours.

The bus came to a sudden halt when some water started to come down the rocks and land on the road in front of us, but within a few seconds there was a pile of rocks and mud about 6ft high and 18ft wide blocking the road and tumbling over the edge. If we had been in that spot a few seconds later than we were we would have been pushed over the edge.

We got out for a look and saw three further rock slides along the road, one of which already had a bus load of people trying to clear it from the other direction, so everyone started to chuck the rocks over the side. Luckily it stopped thundering after an hour or so, and a couple of hours after that another two buses turned up behind us so we had more helpers.

After about five hours, by which time it was pitch black, the empty bus managed to drive (ie wobble and lurch) over what was left of the rock piles and we jumped back on and off we went.

An hour or so later at the bottom, the road was again unpassable so we went "off roading" and lurched along until we could rejoin the road, unfortunately a large rock busted the hydraulic brakes. After a bit of tinkering we were off again - onwards and upwards. Me and Dan had front row seats so were having kittens - as was the lady in the seats next to us who kept crying and crossing her chest. The driver however seemed to get comfort from constantly crossing his chest and just kept renewing the wad of coca leaves in his mouth.

About 11pm we came to another fresh slide which was impossible to sort out in the dark, so we parked up for the night and prayed it didn´t rain againm this also gave the driver another opportunity to tinker with the brakes. At 5am our little convoy started on clearing the pile and we were off a few hours later, and WE MADE IT!!!

Dan has now sworn off of ever getting on a Bolivian bus in the rainy season, so we have either got to wait it out a few months here, or perhaps get him a whole heap of coca leaves for the next journey...


19/02/07

We have been having a good time in Tupiza chilling out by the pool, we decided to splash out and booked into a super expensive hotel with a pool, a whopping £13 a night for us all! We have been horse riding for a few hours one afternoon and there has also been a carnivalwhile we were here, which involved lots of water pistols, water bombs and spray foam aimed at the parade. It seemed that anyone holding either of these weapons was alsoregarded as fair game, so the kids got a can each and had a super time. Unfortunately dry gringos also seemed to be fair game so we didn't stay dry for long either.


22/02/07

We have just finished a 4 day jeep tour from Tupiza to Uyuni, taking in the salt flats. As well as the driver and a cook there was just us and a German couple - Simon and Catelina, who spoke fab Spanish which was quite handy as we dont, and neither the driver nor cook spoke English.

The tour took us through some fantastic scenery, past smoking volcanos, past lagoons full of flamingos, through some small villages, to a hot springs and of course across the salt flats. We were amazingly licky with the weather.






The last night we stayed in a salt hotel. Everything was made from blocks of salt - tables, chairs, beds, floor tiles etc.

The next day we drove across the Salar de Uyuni - salt flats, which was breathtaking. It was so huge and snowy white and as it is the rainy season it looked like a giant mirror, sometimes it was hard to tell where the land ended and the sky began.


26/02/07

We are now in Potosi. We booked bus tickets to get here on 22nd, but the only buses left daily at 7pm and took about 7 hours or so. When we arrived at the bus terminal half of the sky was looking a bit dodgy. Half an hour later just as we were about to leave the sky was looking like a huge purple bruise with flashes of lightening all over the place, when Dan found out it was the direction we were going in and a good part of the way was on unpaved roads he refused to get on the bus. No amount of coaxing, blackmailing or promises would get him on, so we went back to the hostel and ended up staying in the very boring town of Uyuni for a couple of days because he also refused to get on the next night. We ended up paying quite a bit for a private hire 4x4 to take us during the day…

Yesterday we went down the silver mines in Potosi, it was quite an experience. We got changed into protective gear and stopped at the miners market for gifts, we got a stick of dynamite, coca leaves, and super strong cigarettes. The mines were very narrow and low and we kept having to find gaps to squeeze into as miners came past with wheelbarrows full of ore. We learnt all about the history of the mines and saw first hand the conditions that they worked in – I can’t imagine spending your entire working life down there.

The kids did fine, I was a bit worried that they might feel a bit claustrophobic when we started to climb down a couple of levels, we squeezed through holes next to the pulleys and buckets and dropped down several feet to the floor below, but they thought it was great fun and collected a couple of bits of ore as souveniers.


02/03/07

Dans birthday was yesterday, so the day was his. As it will not be practical to get birthday presents for each other (no privacy for shopping and hiding them and then they have to be carried) we have decided that the birthday person will get to choose what we do, where we go and where we eat and generally be in charge for the day.

We are in Sucre, so in the morning we visited the local quarry where there are hundreds of fossilised dinosaur footprints, some up to 80cm across, that are on the side of a cliff face. It used to be a lake area and over the ages the land has moved and it has ended up on its side. UNESCO have offered funding now that it is getting quite busy there, but they have insisted that the footprints are preserved (although they have been fine for 65 million years or so), so for the next 8 months you are no longer allowed to get close as they are painting them over with silicon to preserve them so we could only see them from a distance from a viewing platform.

As it was Dans choice for the day, we stopped at a pub for lunch and ended up staying there for the afternoon playing cards. Anyone who knows Dan will not be surprised that this is how he chose to spend the day!

Today we went on a horse ride for a couple of hours to an old colonial house in a place called The 7 Waterfalls. From there a guide took us on a guided walk to the first couple, they all fall into each other down a mountainside, so the first 2 was enough for us! Afterwards we went back for a BBQ and a lift home when we had had enough lounging around in their gardens.

Tomorrow we fly to La Paz and then on the 5th we fly to Santiago, Chile for our flight to New Zealand.


Budget

days spent in Bolivia = 28
average daily spend = £52.53

07/03/07

We have been in Chile for 2 days and we fly out to New Zealand tonight. Our flight leaves at 11pm so hopefully we will sleep for a good chunk of the way.

Our flight from Sucre to La Paz on the 3rd was supposed to leave at 10am but it was raining quite hard, and after being told to wait for an hour quite a few times it was eventually cancelled at 4.30pm. We hoped the weather would clear for the next day as the only other way of getting to La Paz for our connection was by a 12 hour overnight bus and Dan flat refused o even consider it…we really are going to have to break this fear of bus thing. Needless to say, we got a flight the next afternoon and left for Santiago first thing next morning.

After Bolivia, Santiago is quite expensive, although it was cheap enough to replace a few T-shirts and top up on toiletries that will no doubt be a lot more expensive in New Zealand.

