Finally back in Thailand, we only hung around in Bangkok long enough for a nights sleep in one of the Khao San Road's cheapie guesthouse rooms (a cardboard box in the street would probably have been more pleasant), and then headed to catch a local bus the following morning to Kanchanaburi, a small town about two hours west of the sprawling capital. Instantly, Kan (as the locals call it) is a likable town. Quiet and quaint, it belies much of what you see in the more heavily touristed areas of the islands or the big cities. Unfortunately, like many of the places we've already visited, it hides a dark past.

In the spirit of continuing our recent trend of death, destruction and depressing historical events, this is the town made famous by the moving story of the Bridge over the River Kwai. During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army had plans to connect Yangon in Burma with Bangkok, via a railway which would aid their transport of military supplies. Of course, such an undertaking meant they'd need a lot of manpower, and so prisoner's of war from all over Asia were drafted into the project which was to become known as the Death Railway. The four-hundred-and-fifteen kilometre track was thought to have taken to lives of over 100,000 men, many simply from exhaustion or malnutrition, as they toiled in savagely inhumane conditions on a project that was estimated to take five years, but was completed through force in just sixteen months. We visited the museum which explained more about the project itself, and the told the stories of some of the POW's from diaries which were secretly buried with them. Across the road are the allied cemeteries, where thousands of name plates sit in rows of bleak remembrance to the fallen soldiers. Lastly, we went to see the site of the bridge itself as it majestically spans the river. Imagining how such an ordinary bridge lies at the heart of such an extraordinary story can only be achieved once the history behind it has been uncovered.

With one second and last day in Kanchanaburi, we took ourselves off on a tour of the surrounding region. The only real attraction in Thailand we'd yet to take part in was an Elephant ride, mainly due to the fact that we were concerned with the way in which animals are treated in this part of the world. It seems that wherever we go, the Thai's aren't particularly good in their treatment of wildlife, whether it be protecting their coral reefs or hunting for ivory and fur-skins of endangered species. This tour included a small elephant trek, and we decided that we'd only really be able to comment once we'd seen for ourselves. The young lad on the back of our particular beast seemed jovial enough and managed to control the animal with just a few commands and a tickle under it's ear with his foot to get her moving. After a few minutes however, he produced the pick-axe style weapon that we've seen other elephant handlers use. As we protested, he would playfully pretend to raise the instrument high and smash it into the Elephants head, stopping short and smirking wildly at our cringing, before finally doing as we asked and putting it away. Thankfully, this was the last we saw of it, and could enjoy the trek without further need to harass him. In honesty, we still felt bad about taking part, and it's by no means a comfortable experience anyway which will probably be enough to stop us returning any time soon. The novel part however was when we all got to go into the river with the elephants and give them a bit of a scrub. As the trainers made them dip below the waterline, we'd all get a bath of our own, the only real moment of worry arising as giant, football-sized lumps of turd would float menacingly past us!

Bangkok would see only another quick stopover for us, checking out a few of the bigger shopping centres in the Siam Square area before the buying began in earnest a week or so later with our fourth and final visit. For the evening however, we were surprised to hear that our friends Tom and Lisa were briefly in town. With a flight booked to the islands for early the following the morning, we didn't really want a large one, but somehow found ourselves sitting with buckets of Samsong and Coke in the Khao San Road at 3am and had to hurry back to our guesthouse for a half-hours shut-eye before leaving for the airport. Suffice to say, by the time we reached Ko Samui early the next morning, we were only fit for spending most of the day in bed.

The first few days back on the island were fairly quiet. With rain delaying play, we watched a little Wimbledon from our hotel room and caught up on the whole third season of Lost, which was predictably unenlightening. We did manage to hook up very briefly with Stacey, a girl we'd met in Buenos Aires, and spent Christmas in Sydney with. It was around the fourth day that things began to liven up, as we began to make ourselves permanent fixtures on the free sunbeds outside the popular Ark Bar in the middle of Chaweng Beach. First we got chatting to a couple of older lads who were on holidays checking out some property on the other side of the island. Soon though a few more characters began to join the party, and this is when things became a little more interesting.

Five people from our second visit to Samui will forever stick in our minds: First up, a young girl called Saren. We're fairly sure she had a bit of a screw loose, mainly due to the fact that she sat around bragging about going home with a nice bout of Worms. One evening, we got chatting to a lad called Matt. We'd heard a little about him but I wanted to confirm the details for myself. Leaving Manchester just over nine months ago with a round-the-world plane ticket, he arrived in the Ark Bar and never actually ended up leaving. A standard day involves rising at 4pm, coming to the bar with his book for a Sprite and a Pad Thai, going back to the room for a few hours before returning around 8pm for a night on the lash. He's due home in just a few weeks, having seen nothing of what he'd set out to do, but apparently with no regrets. Impressive, if slightly sad.

Next up, came Richard, a fifty-something 'Geezer' from the north of London who claimed to be a chef, living and working in Portsmouth. Instantly recognisable as a 'pinch of salt' kind of guy, when asked about the kind of food he served in his restaurant his reply was "we make a bit of everything, barbecues some nights, even Panini's for the kids". You can understand the dilemma we had with taking any of his stories as given, and things were little helped when he later claimed to be a three-time World Disco Dancing Champion. We couldn't bring ourselves to ask for a display, but would get one sooner or later anyway.

Finally, two lads from Guernsey rolled into the fray. Testament to the fact that living on a small island all of your life can't be good for you, these two weren't quite the full ticket. Although offering little in the way of thoughtful conversation, they were a good laugh and were the source of almost constant amusement. Paul, the slightly dippier of the two, was a law unto himself. After ordering boiled eggs with his breakfast one morning, we asked why he was smashing them to pieces and looking so confused when they arrived. His startling response came with a make-believe drawing on the tabletop, and without any sign of shame: "This wasn't what I wanted, I was after the one's with the big white bit on the outside and the soggy yellow bit in the middle - you know, the type that leaks all over the plate when you cut through it". If we hadn't heard it with our own ears we probably wouldn't have believed it. Anyway, these two managed to liven the place up, constantly stroking Richards ego (which he was more than happy with), and generally being nice, but worryingly stupid lads.

All in all, this week turned into a great crack. We all sat around in the daytime's, moaning about Ark Bar's standard of food, it's repetitive music policy and over-charging, but still did little to leave and find something else. This week was all about taking it easy. Nights out meant a few beers around the pool table, and then a stroll up to one of the lively bars in the square where Richard would pull out a few of his world-class (??) moves and the lads would humorously egg him on. Despite the diverse group, with very little in common, it proved to be a great combination for an interesting finale to the Thai islands.

Back in Bangkok for our last few days, it was all about the shopping and a touch of last-minute sightseeing. Numerous shopping centres (which were disappointingly expensive), the stalls on Khao San Road and the weekend market at Chatuchak were all comprehensively covered in search of bargains, whilst a compulsory quick visit to the Grand Palace, the kings former official residence and temple was also on the menu. This was, unsurprisingly, grand and quite palace like. For our final night, we met with Michaela and Rupert, friends from the good old days back at Bloomberg. They accompanied us to our last must-see, the Patpong market and an accompanying Ping-Pong show. A Bangkok institution, this is where some of the city's finest young ladies display incredible dexterity and talent to produce razorblades and lengths of handkerchief, blow whistles, and fire ping-pong balls from their nether-regions. Although reports from other travellers claimed this was an incredible show, we were slightly underwhelmed by it all.

And that's it all over with. I'm currently writing this from our friends apartment whilst we see out our final week away in Hong Kong, and I'm sad to say that this will be our final blog (collective sigh of relief). I suspect that a monthly update of our time in Bexleyheath and Welling might not be interesting enough to warrant a written account. By the time most of you read this, we'll be on our way home, heavily depressed but excited to see everyone after ten-and-a-half months and almost eighty thousand kilometres of travel. Adjusting to the realities of a normal life is going to be tough I'm sure. We'll be tempted to walk everywhere or use buses rather than expensive taxi's, carry a roll of toilet paper wherever we go, put our weekly shopping into carrier bags and attach labels with our names on, get ourselves a pair of bunks so other people can share our bedroom and wash our underwear in the shower to make sure we don't run out.

We've seen some amazing things, and although it's hard to put much of our trip into words, we hope that those of you who are still with us (how are you Mum?) have enjoyed reading our blogs and have been given a little inspiration to see some of the world as we have. Sarah's been lucky enough to be offered a couple of weeks work back at the court, whilst I have more pressing matters of attending my brother's stag gathering in rainy Blackpool. Back down to earth with a bang is probably a mild understatement... we hope to see you all soon.

Dan and Sarah

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Four bumpy hours later, and it finally becomes apparent that we're nearing Phnom Pehn. Crowds of school-children begin to appear and the traffic becomes a little heavier as we enter the outskirts, until suddenly the bridge spanning the Bassac River drops us almost unwittingly into the city centre. As our rickety bus navigates the congested roads, it begins to dawn that this is no small city, and the advice we'd been given to see the city at leisure, rather than rushing through the obligatory sights, appears to be sound.

The people we'd got chatting to on the bus were all heading for the riverfront area, and so we decided to tag along (stalkers?) and see what was over in that direction. Checking into our slightly grotty room, we only really had the energy for dinner and a couple of drinks with Jo and Andrew (our Easy-Rider pals from Vietnam) before hitting the sack. We did however manage to find a good restaurant called Friends, a tapas bar which plays a vital role in the community by not only giving jobs to street-children, but also allowing a huge chunk of their proceeds to go towards training and education of these unfortunate individuals. This was something we were yet to encounter for ourselves but had heard much about.

There's no doubting that as a country, Cambodia has had it's fair share of doom and gloom in recent years, and the poor souls who line the streets each and every day are a constant reminder of the civilised world's failure to act, and in some cases, willingness to contribute (whether unwittingly or not is for each individual to decide). It's no over-exaggeration to call many of these sights upsetting at the very least. Ranging from incredibly deformed, maimed or disabled adults and children (disability in this part of the world will invariably mean becoming a social outcast), to whole families with small children lying naked in the streets because they have nowhere else to go, it's a harsh reality to accept and although the begging is a nuisance to many tourists, we found it hard to turn a blind eye to this kind of deprivation.

Unfortunately, it's a typical 'swings and roundabouts' situation, especially where children are concerned. There are many free schools running now in Phnom Pehn, but the parents will inevitably send their children out to beg instead, beating them if they come home with less than is expected. If they are given money, this undoubtedly raises the bar, and their chances of a good thrashing, if not today, then tomorrow when they come home with less. For those without parents, if given money they will only be encouraged to continue skipping school in favour of begging (or stealing if the opportunity arises). For those in the know about the idea of 'responsible travel', this only makes the conundrum even more tricky to navigate, and there were a number of occasions when we ended up giving out cereal bars, water, sweets and pens, or whatever other items we had with us. Whether this is the right thing to do or not, we are still unsure.

Of course, this leads inevitably to the question as to why so much of this exists here, and yet again, a history of war will play a vital role. Our main sightseeing excursions whilst in the city were not something we were relishing, but felt that we needed to see in order to broaden our knowledge of the country's past, another unsurprisingly complex one.

After World War II, Cambodia was left to fester by the French who had turned their attention to Vietnam's economic potential. The current leader, King Norodom Sihanouk, began a crusade for independence, which the French finally granted in 1953, leading to fifteen years of economic prosperity for the country. By 1969 however, Cambodia had been sucked into the Vietnam conflict as the United States began secretly carpet-bombing huge areas of the countryside which they suspected were communist bases for roving Vietnamese troops. By 1970, King Sihanouk's erratic and repressive policies had alienated many of his allies. He was overthrown by the army and fled to Beijing, where he was eventually pressured by the Chinese into throwing in his lot with a weak rebel party called the Khmer Rouge, boosting their support dramatically.

Unbeknown to US leaders, their insistent carpet-bombing, and ensuing invasion into Cambodian territory to root out Communist forces, only served to provide the Khmer Rouge leaders with the propaganda they needed for widespread recruitment from peasant communities. By 1975, they had a force big and ruthless enough to enter Phnom Pehn and take control, piece by piece, of the whole country. Soon after, the public face of the Khmer Rouge emerged in the figure of Pol Pot, a fifty-year-old man who had learnt all about radical Marxism in Paris before returning to his native Cambodia as a school teacher, a fact that tends to make what happens next even more appalling.

After the taking of Phnom Pehn, the Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot's leadership, implemented one of the most terrifying revolutions that the world has ever seen. Communications with the outside world were eradicated, and a plan of turning Cambodia (now called 'Democratic Kampuchea') into a peasant-dominated cooperative was steadily implemented. During the next four years, hundreds of thousands of Cambodian's were relocated to the countryside, tortured to death or executed. Educated people became the most sought after, the mastery of a foreign language, or amazingly, the wearing of spectacles meaning you were branded as a 'parasite' and systematically killed. Hundreds of thousands more died of mistreatment, malnutrition or disease. Between 1975 and 1979, it is thought that almost two million people died as a direct result of the policies of the Khmer Rouge. They were finally overthrown in late 1978 when Vietnam invaded, but continued to fight a guerrilla war with the Vietnamese-backed government throughout the 1980's, armed and financed by China and Thailand, and with indirect US support.

Our first visit was to the aptly named 'Killing Fields of Choeung Ek', a site lying approximately fifteen kilometres outside of central Phnom Pehn. This now quiet and serene place, one of many dotted throughout Cambodia's countryside, is the site of one-hundred-and-twenty-nine mass graves, where men, women and children were brought to be exterminated. Arises from it's midst, is a blinding white stupa that serves as a memorial to the seventeen thousand people who died here, and contains a startling collection of some eight thousand skulls which were excavated here in 1980. Some display the tragic hallmarks of bullet-holes, whilst others still bear witness to the fact that they were bludgeoned to death in an effort to save precious bullets. The graves themselves were full of water after heavy rainfall from the night before, and we're still unclear as to whether this saved us from any more unpleasant sights.

To continue the history lesson, we moved on to the Tuol Sleng Museum, a former high school which was turned into Security Prison 21 (S-21), the largest centre of detention, interrogation and torture in the country. As we strolled in silence through the basic museum pieces, we were confronted with a number of the extensive records kept by the prison, which somehow failed to be destroyed when the Khmer Rouge left in 1979. Expressionless faces of photographed victims stared back from walls and walls of displays, whilst hand-built brick and wooden cells lined the edges of one particular building. A bare classroom holds nothing more than a single rusty bed, while gruesome black and white photographs stand as testament to some of the unthinkable horrors which took place here. Towards the end of the exhibition, paintings by a survivor of S-21 adorn the walls, depicting torture and life, if it can be called that, in the prison. To be alive after such an experience can only be appreciated when you understand the numbers involved. Of over seventeen thousand total detainees here, it is thought that during the first part of 1977, the prison claimed an average of over one hundred victims a day, and throughout the three-and-a-half years of the prisons running, less than a dozen survived.

Back in Phnom Pehn, it's clear to see that the city's dark past is thankfully being put to rest. Plush bars and eateries line the riverfront area, the Grand Palace and National Museum stand tall and proud, while tourism appears to be on the up, with swarms of shoppers heading for the art-deco Central Market with it's array of cheap goods. We ended up really enjoying our time here... there's plenty of culture and history to be observed, whilst the numerous nightspots in town made for some entertaining evenings with our pals from the bus and the various locals we got chatting to. Particular thanks goes to the owner of one establishment who stayed open until the small hours especially for us, and ended up passing out in the street while we played pool. Good lad...

Time constraints eventually meant we had to move on however, and so we took the bus six hours up the road (one of two major routes through the country) to Siem Reap. We'd been expecting a fairly small town, but development here appears to have blown up in recent years, mainly thanks to the fact that it has one of humanity's most captivating architectural achievements sitting in it's back yard. I talk obviously of the Temples of Angkor, the political, religious and social centre of the Kingdom of Cambodia, dating back as far 800 AD.

Now, it's here that I must point out that we are by no means great appreciators of a good temple. The whole thing just isn't really our bag. Seeing as many of the recommended sights in South-East Asia have been these kinds of structures, especially through Thailand, we've systematically avoided them, knowing that we'd eventually reach Angkor, the world's most renowned and culturally significant bunch of religious buildings to grace the Earth, and wouldn't want to be 'all templed out'. In theory, a fine tactic, but the reality was going to prove slightly more difficult than we'd first thought.

With good, but realistic intentions, we booked ourselves a guide who would take us on a one-day tour of the principal sights (there is the option of two or three day tours, but we weren't about to get naively ambitious) and by the time it came to actually going, I think we were quite looking forward to it. And so at the break of dawn we were up and at 'em, confident that the day in front of us would hold some kind of spiritual awakening. As per usual however, half of our energy was sapped almost as soon as we stepped out the door of our air-conditioned hotel and into the ridiculous heat of the morning...

First up, was the most famous Temple of them all, Angkor Wat, a culmination of the Cambodian 'Devaraja' (God-Kings) need to better their ancestors efforts and produce a place of worship that would out-size and out-decorate all of their previous work. Nowadays, this place represents the source of inspiration and national pride to all Khmers as they struggle to overcome the terrors of recent years. Soaring skyward from the middle of a huge moat, this is one of those moments that you've seen hundreds of times in photographs, but still takes you slightly by surprise when you're there in the flesh. Of course, there is the deluge of tourists (predominantly Japanese, boasting an astounding array of giant visor-like headwear) to wade through in order to get any decent photographs, but the sheer scale of the architecture still manages to captivate, even if just for a few moments.

It is thought by many experts who have been studying this particular site since the beginning of the 20th Century, that the structures all replicate the spatial universe, the large tower in the centre being the Hindu's mythical Mt Meru, surrounded by lesser peaks (smaller towers), surrounded by continents (lower courtyards) and the oceans (in the form of the moat). Of course, we didn't really see any of that, instead admiring the intricate handiwork in the bas-reliefs with little analysis, and tackling the steep stone staircases and giant inner courtyards like kids in an adventure playground.

Next up, we were driven through on of the huge monumental gates and into the fortified city of Angkor Thom, a walled selection of important monuments built by Angkor's greatest king, Jayavarman VII. In Bayon, 216 giant faces watch over curious visitors, whilst elaborate carvings on the outer walls vividly depict 12th Century life with scenes of kick-boxing and cockfighting. Meanwhile, in a separate part of the city, the Terrace of Elephants, a three-hundred metre long deck with it's walls laden with hunting scenes stands proud around it's central stairway.
It was here, I must confess, that we began to labour slightly. The clock had just struck midday, and the heat was almost unbearable. Although the scenes we were viewing were very impressive, the huge hunks of stone in front of us were gradually turning into just that, and it was getting hard to see into the history behind it all.

