Malaysia, Philippines and Hong Kong

The day we were meant to be flying from NZ to Cebu in the Philippines it was hit with a devastating earthquake. It probably would have been ok for us to fly but we heard there were some bad aftershocks and rumours of a tsunami, so we decided to fly to Kuala Lumpar and explore bits of Malaysia we hadn't been to before.

We took a bus and boat to the island of Pangkor - it is a beautiful place and one of the nicest beaches we've ever been to, but there was a strange undercurrent to the whole place. The government had invested a lot of money into making it like a Thailand beach resort town and every shop had the 'I love Pangkor' tshirts everywhere. It was nice but we were only there for a few days, soaking up the sun and beautiful sea water.

We had intended to dive there as the Malaysian's say it's the nicest place to dive in the whole country. We couldn't find a dive shop anywhere. So the plan was to move across the country to the next big dive site called Terranganu. We took a ridiculously long bus journey half way before being told we had missed the last bus to the coast. So we ended up going back to The Cameron Highlands. It was our favourite place on the last trip so we didn't mind too much. We ended up staying there 5 days which is long for us, but it was beautiful and there was lots of nice walks to do. We then went to book our bus to Terranganu but were told the coast was shut because of the monsoons.

So... no diving in Pangkor because there were no companies, no diving in Terranganu because it was shut. So we decided to try a place called Genting Highlands, described as Malaysia's answer to Las Vegas.

Mumbai was going to take some beating for the title of 'Worst place on the whole trip' but I think Genting managed it. The cable car to the top of the mountain was the best bit, but in a nutshell - a tacky, expensive, horribly lit up amusement arcade for Asian tourists. The plan was to stay there for a few days and do some gambling. Instead... back to KL.

We dabbled with another city outside KL, which was nice for a day trip but in the end resorted to the fact that we were staying in KL. We had a nice few days, it is a lovely city. Visited the towers, did a little shopping, visited the parks and made the decision to risk flying to the Philippines.

Which was fine. You would never have known it was meant to be damaged. Cebu city was a nice place and the people there friendly. We ate well, drank well and stayed in a lovely boutique hotel called Europa. And went north to Malapascua, one of the big dive sites in the Philippines.

INCREDIBLE! One of the highlights of the trip. The beaches were better than any I've ever been to, the water pristine and the people lovely. We visited the local schools, saw cock fights (razor blades attached to their feet - it was messy!) and finally, FINALLY, did some diving! In three dives on one day we saw eleven thresher sharks, one bamboo shark (I found it sleeping in an alcove) and four white tip sharks, one of which was the biggest I've ever seen for white tips. The threshers were incredible, really long tails and big staring eyes, lovely animals. We also did a wreck dive of a Japanese ship that was sunk by the Americans - still with bombs on board! And the fifth and last dive was a nice relaxing deep dive (28 metres) where I think I got a little high and started talking with Nemos (I since found out that they can be viscous little buggers and where I thought they were coming close to me to be friendly, they were probably trying to bite my head off!)

It was worth the wait! Malapascua was gorgeous! We also met Jao and Maria from Portugal and spent every day with them. A lovely couple and a good crack

After a long journey back to Cebu we were back on a plane and this time to Hong Kong to see Dom. It was a long journey and we didn't get in until 3.00am. We thought we might be in trouble when no one seemed to speak English or want to be any help at all - finding a bus to take us to Dom's was a nightmare! But finally we got in, caught up and had a late one. And Dom was fantastic, taking us all over the city and introducing us to some amazing food (Dimsum at Maxims was superb, pigeon was a treat, schezuan pepper corns made us tingle in delight - and Tanya cry with pain - chickens feet were "sloppy") and some great nights out.

We did sight seeing too - the oldest temple in HK, the evening time light show where all the buildings lit up and 'danced' to the music, the avenue of stars where all the chinese film stars have put their hands in concrete (tiny, little Jet Li has bigger hands than I do!!!), the ladies market, Shark Fin alley (Grr! 90% of Hammer head sharks wiped out because of this sort of thing!) and the peak which overlooks a huge part of the city (although it was foggy that day and we couldn't see Jack____!

On the final night got very drunk and stayed up late watching Game of Thrones - the following morning we were meant to leave for a flight at 7.45 and didn't manage to actually get out of bed until an hour after that! It was a bit of a brown pants moment trying to get a taxi, screaming at the guy to NOT STOP AT ORANGE LIGHTS! but we managed to get to the airport as everyone was lining up to get on the plane!

