It was a tough job following South America but Asia just about managed it. Starting with six great weeks in madcap but fascinating India we then toured South East Asia a little earlier than expected thanks to the troubles in Nepal. We encountered the hottest weather of our entire journey here and no little hassle but we loved the food, loved the beaches and loved the cheap prices here. Thereafter, it was onto the Tibetan Himalayas via Nepal which was truly unforgettable and gave us a real grand finale. Just as we did for South America here are the Whitney, Asia awards: BEST COUNTRY It may be utterly filthy, polluted and chaotic. The heat may be overwhelming, the service slow and the people slower. You can and do get hassled to death here and the poverty can be truly depressing. However, we just LOVED India and it was definitely our favorite country. From the chilled out beaches and backwaters of the south to the cultural and religious melting pot of the north, India never ceases to be fascinating and damn those curries were good. The cricket wasn't bad either!. BEST SCENERY This one's easy. The North face of Mount Everest bathed in sunshine viewed from the Rongphu Monastery, the worlds highest. No question. This also provided us with...... BEST MOMENT Stuart proposes to Jo with backdrop of said spectacular Mount Everest view. Can anyone come up with a better place for a proposal? Answers on a postcard please. Note: Stuart would also like to give a best moment runners up award to Andrew Flintoff having Ruhul Dravid caught behind in the first over after lunch on the 5th Day, following which India collapse to 100 all out and England win the 3rd test match against India by 212 runs! BEST BEACH India does it again here with our Palolem in Goa (see photo)and Varkala in Kerela being the loveliest and most relaxed we found and we'll give them joint first place. We seriously pained ourselves by visiting many beaches (in order to properly research for this award you understand) so we had plenty to choose from but nothing topped the Indian beaches . BEST BUILDING Definitely a white hot category as temples and palaces, religious or otherwise are so much of a feature of Asia. Despite a visit to the Taj Mahal and the Angkor Wat Temples (which we obviously enjoyed) they don't get the gong here. Instead (just to prove how radical we are) we plump for the virtually unheard of Ganden Monastery, near Lhasa in Tibet. Great journey to get there, awesome setting, even more awesome views, we loved it. NICEST PEOPLE The contrast says it all. We leave Tibet and are held up by over officious Chinese border guards playing power games and showing how incredibly important they are. We then walk across Friendship Bridge into Nepal where we are greeted by smiles, warm greetings and chats about the football from the local officials there. It really sums these people up. Friendly and laid back despite all their countries troubles and you really hope things pick up for them. BEST CITY If you want great cities, don't come to Asia. No award here as we simply didn't find one we really liked, just some we tolerated!! Also as in South America, we had our hassles here too. You wanted them, you got them, yes it's the top 10 Victor Meldrew moments. Where did it all go wrong, who were the villains of the peace and when did we just wanna go home.......... 1) THE KING OF NEPAL Not only did he (according to many of his own people) slaughter his brother, the previous King and eight other members of the royal family he then tries the same trick on his own people for daring to demonstrate against him for ruling without democracy. These little local difficulties meant that we couldn't enter Nepal overland as planned and had to spend 700 quid on flights out of India instead. No sooner had we done this and had our trips postponed or curtailed as a consequence then the murderous monarch makes a simple announcement to restore democracy and everything is fine again. Great timing King and we are fully paid up members of the Nepalese republican movement as a result! 2) TOUTS, SELLERS & HAWKERS Sadly, Asia is one big hassle. There are times when you can't walk a couple of paces without having the life bugged out of you to buy something or use a hotel, restaurant, shop or mode of transport (be it tuk-tuk, rickshaw, moto etc). Your hassles aren't necessarily over even over when you do give in to them as Jo found out in Agra, India when cycle rickshaw riders wouldn't take her and some other girls to their intended market destination and took them to shops instead for commission. The riders then told anyone else in earshot not to help them when they wouldn't play ball and they were stranded in 40 degree temperatures! 