We spent a day at the central park and went on a tram up to the top of it, and also had a ride on the cable car – this time we even managed to get Dan on, watching him shake like a big girls blouse was hilarious.

12/03/07

We have been in New Zealand for a couple of days now, and we are having a great time. We have hired a Spaceship, which is a cross between a car and a camper van. Camper vans were very expensive and few and far between having only decided at the last minute to hire one, and cars don’t give you somewhere cheap to sleep, so it seems to be a very happy compromise.

We spent a couple of days at Waiwera, where there was a hot springs with over a dozen different pools and 10 water slides with names such as ‘black hole’ and ‘gut buster’ and were the fastest, most extreme water slides I have ever been on. Great fun!





Today we went for a ride on a catamaran around the Bay of Islands, which was beautiful. We got to snorkel with fish, and Dan got a go at being captain and took the wheel for a while. We were looking at a board of different tours when a man came up to us and said he had won a 2 for 1 ticket at the pub the previous night and did we want it as he didn’t have time to use it before going home? We saved ourselves $80 and when he asked we just told the skipper that we had won it!


15/03/07

We have been to Doubtless Bay for a couple of days and 90 mile beach where we did intend to spend the day on the beach, but it was very windy and the waves were huge, so we decided to drive here the same day instead (8 hours drive !!!). We are now in Tauranga where we have spent a couple of days relaxing and catching up on the kids homework.


18/03/07

Today we went to the Agrodome at Rotaroa and went Zorbing! This involves climbing into a 3m blow up hamster ball (along with a bucket or two of water) and getting pushed down the side of a hill. It was fantastically good fun, and totally disorientating. After that we went on The Swoop, you get into a harness a bit like you find on a hang glider which is then clipped to a wire that drags you up and backwards until you are about 40m in the air, then lets you go and you ‘Swoop’ through the air like it’s a giant swing. Dan tried to chicken out so the girls went first while I talked him around, but I finally managed to get him on.

There is loads to do around Rotaroa, but lots of it is quite expensive so we have relaxed in the thermal springs at the camp site, and worked our way around a giant 3D maze outside of town. We have also been to this place called Skyline where we got on a cable car to the top of this giant hill, and hired a luge to take us back down again. There were 3 different tracks – scenic, intermediate and extreme, and they were all jolly good fun.


21/03/07

WOW! Today we did a skydive from 12,000ft, and it was amazing. We got picked up in a limo and Dan bottled out soon after we arrived, but me and the girls donned our suits and harnesses and up we went in a small pink aeroplane. It was just the 3 of us on that jump, and I went first, but the kids followed pretty quickly afterwards. The freefall lasted 40 seconds and was the most amazing experience ever, then we floated down to the ground and got a good look at the surroundings from a completely new perspective. I can’t wait to do it again, but not too sure if the budget will stretch to another one!













25/03/07

We have come back to Aukland to catch our flight out to Fiji tomorrow, we will be there for a couple of weeks so there won’t be any updates for a while…

We have been to Waitomo to visit the glow worm caves, we decided to go for a wet tour so we got some wet suits on, grabbed an inner tube and off we set across some cow fields to the entrance. It was amazing to see them when we turned our head torches off, and it is actually the glow worm poo that glows not the worms, which are actually maggots not worms. We walked for a bit, then we got on our tubes, hooked our feet onto the ring of the person in front of us (it was only us 4 and the guide) and went along the underground river for a while with our torches off so we could see the glow worms better. It was really interesting, and thankfully no one suffered from any claustrophobia.


Budget

Days in New Zealand = 17
Average daily spend = £151.44

01/04/07

Fiji is AMAZING, we are having a fab time in the Yasawa Islands. We have got a 14 day Bula pass so we can island hop as and when we please, we just get on the ‘Yasawa Flyer’ cat which travels up and down the island chain daily and hop off where we fancy, we just get the island we are staying on to radio ahead to check availability and then they send a little boat to the cat to pick us up when we get there.

Our first stop was an island called Nacula, our bure was basic but just right (right by the beach) although we only had electricity for 4 hours per day. The snorkelling was great and we spent a fair bit of time on the beach just doing nothing. We have never been to a beach where the sea is warm and crystal clear, it’s a bit different from the English channel that’s for sure!

We did manage to drag ourselves away for long enough to go on a day trip to the Blue Lagoon, although our boat dropped us on a beach around the other side of an island bordering the lagoon, and the beach we had to walk along to get there went along in front of an expensive resort with big signs saying ‘private beach, keep off’ so that was a bit of a disappointment but we got our the boat to sail us around the lagoon on the way back to our island.

Then after 1 night at Naviti Island we went to Manta Ray resort on Nanuya Balavu. It was fantastic; the resort was beautiful, the food was lovely, our bure was bang on the beach and had electricity all day so we could keep the fan on all night, and cocktails were cheap during happy hour! The snorkelling there was fantastic, there were so many different sizes and colours of fish, and the starfish were bright blue. I didn’t realise that starfish came in blue.

One night we attended a Cava ceremony, Cava is made from dried Cava root which is then pounded and mixed with water and drained through a piece of cloth. It tastes a bit nasty, a bit like bitter mud, but infinitely better than a cup of South American tea. It makes your mouth a bit numb and is apparently a hallucinogenic if you drink enough, which we didn’t although Kyra loved it and had loads more than we did, and she certainly slept well that night.

We soon fell into a pattern of pure self-indulgent laziness. After breakfast we lazed on the beach, did a bit of snorkelling, lazed on the beach, had lunch, lazed on the beach, did a bit of snorkelling, lazed on the beach, had dinner, lazed in the bar. Tough life eh? After a hectic 3 months in South America and a fly by tour of New Zealand we did need a break to recharge our batteries, and Fiji is a great place to do that.


09/04/07

We spent a night aboard the Wanna Taki cruise ship, which came free with a 14 night Bula pass, it was great to be rocked to sleep and a great place to chill out with a book and watch the islands float past which all look so beautiful.

Our next stop was Bounty Island, which is where they film ‘Celebrity Love Island’, we did take a 20 minute walk around the island and on the far side signed our name among the many on the walls of the ‘love shack’.







Our bure had a private stretch of beach lined with palm trees and lush green bushes right up to the waters edge, and with tables and chairs, sun loungers and a hammock, although we ended up spending the majority of the time not in the sea lounging by or swimming in the beach front pool which was right in front on the bar – Dans idea of heaven!

