Arriving in Bangkok was like being embraced by a warm sponge. 100% humidity and 33 degrees is not a great combination for sight-seeing. Despite that, we were really fortunate to have been recommended a brilliant local guide, Tony, by our friends James and Gemma. We met Tony at our hotel in the morning and he kindly offered to show us around Bangkok. This was despite him having got back to Bangkok from a tour in the north of the country in the early hours of th...

G'day mates Me and the cook arrived in the big smoke (Sydney) on 3 November. We checked into our hotel, which was near Darling Harbour and within cooee of the waterfront. We went walkabout over the next few days and saw a lot of the main tourist sites, the Opera House, the Coathanger, the Rocks, the Observatory and Circular Quay. We had wanted to see something at the Opera House, but as usual, we hadn't planned anything, and more importantly (to Steph), we didn...

Okay amigos, this is a long overdue blog entry for New Zealand. It's taken us a while to get somewhere with good enough internet to be able to sort out the blog, but we've set aside today to do so. We're currently in Hanoi, having been to Australia and Thailand (more of them later) since leaving New Zealand just over a week ago. Arriving in Santiago airport after a long journey by bus and plane out of Patagonia, we immediately boarded our night flight to Auckl...

Having transited through Santiago airport twice before, both times with various mishaps, we were a little anxious that everything went smoothly this time. Our flight was over-booked, and the airline tried to get passengers to stay an extra night in Santiago. Fortunately, we were there in good time, and managed to get onto the flight. We will miss South America, but not Santiago airport. As we sat on the plane, we readied ourselves for New Zealand, the next leg o...

Back in our patagonian base, Puerto Natales, for our last night in Chile, we treated ourselves to an Argentian-style pizza and red wine. We stayed at a cool little hostel called the Tin House. It felt good to be back in Puerto Natales after the touristy El Calafate. Unlike El Calafate, Puerto Natales feels like a real town. This probably because the inhabitants make a living from something other than tourism; mainly mining and fishing. The slighly ramshackle co...