Explaining (a little embarrassingly) our dying enthusiasm, our guide seemed quite happy to whisk us off to our final stop. This, he explained, was the 'Tomb Raider' site. Apparently, Ta Prohm was used in one of the movies and from the moment of entering, you can kind of understand why it makes such a good film set. Unlike many of the other temples, which have undergone massive programmes of preservation and clearing, this one has been left to it's own devices and would probably look the much the same today as it did when it was discovered by French explorers over a century ago. Many of the crumbling corridors are roped off (with reason we suspect), but most of the good spots for photographs are easily accessible. Giant tentacled roots are gradually strangling the stonework as the natural environment of the jungle takes over, the shapes and damage they cause becoming instantly intriguing.

And that was our temple tour over, as well as our Cambodian adventure. It wasn't particularly thrilling, but we'd come to understand a little more about the history and culture of a country that is getting itself back on the map. It's hard for anyone with a civilised western upbringing to fully grasp what the people here have had to go through to get to where they are today, but with the magnificent temples as a symbol of their strength it's nice to imagine that they will overcome the dark past which has plagued them for so long, even if justice will probably never truly be done...

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It was as our taxi-driver calmly drove us into a city centre which looked like it could have been on fire thanks to the smog which enveloped it, that the full scale of Vietnamese traffic conditions settled upon us. As a nation of motorbike owners, the streets are filled to bursting point with purring mopeds, and there were a few occasions where we actually thought that we weren't even going to make it to our accommodation. Road rules do not seem to apply, as bikes and the odd car or van battle through the streets to get to their destination, ignoring red lights, crossings and junctions alike.

Arriving safely in Hanoi, we were pleased to find ourselves once more in a hostel, and out of the boring guesthouses which seem to be the going trend for most of south-east Asia. Within minutes we got chatting to the lads in our room, and then took ourselves out to dinner, arranging to meet them later at a bar they were quick to recommend. After a nice meal, we traipsed over to the bar only to find it without air-con due to an earlier power-cut, and hence, like a human oven. While we dripped pleasantly into our semi-warm beers, Jan seemed to find the atmosphere suitably steamy, and spent most of the night blanking us while she got herself razzled by an American fella called Kyle, who had used his best line (anyone got a guidebook for Vietnam I could borrow?) to wheedle his way into our little gang on the flight over. She obviously fell hook, line and sinker for it though, as within just a few hours of waking up the next morning, she told us that they'd decided to take a holiday together over to Halong Bay. Speedy work from both parties... and worth a cheeky high five!

Leaving us to our own devices, we took ourselves off to some of the cities more interesting sights. In the same tradition as Lenin and Stalin, the body of much revered communist leader Ho Chi Minh can be viewed as he lies peacefully embalmed in a glass sarcophagus deep within his own grand monument building. Although the queue stretches to over an hour every morning, the crowds keeps coming to be ushered through the chamber in single file for their thirty second gawping opportunity. We were surprised to note that despite having been here for near-on three decades, the russian embalmers who receive him every winter are doing a great job at keeping Uncle Ho looking sharp. We were still a little miffed at the history behind the public enamour, but would make a point of finding out more about this as we travelled through the country. Whilst on our tour of the complex, we also took in the presidential palace and the museum, which although visually interesting, did little to satisfy our curiosity about their former leader. Whilst wandering the old quarter, we took a stroll around the lake, and went for a quick peek at the medieval-like St Joseph Cathedral to round off our day of sightseeing.

After a couple of pleasant evenings in the rooftop bar, and a few nights out to local venues, we felt it was time to take the trip to Halong Bay ourselves. This Unesco World Heritage site in the gulf of Tonkin, about one hundred kilometres east of the capital, comprises of over 3000 islands, and is a popular spot for most travellers to the region due to its emerald green waters, innumerable caves and idyllic beach-island getaways. Luckily, we managed to get a really nice group, and spent the voyage out to our 'Paradise Island' base getting to know everyone. After a whopping eight course meal on the first evening, the three american/canadian lads got everyone going with some Karaoke, not something we'd usually participate in, but with only the gecko's to hear us all there was only a smidgen of the usual amount of shame involved.

For the second day, we were left to our own devices, and around lunchtime were joined on the island by a group of four girls from just down the road in Dartford. It's a small world, but we found it gave us plenty to chat about, and after a sunset game of volleyball (in which the girl's team cheated considerably to beat an outstanding men's team performance) we all settled down for a night of drinking games! This meant that hangovers were in full effect on the journey back to Hanoi the following day, but spirits were still high, especially once we'd all spruced ourselves up with a quick dip in the waters by jumping off the top of the thirty-foot-tall boat.

In Hanoi, Jan was back from her trip and we had a few beers with her, saw the Dartford girls off, and then hung around the next day waiting for our southbound train, another experience in itself. The overnight part wasn't too bad as we found ourselves in a cabin of four bunks with a nice Norwegian couple, and the train was smooth enough to actually get some sleep. It was the morning section of the journey which bought the real entertainment. The nice couple abandoned us in Hue, and taking their place was an old Vietnamese woman, her two sons (we presume) and what must have been most of the possessions from her house. As the two boys frantically tried to jam boxes and cases under beds and into overhead compartments, their mother settled down to munch contentedly on a tupperware pot full of chicken bones. We were quite pleased two hours later when the conductor informed us that we'd made up some time and had arrived early at our station, meaning we could finally leave the woman who, after a short nap, was now crunching menacingly on her lunch which had been delivered just moments before.

Arriving at China Beach, a small section of the wider expanse of sand which spans thirty kilometres between Danang and Hoi An, we jumped out of our taxi to be greeted by Moninne and Dave, an Irish couple we'd met in Halong Bay. Like us, they'd been directed here by the hostel in Hanoi, and it turned out to be a little gem. Hoa (the owner of our accommodation) was a humorous little fella who'd picked up a good english vocabulary (from American's judging by the accent) and spent most of his time swearing good-humouredly about whatever topic came up. His guesthouse sat just back from the beach which would become our home for the next few days. The Irish couple however had other ideas and were heading into Hoi An to take a look at the towns offerings of tailored clothes, and being the curious type, we decided to tag along. Despite going without any intention to actually buy, we ended up walking out four fittings later with a selection of tailor-made garments weighing just over eight kilograms. At the time of writing, these still hadn't actually made it home however, so either our box is a little delayed, or some of the Vietnamese postal staff are walking around town looking exceedingly swish.

Nha Trang was our next destination, and this time we were accompanied by Dave and Moninne, and Jo and Andrew (another Irish couple who we'd been in Halong Bay with). This town proved to be the complete opposite of Hoi An, a bustling seaside resort with the usual overload of tourists and street sellers. For alternative entertainment purposes we took ourselves off to the mud baths, a local complex where you can benefit from the therapeutic qualities of the brown waters before sitting in the natural hot springs. A humorous, but not entirely pleasant experience. We also managed to catch up with the Dartford girls and had a heavy night on the town with them before they headed home. This culminated in myself and Dave wandering home at 4am after watching the England game, and both being accosted by six 'ladies of the night' who obviously thought we were more inebriated than we actually were, and began by offering their services but ended grappling with us both in an attempt to relieve us of our money and cameras. We managed to fend them off for a few minutes, starting with polite refusals and ending with a few elbows and all the strength we could muster to throw them off. Luckily, we were right outside our guesthouse and the night-porter had woken in time to let us in to safety.

On our last morning, we thought it would be nice to get involved with some local voluntary work, and enrolled ourselves at one of the free schools which helps with the teaching of the many street-kids who are trying to make lives for themselves in the area. These children are usually either orphaned or sent away by their parents because they can't afford to raise them, and there are a number of organisations who are trying to educate them so they can go on to gain respectable employment rather than begging and stealing on the streets, or being targeted by a shameful selection of tourist paedophiles who come to the area for easy pickings. Our first class was with a group of younger children, and we were asked to sit with them and go over basic conversation in English, whilst the second hour-long lesson dealt with older kids who already had a good grasp of the language and were at a more advanced level. Admittedly, we were expecting on both occasions a bunch of playful and rebellious urchins, but we were stunned to see not only the grasp of English that they had, but also the enthusiasm at which they tackle the subject and turn up uncoerced every morning to learn. It was nice for us to be able to contribute to such a worthwhile scheme, and can admit to feeling quite guilty when some of the friendlier students asked whether we'd be back the next day. Admittedly, they didn't seem at all surprised to hear that we wouldn't, but this only served to make us feel worse about our fleeting visit.

With our trip quickly running out on us we were looking for something a little different to anything we'd previously experienced. Jo and Andrew had bumped into a man on the street who was part of an organisation called 'Easy Riders' and after explaining this to us, a trip with them seemed like just the ticket. In short, you jump on the back of a motorbike with your backpack strapped behind you, and the driver acts as your guide for any route you wish and over as many days as you would like. With biking appearing to be in the lifeblood of the people, this seemed like the ideal way to get ourselves off the beaten track and see some of the 'real Vietnam', and so we booked ourselves a three day tour that would eventually see us reach the well-known southern city of Saigon.

We were all a little nervous about how a bike trip would suit us, especially after seeing some of the haphazard traffic conditions but our four guides Huy (pronounced Hoi), Me, Cuc (Cook) and Trung (Troong) we all adamant that our safety was their first priority: "No worries" generally being Huy's distinctive motto. Within minutes of being on the back of the bikes I think we were all put relatively at ease and once we'd left the city limits we all started to relax and take in the scenery. We stopped at numerous points where Huy would show us some of Vietnam's main exports (such as cashew nut plantations), tradecrafts (making incense sticks from pulp) and crops. This was then followed by a beautiful scenic drive into the central highlands, lunch at the most local of local restaurants (diarrhoea all round please) and delivery into the heart of a small picturesque town called Dalat. It was transpiring that road rules do actually apply, and Huy was quick to tell us of how driving a motorbike in Vietnam is all about respect for others, keeping the speed down, and of course, a certain degree of self-awareness and talent in the saddle.

Once checked into our accommodation, the plan had been to take us to see some of the sights, but as we strolled around our first stop at the Flower Centre (admittedly, this was like a flash version of Homebase) it began to absolutely chuck it down meaning not only that this is probably the coldest we've been in the last six months, but also ensuring that the rest of the afternoon was called off. During the evening however, the heavens had closed and so we could at least venture out to the night-market where the usual supply of foul-smelling meats go on sale and the jumble-like clothes stalls are packed with noisy locals after a bargain.

On day two, the sun was thankfully shining and we were able to take a quick skirt around the town's large lake and out into the surrounding countryside to visit the very popular Buddhist Pagoda and the nearby waterfall, reachable by a novel luge/roller-coaster style ride. Upon leaving the Dalat province, we were yet again out into the countryside, and stopped briefly at a small ethnic minority town called Chicken Village, owing to the giant stone statue of a chicken which adorns it's skyline. In Vietnam, the term 'ethnic minority' refers to the groups of people who are born into the world with a darker skin tone than the rest of it's countrymen, and are hence outcast to small rural populations where they are inevitably forced to manufacture basic handicrafts (weaved garments and tapestries) or gather crops whilst living in relative poverty. It's a sad state of affairs, but unfortunately, the Vietnamese take the skin-tone issue even further than some its neighbours, using skin-whitening creams and lotions at an alarming rate and ensuring that their women are covered from head-to-toe throughout the day in order to avoid tanning.

Back on the road, we wound our way through yet another highland pass and back down onto the coastal roads, unfortunately leaving the cool air behind us once and for all. Before arriving at our overnight destination we were taken to the white sand dunes just outside of town, and then onto the small fishing village of Mui Ne to watch the trawlers come in for the night. By this point, our backside's were in a fair amount of discomfort after nearly nine hours on the back of a motorbike, but the trip was turning out to be as good as expected.

For our final day we knew we had a long journey in front of us, three hundred kilometres and some six or so hours of riding. We were also aware that this leg was to be a little less eventful than the first two, with few stopping points of any interest. Huy did manage to find a nice Dragonfruit harvesting complex however, where we got to sample some of the fruits for free and speak to the workers. After that, it was a case of motoring all the way. We knew it was also likely to get a little hairy at this point, as the volume of traffic increased as we entered the city limits. By the time we reached the centre, we'd seen four bike accidents in under an hour, and our driver-guides really had to step up their game in order to weave their way through the congestion. Saying our final goodbye's in downtown Saigon, and feeling so saddle-sore that John Wayne would have been a little jealous of our amusing waddles, we had a final few days in Vietnam before heading on to pastures new and had said all along that this was the best place to indulge in some recent history.

To start our journey into Vietnam's past, it was necessary to acquire some background. Most people know that during the seventies, the American's fought a long and ill-fated war here, but like us, know nothing of the reason's for it. In a nutshell, in 1954 Vietnam became a divided country with two very different leaders: Communist Ho Chi Minh (of sarcophagi fame) in the north, and Ngo Dinh Diem, anti-Communist catholic in the south. In 1960, the Hanoi government changed its policy of opposition to the Diem regime from one of 'political struggle' to 'armed struggle' and formed a guerrilla group better known as the Viet Cong (VC) to fight the south. When Diem was assassinated by his own troops in 1964 and the North Vietnamese Army infiltrated the south making the future for the Saigon regime bleak at best.

The US (who were still fighting the Cold War with the daddy of Communist states, Russia) held the view that Communism was a threat to peace all over the world, especially America, and so elected to join the south in it's fight, sending over their first troops in 1965 and setting up base in Saigon. They were soon to be joined by troops from South Korea, Australia, Thailand and New Zealand. Unfortunately, no-one had quite anticipated the strength and determination of the forces in the north (unsurprisingly, the Viet Cong are the only group to have significantly resisted the Japanese occupation in World War II), and gradually began losing supremacy in a war that raged for over eight years, and took the lives of hundred's of thousands of soldiers. An eventual ceasefire was called in 1973 with the total withdrawal of US troops and release of of American prisoners of war. Although the eventual reunification of Vietnam by the communists meant liberation from more than a century of colonial repression, hundreds of thousands of southerner's fled to neighbouring countries, creating a flood of refugees for the next 15 years. Vietnam would later hold a large campaign of repression against ethnic-Chinese and invade Cambodia in 1978 which would prompt China to invade in 1979 in a war that would only last for seventeen days but would disrupt relation between the two countries for next decade. As you've probably gathered, it's all very complicated.

To get a better understanding, we took a bus out to the Cu Chi province to the north-west of the city. This rural area is the strategic setting for one of the many reason's that the American's could not defeat their enemy, a two hundred kilometre network of tunnels dug by the Viet Cong which would make them almost invisible to enemy troops on the surface. First there was a brief introductory video, in which it was described the planning and digging of the tunnels (often by hand) and how some undeniably nasty traps were built. Despite the obvious seriousness of the subject, it was hard not to chuckle at some of the names for the medals that were awarded to some of the more successful troops and the seriousness at which it was presented: "Hero American Killer" and "American Tank Destroyer Hero" to name but two.

Moving on, we were given a live display of how soldiers used to hide inside small holes covered by leaves for hours on end waiting for enemies to appear, and a further insight into some of the trap-door style nasties that awaited unsuspecting troops. Next up, we got to fire a machine-gun, good fun, but at nearly seventy pence a bullet, over before it seemed like we'd even pulled the trigger. Finally, it was our turn to experience the tunnels for ourselves. Now I'm not one for suffering from claustrophobia, but after a few minutes cramped on all fours inside the pitch-black tunnels (which have been widened for tourists!) it is hard not to hold a certain amount of awe for the men and women who spent days or even weeks underground. Sarah was very brave on the other hand, but as expected got suitably panicked after about thirty seconds inside the first small tunnel and had to be calmly guided out by a random stranger while I supportively hung back taking photos.

Back in Saigon, we continued our tour with a stop at the War Museum, an interesting display of retired artillery pieces such as American bombers, tanks, helicopters and missile casings. It was the exhibition itself however that really gave an insight into the brutality of the war itself, displaying the tiger cages which were used to imprison Viet Cong prisoner's of war, pictures of troops in action and of those who suffered torture, and even a jar containing the foetus' of two fused unborn babies whose mother had been the recipient of some of the side affects associated with Agent Orange, a defoliant chemical mix which the American's sprayed onto foliage so that the opposing troops were unable to hide within it. Unfortunately, this weapon and the rest of the war effort now accounts for much of the deformity we were due to see on the streets of Saigon during our stay.

All in all, Vietnam had invoked a mixture for the senses. There are undoubtedly some beautiful places which we'd seen with our own eyes, but it is all still slightly over-shadowed by a dark past which the country itself is only just beginning to recover from. There is no doubt that it holds the title for our favourite place in South-East Asia so far, and the friendliness with which we were generally awarded accounts for much of this sentiment. As the country grows in popularity, it's nice to think that this will improve even more but it's hard to believe that the less established places such as China Beach and Hoi An will retain their quiet charm for much longer. We certainly intend to return someday to check on the development ourselves, and hopefully explore the areas that we may have missed...

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As we took our old-skool red cadillac into town, it was clear to see that Laos hasn't seen the tourism boom like it's neighbours, and the infrastrucuture hasn't quite caught up with the twenty-first century. This was refreshing however, and the signs which adorned the roadside to 'Keep Laos Tidy' were a welcome sight.

In fairness, the guy at the border was right in one aspect, Vientiane isn't really a capital city as we might know it. For starters, it's only got one international cashpoint (making us wonder, rightly as it happens, about the likelihood of being able to get cash in the rest of the country). Neighbourhoods of traditional wooden houses are mixed seamlessly with avenues of colonial mansions and stunning architectural designs. It's no surprise to find out that over the last thousand years of it's history, it has been looted, smashed up and generally bullied by successive Vietnamese, Burmese, Siamese, Khmer and French conquerors, but it's location on the bend of the Mekong and the distinct lack of high-intensity traffic noise make up for any aesthetic shortfalls. It's a city that is on the up, and as more tourists pass through we're sure that steady investment will mean a bright future for it's inhabitants.

With little to do bar strolling the streets and arranging our Vietnamese Visa with the embassy, we spent a relaxing couple of days here taking in the few sights such as the Patuxai (their very own Arc de Triomphe) and the grand National Culture Hall, and took some time to relax in some of the quaint cafe's which line the river and it's surrounding streets. On our third morning, it was up early for a bus journey to the town of Vang Vieng, four hours to the north.

