On Friday 27th August we jumped on the early "Magic Bus" - one of the 3 main tour bus companies operating in NZ - at 7:40am outside our hostel. Suzanne and Chris we met the other night from England were also travelling with us to Rotorua. The bus turned out to be a small bus/ minivan which was clean, tidy, spacious (as it was just over half full) and driven by an informative driver. The trade-off was that he didn't have a great sense of direction so he ...

At Auckland airport there are two main options for getting to town; taxi or minivan. We opted for the latter with the driver dropping us at the doors of the hostel after a 20 min journey. We had soon checked in our room; a double with ensuite in the town's YHA hostel which was well located and reasonably priced compared to many other options. That first day can be summarised as a "getting to know the place" with a little reccie of the surrounding area....

Finally, we were in Sydney and raring to see what was in town. First of all though, we had to navigate through the baggage collection area, which appeared to have half the world's population in it. We had already been warned to clean our boots thoroughly but forgot this advice when we left Bangkok. We paid the price for this at Sydney as we had to declare we had been trekking on the arrivals form. Next minute we were in a queue for an inspection. They took Lisa's...

Back in Bangkok. Mark was having some cold sweats as we arrived into the bus station as less than two weeks earlier he had tripped up and torn his ankle ligaments. Anyway, we were staying at the FuramaXclusive hotel again and got the customary warm greeting as we entered. We also received a complimentary upgrade as the standard room we had booked was full. It was not as good as last time but was certainly better than just about any other hotel we stayed at. That...

The new surroundings of Kanchanaburi were a welcome break from the go-go-go of Bangkok. At least Mark could venture out on the crutches without being worried about being trampled on by the mass of locals, being run over by the constant stream of cars and taxis or getting harassed by tuks-tuks who would see his plastercast and feel compelled to offer an overpriced journey. As we pulled in to the Kanchanaburi bus station the first thing that struck us was how bus...