HK was ace! And a nice little relaxing time (apart from the airport bit) before we head to Cambodia to start working in the orphanage and school...

New zealand

We drove a van, we trekked and drank wine. Each of these things we did a lot.

The north island's biggest highlight was trekking the tongarearo alpine crossing (sp). Superb volcanic trek with emerald lakes and red volcanic stuff everywhere, it's also the location of mount doom from lord of the rings. So we nicked some of the volcanic lava as a souvenier. Naturally. Best trek in nz!

Also wine tasting in hawkes bay and learning all the tricks of the trade. I asked one wine expert - how do you know if it's good wine? He replied, if you want to drink more of it, it's good. Well worth the tour aye? Haha

driving to the northern tip of nz was lovely but weather sucked when we got there. Managed a decent walk but slipped over and crushed by arm with my own fat arse! Worth the views though.

Rotorua was a bit of a let down considering the hype but the camp site was lush with our own lake and kerosine creek with the thermally heated water was good fun!

Taupo was amazing! Lots to see and do and mostly thermal and volcanic stuff! Favourite town in north island!

Seeing scotty and Brooke was great! Thanks for the tips, the food, the beer, the bed! All very needed!

The south island was something else! Spectacular drives around the whole island and beautiful views... A walk that rivalled the alpine crossing... The mount cook walk! Was beautiful and I was able to fulfil an ambition of standing naked on top of a mountain! Photo to follow!

Sky diving at fox glacier was a real treat! 12000 foot, 45 second free fall and a superb view of the glaciers, lake matheson and mount cook. They are the only company in nz to allow you to take your own camera up so... Photos to follow! Was a great experience and hand on heart - wasn't scared! Tanya was more scared about the turbulence in the plane going up then the drop from the plane coming down. Can't be explained really.

We managed another wine tour - this time at Blenheim! We stayed at the house (mansion) of a grape maker (real title to follow) and took some - slow - drives around the local wineries. We even managed to fit in some tennis on their court and some swimming in their pool!

Kaikoura was a favourite too. We did a lovely Coastal walk and got up close and personal with some wild seals. Er, photos to follow!

Hanmer springs is my favourite town in the south. Beautiful alpine village with a tiny population, some lovely walks and some springs that we were able to spend the whole day in. Beautiful place!

Abel Tasman was a great place too. Was a real pain tryin to find our camp site but once we were there it was the mouth to some superb treks - one led to the biggest hole in new Zealand. Was more interesting seeing it than writing or Reading about it. In fact, I might take the bit about the hole out if I run out of space here... But the walks were lovely and I some lovely views. Photos...

The glacier towns were pretty lame but I guess they don't have to be good when they're surrounded by icy mountains, beautiful lakes and rain forest. I'll forgive them for having a boring town. Got told we were camping on private property which was a panic as I'd had a few and couldn't drive but the farmer didn't really mind and was pulling our leg. The kidder.

Queenstown was a tourist fest. Everyone goes there to jump out of planes, bungee, abseil, climb, trek, boat, play Russian roulette with de Niro and Christopher walken. It's an active place where everyone seems to want to do something a bit dangerous! But we walked up a hill and went go karting. Was just as fun!

After that was mt cook with the naked mountain walk, lake tekapo with a nice little walk and onto oamaru where we saw some lovely little penguins. We saw five yellow eyed p's which are the second rarest in the world and 12 blue p's which are the smallest in the world! Was
pretty far away though so photos probably will not follow.

Back to christchurch to hand in the van and fly to kuala lumpar. The city is still devastated by last years earth quake and some of the sights were a bit shocking! A bit scary that when the earth goes mental there's not much anyone can do!

New Zealand is the most beautiful country we've ever been to and cannot wait to go back!

Indonesia... Whoops

Could have sworn I did a blog for Indonesia but I guess not. Must be a quickie as tanya will be back from hairdressers soon and no doubt I have to get into consoling mood!