We'd read some interesting things about the town in question, but still weren't quite prepared for what greeted us. Slightly concerned glances were exchanged between the three of us as we made our way across the disused airstrip in the direction of what appeared to be civilisation. It was as we entered the main street that we heard the all familiar sound of music and singing: "I'll be there for you...". It said in the guidebook that this is a place you either loathe or love, mainly due to the fact that almost every single bar, cafe and restaurant in the strip plays 'Friends' re-runs throughout the day and night. Those that have opted out, simply replace it with either movies or The Simpsons, making (surprisingly) for a place where backpackers tend to come and lounge around for days on end in a twilight zone of square-eyed delight.

We have to admit that for the first couple of days we were a little sucked in ourselves. An afternoon of Friends (Series 9), the FA Cup Final in the evening, a stint with The Simpsons (Christmas Specials!) the following morning, and a return to Friends (Series 2) in the afternoon before we realised we were getting dragged into the black hole. Admittedly, Sarah and Jan went for a walk on the second afternoon but I really couldn't be bothered (TV wins every time!). And that, unfortunately, seems to be the trend. The whole idea may be great for the respective businesses who are pulling in the punters day after day, but we eventually found the whole thing reliably unsociable. Odd words are muttered to waiters as they pass by, but generally, everyone crams into the small cushioned booths to sit glued to the box. A little bit of home may have been randomly presented to us in a town in the middle of nowhere, but we were glad that we'd booked ourselves a tour for the third day to get us out of the routine.

It's once you get yourself out of Vang Vieng that you get to fully appreciate the beauty of the area. Stunning limestone peaks covered in lush greenery tower over the Nam Song river as it winds it's way gently south. Immensely long caves (some up to five kilometres) beckon curious adventurers into their dark mouths, whilst trekking through small villages and paddy fields gave us a glimpse of the real way of life for the people that inhabit the area. After spending the morning exploring some of the caves around the Tham Sang Triangle and walking among the locals it was time to jump into our kayaks for the final stretch, a twenty kilometre paddle (downstream thankfully!) amongst scores of other backpackers in rubber tubes!

For our next destination we had to take a six-hour winding bus journey through the hills and valleys deeper into the heart of northern Laos. It wasn't until chatting to a few other travellers once we reached Luang Prabang that we found out that this exact route had been the target for revolutionary terrorist groups on three previous occassions. Admittedly, the chosen carriers were local buses, but on each occassion (the last in 2003) all of the occupants were removed from the bus and executed with machine guns! We were quite glad that we found this out after the event, and hadn't sat there for six hours with that kind of thing hanging over us while we fought the nausea of an already sickening journey.

In fact, this is just one of the few problems that this country has faced in recent decades. To this day, many people are unaware that Laos is one of the most bombed nations on the face of the earth. Between 1964 and 1973, citing the presence of the Vietnamese in the east and northeastern regions as the reason for their secret war, the USA were responsible for one of the largest sustained aerial bombardments in history, flying nearly six hundred thousand missions into Laos airspace and dropping over two million tons of bombs. As if this wasn't bad enough, nearly thirty percent of these bombs failed to explode, leaving the countryside littered with unexploded ordnance (UXO). The people who have to live with this legacy accept this as a part of daily life, and although clearance work began in 1994, and the UN have taken a more formal stance on tackling the problem, it is thought that it could take more than one hundred years to make the country completely safe.

This tragic story seems a million miles away from the beautiful French colonial streets which greeted us on our arrival into Luang Prabang however; a mixture of fine architecture, delicate buddhist temples and emerald green mountainous surroundings. Unesco placed the city on it's world heritage list in 1995 and it's clear to see why. With a few days here before we left for Vietnam, we took the opportunity to explore the quaint surroundings, browse the evening handicraft markets and sample some typical Laos dishes. By night-time, the town takes on a new twist, with cool bars and cafes becoming packed with diverse crowds, before everyone heads off to the most popular late night drinking venue: The Bowling Alley. A slightly surreal, but entertaining diversion...

For two days, all we'd heard from idling Tuk-Tuk men was "Waterfall?" and so for our final day we took one of the men up on their offer and drove the thirty-two kilometres out into the hills of the Tat Kuang Si area. On entering the park, we were greeted by a large bear and tiger sanctuary, which for once actually bore the hallmarks of legitimacy and wasn't just a tourist gimmick. After "ooh-ing" and "aah-ing" for a little while we made our way to the multitiered waterfall, watching it tumble it's way from the hundred metre cascade at the top to the smaller turquoise pools at the base. Swimming opportunities are not something to be passed up on, and so we took a dip in one of the more accessible spots and played monkey on the handily placed rope swing. To be honest, we hadn't expected much from this attraction, but it turned out to be a beautiful spot, largely unrivalled by anything on this scale we'd seen previously.

In fact, this was the story with Laos throughout. What we'd hastily cast aside as a mere cut-through to a more exciting land in the east, had turned out to be a big highlight of the trip, and a place we'd recommend everyone should take the time to visit if they can. Clean, hospitable, friendly, fun, and more importantly, without the intensity of neighbouring Thailand, this beautiful country will almost certainly be hit by touristic popularity in the years to come, but will hopefully retain it's charm for much longer.

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Trying earnestly to disregard our mass scepticism of anything anyone from this part of the world ever says to us, we took the van driver at his word and followed him to his awaiting vehicle. I'd got my bearings beforehand, and he seemed to be heading comfortingly in the general direction of the bus station, until of course we come to rest outside a handily situated travel agent. With little option but to climb out in the middle of nowhere and entertain them, we were quickly told that the bus for Krabi had gone, and that there would not be another for six hours, but (unsurprisingly) they could offer us a mini-van which would take us to our destination, much quicker than any other bus could. Wearing us down to within an inch of our sanity, we eventually conceded, and knocked the cost of the journey down from five-hundred-and-fifty baht to four-hundred, content in the knowledge that we'd secured a reasonable deal. It was only on clambering into the mini-van an hour or so later that we met three Swedish girls who had been on our train, and had secured the same journey for just over two hundred baht. A harsh lesson had been learnt, and if it weren't for the fact that the four hour journey was going to cost us six quid we'd have probably taken much more offense. It seems that over the years of the mass tourism boom, the Thai's have certainly learned where their bread is buttered, and I'm sure we aren't the first, or the most aggrieved party to be taken for a few quid.

A well deserved sleep-filled night in Krabi, was followed by yet another four hour journey to our first island stop, Ko Lanta. We'd heard that this place was a quiet introduction to the islands off the west Thailand coast, but the off-season clearly doesn't even come close to this and after a couple of nights of unsuccessfully trying to find a lively spot we thought better of it and arranged our boat to the more popular island of Ko Phi Phi. By our standards, the accommodation here is fairly pricey, and after a couple of hours scouting around we settled in a resort and waited around the pool for the imminent arrival of my friend from home. After a spot of tropical time delay, Dave turned up about three hours late, looking like a dog's dinner after his long trip from the UK, but in good spirits. It was good to see my drinking partner again after over seven months away, and it seemed our first priority was to get ourselves into town for a night on the lash! Or perhaps three...

As expected, it all got a bit messy for those first few nights, bar-hopping between dodgy bars playing banging trance music, and the strange Reggae/Thai Boxing venue that didn't actually have any boxing on, or appear particularly rastafarian for that matter. Our only real adventure (outside of throwing numerous bottles of Chang down our throats) was the afternoon boat trip out into the surrounding area.

The four of us joined the tour with limited expectations, especially as the dark storm clouds gathered to the south and threatened an afternoon of choppy seas and torrential rain. A quick kayak into the gorge and a snorkel around some of the most heavily devastated coral we've ever seen was followed by the main event: a tricky landing at the rocks edge, and a crawl through a cave to the scene where the 'The Beach' was filmed some years ago. It was a nice spot in fairness, but you got the feeling that it had gone to the wall slightly since it's fame and fortune had come and gone, and it was now just used as somewhere the locals could dump curious tourists for an hour or so. Despite the stunning, but if somewhat gloomy scenery, the whole show was stolen by our enigmatic guide, who with the comedy catchphrase of 'Welcome to Paradise' and a devious chuckle, would sweep his arms out to the grey clouds and murky water surrounding us.

Next stop was the mainland, and the holiday-makers dream of Phuket. With golden beaches and a real resort atmosphere, this would have been great had it not been for the almost torrential rain which seemed to be dampening our spirits as well as everything around us. Not to be deterred however, we thought the best thing would be to keep ourselves busy, firstly, with a night at the 'Super Real' Muay Thai Boxing arena. With the locals in a betting frenzy down in the bottom corner of the stadium, we'd noticed the distinct advantage of being in the 'home' blue corner, as first a Swedish woman boxer, and then a Bangkok fighter were both beaten on points when they clearly should have been victors. The Australian fella in the fourth fight had clearly noticed much the same thing, and consequently took all of ninety-seconds and three clean knees-to-the-face to take out the local opponent, sending much of the foreign support into a bit of a frenzy. All good fun, and not really the gore, blood and guts that the girls had expected. With the weather still playing havoc, the next day we took ourselves off for a muddy afternoon of quad-biking in the northern marshlands and just the kind of adrenalin activity we needed, even if we did have to wear a dodgy pair of Crocs to save ruining our shoes.

As dusk approaches in the Patpong beach area of Phuket, the neon lights of Bangla Road begin to warm up for an evening of fun and frivolity. Dave and myself had already noticed a fair number of what we would refer to as 'dubious' characters on the streets around our guesthouse, but nothing could have prepared me for what awaited in Soi Crocodile, the closed-in lane of bars off the main strip. This was the moment Sarah had been eagerly anticipating, and I'd been brushing off with awkward ambivalence. It was time to have a drink with a bunch of Ladyboy's.

As we arrived at the entrance, the 'ladies' in question were all gyrating around on the podium, and of course this was all the persuasion needed to get us all in for a beer. A performance by one of the lead 'girls' soon followed, where a mystery, but strangely willing Japanese tourist was hauled up to dance and covort with 'her'. As the night progressed, plastic boobs, and on a few occassions, post-op undercarriages were all proudly displayed to the mixed crowd of curious tourists, many of whom were jumping at opportunities for photo's or some kind of interaction. The girls got stuck right in at the front to get some close-up tell-tale photography for later study, whilst Dave and I sat cowering at the back by the bar (where else?) to avoid being needlessly accosted. Many travellers who'd already visited such an exhibition had said to me that they couldn't tell the difference, but us lads came to the conclusion that for ninety-nine percent of the time, with some sure-fire detective methods (height? / strong jaw-line? / spot the adam's apple? / big hands or feet?) and a spot of good old male intuition, we would be able to tell the difference. We suspect for most worldy men, it would be that one percent which would be the cause for concern and spark a real 'Deal or No Deal' moment. As Alan Partridge might say: "It's all very confusing".

For our final day in Phuket, we took a day tour out to the islands in the east at Phang Nga Bay, a combination of a farm tour which lacked any serious effort (except for a randy monkey which amusingly tried to get it's end away with Dave's head), a boat cruise to a floating muslim town for lunch, a canoe trip around some of the towering limestone mountains and caves, and the main event: 'James Bond Island'. As anyone with a television turned on for christmas day afternoon will know, this is the setting for the final scene from the 1974 film 'The Man with the Golden Gun', where Roger Moore and his fake third nipple eventually finds himself taking pot-shots at Christopher Lee in his ingeniously crafted room of mirrors. The island itself, with it's usual array of local stalls (Scaramanga had a clear-out of 'Nick-Nacks' after filming - boom, boom!) is quite unmemorable, but for most people it's the large tooth-shaped rock which juts elegantly from the sea just a few hundred yards off-shore that brings them to the area.

Back in Phuket for our last night, we all headed out to dinner and a few drinks. The girls retired early, and we were left at the bar to befriend a like-minded Londoner called Paul and the Irish manager (also Paul). The former of the two had popped out for a couple of pints after his pal had been taken ill, and like us (who were getting up for a 7am bus) was in for an early night. Somewhat foolishly, we all managed to rope each other into going on to a dodgy club (arms well and truly twisted) until 5am, drinking buckets of vodka redbull and generally giving ourselves the best chance of a hellish journey the following morning. Strangely enough, I don't remember too much about the next day, but I believe there was a fair amount of dribbling and booze-infused sweat in the back seat by the time we climbed out on the other side of the peninsula.

Thankfully, that evening we struck gold. The girls headed off into the night in search of accommodation, and came back with news of a booking at a positively swish, and reasonably priced spa, just a hundred metres from the beach. After a peaceful nights sleep, we were finally grateful to see the sun shining, and headed straight for Chaweng Beach. There's no doubt this is one of the busiest island resorts around, similar to what you might find in any European seaside destination, but we didn't mind as long as the sun kept his hat on for a few days. The six kilometre beach is lined with scores of accommodation complexes, bars and restraurants. Numerous jet-ski companies line the shore, and we took a couple out for some action out on the waves. A successful debut for both of us, although slightly marred by the screaming woman who clung to the back of me throughout whimpering that I should slow down (guess who?). I'll be back for some more though.

Our couple of days on Samui were fairly uneventful, consisting of some well intentioned laziness on the beach, a couple of nights out in the local bars, and being harshly labelled as 'a good ladyboy' for not taking on one of the child businesswomen at Connect Four (a national obsession) on the beach one night. Strangely enough, the 'You pay one-hundred, if I win I keep, if you win you get it back' rules weren't doing much for anyone along that strip of sand.

Our last island hop would be over to Ko Tao, about a two-hour ferry ride north of Samui. This mountainous island perches on a ledge of coral reefs and thanks to the water's high visibility and abundance of marine life makes for a diving and snorkelling mecca. After watching one of the 'crazy' dive videos being shown on the ferry over, myself and Dave were at this point quite happy to partake in an introductory dive. On arrival however, it was all about the hard sell, and the Israeli guy who approached me about scrapping the idea of the 'pointless' intro dive and taking on a much more expensive four day open-water Padi course only served to put me off from doing any of it. I wasn't sure that diving was for me, the girls were not partaking from the get-go, and so it was left to Dave to take on the course, a decision I think he was really happy he took, despite the studying, revision, and general mickey-taking from us about how we probably weren't cool enough to be his pals any more. As a reward for his large monetary commitment, we were all placed in a lavish apartment at the dive school's hotel, which we aptly named the 'Crack Den'. Truly delightful.

It seemed only right that we get out into the water somehow though, and so Sarah and I (Jan paid, but then took the opportunity to sleep for a change) went on a snorkelling trip around the many bays of the island. After the last few months of travel through Australia and Malaysia it felt like we'd done this same trip about thirty times, but it was still a pleasant day out at sea with the reef sharks, turtles and the thousands of resident fish, plus we also got to take a stop at the small beautiful island located to the north-east of Ko Tao.

For our last night together, Dave and I went off to The Castle, a nightclub style open-air bar, where I got to be a bit of a chap for a night and meet up with all of Dave's other wacky dive-school buddies. They were a nice bunch in fairness and we had a good drink to mark the end of his holiday. Highlight of the night was when we stood speculating about the 'dubiousness' of one certain 'girl' in the bar who actually turned out to be an american woman who'd understood everything we'd said and surprisingly didn't take too kindly to our conversation. Whoops.

Unemotional farewells ensued the following morning as Dave headed to Ko Samui for his flight to Bangkok and we took our ferry and coach to the same destination in the hope of catching a train straight out of the capital to Chiang Mai that evening. Unfortunately, the train was fully booked, and so we had one more night with young David around Bangkok's famous Khao San Road area. Dinner in the strange setting of a converted petrol garage forecourt, and a few final Chang's in a local bar was all we could all manage however as a days travelling got the best of us, and more tearless goodbye's were exchanged.

A day of fairly unsuccessful sightseeing in Bangkok was about all we managed the following day, after falling for the oldest trick in the book (it's actually in the guidebook and I'd read about it not more than twenty-four hours before!) and being taken for a ride (literally) by an honest looking tuk-tuk guy to see some temples. His actual mission was to take us to five of his favourite shops (silk, tour agency etc) in search of some extra commission, but he only got as far as two before we sacked him off to save any more harrassment from store personel who we had no intention of buying from. There was time for one more dinner with Dave, and so we said a third and final goodbye to my temporary drinking partner, and source of overly-used but humourous Sean Connery impressions, before heading off to catch our overnight train to the north.

The overnight train is an experience in itself. The sleeping berths are surprisingly comfortable, but how anyone is actually meant to sleep amongst the racket of the train is beyond us. Of course, Jan managed to get a decent nights shut-eye, whilst we generally figdeted around for eight hours in search of a short doze.

Chiang Mai is set quite charmingly in the neat square shape of your standard Monopoly board. The main one-way roads which ring the edge of the old city is split perfectly into two by the moat and remnants of a medieval-style wall which was built seven-hundred yeara ago to defend against Burmese invaders. Where you'd usually find one of the four stations, the walls still stand proudly as gates to the internal soi's (small lanes) which are filled to bursting with small guesthouses, markets, restaurants and bars. It's a world away from the Thailand we'd seen in the south and made for a welcome change. The money-making ethos hasn't deserted the northerner's however, and within two days of being at our accommodation we were more or less kicked out beacuse we hadn't booked any tours with them, something we later found from other travellers to be common amongst many of the ruthless businesses in this area.

None of us were feeling particularly up for the trekking which is a reason many tourists come to this part of the country, but we were quite keen to have a day at one of the Thai cooking classes. Firstly, we were whisked off to the local market to buy all of the ingredients we would need for our chosen six dishes. This was all fairly unremarkable until we entered the 'meat' room, where all sorts of animal were being chopped up in front of our very eyes, and trays of organs, intestines and other unsightly innards sat ready for the next willing customer. The day flew by, but at the end we'd managed to cook from scratch a selection of Thai curries, appetisers, beef and chicken stir-fry's, spicy soups and satays with varying degrees of success. All in all a very worthwhile day and with our recipe books in hand I'm sure we'll be making use of some of them when we return home.

The only thing left to do was figure out how we would exit the country. After asking around, the journey further north consisting of long bus -ride plus two uncomfortable eight-hour Mekong river boat rides didn't sound overly appealing, and so we opted for the lengthy, but less painful thirteen-hour coach journey to the eastern border town of Udon Thani. We'd begun taking our Malaria tablets just a few days before, and Sarah (second place) was the first to fall to the well-documented nauseous side effects, vomiting like true professional in a local restaurant and the lobby of our guesthouse after just one day. Jan (disqualified) wasn't sick, but spent most of her second day feeling rough during the cooking class and missed all of the lessons, whilst I (Champion!) managed to last out for a whole three days, eventually chundering unceremoniously (and loudly I'm told) into a miniature carrier bag on the aforementioned bus.