3) THE HEAT In India it was ultra hot but at least a dry ultra hot (in the north at least) . In Cambodia it was ultra hot but very muggy and distinctly uncomfortable sometimes. In Vietnam, think blast furnace hot and also very muggy which moved things at times into the totally unbearable category. There were times in Asia where we craved British weather and realized it actually isn't anything to moan about at all! 4) JO'S ALTITUDE SICKNESS AT MOUNT EVEREST BASE CAMP This one was certainly not funny at the time and isn't even funny now. She suffered blinding headaches, was getting a little delirious and Stuart had to take her down 200m in altitude for things to improve just enough for her to stay there. What made things worse is that there seemed to be very little in the way of medical facilities available there for what can be a fatal condition. 5) THE PEOPLE OF HANOI If someone in Hanoi says its white you can bet your bottom dollar it's black! The most duplicious, lying, scamming bunch of con-artists we had the sorry misfortune to come across during our entire trip. When they're not trying to rip you off on your hotel bill, they're scamming you on a taxi meter or messing up your trip due to itineries that constantly change and bear little resemblance to what you were told when you booked the trip. When not doing that they are just plain rude! Combine that with oppressive temperatures and you just find yourself losing your temper with them. 6) ZHANGMU, TIBET. Wonderfully set in lush valleys at the foot of the Himalayas this should be a great place. Instead this border town is swarming with trucks, is positively filthy and featured the worse hotel we stayed at during our whole trip. A rat would have turned his nose up at the place. We couldn't even leave when we wanted due to Chinese border officials puffed up with their own self-importance delaying us for no reason. Ugh! 7) INDIAN SERVICE AND EFFICIENCY Go into a quiet restaurant which has a few staff not doing very much. Then wait ages to be served, then another age for your food to come out then a further age for them to sort out your not very complicated bill. Get a bottle of water from a kiosk and watch one to take it from the shelf, one to give it to you and another to take your money. Indian workers all seem to have these set, very restrictive tasks and are unable to think, let alone act remotely outside the box and as a consequence places seem very overstaffed with not a lot happening. At times its hilarious but at times its downright annoying. What really made us laugh is the often repeating assumption that India will have the worlds 3rd largest economy by 2050. The economists who have come up with this theory clearly haven't visited the country to observe a nation that really needs to pull its collective finger out. 8) THE LANG BIANG MOUNTAIN, NR DALAT, VIETNAM We were irritated up this steep climb by our hungover guide who stank of alcohol, kept constantly apologising for his condition and who also spoke incessant gibberish when not doing that. We were even more irritated by him on the way down, particularly Stuart who hates steep descents anyway and whose walking boots were too tight giving him pains in the feet as well as the ear. 9) THE CAMBODIAN BORDER CROSSING (NR TRAT, SOUTHERN THAILAND) We had numerous transport changes just to get to the border where taxi touts hassled us during the formalities. Given the lack of options we had little choice but to use them and as the only westerners around, we felt distinctly vulnerable. Things weren't helped by a long taxi journey cramped in an old saloon with five locals in oppressive heat across dirt tracks. After 12 hours and several more vehicle changes we finally made it to Sihanoukville using eight different modes of transport along the way! 10) BIG COMPANIES STITCHING US UP Not so much an Asian problem, more a problem that affected us in Asia as a result of the Nepal problems. Thai Airways cheekily charged us extra for changing the order of flights and GAP travel who we booked our Nepal/Tibet trip didn't exactly cover themselves in glory with their customer service when we needed to re-schedule. Worse was our north India travel company who changed our itinery mid-trip to end in Delhi rather than Nepal. Fortunately the letter writing skills of Stuart recouped 300 pounds compensation from the latter, which combined with the 400 quid he got back from Barclays after the trouble they caused us in South America proved he's the deadliest complaining letter writer in the west! Bubbling under: England getting knocked out of the World Cup and games on at hideous times of the morning, Tibetan food (utterly rank at times), beeping car horns, the city of Agra.