Highlights:

5.visiting the monkey forest in ubud, Bali. So good I went back again! Never been so close to monkeys before! Got some fantastic videos and photos!
4.trekking in the wonderful, beautiful munduk, bali. So good we lost track of time and nearly had to spend the night sleeping in a rice paddie!
3.visiting the Borobudur temple in jogyakarta, java. Next to Angkor wat in cambodia, the best temple I've ever seen! The city itself was also a bit of a surprise! Plenty to see and do!
2.jungle trekking in bukit lawang in Sumatra! Seeing wild orangatans... Nine in total which at the time was a traveller record! Even saw a few day old wee bairn one which caught a tear in our guides eye as they're so rare! Spent a few nights in the jungle which was superb and a real highlight of the whole trip!
1.underwater life... Whether diving in pulau weh and seeing 60 manta rays in formation (another sight that few ever see!), sharks and sting rays! Or snorkelling in the gilli islands and seeing and swimming with turtles on a daily basis! This was the definite highlight of Indonesia!

There were others - taking shrooms in the gilli islands and singing alongside the locals every night 'gilli I love you', surfing in kuta, Bali even though I ended up being hit in the head and on the face at the same time by mine and tanya's board and Lorna broke a board and we ended up visiting the police.. I stood up for 8 seconds so well worth it! Visiting banda aceh, the worst hit city in the boxing day tsunami! And much, much more.

Thanks for the memories indo!

Australia

It has been ages since we've had the time to post but today we made the decision not to go to the Philippines as we were flying to Cebu which was heavily damaged by the earthquakes... We saw the damage in Christchurch one year on and they are still suffering tremors. So we decided to stay in Malaysia so I have a good day to catch up...

Oz was great! We started off the trip by spending time with friends in the danetree rainforest, the oldest in the world. It was lovely - their house is in the middle of nowhere and completely Eco-friendly. Solar power, recycling, rain water for showers etc. The whole shabang! They didn't even build Walls, doors or windows for their house. Everything was supported by pillars. Was awesome! From there we cycled to cape tribulation which was lovely. We then did our liveaboard on the great barrier reef... 3 days, 10 dives Inc 2 night dives and we took a course to become advanced so we could do it all without guides! Was superb diving, some of the best we've done and was definitely the highlight of oz! Saw sharks, rays, turtles and some of the biggest fish we've ever seen. I also woke up a sleeping trigger fish during mating season and got chased and snapped at for a few terrifying mins!

Next was magnetic island where we saw wild koalas! Very cute and looked completely stoned up in their trees!

And airlie beach which was a nice beach town, followed by ahmed water aka 1770 which is where captain James cook first founded oz for us Brits! This was a lovely place and we Learnt a bit of history (cook was the first sailor to discover that limes kept away scurvey. Not only did it save most of his Crew but earnt us the nickname - limey) we also did a great electronic bike ride which was the laziest bike ride I've ever done! We didn't see any roos but did learn they're the only mammal that tuck away their gonads. They also can hold off their pregnancy if they feel it isn't the right conditions and their cock and balls are the wrong way round. I'm sure we learnt stuff that wasn't sex/mating related but I can't remember any of it!

Hervey bay was next for tanya's birthday. Wine, a free meal and a day spent on the beach. Was splendid!

Rainbow beach is the jumping off point for Fraser island but was still a pleasant stay. A nice walk ended with one of the nicest views I've seen in oz. A HUGE sand dune that leads to the ocean! Fraser island was lovely and the lake Mackenzie was a real magnificent site! Would go back to oz just for the chance of another dip!!

Saw our first kangaroo on our way to noida but it was 50foot and a plastic gas station statue so doesn't really count! Noosa was lovely and was the nicest Coastal walk in oz. Bit of a pisshead area though and it was very apparent that it was a teenage backpacker area! Had corn on the cob nicked from us while we were still cooking it and felt like scolding the two girls in our room when they came in late from a booze up. When did I become such a grumpy old man?

Ah, Byron bay! The rumour are true.. It really is one of the sleepiest, hippy-ish, surfing town ever. And it's great! Didn't partake in the surfing due to the calamitous effort in Bali but had some lovely walks and learnt some local history (old man...) but was a great area and highly recommend it. It was also the most eastern point of oz we managed and a great walk to the lighthouse overlooking the whole town. Was bootiful!

Coffs harbor broke up the journey to Sydney but little else! Met a nice little crew, did some pathetic canooeing and saw the most amazing musician! Must look up jeff tangle on google, he was greAt!

Sydney was awesome! Saw the opera house, botanical gardens and did some good walks! Managed not to spend money in the most expensive part of the most expensive country so deserve a medal for that a reckon!