This wasn't the way we'd really considered leaving Thailand behind, but it was slightly apt. Although we'd had alot of fun and seen some beautiful places in those last few weeks, the constant need to watch for devious Thai's and their money-making priorities had begun to wear thin. As a nation, they don't seem particularly proud of their country and do little to keep it clean, while the much employed point of being 'polite' generally seems to be a one-way street, and being rude is allowed as long as it's tourists on the receiving end. This obviously doesn't apply to all, and we met some genuinely freindly and hospitable locals along the way who made us feel very welcome. Unfortunately, it's only tourists that can be blamed for creating the monster, and hopefully things will change for the better in the years to come. Next stop was Laos and what we hoped would be a slightly different take on South-East Asia.

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As a country that has ninety percent of it's land mass immersed in tropical jungle, it's no surprise that Kuala Lumpur (or KL as it is known by the locals) boasts as many trees and open green spaces as it does skyscrapers. Previously a tin-mining frontier, it has now matured into an affluent capital where the resident Chinese, Indians and Malays mix in the workplace but maintain their separate beliefs and cultures.

With limited time, our aim was to take in some of the main sights, and so we headed out on our first night into the bustling markets of Chinatown and it's huge array of streetside cafe's where we sat to eat and take in the sights and sounds of this swarming area. The following morning, we were up early to head to the opposite side of town and the looming presence of the Petronas Towers, which up until 2004 was the tallest skyscraper in the world. These are the elegant headquarters of the national petroleum company, but the lower levels have been transformed into a huge six-level shopping centre to further entice the visitors. Instead of taking the lift up to the limited views from the bridge which spans the two towers, we headed across town to check out the city from the telecommunications tower.

With one day left to kill, we took a taxi fifteen kilometres out of the city to Batu Caves. After climbing the arduous two-hundred-and-seventy-two steps behind a giant golden statue to reach the jaws of the caves, we were a little disappointed to find a large and unimpressive rocky hole, complete with scaffolding, industrial lighting and a selection of the usual tacky stalls. Of the three caves which were meant to be on offer, two were out of action and the trip turned into a little bit of a waste of time. The saving grace came in the most unlikely form of the taxi driver who took us back to the city. This chap seemed a little unhappy with the country's policy of citizenship, and was only too pleased to tell us all forcefully about it. As a sixth generation Indian born and raised in Malaysia but still without the right to hold a Malay passport, this grieved him no end, and he ranted and raved about the way that many of the Chinese and Indians are given no respect in a country they've contributed to their whole lives. In fairness, we could see his point, but the way in which it was ranted to us only served to give us more reason to play along and not antagonise him further.

Leaving the city behind, we jumped a bus inland to the oldest official protected area in the country, Taman Negara National Park, covering an impressive 4,343 square kilometres. We began our journey with what seemed like a slightly excessive three hour boat ride down the Tembeling River to reach the base for our park exploration at the village of Kuala Tahan. Many exploratory trips run out of this small but steadily developing riverside village, and after our long days travel the only option left open to us on our first night was the evening Safari tour. Clambering aboard the back of our jeep, we were driven out into the darkness of the palm-oil plantations in the search of some nocturnal wildlife. We had the feeling that the sound of an approaching vehicle would only serve to scare away any resident animals, and our theories were duly backed up when we returned with nothing more than the memories of a large, motionless tree snake, a very fleeting look at a Tapir (small wild cat) and the humour of seeing a sleeping bird looking distinclty puzzled at having a bright torchlight shone in it's face while it tried to get some shut-eye.

The next morning we were up early to take a walk into the heart of the 130 million year old rainforest. Again, a short riverboat ride dropped us at our start point and the three of us, accompanied by a bunch of six other mildly strange tourists, made the ascent to the awaiting canopy walk. It's strange the things you tend to do without a moments thought when you're travelling, and walking along a few makeshift ladders, held together with rope and suspended one-hundred-feet above the ground is no exception. Althought the views weren't entirely unpleasant, you couldn't help but wonder whether the engineering was quite as sound as it should have been. Safely back on the ground, there was more trekking to be done into the hills, and the stifling ninety percent humidity was by now starting to take it's toll. A steady hour-long climb took us to the summit of Bukit Teresek and a couple of mediocre photo opportunities before it was time to turn around and complete the whole thing in reverse.

After a restful lunch on one of the floating barge restaurants which line the river, we headed off to an Aboriginal village to meet the Orangi people who reside there. The makeshift looking shacks built from raw materials such as straw, vines and collected timber create a startling realisation of how some people in this part of the world choose to live. The government have left these people to their own devices for a long time now, knowing that to remove them when they wish to stay would simply not serve any purpose, and the kids who run around with grins on their faces are testament to the fact that they are happy where they are. Admittedly, one young lad inparticular didn't take enough care to hide the mobile phone which proudly hung around his neck and managed to ruin the illusion slightly. We met a small family briefly, and were then told all about the history of the settlements in the area, their traditions and lifestyles. The tribes have finally begun to accept aid from the government in the form of healthcare and the small amounts that tourism brings, but other than this, generally live day-to-day by their own means. While here, we also tried our hand at using their primitive form of hunting weapon: the Blowpipe. Usually, the darts are laced with a poison and they aim the five-foot-long shooter at live animals, but we had to be content with normal darts and a small green stuffed duck. Myself and Jan came close, but it was Sarah who actually managed to spear the little fella and we haven't heard the last of it since.

After our couple of days in the wilderness, it was time for another almost full days travel to reach the highly recommended Perhentian Islands which lie twenty kilometres off the north-east coast. Composed of Pulau Besar (Big Island) and Kecil (Small), these are supposedly Malaysia's showpiece islands, and we were keen to check them out for ourselves and grab a slice of paradise. In truth, the rumours weren't far wrong, the sand at Long Beach on Kecil glistened white and the beautifully clear turquoise water lapped calmly at the shore. Without really planning to, we spent a relaxing six days here, grabbing some very standard beach-hut accommodation (dark, smelly bathroom, grotty bedsheets and an unlimited supply of Mosquito's thrown in for free!) and met a few equally chilled out travellers. Although it was mostly a case of bumming around and drinking the local amber nectar over sunset, we did abandon our laziness for a full days snorkelling around the bays, an experience which was slightly marred by the presence of several hundred small jellyfish which, according to our guide, had come to the area much sooner than was usual for the time of year. It was difficult to take much of what he said in earnest however, as after just ten minutes of leaving the first beach he'd managed to get himself and the boats 'captain' completely stoned and mostly incomprehensible.

Sooner or later though, we thought it was time to get going and the imminent arrival of our friend from home meant that we needed to get ourselves over into Thailand for what would hopefully be a merry reunion of island hopping...

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Just forty minutes beforehand at the airport, we'd met Jan in a semi-emotional reunion (on Sarah's part obviously). As a long-time friend from home, we were pleased to have a friendly face joining us for our last three months of travel through Asia, and not for once have the usual "Where have you been? How long you away for? Where you from?" conversation.

Little India seemed to be the place for a decent hostel, and we found ourselves in a fairly pleasant establishment, once again amongst other like-minded travellers. The holiday was over, and we had to re-engage ourselves into full tourist mode. For our first day in town we thought we would just take a stroll around and endeavour to get our bearings. This proved to be fairly uneventful in all honesty, our efforts only really taking us as far as the a few of the more colourful markets, mosques and temples in Chinatown, and the various assortment of shopping arcades (a national obsession!) in Orchard Road.

That evening, we went with a large group from the hostel to the Night Safari, an extension of the zoo which is now rated as one of the best in the world for it's conservation work. This forty hectare site contains nine-hundred nocturnal animals of one-hundred-and-thirty species and made for a nice 'alternative' zoo experience. We took the three kilometre tram ride around the park, viewing (amongst others) deer, rhino's, giraffe's, sloth bears, and elephants, and then took to the walking trails to see the Tigers, Leopards and smaller rodents. Finally, there was the 'Creatures of the Night Show', which despite a couple of amusing moments, still needs a little work.

Singapore broke onto the world stage in 1819 when Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles arrived to make the island a bastion of the British Empire. This of course all came to an abrupt end in 1942 when the Japanese invaded during World War Two and continued to harshly rule the land. It was all over three years later of course, when the devastation of Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the hands of the Americans and their atomic bombs forced them to surrender, but in that time they managed to inflict considerable pain and suffering on the residents, with thousands of Chinese were simply killed rather than imprisoned. This part of Singapore's history is something that we were quite interested in, and so the next morning, we headed to the Changi Prison Musuem in the hope we could become informed.

Changi was the prisoner-of-war camp in Singapore where more than 100,000 Allied soldiers were incarcerated by the Japanese Imperial Army. The museum, which sits just outside the gates to the prison of today (still in use), depicts the struggles and treatment of these men using quotes, soundbites, and imagery from the time, showing how the constant struggle against humilitation, loss of freedom, hunger and disease became part of everyday life. We spent a good hour or so here reading the stories of inspiration and heroicism during a time of unthinkable adversity, and digesting the horrors that these men and women had to endure for three-and-a-half years. When anyone mentions WWII, first thoughts turn almost automatically towards the Nazi's, while the side of the war being fought on the other side of the world is largely forgotten about. This was a good insight into how events unfolded here.

While on this side of the island visiting the musuem, we thought we would take the opportunity to see something outside of the city and visit one of the surrounding islands. We took a 'bumboat' over the Pulau Ubin, a small island to the north-east of Singapore. Silly girls in skirts do not make for a nice afternoon pedalling your way around a small jungle island, and so we were condemned to trudging around on foot in ninety-eight percent humidity, something I think Jan (and her love for a trek of any kind) had secretly engineered to her advantage. The walk itself wasn't hugely entertaining, but it made a change from the high-rise towers we'd already grown a little tired of, and gave a little insight into the way the traditional people of Singapore lived. A large downpour about half-way through our stroll meant we had to take refuge under a rather handily placed shelter. It was here that we were approached by a dog sniffing around for scraps. No-one took any notice to begin with, but suddenly I noticed something a little disturbing. Namely, a large chunk of half-inch-deep flesh (about the size of a human hand) missing from just above his right leg, which left us with a confusing mixture of sympathy and revulsion. It was actually gaping open to reveal some of the little fella's inner workings, but he seemed to be wandering around as if there was nothing there. More importantly, we were all left wondering exactly what may be responsible for such a vicious attack, and made a qiuck retreat back to the jetty.

Today's Singapore is a thriving commercial centre, on par with many of the other major cities in the world. The modern office-blocks combined with old-style colonial architecture exudes wealth, while the amazing cleanliness simply adds to it's appeal. Ultra-modern train and tube systems carry its inhabitants on their journey, clad in designer-label garments and boasting the latest in mp3/mobile phone technology. The Chinese majority (76%) are Buddists or Taoists, with Chinese cutoms and superstitions dominating much of their social life. For Malays (14%), Islam is the guiding light, while 'Adat' (customary law) takes precedent at important ceremonies and event such as birth and marriage. Singaporean Indians (8%) generally come from the south of India, and bring many of their important customs and festivals with them. Expats (other foreigners from the UK or Australia) make up the other two percent, but are generally only a visible group if you visit the more expensive bars.

Back in the city for the evening, we went out for dinner with our room-mate, a rather deep and meaningful Canadian chap called Fuz. With us all feeling a little tired, we thought we would stick with Little India and search out a decent curry. This wasn't likely to be hard when every other doorway opens up to reveal an eaterie of some kind, and the one we chose actually turned out to be a particularly good choice, and for once stopped us harping on to foreigners about the niceties of Brick Lane.

For our final day in Singapore, we headed over to the tourist magnet of Sentosa Island. Stupidly leaving the camera battery on charge in the room meant we didn't actually get any photo's of this, but in fairness, this wasn't a huge problem. With attractions such as Underwater World, Sentosa 4D Magix and the Skytower to grab our attention, this is a haven for kids and families, but not really for people looking for anything overly interesting. We ambled around for a few hours, checking out the beaches (with their stunning ocean views of, er, tankers - this is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world!) until the usual afternoon storm reduced visibility (and any mild enjoyability) to almost zero.

For our last evening, there was only one real objective. Getting ripped off, tourist-style, for a Singapore Sling cocktail in Raffles Hotel. Expecting something grand and alluring, we entered the hotel's 'Long Bar' to discover a saloon with monkey-nut shells all over the floor. The old-skool ceiling fans and dark wood interior give the place a distinctly Imperial feel, although we felt nowhere near as underdressed as we'd anticipated. Every table in the place was full of like-minded visitor's, sipping at their (eight quid!) bright-red Sling's and, probably like us, marvelling at how they'd fallen for it all. Knowing when it's onto a good thing, the staff can't even be bothered to make the drinks from scratch any more, and simply fill glasses from an industrial sized pitcher which has been pre-prepared 'somewhere out back'.

With our mission fulfilled, we headed on to Clark Quay and the more affluent part of Singaporean nightlife. Filled with restaurants, trendy bars and the odd club (Ministry of Sound to name but one), we headed for the riverside for dinner. Finally with some seafood-appreciating company in tow, myself and Jan indulged in an amazing platter of fresh Lobster, King Prawn, Shark, Seabass, Mussels and Clams. It may have been a little over budget (alright, probably alot), but it was worth every penny. The night continued with a few drinks in one of the many bars in the area, and a local band playing English and American covers with surprising success.

The vague memories I'd had of Singapore had been slightly reinforced, but I remember feeling much more awed last time than than I did on this occassion and perhaps that's down to the amount of similar places we've encountered in our seven months away from home. City-life had yet again taken it's toll on both our wallets and our patience, and so we took a bus out towards Malaysia the following morning in the hope we could find something a little less metropolitan.

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The inclusive early morning breakfast only served to lull us into a false sense of security even more, and after a couple of hours of relaxing around the pool, we decided to venture out into town, unaware of the mayhem that awaited. Usually, taking a flyer from a roadside promotional representative isn't a problem, and within moments we had been approached by just such a fellow and each taken one of his proferred leaflets. Big mistake. In the pleasant Balinese manner, our names were asked and given politely, chit-chat of where we came from was exchanged, and it was only then that he hit us with the 'big sell'. The cards we had unwittingly accepted were actually 'gamecards' which of course made us the lucky winners of any number of prizes. Beaming smiles, handshakes and congratulations took up another five minutes while I urged Sarah to walk away with sly eye gestures. Of course, to cash in on our prizes, we were obliged to go with the enthusiastic rep to his newly renovated property for a zero-obligation tour. Truly suckered but not out-done, we eventually managed to drag ourselves free as tales of families-to-feed and bills-to-pay were heart-wrenchingly delivered in dramatic style.

Wandering further up the main drag, it took only seconds to be harrassed yet again, this time to come and look at the goods on some of the street-sellers stalls. This was something that would for the next thirteen days become part of everyday life. Unfortunately for the people here, ninety percent of local livelihoods rely soley on tourism, and since the terrorist bombings of 2002 which killed 202 people (with 300 injured) the Balinese tourism industry was almost ruined overnight. Just as they thought they may again be getting back on their feet, a second spate of suicide bombs killed 26, and the people were yet again despairing as visitor numbers dwindled. With Australian holiday-makers accounting for the majority of this tourism, and their government still warning not to visit Bali, the island's economic recovery is likely to remain in jeopardy for some time to come. An abundance of stalls still line the street however, far too many for any sole business to really flourish, and all selling the same items of rip-off Billabong, slogan t-shirts and local wares. This is a similar problem throughout the island. If one stall sells stone carvings or paintings, every stall in that street will follow suit, flooding the market. If one bar has a sunday night singer, the rest get a similar kind of entertainment for the same night.

Unfortunately, the whole industry suffers and not just the streetside businessmen. Drivers, who make their living from giving tours or "Tranport?" from the visiting tourists stand around offering their services with mock steering-wheel gestures throughout the day and night in case just one group should require it. Local restaurants and food-stalls sit mostly empty while the plusher eaterie's clean up, and a truly amazing number of taxi's meander up and down the streets, tooting you as they drive past to inform you that they are free. Most are free, and that makes for alot of tooting, none of which actually persuaded us that we needed a ride.

It took us a good couple of days to adjust to the persistant hawking and become accustomed to the varying selling techniques being displayed. Kuta itself is a reasonable size town with a couple of surf-beaches, markets, and a large water park. The road we inhabited however was dominated by the huge 'Centro' shopping mall, an Americanised air-conditioned building containing the usual suspects of KFC, Krispy Kreme, and strangely, Top Shop and Marks & Spencer. We had intended to spend a couple of days here and spend the rest of our time travelling around the island, but after discovering that buses have become a rather difficult way of getting about since the lull in tourism, we decided to use Kuta as our base, the lure of plotting up in a cheap but smart hotel proving too great. Throw in a complimentary two-hour reflexology and massage session for good measure and we were completely won over. Oil us up ladies...

After talking to an Australian family we'd ever met at the hotel, we were introduced to a local guy called Sam, who would then take us out on our first day tour. We'd asked him to get us as far north as possible whilst taking in some of the highlights along the way, and he duly obliged with a full day itinerary. First we dropped into a traditional Balinese show called "The Barong and Kris Dance", a representation of the eternal fight between good and evil spirits. Next up we were taken to both a silver factory and a place where they weave traditional Indonesian garments such as sarongs, shirts and bed linen. Next up, we requested to go to the Monkey Temple, but after being surrounded at the gate and clambered upon by some rather boistrous little primates, decided to give it a miss. Next up was Ubud, and the largest market on the island. Hawking once again became the order of the day, but after an hour or so of wandering the identical stalls we gave up and returned to the car.

The afternoon consisted of a lengthy drive up into the hills to the small village of Kintamani, and a restaurant with stunning views of Mount Batur volcano which stands guard over Lake Batur, our first glimpse of real scenery on the island. After a quick buffet lunch, we were back in the car and heading back down through some of the tiny villages which line the road leading back into the lowlands. Today was a particularly special day for the Hindu Balinese inhabitants, highlighted by the hordes of people in costume and religious attire who were walking enthusiastically to their places of worship. The 1st of April marks the celebration of Nyepi, a twenty-four hour session of almost complete inactivity at the end of the lunar cycle (Balinese New Year), so that when the evil spirits descend upon the island they see that it is deserted and leave well alone for another year.

