It was really nice to have someone just to ’show us the ropes’ and made us feel so comfortable in Goa. We went for a tour of the market in Mapusa, went to a really nice restaurant in Panjim and then he took us to this outta the way restaurant with beautiful views!

He has also let us use his motorbike whenever we want to which is AWESOME! And, he ‘made’ Bruce get a clean shave (!) the first in 7 yrs and It looks really great, I think it even surprised Bruce!

Thanks a million Dale!

On our way to get a Coke we again heard someone shoutting “sir, sir!” we turned around and started to chat. It turns out that this guy was from a Bollywood Studio and looking for extras in a film being shot tomorrow! We’d heard that westeners sometimes get asked. BUT we can’t do it! We’ve booked our train tickets to leave this evening, it’s a shame as that would’ve been one to tell the grandkids!

Anyway, we’re just killing time before our train leaves, maybe we’ll catch another curry (this one’s for you Sarah)

We love you all
x

We both arrived in one piece on the 17th Sept … its a shame we couldn’t say the same for our bags, they were still in Sydney! But we got them back a few hours ago, and nothing was missing - we also got 60quid from Qantas so, as of yet we haven’t spent a penny of our own money here.

India is a complete assault on the senses!  Everything in extreme, smells, sights, tastes the lot! Having said that its not in a bad way, I think coming here straight from home would have been a mistake so it’s great that things have worked out the way they have. The food is incredible, eating tasty curry twice a day really isn’t a problem!

We are gonna try to get down to Goa tomorrow, trying to figure out the train system should be interesting.

Anyway, like I said just a quick one. We’ll update again when there is more to tell.

We love and miss you all, keep in touch!

xxx

Australia has been good, not what we expected, but then not sure what we expected. The best experience was buy the van and living like tinkers for the last 2 half months. Most of the people we met with coffin dodgers in caravans but you know they have interesting stories to tell. Fraser Island was cool, alot of people had told us to head there and it was well worth it. 

Its been quality staying with some old friends I haven’t seen for a long time. We have eaten some strange stuff on our travels but I think aus so far has it, maybe the old minds got back into the western way but vegiemite and cheese sausage? They are an aquired taste, I personally found them better cold. Best beer in aus, I would say Tooheys new or tooheys extra dry, good beers. Best slang words would be ” No dramas” its cool don’t worry about it or Bogan, which translates to a good old british pikey chav.

Well thats about it, bit gutted we are missing japan but where we are heading to is going to be just as mad

Regards to everyone

Shee and Bruce

We left Cairns and headed straight to Townsville to stay with Bruces friend Phil and his lovely girlfriend Jodie. Our plan was to make a quick buck then get travelling again, but we ended up staying 3 weeks and woring in a fruit processing factory for 7 days - my gosh it was depressing, and we had to pretend that we “loved” the work and that we were gonna hang around for another 8 months!! Anyway, we had fun in Townsville, camping with Phil, Jodie and Chris was awsome, thats where we jumped into waterfall, it was beautiful! And not forgetting that BBQ …

So after Townsville we heading back up North a little to the Atherton Tablelands. It was beautiful, Bruce spent a lot of time fishing (or at least trying his best to fish). After winning a meant tray (16 sausages, 4 meatball typr things, 5 lamb chops and 2 MASSIVE steaks!), next on the plan was Airlie beach, this is where everyone spends far too much money to go snorkelling or diving on the Whitsunday Islands! We went for a cheapo trip on a sailing boat and had the best time. We were told to look out for whales but didn’t really think we’d see one, but, sure enough, about an hour into the trip the captain saw some in the diatance. As we got closer we could see it was a baby and mother. The baby was jumping all over the place - it was awesome. But then the mother came leaping out of the waves, incredible - eveny the crew were amazed saying they had never seen anything like it before. Even though the snorkelling was rubbish the whales made the day brill!

Then came Fraser Island - a MUST! A friend from uni, Rick, happened to be in Melbourne so flew up to Hervey Bay to meet up. The 3 of us hired a 4×4 for 3 days and headed of to Fraser Island, I had never driven one before but have now decided I’d very much like one and a big field to drive it in. Fraser Island is the biggest sand island on earth, with beautiful fresh water lakes with pure white sands through out it. We may not have had showers, we may not have had toilets, we may have been living off tinned food, but my gosh did we have fun!

JUst when we though things couldn’t get a whole lot better they did - AUSTRALIA ZOO! Ok so it wasn’t cheap to get in but it’s worth every single penny and more - I mean you can (kinda) get your photo take with Steve Irwin! Its just outside of Brisbane and you couldn’t miss it! you’re met with a huge billboard, it’s akinda Irwin/animal montage! Inside it’s really well done, of course you kinda have to get into the Irwin way of thinking, but it’s also a lotta fun! We went to watch one of the ‘Shows’ and I was completely blown away. Was nice is that the whole thing is really conservation and education heavy without being, well … heavy! This could have be my favourite day in Oz so far!

Next came Sydney, it was only flying visit really, just 2 days. We saw the Opera House and a very flexible lady fit herslef into a small box!

We’re just on our way down to Melbourne, we want to get good jobs and live somewhere that has a built in toilet and shower! We’re both doing well and looking forward to getting settled somewhere for a change!

We love you all and love hearing form you
xxx

We left Bali of the 18th of June, and to be honest, we would have loved to have stayed a little longer! We flew from Bali to Darwin and the in-flight meal was … wait for it … MEAT PIE! It was honestly the best airplane food I’ve ever had, and an awesome introduction to Australia!

Bruce got stopped by immigration, I was very excited and was hoping that we may be taken into the interrogation room! It was due to his terrorist style beard … and the small matter of a drink driving charge a few years back. But within a few mins we were out and hanging around the airport for 4 hours waiting for a flight to Cairns.

