Jul 2008

Hello ladies and gentlemen

So where have we been since our queueing expedition? Well not far it has to be said, but the heat here will kind of do that to you! We took a few days in KL to check out some of the sites which were just fantastic. Less humid then Singapore, but no less hot, KL is a city covered in greenary that helps break the place up. We were staying just off the chinese market; a place which is a hub of activity from 9 in the morning till midnight. We just loved the fact that when the guys at the food stalls had enough they simply folded down their blinds, kick started their bikes, and rode down the street

We caught an overnight train up Malaysia aiming for the Perhenthian Islands on the east coast. Satisfied in the knowledge that we'd combined our travel with accommodation we settled in for the night and awoke the next day shortly before being kicked off the train where we'd grab a taxi to Kuala Besut; the port town where we'd get our boat. A 2 hour taxi ride cost Sue and I about 5 pounds, and the guy kept running commentary of where we were

I have to say that the Malaysians are so laid back. Nothing really runs to any kind of time other then when people can actually be bothered to do it. A little frustrating at first but you get used to it. What I struggled to get used to is that beer is limited due to it being a Muslim country! Oh well, a few days break never harmed anyone

We got a boat to the little island of Kecil and stayed on a place called Coral Bay. The island was so good, with limited people due to the low season, clear water, and plenty of places to eat and drink. The first night we spent chilling out after the travelling (hard life you know!), and the following day we went a sun worshipping. Being the typical Brit that I am am (drilled home further by my recently shaved head...I fought the mullet and the mullet won!) I got nicely burnt and have spent the remaining days dazzling people with my bright red torso The final day we went snorkeling which was amazing! We saw so many fish (so good were we at the identifying that we chose to ignore their actual names and instead were shouting things like "Did you see the one with the flappy tail and orange head" at each other ).

Sadly it was our time to go and we headed back to the mainland and then to the Thai border. We managed to get ourselves a taxi for out 80 ringetts (about 12 pound) for a 200 km journey, and found a man that had 101 uses for his tissue (wiping his head, his nose, his windscreen, his wing mirrors, passers by...etc). Crossing the border was nice and easy and we headed to the train station to continue to a little place called Trang where we would set up camp. We managed to get most of the way but had to swap to minivan in Hat Yai. Luckily we met a Canadian guy that comes to Thailand every year and he helped us get a good deal (he couldn't however get us out of the 20 baht round-the-block-trip we experienced from the station!). Minivans are a new thing to us, but not that bad if you know what to expect and how to deal with the people that run them. On the way to Trang train station they tried to convince us that a cafe was the train station, then that a bus station was the train station, then (my personal favourite) that a Tuk-Tuk was the train station

After Trang we headed for a little island called Ko Lanta on the east coast and haven't been dissapointed at all! I'll let Sue carry it on from here as I feel like I've been waffling!

Hope all is well back home.
Sharm

Growing up in the UK, you quickly get used to the fact that when England had an Empire they did a jolly good job of introducing all our sports to the various countries we'd stuck flags in and then sat back and watched them get better than us. Not so with the Malays. Although they do have a rather beautiful cricket pavillion in the middle of KL I don't see them pushing us any further down the world rankings in our major sportsjust yet. That said, if one of our other pass times were to become an Olympic sport we may have competition....

The activity in question is not so much a pass time as an institution. An art, if you will. It is the mighty art of queueing. Let me explain. Having seen Entrapment, we thought we should probably visit the skybridge at the Petronas Towers in KL (If you don't know what I mean - Petronas Towers = huge twin towers in KL, formerly world's tallest building, currently world's tallest twin towers. Two towers, connected half way up by a bridge...not one for those with issues being up high!). We went along one day to pick up our free tickets and were told to return the next morning at 8.30 as they had an allocation and they ran out pretty quickly. We were advised to turn up around 8 for an 8.30 opening so landed at about ten to and were greeted with what looked at first glance like a complete melee of people. But no...this was not chaos, this was an area about the size of a badminton court with a queue of people snaking up and down in a neat, organised mannor. Those at the front looked like they'd been there for some time - picture the footage you see of queues at Wimbledon, or for major launches of computer hardware. This was all impressive enough but the icing on the cake came when we noticed the guards. Yes, they had about 10 people marshelling the queue, and when the office opened at 8.30 they barracaded the entrance to the queue to prevent people jumping in, and from that point on would only let one representative of each group join the queue and they were escorted by a guard to the back to ensure no pushing in type shennanigans! Marvellous. A wonder to behold! Especially as the rest of queueing in Asia consists of people standing at the front ignoring any gathering of people who may have been waiting for the same service. In fact just yesterday Sharm was hassled away from a train ticket counter by a chap who came up beside him and actually stuck his head between Sharm's and the plexiglass in order to usurp him in the queue

I thought I'd share that with you all, and Sharm will return soon with an actual update of our activities!
To all in the UK - you'll be delighted to hear that it rained yesterday here and is cloudy today. It's still about 30 degrees, but at least we're not geting tans

Love to all!
Sue xx

Greetings from Singapore!

I believe in past times we may have rashly made comments about wanting to be hot again...having arrived to 31 degree heat and 85% humidity I'd like to take a moment to remind people to be careful what they wish for!

More about that later. Sharm last blogged as we were about to head to Sydney and do so we did...flying into the middle of World Youth Day which, for the uninitiated, is a global gathering of Catholic teenagers with a guest appearance by Old Red Socks himself (although I'm not sure if the red socks thing was a specific Pope or is a general Pope prerequisit...answers on a postcard please!). The streets of Sydney were heaving with matching hat wearing pilgrims and the locals didn't seem too impressed - quite the spectacle to behold!