While we were there we went on a banana boat - which was great fun, and we tried to book up a para sailing trip each, but it wasn’t windy enough. Dan and Kyra went on a fishing trip but didn’t catch anything, so instead they went hand line fishing off the jetty and caught a reef shark!

Next stop was Treasure Island, we started at the top of the Yasawa chain, and with each island closer to the main land the price went up, but so did the standards, Treasure Island was brilliant. Our bure had air conditioning and the resort was anything but basic. When the kids weren’t at the kids club they were playing with their new friends, Monique and Madison from Sydney, or splashing in the pool or playing crazy golf. Kids club was great, as well as a morning and an afternoon session if they felt like it, they went of at 5.30pm to have dinner with the other kids, meanwhile happy hour starts in the bar with half price cocktails followed by a relaxing child free dinner and entertainment and the kids get dropped to you at 9pm worn out and ready for bed!

Laziness reached a new level here, as when the kids are off at kids club and you are lazing by the pool, waitresses come around to see if you need another drink, and you simply choose another cocktail and charge it to the bure. We spent a lot of time by the pool drinking too many cocktails with the girls parents, Viv and Andy, who have invited us to stay with them in Sydney. Unfortunately it wasn’t windy enough to go para sailing here either, but Dan doesn’t seem to be too disappointed.

We arrived back on the main land yesterday evening (8th) and our flight to Sydney is tomorrow morning (10th) so we are sitting by the pool catching up on our journals which didn’t get done daily in Fiji as we were just too damn lazy! The kids have also had a couple of weeks off of homework because Fiji was all about having a holiday and relaxing, which we all managed to do very nicely thank you!


Budget

days spent in Fiji = 16
average daily spend = £129.26

13/04/07

We arrived in Sydney on 10th and are staying with a family we met in Fiji – Viv, Andy, and their girls Monique and Maddison. We all got on well in Fiji, and they asked us to come and stay with them in Sydney which was great of them – thanks guys.






We are currently in the Blue Mountains, where we have seen the Three Sisters rocks, some beautiful waterfalls, and visited Scenic World where among other things we went on a glass bottomed cable car, although when I say we, what I actually mean is me and the girls because Dan changed his mind at the last minute. Surprised? Nor were we!


16/04/07

We have had a great weekend, Andy took us out on his boat on Saturday and we went to a great beach for the day. Me and Viv lounged on the sand and drank too much champagne while the kids and the men had a blast dragging the boogie board from the back of the boat up and down the bay taking it in turns to ride on their tummies.

The next day we went to a local beach and we all learnt how to ‘catch a wave’ on the boogie boards. We thought the waves were huge, although apparently they were quite tame.

Today we spent the day in the city with Viv and the girls, we saw the Opera House and took a ferry past the Harbour Bridge – both of which can be seen from the public transport ferry just as well as from a tour boat that costs a small fortune. In Sydney when you buy a travel pass for the day it covers you for the trains, buses and ferries so you can sail through the harbour as often as you please, and you only pay for the first child so all the rest travel for free. Bargain!

We also got a ticket for a hop on hop off tourist bus with audio commentary so we could see all the sights and we had a fab but very tiring day.


20/04/07

We have arrived in Melbourne which is where Dan has been looking forward to most since we left, he has lots of family in Melbourne that he hasn’t seen for years, and some that he has never met at all. We are staying with his Uncle Tom and Auntie Dot, and we are having a barbeque at the weekend so we will get to meet everyone else then.

Yesterday Dans cousin Laura took us to Ramsay Street, we just couldn’t help ourselves! As we arrived a bus load of people were leaving on the Neighbours Tour Bus, they were all English of course. We have also spent a day in the city where some family of mine showed us around, they spend 6 months here then 6 months in England and we manged to catch them 3 days before they left Australia.


22/04/07

Wow, what a weekend. Dans cousin Gary and his wife Marie are involved in a TV programme called Haunted Australia, and they invited us to go with them on a shot last night. It was at a place called The Clarkson Hotel, where there have been many ghost sightings over the years.


Stelios, the director, and the rest of the crew were very welcoming and Dan got shown how all the technical stuff works by Jose, and I got to sit in with Dizz and Diane as they tried to contact the spirits. It was a great and very spooky night, and although we didn’t get to see any ghosts ourselves, Gary had an encounter. Now we just have to wait and see if our ugly mugs make the final cut!

Their web site is www.MysticalGuides.com and the whole series will soon be available to buy on line.

Today was the family barbeque, Dan has got loads of relatives here and it was great to meet everyone. The kids had a whale of a time playing with all of their cousins, and they are going to try to make arrangements to go to school for a day in a week or two.




27/04/07

We have had quite a busy week, we have been to Cardinia Park to see kangaroos up close, and Wednesday was ANZAC day so everyone was off work so we went to the park for a picnic with Tom, Dot, their children and grandchildren. Tom has booked a few days off work so yesterday he took us to Phillip Island where we saw the Grand Prix circuit, visited a chocolate factory, had a walk around the shops and stopped on the seafront for a picnic. Today we went for a drive around the area and stopped here and there to have a look around, we couldn’t help being touristy and brought a didgeridoo and a boomerang to send home.


01/05/07

The girls went to school yesterday with their cousins, and spent the day in Sherees class, they enjoyed it so much they went again today and will also go tomorrow. Amazing, they haven’t looked forward to going to school this much since their very first day! We are staying with Chris, Leanne and their children while they are at school, and used the opportunity of a quite child free day to go into the city and got our visas for Thailand.


06/05/07

Well that’s our stay in Australia over, tomorrow we fly to Singapore, our last booked destination, so after tomorrow we can just go wherever the feeling takes us whenever we feel like it. It has been great to stop and put down roots for a few of weeks, but it is also exciting to be going back on the road again. We have had a brilliant time, and we will definitely have to start saving when we get home so we can come back and visit one day soon, although the children have decided that they want to live in Australia for ever…


Budget

Days spent in Australia = 29
Average daily spend = £73.11

13/05/07

We are staying in Singapore with Christine and her boys Tyler and Dylan, who are friends of Viv who we stayed with in Sydney and very kindly offered to put us up while we are in Singapore. Her house is huge and the kids are loving the pool!






Singapore is very hot and humid, but I suppose we are just going to have to get used to it. We arrived very late on the 8th so crashed at a hotel near the airport, and the next day was Rhiannons birthday, so she was in charge for the day. We went out and had chicken fried rice for breakfast, then went to meet Christine and dropped our bags off at her house. Next we went on a Duck Tour, the ‘duck’ is an amphibious vehicle painted like a duck, so we got a tour round the street followed by a tour round the harbour, after that we saw Spiderman 3 and stopped for something to eat. Ordering by pictures is proving to be much better here than in South America, it actually looks like what you order and actually tastes good!