We got ot our hostel and went straight out on the Campervan hunt … nightmare! We’ve walked the whole of Cairns about 6 times now. But, yesterday we finally got the keys to our very own van! The only slight issue is the fact that it’s bright red, but other than that its a very “good runner”.

Oz is very expensive, it’s hit us a little harder than we thought it would. We even think it’s more expensive that London!

The hostel experience was interesting , I couldn’t do it for much longer though. Very noisy and not much going on. Although we met a few decent guys there … and some VERY racist Americans too!!

We’re off to Port Douglas, just north of Cairns, tomorrow morning. It’s meant to be very beautiful so looking forward to getting the van on the road.

We’ll get the rest of our pictures up shortly, can’t wait to show all of you our van!

Love and you all

xx

We are staying on the biggest of the 3 Gilis, but there are still no cars, motorbike, or dog on the island - transport (if you need it) is by Horse and Cart! There is no fresh water (or ATMs!) on the Island, this means that showers are with salty water, we’re using bottled water to wash our teeth and clean our faces!

We hired out bike for the day and cycled around the Island, it would’ve only taken an hour or so but the “roads” turned into sand pits and so were impossible to ride through. I got a little(!) frustrated as it was taking forever in the mid-day heat, but we found a tiny little spot with only a guesthouse and a cafe or sorts, and the most beautiful view out accorss the sea. We stayed there for most of the day, ocassionally going for a dip in the sea … it was the most chilled out spot with no one around - lush!

 Again we bumped into Mark and Michelle and so yesterday went snorkelling with them. On the island they have a little project whe  the hatch and care for baby turtles that otherwise would be eaten inthe sea, then once they are about a year old they release them back into the sea with a survival rate of around 75%. Bruce had seen one of these big turtles a few days ago and I was desperate to see one too, so myself and Michelle went out to try and catch a glimps of one and sure enough, on our 3rd attempt we saw one! So beautiful, we couldn’t believe our luck!

We are planning to spend a few more days here then head into Lombok, the nearest main land Indonesia, for a week or so then get a few more days in Bali to improve on the surfing before flying into Australia on the 18th of June to start a whole new adventure - this time with Campervan!!

We love and miss you all, keep in touch because it’s great to hear from you all!

P.S - We’ve tried a few time to get photos up but the connection is SO slow that we couldn’t even get one pic up in 30mins! As soon as we get somewhere good, we’ll get all the new ones up!

xxx

But anyway bali’s great, everywhere we have been is pretty cool, we left koh tao and head back to pattaya to see my 3 uncles. Linz had sorted us the best room we’ve had so far which was abit of a treat. we spent 5 days there in which time they took us on a tour of some very entertaining drinking establishments, the one with a jacuzzi in was the standout of the night. Cheers for a good tour guys!

So we left there and flow to Kuala Lumpur. Really enjoyed it great blend of people, amazing buildings, got some great photos. We were going to cruise overland from there all they way to bali, but time wasn’t on our side, so we opted for 6 weeks in bali and islands east of. We have found a great guest house with a pool for 4 quid a night, top stuff and are meeting some really interesting characters.

Hope alls well back home

Take it easy Sile and Bruce

We left Hanoi (the city where dreams are destroyed!) and flew to Bankgok. Once we got to the airport we realised that it was the start of the Water Festival, this meant a giant water fight all around Thailand for the next 4 days, it’s for their New Year. Our plan was to get a taxi to the train station then hop on a train to bring us down to the sun soaked islands. Once we got out of the airport we were told that this was near impossible (due to the water fest!) as all the trains were fully booked and it was unlikely that we’d get a room for a reasonable price in Bangkok! Oh dear, slight error in planning on our part, but we decided to get the taxi to the train station anyway, just for the craic!

Well we got to the train staion at about noon time and there were only a few places left on the train for 19:30. No worries, at least we got a ride! As we had our big bags with us (and because we were likely to get soaked if we went anywhere else) we hung around at the station for 7hrs - our second home!

The train journey was uneventful, apart from water being thrown through the windows at us and we arrive at Champon (or Chumporn as we saw a few times) at around 3 in the morning, then it was a tuk tuk to the pier and then boat to Koh Tao. It has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. We stepped onto the pier, look down into the water and could see to the bottom of the sea with only the fish in the way!

We were expecting the accomodation prices to be sky high but we managed to find a little bungalow with a bathroom inside spitting distance from the sea for 450 Baht (7.50) a night - bargain! Our plan was to stay there for 7 days then head over to some of the other island for a week. However, we found it to be so laidback and easy going that we just spent another week on the island.

It’s a funny little place, the main “road” that everyone uses is infact a walkway that runs almost the whole lenght of the island with motorbikes and cars speeding down it. One day we hired out a motorbike and, with the couple in the bungalow next to ours, headed to Shark Bay! Aparently there you can get a glimps of a shark if you’re very lucky. Bruce and Freddie spend hours snorkelling while Mel and I chatted away on the beach under the coconut trees - bliss! Aparently the fish that Bruce saw were amazing, he even claims to have seen a little shark swimming away from him - “It was THAT big!!”, hmmm fishermans tale anyone?!

We waited a while to get a good sunset, but when it happened it was stunning, Bruce got a really good pic of it (at the top of the blog). The sand was pure white and the sea completely clear. To be honest, we were too busy chilling out to do a lot more, I would go back to Koh Tao in an instant!

I also managed to get hooked up with Skype and with the aid of a webcam got to see some family, it was really nice; not that I was forgetting what people looked like but it just nice to know that everyone is still there!

Well I’ll let Bruce fill you in on our next set of adventures…!

love at all back home, we miss and love you all! Keep in touch!
Sile

xxxx