Then it was Wollongong to see the lowthers! Was ace seeing them again and meeting kirsten's family over Xmas! Bug thank you to them for making us so welcome! Was a lovely time! Especially dog on a tucker box. Probably the best thing I've ever seen. Ever. Look it up on google!

Oz was awesome and gave us some really good memories! Will go back again for sho!

New Zealand to follow...

The last half of India!

It has been a long time since the last blog - been very busy! But I can now update the blog with the last bits of India.

Goa - was a lovely little resort town and was very much needed after the hectic nature of Mumbai. Was great to chill for a few days but it started to feel a little holiday-y and so we moved onto HAMPI!

Hampi - an incredible place and still remains a highlight of the trip. A tiny place located somewhere in the middle of Southern India, it seemed like the town of Bedrock from the Flintstones. Amazing temples everywhere, monkeys walking the streets, limited electricity and really friendly people. The walks were amazing and we attempted a bike ride to other places on the second day. Unfortunately, I was still getting over a chest infection I caught from Tanya and ended up collapsing by the side of the road nearly passed out. Luckily I managed to collapse on the doorstep of the only hospital for miles so I was able to be saved! Ended up having a blood test etc in a tiny little run-down lab... funny looking back but a bit shit scary at the time!

But Hampi was generally a great place and would recommend everyone to go there.

It was also our first experience of the famous monsoon rain. We got caught in it one day and got absolutely soaked! We ended up running in the door of some elderly couple's house. Tanya assures us they invited us but I really think we just terrified an old couple! And when attempting to run back to the hotel both Tanya and Lorna managed to fall straight into a pile of puddle-shit-mud. Was very funny but Tanya had the camera so I wasn't able to get a photo!


Mysore - a wonderfully colourful, clean city but not really 'India' as we thought it would be. The palace was gorgeous and huge and when lit up at night time was one of the best sights we have seen. We met a really friendly man called San who just stopped us in the street. It was bit cringing though. We had been telling people we were from Wales because noone knew where it was and so we avoided the cockney slang and 'awright mate' that the Indians seemed to do all the time. Funny at first, but not after the thousandth time! Anyway, so we are from Wales. Except when I said this to San I didn't know he was extremely well educated and taught by a Brit. He started asking me info about Wales and asked for Welsh words. I had to blag some Welsh (not easy, by the way!) and make up information about the place. But he seemed content and we had a lovely couple of meals with him - and the other day got invited to his wedding!

We also saw our first Bollywood film here. Bodyguard! Was amazing, even though we couldn't understand a word. The cinema was filled with men, but everytime the hunky male lost his top or did some fight scenes the place was filled with wolf whistles. You can smoke in the cinema! and talk! and use your mobile phones! You can also touch up unsuspecting tourists apparently. A man sat next to me and tried to touch me in a naughty place, but ran off when I shooed him away!! Was not a nice experience! But the film was great!

Ooty - this is a very green place in Tamil Nadu. Typically people only come here to do hill treks and that's all we did really. It was very cold. Very wet. Very British. But a lovely different place for a couple of days. We also met fellow tourists for the first time since we got here. So it felt good to be social again.

Alleppey - this was our first taste of Kerala, famous for being the 'nicer' part of India. This is also the jumping off point for the famous backwater trips into the villages. After checking out of the Lonely Planet recommended Johnsons homestay (manager was a rude arse and we had met some much friendlier managers at the bus stand), we did the day trip. Was again Incredible (although I'm realising how much I'm using that word in this blog). Just lovely to float through the villages with lovely scenery and see a bit of real India - although this is one of the most touristy attractions in India so how 'real' it is I don't know! But a nice relaxing day and LOADS of food!

We stayed with a couple of young guys called Sanil and JayJay for the remaining time and had some quite heavy drinking sessions with them. The place we stayed in was some very simple but nice bungalows quite near to the backwaters and in it's own space. We felt secluded from everyone and it was great!

Also in Alleppey we found an amazing restaurant called Dreamers. The staff were really friendly and it was the best curry we had in India. We also got to experience the drinking beer out of a tea cup for the first time! Was warm, flat and generally not recommended.

Alleppey was also our first experience of teaching in India. We spent a day helping out at a boy's school. It was a good experience although very different to what we're used to. Really rammed home the point of how spoilt we are in our country and in our schools. Their book corner was just a wall with a few magazines and they used pencils instead of pens. They were very grateful to get our donation of a few hundred pencils as they're seen as quite expensive over there. For more details Tanya has written on her own 'teaching blog' so check that out.

