Hello everybody! Well, here we are. 16 months after we kissed our family & friends goodbye and jumped aboard that Jumbo to Auckland, NZ, and it's finally time to go home. What an incredibly strange feeling - we've been talking about it for ages and the last fortnight really has been a case of counting down the hours, but it still seems slightly unreal. We've spent the last few days in Bangkok, but before I fill you in on the details I will just backtrack and...

Hello everybody! Well, to be honest there isn't a huge amount to report since the last blog because as soon as we came to our senses and realized that we had picked a pretty darn perfect beach and lovely accommodation, we settled right down and adopted our old Cherating routine of eat-beach-eat-beach-eat-sleep. We have made a few minor adaptations to this rather hectic schedule. Our bungalow has a fridge so our breakfast is a much healthier yoghurt, fruit and jui...

Hello everybody! Well, we've made it back to Thailand but it was a bit of a trek and not entirely without incident, as you shall see! We caught the Transnasional (government) bus from Cherating to Kota Bharu, once again the only travellers on a bus full of locals, which we've found an interesting way to travel - a slice of real life. These buses are quite good, only 22 seats which are comfortable and recline a decent way. Of course they don't have toilets on boa...

Hello everybody! I've just uploaded our pics from Chiang Mai and will return within the next couple of days to label them and write the blog properly (now updated - see below). But while I'm here I just want to say a huge happy birthday to my big (old) sister who has just turned 36!!!!!!! We're actually now in Laos, having flown in yesterday and I'm just about to take her for a lovely long massage (while I'm there I may have to have one too!) and then we shall ha...

Hello everybody! Welcome to Thailand! You know it's only been a few days and already New Zealand seems a distant memory. In these few days we've experienced our first Thai scam, had the Bangkok trots, had a couple of terrifying taxi journeys, seen the wealthy side of Bangkok, seen the slums of Bangkok, done a little shopping and got a night bus to Chiang Mai experiencing some pretty rough toilets en route! Now, this is our first trip to SE Asia and probably the ...