Our final stop was in the northern part of Kuta, where Sam emotionally explained how the bombings have affected the people here and took us to see the striking memorial which sits at the site of the 2002 explosion. One of his close friends was killed during this particular attack, and it was clear that the painful memories are still very prominent.

Back at the hotel, we lounged around for a couple more days before taking our next journey, this time a sunset tour to the temple of Tanah Lot, with a bunch of kids from the hotel who didn't belong to us. Again a place of worship, this temple sits out on the sea-bed, at times surrounded by the incoming tide. Tonight the tide was out, and so we could get up close to the eroding structure which makes for one of the most photographed in Bali. We had the chance to be blessed with holy water and rice, and explore the caves and inlets around the base of the temple, one containing the 'Holy Snake' which could be touched for good luck. Of course, this whole spectacle would not be complete without the scores of market stalls lining the streets and alleyways.

Lounging around the pool, eating cheaply in local restaurants which looked like they needed the business, and hanging around the hotel bar with the cheery waiters was about all we managed to accomplish in the following few days. Our next trip came when we went with the Aussie family and a couple of their new friends to Jimbaran Bay, an idyllic sandy inlet stretching for two kilometres and adorned with a huge variety of fishing fleets. Unsurprisingly, seafood is the catch of the day here, and a selection of twenty or so restaurants line the shoreline in the hope of enticing hungry tourists onto their tables which sit out on the sand. The spiced Snapper, King Prawns and Mussels which were served were more than worth the slightly inflated cost, and the Bintang's were flowing nicely which all made for a pleasant evening in a beautiful setting.

With our last few days, we explored the area of Seminyak to the north of Kuta, and other parts of the town which we'd lazily omitted from previous strolls. Lastly, we found the energy to venture into the markets of Poppies Gang 1 and 2 to hard-bargain (but not too hard, we figured they need it more than us) for some souvenirs. Admittedly, we'd been a little lazy in our approach to Bali, but we hoped that we could reap the benefits of feeling relaxed and refreshed for our stint through the rest of South-East Asia.

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The small town, and it's twin sister of Agnes Water just a few kilometres south, were to be our next port of call on our trip northwards. Slightly off the beaten track, we'd heard a few good reports from a number of other people we'd met on our travels, but many more looks of confusion from bewildered tourists and locals alike who'd never even heard of it. Reason enough to check it out for ourselves we thought.

This is probably the first place we'd encountered on the East Coast which had yet to be invaded by hordes of backpackers, probably beacuse they thought it wouldn't hold the same kind of thrill-seeking fun as some of the more popular destinations. We were in a hostel with only twenty-eight beds to boast of, and the service from the friendly people who ran it was enough to warrant going there at all. Couple this with the fact that everything you want to do there is abundantly cheaper than anywhere else on the coast and it was fast becoming a wise choice.

With a three-hour surf lession clocking in at just over eight quid (at least twenty almost everywhere else), I felt it only right to get involved again. As this is the northern-most surf town in Australia, with the Great Barrier Reef beginning to protect the shores from the power of the ocean, the waves here were much more manageable and I had an infinitely more successful experience this time around.

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For our other activity, we took advantage of a novel tour called Scooterroo. Donning helmets, a twenty-strong group clambered aboard Chopper-style motorbikes and took a tour of the surrounding area. Of course, it wasn't long before the riders all became a little more confident, racing past each other and generally picking the pace up.

A Geordie lad managed to come off of his bike quite spectacularly, admittedly, through no fault of his own, and another poor girl was almost pushed out into a ditch by the enthusiastic group. We came through safely however, and were glad to have taken part in some alternative entertainment.

We had then planned to leave and move onto our next stop, but our attention was drawn to a farmstay experience advertised in the hostel. Sarah had been on about getting involved in something like this for some time, but tight schedules and lack of opportunities had meant we'd never really got around to it. The drive inland to the Glassford Creek Farm took around an hour, the change in scenery becoming quickly apparent as we skirted around wide fields and dense forests to reach our destination.

As an actual working cattle property, the farm itself covers four-thousand acres, and holds around three-hundred potentially maternal Cows, nine randy Bulls, thirty lazy Horses, four cranky Dogs, an understandably nervous Cat, and one very cute baby Kangaroo. The whole place is kept running by it's two hard-working owners, Paul and Kate, the former an experienced Australian farmhand for most of his life, the latter a rather scatty English girl from Brighton who's still coming to terms with life in the Australian farm trade.

Either way, their hospitality were second-to-none, and we were made to feel at home almost as soon as we arrived, kitting ourselves out in some of their more suitable attire to fit into our role for the next twenty-four hours. With only one day to achieve everything, we started with a quick tour of the property and the surrounding land in their jeep, and then introduced ourselves to some of their extended animal family. Then it was over to help feed a newborn calf called Hawaii, who'd sadly lost his mother just after birth.

After lunch, we got ourselves saddled up and into the paddock for a quick introductory horse-riding lesson. Pairing us up with a couple of sterdy-looking beasts, these nags weren't massively keen on going for a walk, and made our first ten minutes hell by not moving a muscle.

Despite being told to kick them hard in order to get them to shift it was something we had real problems with, mainly because we feared hurting them. Soon however we got the hang of it, and were walking around the small enclosure, getting used to the steering controls and stopping and starting procedures. Finally, we got out into the fields and took a good three-hour ride around their land in search of a stray bull which had managed to infiltrate from the farm next door. We even managed to get our little fellas to trot on command and felt we'd really achieved something worthwhile by the time we'd returned to the stables.

Evening consisted of a great steak barbecue and some general chit-chat, but as expected we were all tired and headed off to bed fairly early so we'd be refreshed enough for the early morning ahead of us. Before we left there was only one thing left on the agenda: milking the cow! Not something I'd ever really been that worried about partaking in, this was apparently one of Sarah's life-long ambitions, and we were soon getting involved with relieving the old girl of her juice. The experience was over, but we'll take away some good memories and proud achievements from the short time we spent there.

Our work wasn't quite over however, as driving back into 1770 we witnessed a pretty bad car crash, the driver in front swerving at high speed to avoid a typically road-stupid Kangaroo, and ending up in a ditch with what looked like a broken collar-bone, a head-full of clarat and a large helping of shock.

One last stint of lounging around in 1770, taking in the first day of a large surfing competition, and we were off northwards on our overnight bus to Airlie Beach. As the main gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, a half-drowned mountain range and part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park which now plays host to millions of visitors every year, Airlie itself is a bustling town with a party going on every night of the week.

Sarah had seen the Whitsundays for herself on the previous visit, aboard one of the hundreds of sailing yachts available for group tours, only to discover that she is prone to sea-sickness and spent most of her three day cruise polluting the pristine waters with her insides. Although we'd had some moderate success with water so far (boats:five, chunder:nil), the thought of hair-holding and back-rubbing for seventy-two hours was doing little to convince me that a cruise was the right way to go. We therefore booked up for a speedboat-based day tour which would get us out to see the same things as everyone else, but in a third of the time.

Hammering out towards the reef and around the edge of Whitsunday Island, we soon came to our first stop at Hill Inlet, and a guided walk up to the lookout over the gorgeous sands of Whitehaven Beach. Back aboard, we then skirted the island a litte more and chose a spot for lunch on the beach itself.

Tides were again a big factor, and unfortunately meant we didn't get to go to the main part of Whitehaven beach which is used for the poster advetising all around the town we'd left behind. After lunch it was off to another small inlet, where we could get our first taste of the Great Barrier Reef itself, snorkelling amongst some of the delicate corals and brightly coloured marine life. After an hour or so of drifting around, we began to make our way back to the mainland, stopping here and there to see dolphins and turtles which happened to be in the area.

Although the tour itself was a little rushed, we felt we'd got enough from the experience to at least say we'd been there and seen it. One big night out in Airlie with Alex and Mike from our Fraser Island trip was all that remained to accomplish, and we revelled in a whole evening of bar crawling amongst the returning cruise parties.

Hangovers fully engaged, we had the joy of yet another nine hour bus journey up to our next destination at Mission Beach. Back into the Tropics and one of the wettest places in Australia, the rainforest which stands guard over this sleepy town means that the rains were back with us for almost the entirety of our three day stay. We'd found a cool hostel however, built in treehouse-style amongst the tropical vegetation, and spent some time relaxing in the cool television-less lounge, reading and listening to whatever music happened to be selected at the time by the array of worldly guests.

Our main reason for choosing this small haven as a stopping point however was to go White Water Rafting in the nearby rivers. Probably the most famous in Australia for a spot of adrenalin water sports, the mighty Tully River is the place everyone talks about.

Arriving early morning at Raging Thunder's office/cafe/bar, we all met our fellow rafters and were teamed up, kitted out, and soon heading for the top of the river. Our guide, Jeremy, seemed like a bit of a regimental type, barking orders and being generally straight-laced while other groups seemed to be having a ball, but we played along with him, assuming this was down to the nature of the perilous sport we were attempting to partake in. The first two hours were fantastic, our group getting themselves together within a couple of medium sized rapids and coming out safely on the other side.

After lunch, we were back into the water, Jeremy informing us that we would be starting just before the three large rapids we'd just completed. Not a problem we thought, we've just battled through those. Of course, this was when proceedings went a little bit Pete Tong. We began powering into the rapid as the manual, but suddenly saw ourselves steering head-long into a boistrous looking rock. "Jump right, jump right" we all heard from our expert guide, which of course we did, before the boat basically flipped from under us and threw us all into the foaming waters beneath. Firstly, and most obviously, there was wetness, followed by darkness as the dingy landed on top of us all pushing us under the water. I can't talk for anyone else, but on a personal level panic soon ensued. I tried to calmly get myself out from under the boat, but the raging waters around us were basically preventing me from doing this and the more I struggled to get some air the longer the whole experience seemed to be prolonging itself. At this point, I honestly thought it was game over.

Suddenly, there was light, and I grabbed the ropes at the side of the raft for dear life, only to come crashing into another rapid, lose grip, and find myself swirling under the water again, not really knowing which way was up. A few spluttering attempts to right this seemed futile against the power of the water, and next I felt myself being lifted from the water before being dumped on my back against another large boulder. This didn't help matters much, and the pain in my kidney was creating a few issues with what was left of my hapless swimming technique. Out of nowhere I heard some shouting and looked up to see the raft behind come flying past with a paddle outstretched, which I somehow managed to grab before finally being dragged aboard in a state of relief and shock.

It took a few minutes, but eventually I was reunited with my boat. Everyone else was already aboard, even Sarah who seemed to have faired just as badly through the whole ordeal but had somehow managed to get herself out with only a minor cut on the ankle. I was little worried about my back, but realised that I had taken the brunt of the impact in my kidney area rather than the spine, and so despite some sharp pains carried on with the raft for another two hours before getting some ice onto it. The whole tour was still good in our eyes, but definitely makes you realise how dangerous these things can be. We certainly hadn't taken the safety aspect lightly, but at the same time didn't expect to have this kind of experience.

After a night of lying flat out on my front (the only comfortable position), we took the bus to our last east coast destination. Cairns is Australia's tenth largest city, and usually means the beginning or the end of many travellers down under trip. Finding a decent hostel with a nice pool, we spent much of our last few days recouperating from the rafting ordeal, out on the town with the two Geordie couples we'd met in 1770, and meeting up with another pair of newly acquainted friends from Stoke, Andrea and Will, who we'd met a couple of weeks back.

It was with these two that we took our final trip to the northern shores of the East Coast. Basically a full-day tour, we knew we'd be stuck on the bus for the most of it, jumping on and off at various intervals, but we felt it only right we get out and see the area.

Mossman Gorge, an area where the river runs through the rainforest, and yet another animal sanctuary were all on the agenda before we reached the pinnacle of the tour. Our friend the Captain was having a bad day when he reached this part of Australia. Running his ship aground on part of the reef, he sat around with little else to do, naming the various parts of land he could see. Cape Tribulation, Mount Sorrow, Weary Creek... miserable naming from a man who clearly had nothing to be happy about. The Cape itself, despite being what this tour is all about, is pretty unremarkable, the walk through the surrounding rainforest being the main highlight of a what turned unfortunately into a fairly sub-standard day.

And that was Australia over and done with. Looking back to mid-December and the large undetaking we'd assigned ourselves, we couldn't really grumble at what we'd achieved. Ulura (or Ayers Rock) aside, we'd managed to cover most of the highlights we'd put on the agenda, and a few unexpected one's to boot, and witnessing some truly extraordinary sights along the way, we'd dragged ourselves across vast amounts of all six of the mainland states. As the Aussie's might dismissively say: "Too easy mate"...

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The small surf town of Byron Bay had dramatically grown since Sarah had visited five years ago. What once had been a hundred metre square block of restaurants and hostels with a decidely hippy vibe, had been turned into largely developed and over-crowded town, with mass tourism now as it's main focus. The hospitality and charisma shown by the locals however didn't seem to be too affected by this, the necessary evil of tourism obviously being largely responsible for many of the inhabitants thriving businesses.

To settle us into the East Coast vibe we'd decided to steer clear of the typical 'Party Hostel', and booked a sensible looking place on the outskirts of the town called Middle Reef. The place itself wasn't exactly sparkling, but the fact that it felt like a real house (four bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, lounge and veranda) made for a particularly homely feel. The age range varied greatly too, from the dutch couple in their fifties in the next room, to the comical nineteen-year-old Melbournian girls who, if faced with the choice, would have happily killed each other rather than give up the large mirror which seemed to hold their attention for much of the day.

Although a nice place, we didn't really intend on hanging around for too long and so we had a couple of things to achieve in a short space of time. The first being a highly recommended trip to the hippy heaven of Nimbin with Jim's Tours. Collected early by our very 'chilled' guide called Dougie, he drove our bus up to the lookout over Byron, explaining how he'd not only been run out of his home town in Victoria at an early age for organising a rally against the opening of a smelting factory, but also plays a large role in opposing the likes of McDonalds and other such corporations who annually attempt to bring their business to Byron.

With his "Smile on your dial" rule for life, it was quite refreshing to listen to the stories of how his fellow hippies gather in Canberra outside parliament every year with a twenty metre spliff in an attempt at getting them to legalise the "herb superb".

Nimbin itself, according to the missus, is a symbol of what Byron used to be all those years ago. The specimens strolling down the one-street town are prime examples of what continued drug use can do to the body, but they're all friendly folk with time to chat if you so wish. We'd only been off the bus for what must have been about thirty seconds before a rather spaced-out looking lad offered us the opportunity to purchase. Hippy shops selling special cookies and an interesting museum bring good business to the town, which is surprisingly left to it's own devices by the local authorities.

After an hour or so in Nimbin we were whisked off to the house of another local hippy called Paul. This guy left New York some twenty ago in search of something more, but ended up buying a house by a large lake in the middle of the rain-forest, to generally stroll around in a big flowery shirt eating watermelon and macadamia's, and indulging in his favourite pastime of doing nothing, or building strange things from junk in his driveway.

I should think the visiting tourists pay enough for him to get by, but after forty-five minutes in his house we still weren't sure what he was actually meant to offer the tour, his main contribution being when he changed the music from one artist to another.

Back in Byron after the enlightening tour, I took off the next morning for my first Aussie surf lesson. The tides on this particular morning were quite rough, and after two hours of fighting my way back out into the surf against some hefty currents, I'd pretty much had enough. I did manage to stand up a few times and actually surf however, rip-curling and billabonging all the way into shore. A far more respectable effort than last years dismal (and profoundly hungover) attempt in Newquay.

Our last night in town meant there was only one thing left to do: a visit to Cheeky Monkey's nightclub. Rallying together most of the house for this event didn't seem to be too difficult a challenge, and after a few warm-up beers at the house we all made our way into town. Once inside the venue in question, we were confronted with gangs of people all completely smashed and dancing on the tables, something we'd heard about but was still quite surprising to see. We managed to battle through it for a couple of hours, but in the end our sobriety got the better of us and we left everyone to it.

Skipping Surfers Paradise, a slightly glitzier version of the Kidbrooke estate, and the city atmosphere of Brisbane, next on the agenda was Noosa. Steeped in a stunning landscape of tropical vegetation, this is one of Queenslands most scenic resorts. The wealthy inhabitants who have settled from all over the continent have spent years making it their stomping ground, whilst constantly defending the area from high-rise development. Yet again, we'd caught up with Tom and Lisa and so met them at our accommodation on the north shore in the midst of the Great Sandy National Park.

Whilst in the general area, and taking advantage of our friends own mode of transport, we all headed to the late Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo for the day. Unlike any other zoo we've previously visited, the whole philosophy here concentrates on conservation.

As mentioned in the Darwin blog, Crocodiles were hunted almost to extinction a few decades ago, and Irwin made it one of his prime missions as the 'Crocodile Hunter' to save what was left of these deadly animals.

We all took part in some Elephant feeding, and wandered amongst the Kangaroo's which are left to roam freely amongst visitors. The highlight for us however had to be the Tiger Temple. Here, three Bengali tigers were bought out for their afternoon play. Handlers have been in the enclosures with these majestic big-cats since they were just weeks old, and consequently can interact with them as if they are common house pets. We stood outside with real envy, as they made our office based jobs seem trivial compared to what they get to do every day with these beautiful creatures.

Back in Noosa, we had one last day here to check out the beach, and meet with Alex and Mike, another younger couple we'd met in our 'house' in Byron Bay. The lads all went out to be big and clever in the ten-foot crashing waves, whilst the girls sat around in the surf club sniggering at us.

Onwards then to Rainbow Beach, and the jumping off point for the world famous Fraser Island four-wheel-self-drive jeep tour. We were all delighted to find that we could hire a vehicle between the six of us, the thought of sharing a reasonably tiny Toyota Landcruiser with eleven other people (as is commonplace with the regular tours) not being particularly favourable. Once the jeep and the shopping for our three days had been collected, we made our way to the ferry which would take us over to the island.

It is said that all of the sand from the east coast of Australia eventually ends up here. Fraser is the worlds largest sand island, measuring in at one-hundred-and-twenty kilometres long by a mere fifteen kilometres wide, all created by thousands of years of longshore drift. Rainforests and some two hundred freshwater lakes dot the landscape, whilst dunes tower up to two-hundred-and-twenty-four metres above sea-level, reminding many a traveller that this place alledgedly contains more sand than the Sahara desert.