We have spent a morning wandering around little India, and ate a curry with our fingers which proved to be rather messy, and have spent a day at Wild Wild Wet which is a water park full of slides and was a welcome relief to the heat.

Friday night we went to the night safari with Christine and her boys, we saw a couple of different shows and went on a tram through the park and saw lots of nocturnal animals up close. Maybe is was because they are normally sleeping during day time zoo visits, or maybe because it was dark so our other senses perked up, but one thing that struck us was how much noise the animals made.

Yesterday we all went to Clarke Quay stopped at a bar for a tower of beer while the kids played in the fountain nearby. The tower held a lot more than it looked, and a couple of hours later we dropped the wet and worn out children with SP, Christines helper, and went back to Clarke Quay for more! We had a few more drinks and managed to get Dan into a bungee ball! I now know the secret to boost his bravery – top him up with alcohol! The kids didn’t believe he had done it until they saw the proof on the DVD we brought. After a few more bars we finally made it home about 3.30 this morning, and we all feel a bit delicate today. Thank heaven for a large house where we can’t actually hear the kids, and for SP so we didn’t have to get up till very very late.





16/05/07

We have spent a day at Sentosa Island, a small island devoted purely to leisure just off the south coast. It has imported sand beaches and non stop piped music everywhere but the flashyness and the attractions really appealed to the kids and we spent the whole day there and we all had a jolly good time. Sentosa is accessible by a cable car but by newly found ‘brave Dan’ has disappeared with the hangover and he refused to get on it, so we got there by monorail which is perched just a couple of metres above the road bridge.

We have spent a bit of time wandering around Singapore, and as it is so small (about 45km x 25km) everywhere is easily reachable by the MRT trains but as there are 4 of us we have found that it is cheaper for us to get anywhere by taxi.


Budget

days spent in Singapore = 8
average daily spend = £73.28

21/05/07

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur on 17th May at 7am utterly exhausted as the sleeper train did not allow us to do what the name implies it should have. The kids found it all very exciting, we set off at 10.15pm, and about an hour or so later we stopped at the border and had to hop off and get our exit stamps, then to bed and sleep seemed to come very easily to the children.

Arriving very early we decided not to trudge around the city looking for somewhere to stay but phoned a few hotels we got off of a list from the information centre at the station but they were full, out of desperation we booked into an expensive, but rather large as it turned out, hotel suite for £45 per night and all slept until about 2pm! Refreshed we took a walk and found ourselves a nice but much cheaper family room for half the price that we booked into for the next day. It is right in the centre of the city and very close to a monorail station, within 2 minutes walk of about 4 shopping malls.

Kuala Lumpur seems to have no shortage of shopping malls, I thought Singapore couldn’t be beat but KL is coming very close! It is amazing that so many shops are able to support them selves in such a small area, in one mall we went into an entire floor was full of nothing but mobile phone shops. In another, Times Square Shopping Mall, there claimed to be a theme park on the 5th floor, expecting a merry go round, maybe bumper cars and the like we took the kids and were flabbergasted by the size of it. It was a huge space that was cut away up to the 10th floor and there was a full on loop the loop roller coaster, threading its way up over and through other rides such as The Hammers, Nemesis, and all the usual suspects. It only cost RM25, which is about £3.50.

We took a couple of rides on the monorail, but once again found that it was far cheaper to get a taxi for the four of us. Despite someone we met telling us we would be bored in KL we found plenty of things to do, we spent one afternoon at a water park that had 6ft waves in one pool and you could hire boogie boards and surf boards, we went to a butterfly farm, saw the Petronas Towers, went up the KL tower, and visited the Batu Caves.



The Batu Caves are 13km north of the city and are reached by a flight of 272 steps – all numbered so you know how much further you have to go! At the top is the temple cave which is a huge limestone cave which houses psychedelically painted Hindu statues of various Gods, and out side by the stairs is an enormous golden statue of the God the temple is dedicated to. In January or February each year devotees come to the caves carrying offerings carried on hooks pierced through various parts of their bodies, I thought it was bad enough walking up their carrying nothing more than a bottle of water.


27/05/07

After 2 bus journeys and a ferry crossing we arrived at Pangkor Island on 22nd. It is not a huge island and as the main town is to be avoided (a bit scruffy and rather smelly) we headed straight for the beach resorts on the west coast, of which there are 2, although there are also a couple of super expensive resorts on the North. We chose the larger one and even this is small, the main road runs along the beach front and is about 500m long with a couple of shops and hotels, and along the beach is jam packed with stalls selling food and clothes. There are 2 small side roads off of this with more hotels/hostels and that is about it.

We spent most of our time here on the beach, and on Kyras birthday Dan asked a couple of restaurants if they could bake a cake for Kyra but they didn’t have ovens, so one of them gave him a lift into town so he could go to the bakers and kept it for us until that evening when we surprised her with it. As there wasn’t much for her to choose to do for the day she was a bit stuck, but decided she wanted to go fishing, so the same guy lent us 2 rods and her and Dan spent a couple of hours fishing off the beach while me and Rhiannon laid on the sand with a book.


31/05/07

We have been in Penang, an island off the West coast up a bit further than Pangkor Island, for 4 days. We have had a good time, we have been staying in Georgetown rather than the beaches so haven’t really had the ‘island’ feel that we got on Pangkor.

One day we went to Penang Hill and went up the tram there and saw a fantastically decorated Hindu temple, the tram went up 850 metres so took about 30 minutes, but the views from the top were well worth while and it was much cooler than it was at sea level. That day we also went to Kek Lok Si temple, which was more like a temple complex as there were loads of different temples and pagodas and statues and the like there.

Totally templed out we took the kids to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3 at a shopping mall the next day, but dragged them around the Snake Temple then the war museum the day after that They thought it was quite funny that there were signs around the war museum warning of the dangerous animals that we may encounter. It is a large fort built by the British in the 1930s and used as a prison and torture camp by the Japanese in World War 2, and you are free to wander around the buildings as you please, there were some graphic information boards and pictures, weapons of torture and buildings full of bullet holes, it isn’t always easy to get the balance between informing the kids and keeping them somewhat naïve of the nastier side of life, but we couldn’t have scared them too much because all they remember is the signs about dangerous animals, and the signs to keep of booby-trapped areas of land.