Anyhoo, whilst in Sydney we managed to catch up with Jen (Lilley) and Suze (Dansey) who send big hellos back to all who know them. It was quite surreal going out for a few beverages with people you associate with being out for beverages in Reading...disorientating but fun! We also went fishing in Manly very unsuccessfully, did some general loafing about and had a lovely relaxing time.

Come departure time we had our first travel hiccough - a delightful 16 hour delay on our flight that we only found out about when we got to the airport Got put up in a local hotel, and fed dinner and brekkie before being put on a massive plane with only 26 people in economy which was cool....until they couldn't get the in-flight entertainment working for the first 7 hours of the 8 hours flight. Ah well!

So we're now in Singapore - humid, busy, shopping obsessed Singapore! Great place, lovely people but not as cheap as we hope the rest of Asia is! There are a few random sights to behold - we saw a dog wearing a nappy earlier today which I'm not too sure how to deal with - genius or a bit odd?! Went for the obligatory Singapore Sling in Raffles which is the only place in Singapore where there isn't a $200 fine attached to littering and you are encouraged to throw your peanut shells on the floor for some reason...random! Nice cocktail, although had a distinct mass-produced feeling to it as it appeared about 30 seconds after we ordered it but it was fun to experience how the other half live for an hour or so

We also visited Sentosa, a little island off the south of Singapore which is where someone has decided that the people of Singapore need somewhere to sunbathe and play beach volleyball so have created a huge man made beach. Palm trees, coconuts, clean sand...and a slightly dubious view into the South China sea which is full of oil tankers and off shore oil storgage platforms and the like - it's all a little surreal!

All in all though, it's a very civilised place (yet another tube network that makes London's look a tad antiquated - paperless ticketing, aircon throughout, clean enough that you could eat your dinner off the floor if it wasn't illegal to eat on it) and it'll be interesting to see what the rest of Asia is like which we shall start oing in a few hours when we get on a train to Kuala Lumpur.

Unlike NZ t'interweb here is either free or cheap, and there are internet cafes everywhere so we should be better with our blogging again...be prepared to be bored

Hope all is well in whatever part of the world you're reading this from!

Sue xxx

Hello one and all

Sorry for it being a while since we last posted something, we've been doing a lot and finding it hard to get decent internet access that's not a complete rip-off!

So when Sue last posted we were in Franz Joseph having climbed the glacier and were about to set off to head to Wanaka and check out if there was any snowboarding afoot. We woke in the morning to find that overnight it had snowed and our journey through the winding roads of the west coast were both picturesque and a little bit scarey at times. On the road to Wanaka you enter Mt Aspiring National Park which is just beautiful, with huge mountains and dense forest all bathed in lovely blue sky and sunshine. Arriving in Wanaka we found that there had been little snow so no snowbaording, just a lovely small town filled with skiers and boaders enjoying some apres-ski (or apres-sitting around waiting for snow). We only stayed a night and instead decided to push on to Queenstown where we would stay a few nights and see what was to be had.

Quuenstown is a great place. It's a small-ish city that seems to serve the needs of the snow and adrenaline seeking masses quite well. Again there was little snow but there was a lot more to do during the day then Wanaka. It was here that Sue and I decided we should embark on the leisurely pusuit of a bunjy jump We chose the one in town called 'The Ledge'. It's a 47m high jump from a platform that overlooks Queenstown. The view is stunning, once you've got over looking down! We both managed it first time (and without a friendly push from the guys running it). We have a video of it too which shows the before, during, and after. Most entertaining

After all this excitement we headed further south to a place called Te Anau which is essentially the gateway to Milford Sound. We took in a tour of the glow worm caves while we waited for the road to Milford Sound to open. We drove the 120km up to Milford on this most amazing road, taking photo after photo as we went along, each corner turning up something even more spectacular then the last. We had arranged a cruise around Milford Sound which takes you out into the Tasman Sea to look back at the entrance and then back in to take a close up look at many of the waterfalls and rock formations. While out at sea we were lucky enough to spot dolphins and unlike in the Bay of Islands they came right up to the bow of the boat and swam with us for a while. They were far more friendly then the other ones, jumping and playing around until we had to turn back.

Back at Te Anau we headed across to the east coast to Dunedin where we would take in a train trip, a tour of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory, and the Otago Peninsula to see an Albatross colony. The following day it was up to Oamaru for a spot of penguin watching (they have two types there. The rare Yellow Eyed penguin and the most common Blue penguins). Very cute and even more entertaining to watch as they waddle up the beach and then into their nests

Next on the list was a place called Methven which is an hour outside of Christchurch. This place is the base for the Mt Hutt ski resort and where Sue and I would hopefully take in some boarding. We decided to upgrade to a B&B while we were here, and good job too as the second day we were there we had a blizzard that covered the whole area! Good for the mountain and for boarding, but we couldn't get up there as the road was closed due to high winds. We finally got on the slopes and weren't dissapointed at all Both of us picked it up well again (to our surprise) and after a couple of lessons were happily sliding down the slopes on our boards rather then backsides! However all good things must come to an end and eventually we had to say goodbye and got back in the van to head to Christchurch; our final destination and where I write this post from We handed the van back and are now enjoying the space and creature comforts a hotel room offers.

Next stop is Sydney and then onto Singapore where hopefully we'll get some warmer weather (although the last forecast we saw was 33 degrees and thunder...nice!).

Hope you are all well and we'll post again soon.

Sharm