Varkala - officially the most touristy place in India. But extremely bloody lovely all the same. The weather was hot all the time, the drinks and sea food were lovely and cheap. There was a beach. There were coconut trees. And somehow we managed to spend nine days there although we didn't realise it at the time and can't now tell you what we did there!! I can tell you that one day we spent by another hotel's pool, one day we walked to the end of the tourist track and met some fishermen that climbed trees to get us fresh coconuts. One day we walked to Varkala town to see what was there. Not much. And one day I spent watching rugby all day (...) It was all very pleasant and again we met some nice people to spend time with. And it went extremely quickly.

Kanyakumari - back to travelling after the mini holiday! a lovely little fishing village located right on the tip of South India. The most southern place of the sub-continent and overlooking three oceans coming together - the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and Bengal Bay. We visited Gandhi's ashes, saw the sunset over the three oceans, visited some monuments and statues and things and saw some fishermen in action. It was really good and was nice to see a bit of village life.

Kanyakumari is also the starting point and terminus for the famous Indian railway line. If you went from here to Jammu in the North it would take about 60 hours.

Enarkalum - we only went here and it seemed to take forever. The place was just a stopping off point but seemed alright. The hotel was expensive but pleasant and we went for a really nice meal. The city seemed like a nicer, cleaner version of Mumbai.

Munnar - another of the favourites! We stayed in a gorgeous little cottage place called JJ Cottage. The place was like a sunnier, happier version of Ooty and it was Incredible. Lots of hills, trekking, eating and sightseeing occured here. This place was also a bit of a bonus because we didn't think we would fit in another place before flying on so we were extremely happy to have come here (thanks Michael and Annie for the tip) The sights were lovely and the walks were knackering! Another one we would recommend to everyone!

Kochi - Fort Cochin is a lovely little colonial type place with a big fishing culture. You could walk around the whole place three times in a day. We ended up doing a tour where we visited Chinese Fishing Nets, a Dutch cemetary, a Dutch museum, spice markets, Jew Town, a beach where the Tsunami hit, Portugese museum and a ginger factory. We also saw some Indian martial arts which were really impressive and of course ate loads. It was a pleasant place to finish our trip of India and all that was left to do was to look forward to Indonesia...

We loved India and would definately return. It was so huge and everywhere was just so different. It's definately a lot more westernized than we thought it would be but there is so much to do and see. The people also make it what it is and they're extremely friendly for the most part.

We have already started planning our return trip!

Mild Observations About India so Far (Joe's grumbles)

Tanya wants me to make sure this is a solitary post, nought to do with her at all.

1. People here suffer from OCD. It's the only explanation for having a clean hand and a dirty hand. Honestly, why have a dirty hand anyway? Just have two clean hands and be happy with that.

2. How often do you need to phlegm on the ground? How congested with snot do you need to be to spit it out every two minutes? Normal pavement turns to swampy grounds when men, women, children, dogs and cows are projectiling every few minutes.

3. Impatience. It's everywhere. Even a cow butted Lorna with it's head, even though she had the right of way. Honking horns and pushing into queues. What do they need to do so urgently that they can't wait 30 seconds for someone to cross the road safely?

4. Cows in India are arrogant. You can see it in their eyes. They know they're worshipped.

5. I've never seen so many people lying around doing nothing. I thought we'd be the ones laying around all day sunbathing.

6. The ocean (or any water feature) seems to be India's bin. I've seen people on a train wait til we cross a river to throw their rubbish into the water. It's disgusting!

7. Men in India hold hands and cuddle when walking down the street. It's seen as friendship here but I can't see me convincing people back home to do it. I've never had my bare knee patted so frequently by men whilst sitting on a moving vehicle.

Most of these things are at their very worst in Mumbai. The beach in Mumbai is literally covered in rubbish and was a real shock to see. The people were very rude there and there wasn't much to see. Delhi had so much more character and so much more to see and do. Although I have to point out that one of my favourite experiences of India so far was when we were walking home to our hotel through the slums and came across a festival celebrating the elephant god Ganesh. The slum locals could have seen us to be intruding but invited us to dance with them and celebrate. It was amazing and we saw the best character of the city that night.

So it wasn't all grumbles...

First 3 weeks of India

Hi all,

We arrived in Delhi safely but were a bit overwhelmed by the smell, noise, heat, humidity and did we mention - the smell!