Budget

days spent in Malaysia = 14
average daily spend = £78.77

06/06/07

Well here we are in Thailand. We had all been looking forward to visiting Malaysia, but were surprised to find we just weren’t as enamoured with it as we thought we would be. We have made plans to meet my sister, her son, and Dans mum in Bangkok on 17th June and had planned to go directly there from Malaysia, but instead we decided to go to Thailand a couple of weeks early and hit some beaches in the south.

We brought a mini bus ticket from Penang (Malaysia) to Krabi (Thailand), we were concerned the journey would be too long when looking at the maps but the man at the ticket office assured us it would be a 5 hour journey. What he actually meant to say was that it was a 5 hour journey from the Thai/Malaysian border, which took over 3 hours to get to from Penang, and he also forgot to mention the hour wait for a bus change in I can’t even remember where. Oh well.

We stayed overnight in Krabi while deciding where to go next, and the next morning we took ourselves to Ao Nang just up the coast a bit. There were loads of different day trips from there, and we decided upon a days snorkelling around 5 different islands, and a trip to a local safari place that included a stop at a white water rafting river on the way back.

The 5 island trip was amazing, most especially Hong Island which is part of a national reserve. The fish were so amazingly tame they just swam around you in the crystal clear waters, the sand was white and so soft it squeaked when you walk on it, and the scenery was spectacular. At the last stop of the day the kids got some of the left over rice from lunch and we put it on our hands and fed the fish, so many of them flocked to us that you couldn’t even see your hands. After such a tiring day we all treated ourselves to a pedicure and a full body massage, which the kids loved.

The safari trip day was quite a long one. When we arrived we got on elephants for a trip up a river and back again in time for the baby elephant show. Riding an elephant was great fun, but amazingly slow and bumpy. At the elephant show Kyra immediately volunteered when they asked for a member of the audience (surprised?) and the elephant gave her a Thai massage (thumped his foot all over her back) while ‘kissing’ her (placing his trunk on her and sucking). She loved it and afterwards other people were allowed to do the same for a photo op, so I had a go.

After a quick ride on an ox cart around a rice field we went to the ATV field and even the kids were allowed to ride a smaller one each, as we were only going around a muddy course rather than off roading. When we were done we were all completely covered in splats of mud, which is always a sign of fun well had.

So off we went in the minibus to a waterfall, which was reached by a 5 min trek through some jungle, and we stayed for a nice cool splash before heading off for lunch. After that had gone down we got changed and got some life jackets and helmets on and had a quick run through of the instructions our guide would be calling to us for paddling and we got in the boats. They opened the gates to their humungous dam (that takes a day to fill) to get the water a bit more churned up and off we set, there were 4 boats in total and in ours were the 4 of us and 2 guides and we set off first. It was very fast and bumpy but nothing too bad, no one from our boat fell out. We were going for about 40 minutes but it was over in a flash and would be something we would definitely do again.


12/06/07

We are now in Phuket which, while very lovely, just isn’t a patch of Ko Phi Phi where we have just spent 5 days. Our resort on Phi Phi was at one end of Ao Lo Dalam bay, the pool overlooks the beach, and the staff are super friendly. Phi Phi is wonderful, there are no roads so no traffic, apart from the push bikes, and we affectionately named the streets around the small town between the two bays as ‘the maze’.

We spent the majority of the time in the pool, on the beach, or wandering around a bit (in that order) and generally just relaxing. One day we went on a sunset cruise to Maya Bay, made famous from the movie ‘The Beach’, on the next island called Phi Phi Ley. We stopped off to do a bit of snorkelling on the way, and saw a cave where birds make nests that are turned into birds nest soup (that Kyra wants to try), then we spent an hour on ‘The Beach’. The night before we borrowed a DVD player and a copy of the film, and the kids got a kick out of going somewhere that they saw on the telly. Back on the boat we had some dinner then watched the sunset, which was the most spectacularly colourful we have seen yet.

Another day Dan chartered a long Tailed boat to spend the afternoon fishing and talked me and Rhiannon into joining him and Kyra. Thankfully I took my book because the novelty wore off after about 10 minutes and I found myself bored, Rhiannon wished she had listened and brought hers as well. Dan and Kyra had a great time despite the fact that they only caught 3 between them and the guy who was driving the boat brought a handline and caught about 30! One of the fish Dan caught was a Puffer fish and when he brought it up it puffed up its neck huge and spikey and he had to carefully take the hook out and put it back.


19/06/07

My sister Kimberley, her son Pacey, and Dans mum Chris all arrived in Bangkok on 17th. Kim cried, which set Kyra off, which set Chris off. Chris was happy to find that we were staying within spitting distance of MBK (a super large shopping mall), as her son-in-law had asked her to drop by there and had given her a shopping list! It was great to catch up with the family as we hadn’t seen anyone from home since we left last December, I was a bit worried that Pacey wouldn’t remember me as he is only 3, but he did.

We had already spent a couple of days in Bangkok and seen a couple of Wats, visited a Buddha or two and went to the biggest market ever, Chatuchak weekend market, which had a whopping 12,000 stalls - it sold everything from clothes and hookey DVDs to puppies and snakes.

Yesterday we all went into the city and took a trip on a river taxi, much to Pacey’s delight and Chris’s non-delight (she is not too keen on boats), and had a wander around the city centre and today we went to Siam Park, which is a theme park and a water park in one. We spent a couple of hours in the water cooling down then we hit the rides, Kyra got so scared on the ghost ride that she actually cried, and Dan chickened out of the upside down rides after a nasty experience on one of the smaller ones that he had to get stopped early. Dan isn’t happy about me using the sentence ‘Dan chickened out’ AGAIN, so has asked me to point out that in actual fact I also wanted the ride stopped (in case he threw up on me) and there were no little children who groaned and laughed at him as he walked off.

Tomorrow morning we all fly off to Ko Phi Phi (plane to Phuket, ferry to Phi Phi), we had such a good time there we thought we would take the others there to chill out for a few days.


25/06/07

We all had a great time relaxing in Phi Phi. We spent lots of time on the beach and in the pool, and Pacey was a real hit with the local women, who whisked him off to the kitchen when ever we went to a restaurant to say hello to the other staff (we taught him to say it in Thai) or took him for a walk around their shops when we stopped for a browse.

The first night we went to a bar on the beach that has lots of mats and cushions on the sand and we ordered cocktails and laid back and watched the sun set.