With a rough itenerary in mind, I was first behind the wheel, with the job of getting us as far north as we could manage in our opening day. Leaving the ferry I was confronted with a fairly tricky section of deep sand to navigate, the thought of getting bogged in at such an early stage not being anyone's idea of fun. The driving here all relies on the tide-time, low-tide generally meaning you can boot along the beach on the hard sand, and so after quite a hairy forty-five minute drive up the beach we reached our first port of call at Eli Creek.

The sea here is lethal, powerful undertow's and man-eating sharks making swimming in the ocean a no-go, and so tourists have to rely on the many creeks and lakes for refreshment from the hot sun. Eli Creek was just such a place to cool off for a little while, and so we all paddled inland as far as we could go and then let the sea-ward current float us back down through the banks of lush vegetation to where the jeep was parked on the beach. Next up, came the famous 'Maheno' shipwreck, the rusting remains of a Tasmanian liner which was caught in an unexpected cyclone in the 1930's.

We'd pretty much reached the northernmost camping spot by about four o'clock, and so we decided to use the time to set up our camp. Tents went up quickly, and we all settled down for a beer before starting the dinner. This is when all hell broke loose. Firstly, the March Flies came out, hugely mutated monster flies that land on you for a few seconds and then bite you, pleasantly leaving behind some of their best vomit. These things are truly scary, the only plus being that they are stupidly slow, giving you a few seconds to kill them before they actually bite. Next, the wind whipped up out of nowhere, catching us all unawares, and making our camp look like a bomb had hit it. The rainstorm which followed was to last for the whole night, making cooking more difficult than it ever should have been and drenching our now relocated tents throughout. Resigned to the fact that we weren't likely to get outside again, we all ate our chicken curry in the jeep with the rain pelting the roof outside, before retiring to our now damp accommodation for the evening.

The night dragged as we might have expected, but morning eventually came, and the March Flies were back for a second helping. Not wishing to hang around and get eaten alive, we all packed quickly and took ourselves off to one of the inland campsites to have breakfast. First destination for the morning was Indian Head, the furthest north our jeeps are allowed to travel. From here it's another forty minute walk around to the next headland, and the aptly named Champagne Pools. These are two large rocky enclosures, where the surf pounds the edges and then bubbles over into the swimming holes. Although pleasant, it was alot of effort for little reward, and the walk back in the scalding midday sunshine meant most of us were back to feeling pretty sticky by the time we got back to the jeep.

Driving south with the tide now receding, we motored down the beach until we reached the inland track which would take us over to Lake Garawongera, and what we hoped would be a less populated area of the island. We arrived to find a large coach sitting in the car-park, sign that around fifty or so day-trippers were currently at the spot, but were pleased to see them all trudging back in our direction when we began to make our way down the track to the lake. Consequently, we were greeted by a truly stunning scene: a totally deserted lake, with our very own golden beach. Knowing we had a couple of hours until it would be time to set up camp, we basked in the clean, soft waters for a while and then dried off before making our way back to the main eastern beach.

This time we were a little more organised, myself and Sarah cooking the dinner while the rest assembled the tents, just in case another storm threatened. Luckily, the weather held up this time, and we spent a nice evening around the camp, chatting and drinking under the stars which could be seen clearly in the night sky.

The only thing we hadn't accounted for during our well-planned construction was the fact that setting up a tent on top of bare sand can be responsible for a miserable nights sleep. I think we were all grateful when morning finally came, and despite being tired, the thought of a hot shower and a comfy bed at the end of the day kept us inspired. Heading off early in the hope of beating the morning rush, first we drove inland via a rugged sand track to the most popular spot of the island: Lake McKenzie. This is the picture postcard destination for Fraser Island, it's pristine blue waters contrasting against the bright white sand surrounding it, and making for a truly idyllic location. That's of course, until you arrive and find it swarming with hundred's of other people. Bloody tourists!

Heading off again, we made our way down to our final stop at Lake Boomanjin, the largest perched lake in the world at two-hundred hectares. The waters here are stained a strange browny-red by tannins leached from the surrounding vegetation, which if you open your eyes whilst submerged makes it appear as if you are swimming through a lake of blood. Nice.

And that was pretty much the end of the adventure. I was back behind the wheel for the drive back, confidently thrashing down the beach and back to the awaiting ferry. We all had a meal that evening in Rainbow Beach, before going our seperate ways the following morning. The east coast so far had been better than our expectations had really warranted, and we were glad that we'd not only got to spend some our trip with old acquaintances, but had also made a couple of new one's along the way. The fears of being out of our depth in a horde of youngsters was a worry of the past, and we headed further north with renewed enthusiasm.

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Being amidst the wettest part of the wet season in Darwin generally means you'll be getting drenched on a number of occassions. Almost like clockwork each and every afternoon, the wind would suddenly strengthen and the storm clouds gather from over the Arafura Sea in the north before unleashing some of the most violent downpours we've probably ever witnessed. Many a time, these would last well into the evening, making for some truly mesmerising electrical storms.

After spending a couple of pleasant evenings in the nearby pub with Tom (our new 'mature' Irish friend from the previous tour) it had finally come to the time to decide whether we felt up to our two-day National Park tour.

The thought of taking part in numerous hikes and spending a night out camping in the bush didn't massively appeal to either of us at this point, but we'd paid our money and had little hope of getting a refund. I was feeling much better, but Sarah was still struggling (despite the over-priced medication!) and so I decided to go whilst she hung back in the hope she'd be able to recover properly.

The van picked me up early on the saturday morning, and I soon found myself being acquainted with the other seven people on the tour. Consisting of three English (including myself), two native Aussies from the south of the country, two Germans girls, and our driver Jack, we were whisked off to our first port of call before entering the park itself: The Jumping Croc Cruise.

Crocodiles have ancestors dating back to before the Jurassic age over sixty million years ago, and have been proven killing machines in their current form for over 30 million years, making them more or less the closest decendant to the dinosaurs. Both saltwater and freshwater crocodiles are now fully protected in Australia, despite their nasty habit of eating unsuspecting swimmers, after it was found in the 1940's to 1960's when they were hunted almost to extinction, that they play a vital role in the aquatic food chain.

Cruising up the un-aptly named Adelaide River with a rather eccentric chap behind the controls and the microphone, none of us were really prepared for what was to come. As we reached the middle of the hundred-metre-wide stretch of water, the lady on the deck with us began to dangle a large lump of raw meat into the water in the hope that one of the hungry crocs might take the bait.

Sure enough, it was only a few moments before a pair of eyes broke the surface and the long tail began to propel the fourteen-foot-long beast in our general direction. Wary at first, the gigantic reptile milled about underneath the tasty snack to suss out the situation, and then seeing it's chance, uses it's muscular tail to propel itself up and out of the water to snap at the awaiting meal. A pretty spectacular performance to say the least, and despite the same trick being performed eight or ten times by numerous animals, it's a sight that never seemed to become tiring.

At just under twenty thousand square kilometres, Kakadu is Australia's largest National Park, and includes the traditional lands of a number of Aboriginal Clan groups, many of whom still reside in the area. The park protects one of the most extensive collections or rock art in the world, and this was to be the first place we visited on our tour.

Aboroginal rock painting in northern Australia is naturalistic art, depicting the physical, social and cultural environment, and displaying the close personal relationship that these people have with the land, the gods and their cultural heritage. It is thought that some of the art found inscribed into the Nourlangie Rock dates back to almost fifty thousand years ago.

After admiring some of the art, and taking in the views over the parks natural escarpment from the lookout, our guide decided that we had time for a special 'treat' that wasn't on the original itenerary. As this was to be his last trip into Kakadu as guide before moving to another job, he'd opted to take us to one of his favourite spots, the Gubara Pools.

A quick drive, followed by a rather arduous forty-minute hike in the smouldering afternoon heat, led us to our goal. The waters in the Burdulba Creek thundered past us, quite treacherously in places, but nothing could have stopped us at this point from getting into the refreshing river to explore the various rock-pools and waterfalls.

Time was flying by, and the rain had begun to fall torrentially before I finally brought it to Jack's attention that we were beginning to run out of light. It was little too late however, and before we'd even set off the darkness had begun to envelope us. With little option, we all began to trudge back through some fairly heavy bush, in the pouring rain, and in the pitch black, with only one torch between us. Knowing that this is the time of day when most of Australia's nasties come out to play did little to aid our confidence, but the nature of the predicament made it difficult to speed up and therefore added a real sense of excitement to the episode. Without any major troubles however, we made it back to the awaiting jeep and drove to our camp for the night.

Dinner and quick Didgeridoo lesson were all we really had left in the tank, and by 10:30 we were all in our tents sweating ourselves gleefully off to sleep.

As with any camping trip, day two meant that we were up at the crack of dawn for breakfast before clambering aboard the jeep again and motoring down to the Mary River area in the south of the park.

Jack informed us that we'd have a fairly flat two-and-a-half kilometre walk to our first rendezvous, but the fifty minute hike in an already scorching sun meant that the distance was more like double that quoted. The rewards for the hard work were plentiful however, as we were greeted by the majestic forty-metre Motor Car Falls cascading into the cool swimming hole beneath. All crocs warnings were soon forgotten, and we all jumped in for a well-earned dip before taking lunch on the surrounding rocks.

The return walk had no-one chomping at the bit to get going, but another picturesque location was promised and so we set off soon after eating. Hiking in thirty-five degree midday heat, and searching depserately for some sign sign that it might soon be over, the sweat was dripping from all of us within minutes.

Finally we all heard the trickling water of our next rest-spot and found some energy in reserve to reach the free-flowing waterfalls of Boulder Creek. We needed no second invitation, yet again immersing ourselves into the fresh waters. The cascades were a little smaller this time, allowing us to clamber under the falls for a 'Timotei' photographic moment.

Unfortunately, this was the end of the tour, and although none of us were particualarly keen on taking part in more hiking, we were disappointed to be leaving such a beatiful area behind. It's clear after visiting why this area is recognised as one of the few World Heritage Areas, with it's varying landscapes of coastal swamps, floodplains, monsoon rainforest and plateau, and the wide variety of wildlife found within its borders. Without doubt a trip to remember, even if it is only myself that can do the recounting.

Back in Darwin for our last couple of days, and due to our previous illness, we'd so far managed to achieve little in the way of respectable tourism. Darwin itself is yet another Australian city which looks on the map as if it should be huge, but actually falls way short of expectation. It's possibly to walk around most of the city centre in just under one hour, and there is little by way of scenery to actually sit and admire. In fairness, the smaller suburbs stretch for quite some way but without a car it is difficult to see them. One thing we had promised ourselves was a visit to the Museum of the Northern Territory, mainly due to it's impressive write-ups in the guide book.

Just a short bus ride away, this large museum welcomes visitors firstly with an interesting themed wall, detailing the timeline of the earth from the supposed 'Big Bang' to it's present-day form. In the same room, numerous glass cases exhibit taxidermed animals from all over the continent, from snakes, lizards and spiders through to it's abundance of creatures residing in the oceans and seas. There is a large section of the museum devoted to Cyclone Tracy, with newsreel, photographs and soundbites of the devastation caused when it struck with little warning on Christmas Day of 1974, destroying much of the city and killing hundreds in the process. Pride of place however goes to the stuffed, but staggering life-like 'Sweetheart', a five metre long, seven-hundred-and-eighty kilogram saltwater crocodile who died during capture in 1979.

We finally felt happy with the fact that we'd actually managed to see something worthwhile, and knowing we were due to leave the next day, put our minds at ease. Although Darwin hadn't turned into the success we'd hoped, we were pleased that we'd changed our plans to visit the 'Top End', even if much of it was spent in bed or soaked through to the skin. It's said that Kakadu National Park needs to be seen in both the wet and the dry seasons to appreciate it fully, so perhaps this is one for the future. Our minds at the present time were filled with a mixture of excitement and trepidation about how we'd fare amongst the party-going youngsters over the on the East Coast during the impending final four-week leg of our Australian tour.

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As is common with these kind of reality experiments, the eighteen-strong group of passengers were generally keeping themselves to themselves, a few polite conversational murmurings between close neighbours at best. We'd only managed to travel a mere 150km from our departure point when we were forced to pull over, as Betsy, back from a recent trip from the red centre at Uluru, was spluttering uncomfortably due to some desert remains in the fuel tank. Forced to entertain ourselves while Locky messed around under the engine, we all began making brief introductions. On first appearance, we seemed to have a pleasant, yet diverse group, consisting of a handful of English and Irish, a mixture of central europeans, and three singles from Melbourne, Japan and America. The most obvious common thread at this point was the presence of four medical professionals, their varied specialities implying we could almost go as far as performing surgery in the Aussie bush without any major complications.

It wasn't long before our 'minor' engine problems were remedied and we were back on the road for our first major stop at The Pinnacles Desert in Nambung National Park, an area where thousands of limestone pillars, some up to four metres tall, rise out of the stark landscape of desert sand.

Created from a process dating back thousands of years, and far too complex to explain here, many of the various columns tend to earn themselves names such as 'Bulldog', 'Batman' or the 'Dolphins' because of what they come to resemble. I searched in earnest for any I thought may be one of these figures, but was only successful in finding a number of pillars that looked like a male appendage. Disappointing.

Driving on, we stopped for what would be the first of many sandwich-based lunches, prepared entusiastically by the group. All the while we continued to acquaint ourselves with our fellow passengers, Sarah uncharacteristically quick to strike up conversation with a young lass from Nottingham called Jodie, who was as equally uninspired by The Pinnacles as she had been, while I got chatting to our resident anaesthetist and all-round medical bod, Sinead from Ireland. The ice had been broken.

From there it was time for some hard driving in order to get us to our overnight hostel in Kalbarri, accompanied (at times painfully) by some of Locky's personable music selections. We did however have time for a quick stop for some sand-boarding, and while we all attempted the almost impossible feat, Locky was left with the job of digging the van out of the sand he had unwittingly managed to get us stuck in.

Things were not looking good when we returned, so we all rallied round to gather sticks and dig the wheels out in the hope we could get some traction. Tom, our Irish retiree, took the opportunity to grab some photo's of him standing with a frying pan or shovel to 'show the kids' his outstanding work.

We got going eventually, and were back on the road with a esky-full of 'p*ss', as the aussies like to fondly call the amber nectar. That evening, most of us managed to again muck in (already the enthusiasm was waning) to prepare a huge stir-fry on one of the large outdoor barbecues, followed by a good session on the beer to get to know each other.

Day Two
Awake by 6:30am, we were back on the road bright and early for the quick drive into Kalbarri National Park. The benefits of the four-wheel-drive were becoming apparent as we lurched and bumped our way down the dusty red track into the area, finally reaching our destination of Z-Bend Gorge at just after 8am. After a quick walk to the lookout, five of us took the opportunity to abseil our way down the thirty-two metres to the base, first using the traditional method, then taking the slight more unorthadox approach and going over the edge forwards.

Not being a fan of heights, I'm not ashamed to say that I was pretty close to bottling it as I glimpsed over the edge, but with a little encouragement from the professional at the top (basically, he wasn't letting me come back) I managed to get through it. My reward for this personal acheivement was to be dangled painfully (humourously for everyone else I suspect) in mid-air by Locky who had control of my descent from the bottom, probably removing any hope I might have of fathering children in the future.

After this quick adrenalin rush, we walked amongst the pristine waters at the bottom of the gorge before making the climb back up to the lookout in the blazing sun.

Despite the day only just breaking into mid-morning temperatures, we were already reaching into the thirties, and so a quick stroll to another lookout at 'Nature's Window' was all we had time for before we were all happy to jump back onto the relative cool of the truck.

Next, we were whisked off to one of Locky's secret lunch spots, a rather shabby looking area of bushland just off the main highway, but with an all-important swimming hole for a quick dip. Basically an abandoned mining shaft which had filled with water from the nearby river, the murky waters did little dissuade us from diving in to cool off.

Continuing on, we arrived at Shell Beach in the late afternoon, and took a walk out to the shallow waters of this government conservation project before making an all-important beer stop and the last thirty-minute drive into the relative luxury of the hostel at Monkey Mia.

A barbecue dinner, alcoholic refreshment and some more group bonding followed, until I was bizarrly accosted by a rival, but obviously smaller, tour company driver who proceeded to explain the perils of doing our trip at this time of year, his disgust at the company we'd chosen to travel with, and our drivers' lack of smart appearance. I teased him about what a great time we were having until it got a little boring, and then rejoined the group. It was here that we began to see the first signs of two seperate camps beginning to form on the Big Brother Bus.

Day Three:
A lay-in apparently. By 7:30am we were all out on the beach, for the main Monkey Mia attraction. Each and every morning, a selection of up to twelve wild female dolphins come in for feeding.

The Rangers at the park have been observing the creatures for a number of years and now hold briefings for whoever happens to be on the beach to explain how the ritual and their lifestyles work. This morning there were at least fifty people lining the waters edge to see nine of the adult and younger dolphins, a select few being allowed to go into the water to feed them personally.

We weren't special enough, but Fiona from our group was wearing bright enough clothing to be selected and get out there to dangle a fish for one of the hungry mammals.

Before leaving, we had one more appointment to keep with a man named Capes, who was to take a few of us on a cultural Aboriginal Tour. Shoeless, and kitted out with traditional kangaroo skin bag and hunting knife, he took us out into the bush country and explained to us in a short two-hour tour how his people spot animal tracks for hunting, use the native plants and trees as natural calenders and to feed themselves, and respect and understand the country they are born into.

The Aboriginal people have a very powerful aura, with many traditions which date back thousands of years. The previous evening some of us had eaten some sea-turtle, which no doubt had been hunted and killed using the traditional methods. Despite the fact that this is only done sparingly by the Aboriginal people, it's safe to assume that some of the group may have declined to taste it had they known the medieval-style processes involved. Altogether, an enlightening and interesting look at a race who felt a great deal of persecution when the white-man arrived just a couple of centuries ago, and who are in many ways still fighting to win back their land and rights.

Ready for the off, we were all loaded and ready to make our way up the coast to our next stop at Coral Bay. We'd only managed to travel around thirty minutes out of Monkey Mia when Betsy began to experience the same problem she had on our first day out of Perth. Pulling up randomly at the deserted roadside in the baking heat, we all prepared and ate lunch while Locky tinkered once more to get us back on the road. By mid-afternoon we'd reached the Hamelin Pool area, but the truck was still playing up, so while we took a quick walk out to the fossilised stromatolites, Locky once again got himself involved with the repairs.