It was really weird to see cows wondering the streets and traffic going out of it's way to avoid them! The cows are worshipped here and they exploit that at every opportunity.. they're quite arrogant looking!

We did a day tour and went to the Gandhi museum, the red fort, Lodhi gardens, Lotus temple and so began the papparazzi photographs of everyone taking our pictures (we have since found out it's because we look like 'white chicken')

From Delhi we went to Lucknow which was our first experience of a train. It was interesting. It's every man for themselves at the train stations... wouldn't have been any 'women and children first' off like the Titanic...pushing galore! Even saw a guy put his arms through the bars off the window and try and grab someone's bag!

At Lucknow we went to La Martiniere school which looked like the Harry Potter school. Except they didn't learn magic here, it was more normal subjects like Maths and English and that. Met the headteacher and had a quick tour to the basement where the tomb of the founder was kept. We went to the residency, which was destroyed in 1857 during the war of independence and it was quite eerie as it was as though people had just left it. We spent two days in Lucknow and enjoyed the bit of calm we had there. Next was an overnight train to Varanasi...

Anyone who has read Joe's status on Facebook knows that this was where he was quite ill. This was not a pleasant experience although I won't go into specifics - it involved a moving train, 13 hour journey, hole-in-the-ground toilet!

In Varanasi Tanya and Lorna did a tour of the ghats. It was really interesting. Even saw a cremation and all the rituals that followed it in the Gange river. Joe stayed in bed. The next day we all managed to get up at sunrise for a boat ride down the Gange, watching all of the locals bathing, washing and brushing their teeth in the river. We were highly advised not to do this as a litre of normal water has five hundred bacteria and a litre of Gange water has 1.5m bacteria!

We then got a train to Agra and the first stop was the Taj Mahal! Amazing and inspiring - cannot really describe how surreal it was to see it. From here we had a driver for 8 days. He was called Rocky and was immediately friendly, funny and knowledgable.

We went to Jaipur, which is so far one of our favourite places - it felt like real India! We saw the Krishna parade, which was incredible! So many colours, floats and music and dancing! Everyone seemed really happy! From here, Rocky took us to Pushkar...

After the madness of the first few places, Pushkar was a nice break. Chilled out, but half of it was flooded, so we were a bit stuck in one half only. We climbed to a temple on top of a massive hill which had incredible views. On the way down we got caught in our very first monsoon downpour. Next stop was Jodhpur...

This was labelled the Blue City and it really is. We walked up to Mehrangrah Fort, which was amazing. The view over the whole city was well.. blue. In the evening we went to a rooftop restaurant overlooking (from beneath!?) the fort and had our first beer (it's been really difficult to find them here!) Tanya and Lorna were picked from a crowd to do some Indian dancing in front of the entire restaurant. Photos will come later.

Rocky then took us to Udaipur. On the way we went to Ranakpur, where we met some of Rocky's friends. It was a village in the middle of nowhere that had obviously never seen any tourists. Suddenly we were inundated by twenty family members staring at us and using universal signs to communicate.

In Udaipur we stayed in a five star hotel - very different to our basic hovels (there was a mix up and we got upgraded!) We loved it here and enjoyed the views over Lake Pakola. One evening we went to a traditional Rajasthani dance and music performance. Some very random bits i.e. men on piggy backs dressed as the devil squawking, but then also some very unique fantastic dancing with symbols and ten massive pots on dancer's heads.

And then what can we say... Mumbai. Less said the better. It incorporated all of the worst elements we had seen of India and has inspired Joe to write his own grumbling page after this one.

From Mumbai we got a 22 hour train to Goa. It was of course only meant to last 12 hours but due to monsoon (well done Tanya for checking the weather!), there was a rockslide on the tracks and we were stuck at a station for five hours.

Goa is everything you expect it to be. Relaxing, chilled, beaches, palm trees, cheap alcohol, good seafood. It's not noisy or dirty enough so tomorrow we're moving on to Hampi! But we really love it here. Tanya and Lorna have finally got sunburnt (so are no longer white chickens, they're semi-cooked chickens!)

Today we had our very first day where we weren't stopped for photographs every three minutes, although we did have to walk 3 miles into the wilderness to experience that peace!

Photographs will follow but I hope this was more interesting than the first one! The next page will be Joe's grumbles about experiences so far!

Lots of love to you all, hope everything is going well back home!

Tanya and Joe x