Another day we took them on the sunset cruise and Kim got her first try at snorkelling; she thought it was fantastic and can’t wait to do it again. Unfortunately the tides meant that the large boat wasn’t able to get into Maya Bay and anyone who wanted to go had to swim from the boat to a hole in the rocks, and time it just right so that you climbed through when the waves weren’t about to crash over your head. Needless to say with 3 children we opted out, probably a good job too as most people that came back had cuts and bruises from being crashed onto the rocks.

Dan had another tattoo, last time we were in Phi Phi he had a dragon done on his arm and this time he had a panther done on his back. They used bamboo sticks with pins on the end, they dipped them in ink them tapped them into him, he says it hurts a lot less then tattoos he has had done in England and it didn’t scab up or anything.


30/06/07

We came back from Phi Phi on Monday, and went straight from Bangkok airport to Kanchanaburi which took about 2 1/2 hours. We booked into a hotel right on the River Kwai, which is only a few minutes walk from the famous bridge over the River Kwai. We have been to a couple of museums and learnt all about the Burma-Thailand railway and what happened to the thousands upon thousands of soldiers who died during its construction, and had a quick wander around a couple of the cemeteries where some of the remains have been reburied.

To keep a happy balance for the kids, we have also taken them to ride an elephant and afterwards went bare back on them into the river to give them a shampoo and scrub.









Another afternoon we went to a Tiger Temple, where a load of orphaned tigers are looked after by the monks and we got to stroke them and have our photos taken with them, although Chris wasn't too keen to touch them. They asked Kim to keep Pacey, who was in his buggy, out of sight in case the tigers wanted to 'play' with him, and we all had to keep quiet. When pacey made a racket the workers looked like they were going to have a nervous fit and asked us to keep him quiet in case the tigers wanted to investigate. We also got to hold a baby tiger, who gave Kim a nip on the arm and she is now proudly sporting a tiger bite and is secretly hoping it scars just for a good story to tell!

After Kanchanaburi we went to a place to called Ayuthaya for a day of templing. The kids weren't too keen so went to the swimming pool with Kim, but we went out for the day with Chris and saw many temples and took loads of photos. We walked up some steep stairs to the top of one ruin and had a fab view of the surrounding countryside. That evening we went on a 2 hour river trip to see more temples, but it rained so heavily and suddenly that we got soaked and had to turn back after 1 1/2 hours, but we didn't mind too much having seen enough for one day.











Chris went home today, we went to the airport with her and said our goodbyes and went to Chaing Mai. Hopefully she will be meeting up with us again when we get to China.


06/07/07

This last week has gone very fast. We have been in and around Chiang Mai, and visited the famous night market a couple of times for some good shopping. One day we took a trip to an elephant trekking place and all got to feed and stroke a baby elephant before riding on their backs for an hour, followed by a ride in a cart pulled by an ox and a trip up a river on a bamboo raft. I was on a raft with Kim and Pacey and both me and Kim had a go at poling the raft upstream, rather badly it has to be said, which is probably why we arrived ages after the other rafts despite setting off first.










Another day we went on a trip to Chiang Rai and stopped to see some hill tribes. In the Akha tribe the women chew a nasty looking concoction of leaves and herbs that make their teeth black, apparently the women with the blackest teeth are considered the most beautiful. They certainly make you look twice what with their jet black smiles and their stunning headdresses made of feathers, beads and dangling silver ornaments. We also saw the women of the Karen tribe who wear up to 5kg of brass around their necks, giving them the appearance of having hugely long necks. In fact, most of the length comes from their shoulder bones being pushed down rather than their necks stretching. They start wearing these rings when they are 5 years old and have to be applied scalding hot to get them bendy enough to go around, it certainly gave the kids something to think about.

We then went onto the Golden Triangle, which is where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet. While there our guide for the day, Star, told us there was an interesting and informative museum nearby as we had an hour to kill and the kids were all bored of looking at the Triangle after about 2 minutes, so off we went and we all learnt about the history, growing of, processing of, and rituals involved in taking Opium. I couldn’t disagree with the ‘informative’ bit, and I suppose learning something is better than learning nothing, I just hope the kids don’t bring this one up at school when they are asked what they have learnt on their travels…

After an emotional good bye at Chiang Mai airport Dan flew with Kim and Pacey back to Bangkok to see them onto their night time flight, then flew back to us at Chaing Mai first thing the next morning. Thank heaven for Air Asia’s cheappies as it only cost him £16 each way including all fees and taxes.


17/07/07

We ended up staying in Chiang Mai for a couple more days then flew back to Bangkok and went to Ko Samet, where we have spent the last week and a half doing not much at all. We have got some time to kill as our visa for Vietnam is dated from 21/07/07, we had planned to spend a couple of weeks in Laos but now we are not and that is a whole other story and we will probably go there some time towards the end of the year.

We have found Ko Samet to be fairly quiet during the week, and we have spent a lot of time of the beach doing not much at all. There are a constant supply of vendors walking along selling fruit, ice cream, bedspreads (?), and offering manicures, pedicures, massages and henna tattoos. One day we all lounged on our deck chairs and had a pedicure and a manicure (Dan said no to the nail polish) and it set us back a whopping £14 for us all.

One afternoon Dan hired a jet ski and went tear arsing up and down the bay with the kids for half hour, and another day we hired 2 ATVs and took a trip around to some different bays, and that has been about the extent of our exertions.

The ATVs were a pain to drive on the roads around Ko Samet, I use the term ‘road’ very loosely as they were just tracks of mud and rocks. Dan found it great fun but I found it pretty hard going and a couple of times at particularly deathly looking hills stopped dead and refused to carry on, so Dan had to drive his up and walk down to mine and drive that up as well. He also had to drive both down on the way back. He claims that his bravery at tackling these rocky hills on an ATV far outweighs my bravery of bungeeing off a bridge, jumping out of a plane, going on all those cable cars that he wouldn’t, and the various other things I may have mentioned on this site that he wouldn’t do, and wanted me to let you all know that he is brave after all. Yeah right.

Budget

Days in Thailand = 50
Average daily budget = £87.43 (ouch, but includes lots of shopping)

23/07/07

We have been in Hanoi for 3 days now, and it is hot. We went to the water park today to cool down for a bit, and it was very needed.