Hard graft in the forty degree heat was beginning to taking it's toll on Locky, and the problem with the engine didn't appear to be as straightforward as we'd all first thought. We all hung around for a good hour in the hope Betsy might have enough in her to get us to our evening's accommodation, and things seemed much brighter when she finally fired and got us back on track.

Things were running quite smoothly until around 25km from Coral Bay, when she once again began to give up the fight. It was 9pm, pitch black, and we were stuck in the middle of the bush. Whispered complaints and some truly startling attempts at being as miserable as humanly possible were beginning to appear, mainly from our happy-go-lucky German passengers who were having a good crack at bringing down the whole group because they weren't too happy with the truck issues. The rest of us remained open-minded however, aware that these sort of things can't really be helped, and so we opened up the esky and sank a few beers while we waited for the driver of the other bus to come and rescue us.

Day Four:
The mood seemed to have lightened the following morning when we all awoke to head out for our pre-booked day of snorkelling on the Ningaloo Reef.

Many of the previous evenings moaners weren't planning on coming, which meant we had a fairly nice crowd out on the water for the day. It had been noticed over the past few days that Dave, a middle-aged Melbournian with a maniacal twitchy grin, had been taking sneaky pictures of the women, and although no-one was massively concerned for their welfare, a few were a little uncomfortable with the development. It was left to Sinead to approach him and ask that he refrain, only at this point realising that he was probably one of the most simple-minded men she's ever likely to meet, most of her diplomatic warning going straight over his head.

As we made our way out to the reef, the crew of the boat explained the safety protocols and handed out a few snorkling tips, and it wasn't long before we were in the water with the bright fish and interesting coral formations whilst trying to get to grips with the equipment.

This was simply a practice run for the main event. We were soon split into two groups, taking it in turns to swim out into the open water on the tail of the large Manta Rays being spotted by the plane in the skies above us. Following these creatures in their natural habitat was a fantastic experience, the last run being the best, where the three metre wide ray circled beneath me and then darted under my feet before heading out into the open water.

Our final snorkel experience was a guided one, the ships captain and marine biologist taking us out to the other side of a large section of the reef where we could swim above a handful of Reef Sharks. The day had come to an end, but I think we all took away some good memories.

Back on dry land, Locky had been working on the truck all day. He turned up to collect us from the boat, all chirpy at having fixed the problem. Betsy had been running for around two hours without problems, and it seemed our we'd meet our scheduled appointment with Exmouth that night. Only right then that we broke down at about fifty metres from the hostel. Our driver lost his cool for a moment, before regaining his composure and the smile we'd all come to know, whilst the difficult contingent yet again got on their high-horses and at one point demanding that I or Sarah call head office to complain. They were quickly informed that we had no intention of complaining and that they'd have to deal with it themselves, which of course put a little more distance between our already differing social groups.

We all returned to the hostel for the night, the eventual complaint with head-office reaping us a two-hundred dollar bar tab and the only contribution the otherwise miserable ensemble were to make for the group on the whole tour. A late night ensued, with drinks flowing until the early hours, a few of us taking ourselves off to The Bakery and what we believed would be a hip and trendy bar of some kind, but which was unsurprisingly an area of chairs and tables outside the establishment where bread was produced for the local community.

Day Five:
Early birds catch the replacement bus, and we were up at 5:30 to meet with the other tours driver who had very heroicly driven back to Coral Bay to collect us for the one-hundred-and-forty kilometre trip across the peninsula to Exmouth. A busy day was in store, with a trip out to the beautiful white sands and blue waters at Turquoise Bay on the northern end of the Ningaloo Reef.

Snorkelled-up yet again, we all made our way to the south end of the beach, immersed ourselves in the cool waters and let the current drift us up to the other end of the beach with no exertion required. The reef here is a little more sparse than on our previous days trip, but the sea-life was just as abundant, a few of our group spotting a turtle and even a shark in the clear blue waters.

After a few leisurely snorkels, we all retired to the lunch area, and an afternoon dip in the clear seas of the more secluded bay on the other side of the spit.

In the evening, the majority of the group paid for the change of scenery and a meal in the restaurant around the pool of the hostel. We were losing a couple of our original eighteen passengers that night as they were due to stay in Exmouth for some diving, and so again a late night was in order as the beer and random conversation flowed.

Day Six:
Our journey into Karijini National Park was to be a long one, with nearly seven-hundred kilometres to cover before nightfall. With the other tour finishing in Exmouth, we'd swapped buses and were now on the road with a reliable, but slightly less adventurous-looking van. Therefore, most of the day was to be taken up with driving through some of the most sparsely populated land in Australia much of it only good for mining, or sheep and cattle stations. Despite only a few lavatory and refreshment stops, we still didn't reach the site of our camp on the edge of the park until nearly 8pm, the setting sun meaning we had to be quick to get dinner going and set up camp for the night.

Of course, the Esky was full of beer and frivolity, and the thai curry was prepared lovingly by Amanda, our exuberant mid-wife from Minnesota and Jodie, who was still yet to actually eat an evening meal. Eating is cheating and all that.

A day of doing absolutely nothing meant we were all ready for bed nice and early, and so we unrolled our swags (a kind of canvas sleeping bag with a thin matress sewn into it), and hoped we could fall asleep under the stars. The bush and its variety of wildlife tend to make some strange noises at night when everything is quiet, and the heat is still at a stifling thirty-odd degrees for most of the night. I lay awake for most of the night, sweating profusely, and wondering how the snorer's amongst the party managed to pass out so effectively in such a strange environment.

Day Seven:
I must have finally drifted off to sleep at around 3am as the cooler air thankfully entered camp, and was awoken by a beautiful sunrise as it came up through the trees.

Everyone was up and about within minutes, and we were soon loaded up and on our way into the Hamersley Ranges, a series of gorges formed some 2,500 million years ago when the earth was still forming into what we see today. Locky had been looking forward to this part of the trip for days and seemed to be in his element amongst the deep chasms.

First we made our way through a series of knee-high riverbeds until coming to a narrow section of the gorge which would lead into Handrail Pool. Swimming here is an unnatural experience, with nothing but thirty-metre walls of rock stretching above you. We lounged around in the cool waters for a while before making our way back out to the van for lunch.

For the afternoon, we made our way down into a second gorge, through another series of shallow rivers and into the renound Spider Walk. Here, the gorge is so narrow that both sides can be touched at once with your hands and feet, making for a kind of natural assault course should you wish to take it.

At the very bottom of this challenging walkway is Kermits Pool, my favourite of the three we were to visit. Here, a small but deep pool of fresh water has been created with ledges all around it's edges. The gorge is much more narrow than the previous, and so the sunlight only just creeps through into the pool, making for a much more eery experience. We hung around here for some time, grateful to be shielded from the afternoon heat.

A short drive back to camp, and I took the opportunity to keep busy and get involved with the barbecue, cooking up some spiced potatoes, sausages (snags) and steaks for the hungry group. Our cheeky Irishman, Tom 'Not a bother at all' McDonald, took the opportunity to oversee proceedings, diving in for a photo as ever to showcase his array of talents whilst on tour.

Apparently, "the kids will never believe it", and if they've got any sense, they probably shouldn't. Amanda meanwhile, in celebration of her last night with us, got completely smashed by necking numerous wines straight from the bottle and rolling around in the toilet after marauding cockroaches. A worthy farewell if ever we saw one.

Day Eight:
Sunrise was annoyingly punctual at waking us yet again. It was important we were all up quickly again as there only just time to get into the one remaining gorge on the itinerary before the group split, and those going back to Perth were collected by another bus.

Down into the depths of the earth we went again, this time scrambling through some quite heavy bushland to get to Fern Pool, a scenic lagoon at the base of a picturesque waterfall. According to Aboriginal legend, this was once a sacred sight for birthing, and so we were asked to respect the traditions and slide gracefully into the waters.

Swimming for an hour or so, we took one final opportunity to all get some group shots before making our way back to the buses and parting company. Luckily, we'd managed to offload a number of the less enthusiastic passengers, Amanda being our only casualty from the pleasant group who were left to travel on to Broome over the next day or so. It's safe to say that farewells on the whole, were not massively emotional.

And then, it was all about the driving again, our target being the campsite at Eigthy Mile Beach, slightly further on than our scheduled stop, so we could reach Broome the following day nice and early.

Temperature updates were a necessity here, Fiona's infatuation with the topic and her cute portable thermometre-clock duly obliging at regular intervals, and we even managed to wrestle the ipod away from Locky for a short while and select our own music to numb the boredom. On reaching our destination in the early evening, we all helped to prepare a quick dinner, cracked open the remaining beers, and made our way down to the beach to sit under the starry sky and listen to the tide come in. Fiona gave us all the benefit of her knowledge of Astrology, and we were all transfixed by one of the brightest views of the universe we had ever witnessed.

Day Nine:
After another fairly sweaty night of swagging in the open, we all rose and packed in eager preparation to get ourselves off to Broome and the bed which would eventually welcome us. Another fairly uneventful drive for a few hours saw us cross a few hundred kilometres of sparse bushland and cattle country. Arriving at our destination at just after 1pm, we checked into the rather swanky Mangrove Resort, a diamond in the rough we had been recommended whilst in Perth. A five-star resort, strangely offering four-bed dorm rooms to backpackers, it was nice to finally have the comfort of a mattress, and more importantly, some decent air conditioning.

Just before 6pm, the remainder of our group all jumped into taxi's and headed out to Cable Beach, a beautiful stretch of sand some ten kilometres north of Broome's centre. The majority of us headed straight for the Sunset Bar to meet Locky, whilst Sinead and Fiona both took the opportunity to ride a camel up and down the beach during sunset.

As we watched the sun descend over the Indian Ocean, we feasted on a well deserved meal (much of it handily arriving for free) and reminisced over the previous nine days of entertainment.

Personally, we'd just spent time on an adventure that had been the highlight of the Australian leg of our trip. We'd seen and experienced some fantastic things on the way, and met some particularly unsavoury people who perhaps didn't have the same sense of adventure as the rest of us, but who thankfully did little to affect the mood of a very upbeat bunch. Most importantly, we'd shared time with and made a number of friends who we will hopefully stay in touch with for a long time to come. It was a little sad when it came time for us all to part during the following few days, but that is the nature of the travel game, and after a couple of days of well earned relaxation around the pool, the time came for us to leave for our flight onwards into the Northern Territory.

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With little option but to accept this, we entered to find two Irish lads completely off their face and attempting conversation neither of us could comprehend, and one other girl looking equally bewildered. We knew we were likely to be in for a rough night, but nothing could have prepared us for the bloke who came in on two seperate occassions, at three and five in the morning, turning on the lights and sparking up loud conversation with whoever he could wake up. I could see Sarah across the room gradually losing control, but luckily things became quiet before she could let loose a volley of abuse and start a war in the middle of the night.

Swearing not to go through the same experience again, we managed to secure a double room the following evening for a discounted price and spent the first day in Perth getting our bearings and arranging some onward travel. Taking the advice of a couple of well-travelled and highly knowledgeable (?) pals from home, we booked a bus for the next day to the South West coast, and the small town of Margaret River.

Blessed with an almost perfect mediterranean climate, this stunning region is home to some of the world's most internationally acclaimed vineyards, wineries and chocolate producers, and boasts some of the best surfing conditions in Australia. We checked into our accommodation, the Surfpoint Resort, an incredible hostel about ten kilometres from the actual town but just a short stroll from the beaches, and generally chilled out here for five glorious days, spending much of our time simply sunning ourselves around the small on-site pool. Without a car it was tricky to get out and see much of the area and so for a break in proceedings we booked ourselves a day long scenic region tour.

Collected by our exuberant driver Andy, a portly fellow with a colourful history, he wasted no time in telling us all about his slightly questionable plans to retire to Indonesia and into the waiting arms of a young local lady who he had 'met at a party' on one of his frequent past visits. Either way, it was all entertaining stuff, and we pulled into our first stop at the cheese factory to await the arrival of our six other passengers for the day. The names of most of these people are beyond our recollection, but the fact that none were under sixty years of age meant we were by far the younglings of the group and spent most of the day jesting with the oldies and being a little cheeky. Cheese tasting completed, we were all then whisked off to the chocolate factory, where for the small sum of eighty pence you could buy a single gourmet chocolate, or for zero pence, you could fill your boots from the large bowls of white or milk chocolate buttons.

Next on the agenda was the wine tour, including a quick drive around the plant where the processes of wine-making were explained, and then into the store itself where the tradtional tastings occured. Myself a strict red drinker, and Sarah a strict non-drinker, we were surprised to find ourselves enjoying a couple of the dry whites and were quickly suckered into purchasing a bottle. After the old girls had had their fill of wine and browsing the random handbag sale, we were taken to our lunch stop, a 'sausage sizzle' in the midst of a small animal sanctuary, where we were able to stroke free-roaming baby Kangaroo's and Dingo's, and see some baby Croc's goaded into action by the Ranger's prodding.

The afternoon's festivities included a stop in at the Wicked Brewery, where some rather foul attempts at flavoured beers were their forte (note: leave the beer alone!), and a final rendezvous with one of the area's best ice-creameries. Altogether a rather nice day, admittedly consisting mostly of excessive eating and drinking.

We weren't exactly relishing the prospect of heading back to the city, Margaret River being the kind of place you could happily chill out in for a long, long time, but back at the hostel we sat chatting to Paul, an Aussie guy we'd previously had a drink with, and were offered a ride back to Perth with him the following day in his rental car. Not one to pass up on an opportunity to save a few quid and halve our journey time, we readily accepted, making it back into the city by late afternoon.

Doing much better on our hostel choice on this occassion, we checked into the Emperor's Crown (ultra-squeaky bunks being the only downfall) and settled ourselves back into city life. Being back in town for the weekend was ideal timing, and we'd promised to meet up with Grainne and Kit again. The plan was to have a cheap meal somewhere and then hit a few bars, but none of us really banked on what the evening soon became.

We arrived at the restaurant to find that our friends had brought their cousin Julie with them, a distant relative they had only met themselves a few days prior. Everything was going swimmingly, the Margaret River wine flowed, the meal was decent, and Julie even got up sneakily and paid the bill for us all which was very kind considering we didn't really know her. From here however, things went a little bit pear-shaped. Moving up the street to an Irish pub, we were met by Louis and Susan, another two close friends from their home in Dublin, and we all got the beers in and generally enjoyed the surroundings. Julie however had other plans. A plan which basically involved moving onto a different bar in the Tenerife-like Northbridge area after every drink. Kidding ourselves that she was just trying make our Perth experience a more varied one, and not suspecting in truth that a monster was being cultivated by the demon wine, we all went along a little unwillingly to the next bar on her agenda. Once again we settled in, but were soon being told that it was time to leave by 'Auntie' and off we went again to our third establishment of the night, a large cheesy pub/club called Mustangs, very similar to one of London's Aussie Walkabout bars. It was here that things went completely nuts, Auntie doing her best to cause upset by making some rather unthoughtful remarks to Susan and generally bringing the night crashing to an end. By this time, we were all pretty leathered anyhow, and calling it a night seemed like the best way to stave off any more uncomfortable showdowns.

Sunday came, and we'd been looking forward to going to the Big Day Out for some time. Basically a one day event, we would get to see a number of bands and soak up some summer festival action. On arrival, it was clear that this was going to be nowhere near the scale of the kind of events we see across the UK in the summer, but this hopefully meant we would be able to get a little closer to the acts. We'd been looking forward to seeing the Killer's who were disappointingly mediocre, but were thoroughly impressed by Muse who were much better than we'd anitcipated. Kasabian were the show-stoppers for us however. Playing on one of the smaller stages, we found ourselves amongst a majority Brit-based crowd and only a handful of rows from the front, getting us right in amongst the atmosphere. A number of Aussie and US bands also made appearances, making for an enjoyable day in the sun.

We spent our last few days doing the normal tourist thing, taking ourselves off to the old port area of the city in Freemantle, the white sandy beach in Cottesloe, and up to the panoramic views overlooking Perth from the lush greenery of Kings Park. Although it seemed like a nice enough place, it was one too many cities for us, and we were literally biding our time while we waited to hook up with our tour of the West coast.

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We were here to see Sovereign Hill, a popular attraction where a recreated mining town serves as an entertaining living history of the era, complete with actors in traditional period costume. The town itself struck us as a little Disney-esque, but within a few minutes we knew we were in for an enjoyable time.

After a quick wander around the classicly Victorian architecture of the theatre, stores and taverns in the main dusty street, we stopped in at the gold pouring demonstration where one of the resident experts turned a big gloopy pot of fourteen-hundred degree molten metal into a solid bar worth a whopping thirty thousand quid. Unfortunately, the young chap was far too quick to stash it away before any of us could distract him and get our hands on it.

Moving on to the Diggings area, a cheerful chap showed us around the gold field area and taught us how to successfully pan for gold, a skill we were pretty unsuccessful at mastering despite numerous attempts. A quick pantomime (quality performances all-round) was followed by a delve into one of the mines itself for a quick tour and a look at a replica of the biggest nugget ever discovered, weighing in at a whopping eighty-two kilograms.

Some ridiculously simple bowling followed, where it is physically impossible to miss no matter how hard you try, and a quick look at the candy-making was all we had time for and we returned to our barracks accommodation for a well-deserved barbeque.

That evening we all headed back down into the gold town where some not very 1850's-like open-top buses pulled in and were soon delivering us to the 'Blood On The Southern Cross' sound and light show which tells the colourful story of the 1854 Eureka rebellion.

Tensions during these times were high. The gold-fields were over-crowded and the government had imposed strict licensing laws which were crippling the miners and their hard-up families. Added to this, the workers were constantly policed for these licenses by a specially formed force of violent ex-convicts who received good rewards should anyone be found without their pass, a situation which obviously invited abuse. Things finally blew up when a local landlord killed an enebriated worker and the miners became disgruntled when the governer's let the publican off the hook. A large-scale rebellion was steadily building, which eventually culminated in the tavern being burnt to the ground. After months of debate, the combined armed forces finally went to work on the outspoken community with a surprise invasion one early December morning and the startled rebellion was crushed within about 15 minutes. The troopers and police then went wild, destroying tents and property without reason, bayoneting the wounded, and shooting innocent bystanders. Eureka was descirbed as a massacre. Despite the loss of life, the Eureka Stockade highlighted the need for fair treatment and justice for gold miners, and is still hailed as of crucial importance in the making of Australian democracy to this day. This entertaining show played out as the finale to an informative and interesting day.

