Woken by another hostel user's Skype conversation we grumpily assumed we were being forced to breakfast unsociably early, but a national geographic photographer pointed out that, in fact, our iphone clocks were an hour slow. We headed out into the crisp morning, our faces chilled, as we searched the suburb with unpronounceable Russian road names for the tour operator we had been recommended. We tracked Golden Gobi down in the corner of a derelict square which lo...

I messed up. After a relaxed start to the day, looking forward to planning our onward trip for Mongolia, I was checking our arrival time in Dar Es Salaam so as to book a hotel, and happened to notice the date we were flying out of Hong Kong. It was the same as Jono's birthday. Today was Jono's birthday. I had got my days wrong. We had 2 hours before takeoff and we were the wrong side of town. Queue frantic packing, spontaneous perspiration and hunting for our bel...

The morning was quite a struggle but will significant amounts of willpower we managed to get out of the flat and headed off to battle the public transport system. The imaginatively named 'big buddha' was perched on top of a very picturesque peak with a beautiful monastery at its base. The climb up nearly killed me but it was worth it to see the view which the 60ft high bronze statue surveyed. Nearly in the clouds the steeply wooded slopes rose out of view, with t...

We headed straight for brunch at Aqua and as soon as we stepped out of the elevator on the fiftieth floor the decadence was incredible. Our blue leather booth looked out over the harbour as we feasted on countless courses of an incredible fusion of Italian and Chinese food. The champagne flowed, even through Bob's glass, accompanied by an extravagant range of cocktails as we were served shushimi, antipasta, pea ravioli, guineafowl, bass, udon noodles, lemon sorbe...

I woke up with that post rugby match feeling, my limbs, back and neck all complaining of the hammering they had received the day before from the wake boarding. I rolled over groaning, performing a mental pre-flight check for my body and was entertained for Bob to report that she was in the same situation! Sam had gone to work so we took a morning stroll to the park in the centre of the racecourse before heading into town for breakfast and to find Bob an outfit fo...