Thats right we are now in new zealand (which means im actually writing this from tomorrow......creepy) this is the land of the haka, sheep and a suprisingly british feel, including the weather. In a way its nice to see the queens head on money again but the problem is that money seems to disapear alot quicker outside of asia.

sorry its taken me so long to write a new blog but i wanted to wrap all of the rest of asia up into one final and fairly epic blog. From thailand we headed down into malaysia stopping one night at a fairly big but empty island at the top of malaysia called langawi but deciding we were bored of beachs we then headed to kuala lumpour. Our last day in thailand was a fitting one to sum up the great time we had there and spirit of the thai people, it was the thai and buhddist new year which basically means the whole country turns into a giant water fight!!!!! This apparantly started off with the idea of washing away sins and cleaning buddha statues but now it just means that kids are given a free reign to go around with buckets of water and water pistols and everyone wipes white powder onto everones faces (including ours), this is the perfect antidote to the scorching temperatures at the hottest time of the year. We were in a minibus for most of the day on our way to malaysia so unfortunatly we didnt get to interact as much as i would have liked but we did get to drive though cities and countryside and see the authentic locals doing it thai style, i saw dozens of pick up trucks that had been turned into army style vehicles with groups of kids on the back performing drive-by shootings, i also saw on the fast roads out of the cities people standing on the side of the road and throwing water a mopeds as they passed at 90 kmh.

After all of this fun and exitement we arrived in kuala lumpour, which felt kind of like london, its a thriving multicultural metropolis complete with skyscrapers, towerblocks and starbucks and dozens of absolutly massive shopping centers, one shopping center even had a full scale theme park inside it!!!

in the evenings in kl we hit the night market in chinatown which sold fake absolutly everything, and you start to convince yourself that you could do with this and that and at one point i was considering buying phones and dvd players, but instead i settled for some trainers and and a jumper (ready for the cold new zealand). Apart from this we didnt do too much in the evenings as chris got a cut on his foot which got infected and through antibiotics and various things we just werent really in a fit state for going out (plus being a muslim country alchohol is rediculosly expensive). During the day we got a bit more culture again, went to some hindu caves, an islamic arts museum and went up the patronus towers (the largest twin towers in the world, it was distinctly average). As well as that went to the worlds largest bird park which was pretty cool and i've got a great photo of me with a some parrots. After KL we went to a old dutch town in the south of malaysia called mallaka which was really pretty.

One of my favourite things about asia and this trip so far is that you can just head out with no particular plans and end up doing something you never expected or even imagined. Two of these sort of things happened in malaysia the first in a kuala lumpour shopping centre that we were aimlessly wondering around and we went into a green tea shop and next thing we know the old chinese man was teaching us all his age old wisdom to do with tea for about 2 hours, and he believed that it is the seceret to cureing everything and that you should never ever drink cold tea as it slowly kills your cells, fairly full on. The second such thing was in malaka where we were just walking through the town at night and happened to stumble across a street show about to start. This show involved a 60 year old 'kung fu master' using a whip, eating fire, breathing fire and his final core piece was to pierce a coconut (the big rock hard green ones, not the ones you get on coconut sties) with nothing but his index finger (he holds the world record for piercing 3 in 1 min 10) it was seriously impressive.

next we went on to singapore, where almost immediatly upon arriving we broke the law.....by jaywalking (crossing the road not at a crossing). Singapore is unlike any other asian city we've been to, its spotlessly clean and very very strict on their laws as the cab driver said, if you cheat a passanger you go to prison and thats that. It was an expensive city (especially for alcahol) and a busy city but for a few days its good enough. We continued the culture in singapore by going to the asian cultures museum and a toy museum, and of course went to the infamous and colonial raffles hotel and had a singapore sling cocktail which was very tasty, there is also the tradition of eating peanuts there and then throwing the shell on the floor, chris took full advantage of this and i looked on in hunger.

we then got to the airport flew for a long time, got two hours of australian culture in the airport dutyfree lounge and then flew again to christchurch, and thats that.

I really enjoyed SE Asia and i've actively learnt alot especially about religions and how to use chopsticks (kind of) but i think more importantly i've probably learnt alot subconciously as well from all the people i've met and the things i've done. SE asia is a place where speed limits dont matter because speedometers dont work, its a place where your more likely to see monkeys and cats on leashes than dogs.

In asia i've gone from the drunkennes and debauchery of the full moon party to the death and decay of the killing fields and everthing inbetween, i am now in the beauty of new zealand and i know that it will be a different sort of holiday and im sure it'll have just as much stories to tell.

will keep you informed with all of the crazy adventure activities in nz, hopefully including skydiving.