The center of Hanoi is quite manic, especially the traffic. There are millions of mopeds and motorbikes, usually 6 abreast along a road and they stop for no man, or no traffic lights, and as there are so many of them there is never a chance to cross a road in a gap in the traffic. We have sussed out the best technique, first stand together in a tight group so as not to loose anyone, take a deep breath and call 'now'. As one, move slowly and surely across the road, make no sudden moves - whether that be stopping or speeding up, as they will eventually veer around you even if it looks like they won't. Get to the other side, thank God that you are still in one piece and unclench hands. The locals do it without either shaking with fear, whimpering like a child, or even batting an eyelid so I'm sure we will get more comfortable with it in time.

Walking along the street also takes some guts as the pavement is not for pedestrians, it is for parking mopeds and bikes on, and in the spaces between bikes there will always be someone with a portable pot cooking something or the other that they will try to talk you into buying. So, you have to walk in the road while the 6 rows of traffic briefly squeeze into 5 while sounding their horns at you.

No, central Hanoi is not for the faint hearted. So we decided to get a cyclo instead of braving the road side walk for short hops. This is also a lesson in bravery, as you are sat in front of the guy on the bike so are more up close and personal with the traffic that he has just cut up, and the traffic that he has just cut up (we are talking about all 6 rows he has just driven in front of) come to a sudden braking halt amid more horn sounding and arm waving.


27/07/07

We have just returned from a 3 day/2 night tour at Halong Bay, which was absolutely stunning. We got a minibus from Hanoi to Halong and got on a traditional wooden junk, where we sailed around the bay for a couple of hours before stopping at some limestone caves for a look around. After that we sailed past a floating fishing village, where all the houses were basically built on oil drums, there was even a school house that 30 local children attend. The strangest sight here was some of their larger boats that were actually made of concrete! In the afternoon we stopped for a swim, and the kids took great delight in jumping off the roof into the sea, which was about a 5m drop, and were much braver than me as I only took a quick swim, even Dan tried it once.

Our first night was spent aboard the junk, and the next morning we sailed around for a bit before getting to the largest island there, Cat Ba Island. We caught a minibus to the main town and stopped on the way so that those who wanted to could go on a short (?) trek for an hour and a half up and down a giant hill to see a good view of the islands in the bay. As I had already got a good look from on the boat, and had recently brought a copy of the new Harry Potter book I was quite happy to give this a miss, and the girls made friends with some Vietnamese kids from Hanoi who were also on the trip so were also quite happy to give it a skip and play football instead.

Once settled in our hotel the girls went out to play with the children they met earlier, there were 2 boys about their age and a girl who was a few years older and there comes a time when you have to let children grow up a bit and have a bit of freedom so we let them go out for a walk around the small town. We told them to be no longer than an hour, so I didn’t start to worry until they were due back in 55 minutes, although it turned out it was too hot so they came back to play at the hotel after quarter of an hour… Once the sun had gone down a bit there was a kayaking trip organised, but we felt as enthusiastic about that as we did the trekking, and the children the girls were playing with earlier were going to the beach with their family, so the eldest girl who spoke a bit of English asked if the kids wanted to go as well, so we all ended up going to splash at the beach for a couple of hours instead, which was really nice.

The next day we went back to the docks and got on another junk and sailed back to the mainland, where we had lunch and then got a minibus back to Hanoi. The trip included all meals, accommodation on the boat and hotel and activities (no refunds for laziness though) and only cost equivalent of about £27 each and the kids were half price, so it was a real bargain.

Tonight we are getting a sleeper train to Hue, we leave at 9pm and it should take about 12 hours.


31/07/07

So the train ended up taking 15 hours not 12, but it was OK. We went for the most expensive ‘soft sleeper’ option which was a cabin with 4 bunks and aircon so we could have a room to ourselves. The next option down was a ‘hard sleeper’ which apparently has just as soft beds (ha ha ha, soft?) but 6 bunks so there is no room to sit up on any of the beds when you are not sleeping, next down is a ‘soft seat’ which looks a bit like an airline seat, and most cheap is a ‘hard seat’ which are wooden benches. The kids thought it was all rather exciting and slept soundly, the only real problem were the toilets. We have all just about got the hang of stand up toilets (Kyra bless her took 4 months to do it without weeing down her left leg although she will hate me for telling you that) but all that practise counted for nothing when trying it on a train as try as you might it is hard to aim for the blasted hole in the floor when the train moves so much. I could tell we weren’t the only people experiencing such difficulties as at times the toilets did reek a bit, although to the staffs credit they were cleaned during the journey.

We have had a good time in Hue, it is so much calmer than Hanoi the roads are actually easy to cross! We spent a bit of time just wandering around the city, checking out the market, sitting on the banks of the Perfume River relaxing with a cold drink and watching the world go by. The river doesn’t smell like perfume however, but it doesn’t reek either which is a pleasant change for a city river, and it is certainly nice and peaceful.

One day we went to the local hot springs called Thanh Tan, it may seem a bit strange to go to a hot springs when it is almost unbearably hot at times, but it was lovely and relaxing and surprisingly quiet, although it is a bit out of the way. We paid extra – a whopping £3 each all together - to have access to the exclusive B area as well as the normal A area, and we virtually had the entire B area to ourselves.

We have also been on a city tour. We went to a couple of pagodas one of which had monks wandering around after they finished their chanting under the pagoda, and a couple of royal tombs. The tomb complexes are quite large and include lots of buildings as well as the actual tomb, and get built under the supervision of the monarch during their life times. The tomb complex of Tu Doc was huge and included a man made lake and a separate tomb area for his favourite concubines (explain that one to the children!), while we were there we couldn’t resist dressing up and posing for photos dressed in royal regalia. We also got to have a wander around the ancient walled citadel and had a ride on the river in a small boat.


05/08/07

We are now in a lovely place called Hoi An, it is very peaceful here and the Old Town is lovely to wander around and chill out in a little café or bar and watch the world go by. It is also a great place to shop, so we have taken full advantage. There are thousands (it seems) of tailors offering made to measure anything, so we have gone and got a bit carried away. I have had a Vietnamese outfit called an Ao Dai made to measure in turquoise and white silk, and also a lovely winter coat, and Dan has had a winter coat and a suit made to measure with 2 shirts. That’s right, a suit! Well he doesn’t actually own one and as it only cost £42 for both the suit and the shirts it seemed like a good time to smarten him up, he won’t have to borrow one for special occasions any more! We also went to a shoe shop and I got shoes made to match my coat, shoes to match my outfit, strappy black sandals and black leather knee high boots, all for £85. I have huge man size feet and getting nice ladies shoes is neither easy nor cheap in England, so instead of looking at it as spending money, I see it more like saving money… Dan also got some boots and not to be left out the kids have got 2 skirts each to wear now. It wouldn’t be worth getting them anything made to measure as by the time we get home any new clothes or shoes wouldn’t fit.

One day we went to a cookery class at Red Bridge Cookery School, it was a good day out. First we walked around a market checking out the produce and then we got a boat up the river to the school. We watched demonstrations of several Vietnamese dishes, and got to try most of them out at our own workstations overlooking the river, it was great fun and once we have a kitchen again we will give the recipes a try.

Another day we went to some Cham ruins called My Son, which means beautiful mountain. It was a massive site and it was an incredibly hot day, but thankfully we were only there a couple of hours on our guided tour. If it had been a bit cooler we would have been happy to stay and see more.


08/08/07

We are leaving Hoi An tomorrow, and are off to Nha Trang for a beach stop. There is a beach about 4km out of town here in Hoi An, but the Old Town is so nice we only dragged ourselves to the beach one afternoon for a couple of hours.

We ended up doing quite a bit more shopping in Hoi An, but we ended up getting the shop where we got some large wood carvings to sort out a 1m square crate to be shipped home to Dans parents, so obviously it would have been a waste not to fill it, especially as there was no weight limit…

We ended up getting the kids an Ao Dai made for £10 each, and matching sandals for £5 each. They have worn them out a couple of evenings, and Kyra in particular loves all the attention she gets, and it is very hard to part Rhiannon from her high heels, so they have forgiven us for not getting them anything made to send home.


















15/08/07

NEWS FLASH… You guys are NEVER going to believe this but Dan went parasailing!!! We have spent a few days here at the beach, mostly at a nice café/restaurant on the beach front that has a pool, sun loungers around the pool and on the sand, and a large brewery. We spent a couple of days watching people go up and down the huge 6km long bay on parachutes attached to a speed boat, and yesterday with the help of the said brewery at the café I managed to convince him it was a good idea. Bless him, he shook like a leaf as they put the harnesses on us (we went together), but he stuck with it and once we were up he even admitted that it was a fantastic experience, and was actually glad I slipped the speed boat driver an extra 200,000 Dong (about £6) to make the trip double time. He even wants to do it again!


21/08/07

Well we have been in Nha Trang for over a week now and tomorrow we are getting a 6 hour bus to Dalat, which should be a bit cooler. Our visas ran out today but as we have really loved it here in Vietnam and stayed longer than planned in quite a few places here we have extended them for another month and will probably stay an extra 2 weeks or so.

We have been to the hot mud baths a couple of times. You can book their minibus to come and get you from your hotel and drop you back after, and when you get there hire towels and costumes. Once changed and showered in hot mineral water you go to the mud pools and sit in an empty one while the attendant turns on the mud tap and fills it with warm mud. It was quite weird to lounge in warm mud, although it was quite runny and not like when you play in the garden when it has been raining hard. After a good 20 minute soak we went to some more hot mineral water showers that come out sideways and hit you all over. Once de-mudded you proceed to the hot pools, where again you get an empty one and it gets filled for you with super hot mineral water. You are supposed to soak for 45 minutes to get the full benefit for your skin but it was too hot and we only lasted about 10! After that we went to the waterfalls and sat under them to cool down a bit, although they were quite warm as well. Then we went to the spa area and had an hour long full body massage, after which we went to have a swim in the warm mineral swimming pools. The whole thing cost us about £16, that’s for everyone, so it was quite a bargain.

Apart from that we spent a bit more time on the beach, and did a day trip to a couple of islands just off the coast where we got to do random things like riding ostriches, feeding deer, and going on a go carting circuit. Unfortunately us adults were to heavy for the ostriches but the girls had a blast.


26/08/07

We spent a couple of days in Dalat and it was much cooler at 1500m above sea level. We saw some beautiful waterfalls and surrounding country side, and also saw how people ‘grow’ silk worms and then how the pupae get turned into spools of silk.





We have also spent 3 days in Ho Chi Minh City, which is madly busy once again with untold numbers of motorbikes and mopeds crammed onto the roads. We went to the War Remnants Museum, which had lots of horrifically graphic pictures taken during the war, pictures and descriptions of the torturing that went on, mock ups of cells, and even pickled deformed foetuses showing the affects of the chemicals that were used during the war. It was all pretty full on, and a few times we had to steer the girls away from some of the more distressing pictures before they saw them, but all in all they handled in admirably and now have a far greater understanding of the war than I could give them by recalling what I remembered from my history lessons from way back.

The next day we took a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels that were used by the Viet Cong during the war. At its height there were over 200km of tunnels in the Cu Chi area alone, and some have been widened and opened to tourists, and although they have been widened at 6ft tall I had to crawl as bending down I still couldn’t get in and move around. Above ground the land was littered with huge bomb craters, and we got shown some of the booby traps that were laid to catch the American soldiers, which were all quite gruesome.


02/09/07

We have arrived back in HCMC having been in Phi Quoc for a few days, the flights were only £45 each return (inc taxes) and we spent a good few days doing not a lot at all. The beach where we stayed was very long and very quiet, and the majority of the time we had it virtually to ourselves. One day we went on a snorkelling trip and at one of the stops Dan and Kyra decided to stay on the boat and do a spot of fishing, and they caught quite a few. Apart from that we didn’t do too much as there isn’t an awful lot to do around there anyway, something like 90% of the island is covered in jungle and we weren’t really up for any trecking.









Tomorrow we leave on a 3 day trip up the Mekong Delta that will end up dropping us in Phnom Penh in Cambodia, we have really enjoyed our time in Vietnam and would come back in a flash.


Budget

Days spent in Vietnam = 45
Average daily spend = £60 (not inc clothes and shoes sent home)

05/09/07

We arrived in Cambodia this afternoon after a 3 day trip up the Mekong Delta from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh. The trip was good and we spent (apart from the last day) about equal amounts of time on the bus and the boat and stopped many times on the boat trips to see things such as a fruit orchard where we watched traditional singing and dancing while we were served tea and exotic fruits, a coconut sweet making factory on a riverside, and a crocodile farm among others.

The last day was the border crossing and after seeing a fish farm and sailing upstream for about an hour we transferred to the fast boat which we had paid an extra US$8 each for. We stopped at the order for about an hour while we took care of the red tape of exiting one country and