The next morning we all visited the on-site gold museum and a classically victorian street in the town centre to round off an enjoyably entertaining couple of days in the historic area, before the four of us parted company once again. The other two were heading back to Melbourne, while we had plans to go and see some of the highlights of the Great Ocean Road.

We took a brief stop in the small town of Torquay for some fish and chips, and paid a visit to the world famous surfing spot of Bells Beach, star of the final scene in the film Point Break and recently in the news because of a savage shark attack (aiding our decision to leave well alone), finally reaching our destination of Lorne, a small beachfront town just past the gateway to the Great Ocean Road. We hung around in this meditteranean-style resort for two days as it consistently hammered with rain, unfortunately foiling any plans we'd had to go to the beach or see some of the local sights.

It was in this torrential rain that we set off along the coast once more. Rocks from the surrounding cliff-face were sliding off and littering the road, making the drive along the famous highway slightly treacherous and making many of the stunning views obselete. Luckily the mist had cleared by the time we reached the Twelve Apostles, a famous selection of rocky stacks which have been abandoned to the ocean by eroding headland. There are now only six or seven remaining apostles, the name giving the whole spectacle a little more grandure than it probably deserves, but a nice picture postcard moment nonetheless.

We took an overnight stop in the relatively large town of Warrnambool, still smarting a little over our lack of Great Ocean Road scenery, and headed straight to The Grampians, a forty-square kilometre National Park containing some of Victoria states most outstanding natural features. This wasn't the location I would have ideally picked to spend my thirtieth birthday, most of the happy day being spent driving to and admiring some rather unique rock formations. Party on! We did have a pleasant, but fairly uneventful day however, the highlight being a splendid cappucino ice-cream from the local parlour where I had an enlightening conversation with an old bloke, followed by a less than inspiring beans-on-toast supper, all making for a lively welcome to middle-aged life. I'd like to subtly add at this point that my darling girlfriend of five years didn't even bother getting me a card. Nice that. Send all hate-mail to her usual address...

After a couple of nights we took off again for our final destination, the lengthy six-hour journey slightly out-doing our more optimistic estimates. Once in Adelaide I was secretly hoping we'd get a decent night out and we were in luck as our Irish room-mates Kit and Grainne (pronounced Gronya) turned out not only to be particularly friendly, but also keen to help me belatedly celebrate my big day. We all went to a slightly backward pub (there aren't many forward one's in fairness), where the barman took a bit of shine to us and kitted us out with Australia capes and a multitude of free drinks. Hard to argue with that.

We used the hire car for one last beach trip to the little bay at Glenelg, and then spent our last day in town joining the locals in their Australia Day celebrations. Capes at the ready, the morning parade featuring many of the local communities from all over the world led us to the park by the river where the days main activities were taking place. The Lord Mayor raised the flag, and a twenty-one gun salute brought the festivities to their open. Staged entertainment kept the crowds happy, especially the cheesy boy-band singing their selection of pop covers earning them a number of girly screams. The afternoon drifted by, and although it wasn't the riot we'd quite expected it was soon over, and we were back at the hostel packing our bags in preparation for our late night flight to Western Australia.

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Arriving in the small town of Jervis Bay, we decided this would be a nice place to stop for our first couple of nights, only to discover that every single place we enquired at was full. Not only was it the summer holidays, a reliably busy time of year for all in the region, but also a friday afternoon, when many working families headed for the beach.

Consequently, we drove for a good thirty kilometres back in the direction we'd came, finally stumbling across a road-side motel, which although a little more pricey than we would have ideally liked, was clean and comfortable (en-suite for the first time in a long, long time), and boasted laundry facilities which would could abuse freely. We made a quick visit to Jervis Bay the following day, lounging around on the beach for a while before continuing on.

We'd learnt the hard way that we would have to start planning our journey a little more carefully, unfortunately taking a little bit of the spontenaity out of the whole venture. Soon enough however, it became clear that we could be slightly devious and leave dodgy credit card numbers with a variety of hostels when booking, thus leaving our options a little more open.

We stopped next in the relatively large harbour town of Batemans Bay, but with the highlight being a rather average 'chicken dinner' in our shady-looking room above a local pub we were keen to get going the following day.

Driving on, we had booked a room at the YHA in Merimbula, and were quite pleased to turn up and find not only a pleasant town, but also a clean and spacious hostel. This finally seemed like an ideal place to plot up for a few days, relax on a few of the many beaches in the area and take some of the burden out of spending money and do some of our own cooking.

It was great to finally settle down after a few aimless days on he move, and take the opportunity to discover some of this beautiful coastline. We took some nice walks around the towns lagoon, and made a drive out to visit the secluded bays of the nearby Ben Boyd National Park and the picturesque inlet at Pambula River.

The weather so far had been very kind to us, a nice cool southerly wind keeping temperatures down in the bearable mid-twenties, but as we drove into the small town of Lakes Entrance it was beginning to take a turn for the worse. The bush fires, which crews were struggling to contain just fifteen kilometres north, made it hard to begrudge the locals a little rain which might help save some of the farms and properties being threatened by the raging blazes.

We got some quite spooky snaps of the sky as we drove into town, hopefully highlighting the extent of the smoke filling the atmosphere. The air held this smokey texture for the couple of days we were in town, so we unfortunately didn't get to go out and take a look at the Ninety-Mile Beach, a famous landmark of the southern town.

Our last stop before returning to Melbourne was Phillip Island, a place boasting of an attraction where we could see some penguins in their natural habitat. Reports of seeing wild animals always seems to be met with scepticism, as they rarely turn out to be as spectacular as they are promised, but we quickly booked our ticket to the Penguin Parade anyway in the hope that our expectation would be met.

We drove down to the centre for around 8pm, took in a quick introductory video to explain about what we were about to see, and were then led to the beachside enclosures with five-hundred or so other keen spectators. As dusk approached just after 9pm, the penguins did their thing on cue, struggling ashore after their days hunting in packs of fifteen to twenty.

They scout out the area to check it's safe for a few moments, and then begin legging it amusingly up the beach to their nests and eagerly awaiting babies, where they eventually regurgitate their food for the hungry youngsters. From the beach it's fairly difficult to see much of the tiny creatures in the fading light, but as you take the boardwalks back to the centre you get to watch the little fella's waddle by in close-up. A pretty astounding display of nature working like clockwork!

We had one more day at Phillip Island to see some of it's reputed sights and found a local fete displaying some local wares and showcasing a few of Australia's up-and-coming bands which made for a chilled out afternoon in the sun.

Driving to Melbourne the following morning, I'm rather ashamed to report that we stopped in at Ramsey Street (real name: Pin Oak Court) to be snapped in front of the characters ficticious houses and generally annoy the unfortunate residents who must smirk in sympathy at each car that pulls into their street.

Finding our hostel in St Kilda, it wasn't long before we were off for part two of our shameful day and the world famous Neighbours night, the money-spinning brainchild of the guy who plays Karl Kennedy. Accompanied by our new room-mate Rob, who had just as much enthusiasm for the event as Sarah and therefore out-numbering me two-to-one on any kind of veto, we queued embarrassingly for nearly an hour outside the British Elephant and Wheelbarrow Pub before finally being led to our table.

After an excruciatingly dull two-hour wait ("you're Neighbours stars will be with you very shortly!!!"), the first of the 'celebs' appeared amid an epilepsy-inducing display of flashing camera's. Grabbing the microphone, Stefan Dennis (aka Paul Robinson) announced with excruciating candour "ladies, feel free to grab my arse". It's fair to assume that the vertically challenged actor isn't just in it for the extra cash, despite the wedding band displayed proudly on his third finger.

Second out, was a woman neither of us recognised, but who apparently plays Genelle in the soap. There were murmurs from many of the men in attendance that her on-screen daughter (an 'hottie') would have been a much more pleasing inclusion.

Third and finally came Toady, the most eagerly awaited of the trio and someone who we understand makes more appearances here than any other member of the cast. He was apparently banned for a while after being found in a rather compromising position with a young lady in the toilets on a previous night. It appears that money can buy you neither class, or in this case, even a cheap hotel room.

A thankfully quick question-and-answer session ensued, and then the quiz began while the actors milled amongst the many tables to give the fans their photo opportunities. Despite great efforts on my part, I failed to make my face contort past 'bothered' even in the cringeful presence of an overly-charismatic Stefan Dennis, prompting Sarah to dive in for individual photo's in the hope of getting a real momento.

Prizes were given away during the evening, one lucky middle-aged fella being 'forced' to snog a parentally endorsed fifteen year-old live on stage in order to win an island cruise, whilst the obligatory dancing competition made for some truly five-star entertainment. Although coming a respectable third in the quiz, our table slightly let down by it's lack of Neighbours knowledge, we were out of the running for the final cash prize and probably the only sane reason for being there. We're told the party goes on from there well into the night, but we could bear it no more and made a quick dash for the exit after the cast members had made their final sickly farewells to "the people that keep us in a job".

With my tactics of drinking through the whole sordid occasion in the deluded hope it would make it all bearable, I awoke the following morning feeling decidedly groggy. Meeting Tom and Lisa once again for a much needed all-day fry-up, and a quick stroll to St Kilda's Luna Park, the rest of the afternoon was pretty much written off in the interests of recovery.

Although we didn't really feel up to it, that evening we took ourselves off to a show which Sarah had spotted in a local magazine. Dracula's was a horror-comedy sketch, stand-up and musical production, with a reasonably priced three-course meal option, and which, on the whole, made for an entertaining final evening in Melbourne. Plenty of abuse was thrown at us for being the only 'Pommes' in the audience, with Kiwi's, Tasmanian's, South African's and pretty much any other nationalities they could find sharing the brunt of the ridicule.

The first leg of our South Coast trip was completed, and although we'd found many of the beach towns to be quiet and uneventful, this was a nice way to calm down after the two hectic and expensive Sydney weeks. Melbourne had been a welcome distraction, and now we were off once again for South Australia and the Great Ocean Road.

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Our only hope at this point was that the atmosphere would make up for the drabness of our surroundings, but this looked unlikely considering we were surrounded by Koreans and Chinese who spoke little English. Our room-mates for the next two weeks however were to be Jennifer and Antonio, a young couple from Leeds who shared similar doubts about the hostel and knew that the time of year would make it impossible to move elsewhere. Consoling ourselves with the fact that we wouldn't necessarily be spending much time there was about all we could cling onto.

With our earplugs working overtime, we woke the next morning and took the hour-long walk through the city to The Rocks, an area situated directly underneath Sydney Harbour Bridge, where we soon met up with Andy and Rachel, good friends from home now residing in Hong Kong, who had flown in for a synchronised ten-day break.

After a quick pint, we all headed off for our scheduled Bridge Climb. Despite the dull and heavy looking skies above us we were all looking forward to testing our nerve on the iconic giant steel structure which spans the harbour. Throwing on our jump suits, harnesses and accessories we met our guide and took the standard safety briefing, and soon were heading out onto the grated metal walkways and a series of ladders.

Our guide gave a running commentary through high-tech radio's and headsets (mine and Andy's stopped working within about five minutes of being on the bridge), but as the cold wind grew stronger and we kept being stopped for fairly irrelevant stories and photos (a reasonable four for thirty quid!), the more the thrill of the experience became a little tiresome. It was clear that the company that run the whole affair keep their clients up on the bridge for three hours in an attempt to justify the rather expensive price tag, and by the time we began to make our way down we just wanted to get back to the pub. We're certainly glad that we took the effort, but it's not something that would need repeating. The night was polished off with late drinks in one of the many pub-stroke-clubs which adorn the streets around Circular Quay.

Christmas Eve came with a loud clap of thunder and a liberal bucketful of rain, but not much else. It was astounding to think that it was now christmas when hardly anything within Sydney itself would even suggest it's arrival. The climate alone is enough to throw anyone from our part of the world off kilter, but when you're used to the festive period being shoved down your throat from as early as October, the adjustment can be a little underwhelming.

Realising there was going to be little repsite from the torrential downpour outside, we legged it across ten or so city blocks until we found a reasonable looking Irish pub called Scruffy Murphy's to plot up in and satisfy our hangovers need for sustenance. As the afternoon progressed, our friends began to gradually arrive, Sam and Neil from our time in Cusco, and Gareth and Stacey from the week in Buenos Aires, with a whole Irish mob in tow.

Andy and Rachel soon followed and before we knew it the night had reached 10pm and yet the bar was still surprisingly empty. Moving downstairs in search of a livelier scene, the bar was much more of what we're used to. Four-deep at the bar, nightmare journey's to and from the lavatories, and a live 'Green Day' tribute band. Much more acceptable, although it still didn't really have that Christmas fizz about it. Midnight came and went without so much as a countdown, and although we were all out until well gone 3am, the festive spirit never really materialised outside of our twenty-strong British group.

We were already aware that it is backpacker tradition to visit Bondi Beach on Christmas Day, and not one to mess with such a notion, we rose early and caught the bus over to the bustling coastal town some five kilometres south-east of the city.

At 11am, the long strip of sand and beachside cafes were brimming with people making the most of the sunshine and twenty-four degree temperatures when it really should be bitterly cold. Fish and chip lunches and a quick dip in the freezing seas with it's crashing waves ensued as the thumping bassline from the nearby Gatecrasher gig provided a monotonous beat to the day. With the wind picking up considerably in the late afternoon, we all decided to call it a day and head for a bar in Kings Cross that was supposedly open for the evening. Incorrectly informed, we arrived to find the doors firmly closed and wandered the city streets in search of an establishment that might be serving booze. Defeated however, we returned to our hostel at 10pm, watched some very uninspiring television and went to bed. Certainly a very different christmas experience for us, but if we're honest, we did miss our roast dinner with all the trimmings.

With little to do on Boxing Day, we took advantage of a lie-in and then ventured into town to take a look at the opening day of the post-christmas sales. The crowds however were way too much for us to deal with and after returning to our hostel briefly to change clothes, we headed out for the evening, again in the general direction of Scruffy's, where another band was playing, and I got to watch a quite entertaining game of Premiership football. Watching your team play football at 1am, in a packed nightclub with handful of fellow fans is a truly enlightening experience and one I can wholeheartedly recommend, especially if they win.

With the sun still shining, and a bad spell predicted, we though it best to take advantage and get back to the beach while we still could. Coogee beach, about two kilometres south of Bondi and just a twenty minute ride away on a bus that stopped directly outside our hostel, seemed like a logical choice. Smaller and cleaner than it's higher profile neighbour, this was a nice but uneventful day, rounded off with dinner back at the hostel and much need chance to save some money.

After checking the weather reports, it seemed that the imminent rainy spell wasn't quite as imminent as the forecasters had quite thought, and so we arranged to meet up with Steve, the guy we had just travelled most of New Zealand with. To achieve this, we first had to catch the ferry across to Manly, an ideal opportunity to see some of Sydney's coastline from the waters of the harbour. Manly lies about ten kilometres from the heart of Sydney's ferry ports at Circular Quay and is reportedly the 'Jewel of the North Shores'. With it's own harbour, shopping mall and all the trappings of a toursity beach destination, it certainly holds its own as an appealing resort away from the over-populated city centre. Another day of general lounging in the sun soon became the order of the day, and a few beers in the local seafront pub for old times sake would have been perfect, except for the fact that we had to sit through yet another embarrassing display of English cricket.

That evening, we once again met up with Andy and Rachel, who had returned from their three day jaunt in the countryside. To the west of the city is Darling Harbour, and entering this place at night is a sight to behold. The lights emmenating from the snazzy harbourside restaurants over the numerous private yachts in their moorings set the whole scene of this once thriving docklands area alight with colour and glitz. Probably not the sort of place that most backpackers would choose to dine out in, but our friends had very kindly offered to take us to dinner, insisting it was an invitation we should readily accept. After the best quality meal we'd had in a long time, we all merrily headed back to George Street and a busy bar called the Three Monkey's, where we finished off the night with a few beers and an enlighting chat with an inebriated Aussie chap whose self-confessed problem was that he 'knew too much about English football'. After an insightful chat in which it was made abundantly clear he didn't know anything about English football, chatting about legends of the nineties as if they were still playing in the present day and enacting how a tackle should really be won (generally using his head or his kneecap), we could entertain him no more and hastily removed ourselves to an upstairs bar before calling it a night.

The next day the four of us took a drive out to the National Park just south of the city in the rental car Andy still had under agreement, with a nice day consisting of lunch in the park with some giant Paraqueets and a visit to a scenic beach lagoon with rocky headlands, which of course we climbed and scrambled across as boys should.

That evening, we headed for Govinda's, where a tenner gets you an all-you-can-eat indian buffet and a movie in their cool in-house cinema with lounge-style beds to stretch out on. 'Thank You for Smoking' (Recommended!) was a cynical and darkly humoured look at the tobacco industry and this rounded off another enjoyably relaxing day.

Finally, it looked like we would be able to get out and see the other icon of Sydney: it's famous Opera House. Construction of this, the most photographed building in the world, began in 1959 when a Danish architect called Jorn Utzon won an international design competition.

Much political interference however caused him to quit the project in disgust several years later, leaving a consortium of Australian architects to design a compromised interior at a much more elevated cost. Finally completed in 1973, it was lumbered with an impractical internal design for staging opera's, but to this day still attracts much attention for its sleek and stylish external prowess.

It's quite surreal to finally be standing in front of something you've seen in photo's and film many of times before, but the shell-like exterior, made of hundreds of thousands of small tiles, is still a mesmerising sight. The crowds in the general vicinity make it relatively difficult to take an unobscured snap, but after a bit of patience we think we managed to engineer a few decent shots.

After quick stroll around the famous building, we headed around to the Royal Botanical Gardens in the next bay, where plant life from the south pacific live in harmony with majestic lake swans and the resident colony of fruit bats who spend their days chittering loudly and hanging around upside down until it's time to commute south across the city at dusk.

It was nice to lie around in the park watching the mad joggers sweating in the sweltering mid-afternoon sun and a couple of weddings pass happily by. With our heavily hit budget in mind, we retired to the hostel and a nutritious cup-a-soup dinner which we'd been saving for a special occassion.

It felt like it had only been a couple of days since christmas, and yet New Years Eve was upon us. Plans for what to do that evening had been left until quite late, but after a quick lunch with Steve for his birthday, and a few beers with Andy and Rachel, we took ourselves by train over to the northern shores to the party being held by the Irish crowd. Not only was their flat in a prime position to see the flurry of fireworks expected for the evening, the view from their balcony looking out onto the Bridge from the west, but it also seemed like the cheap and relatively hassle-free option. Many people had been out on the headlands, locked inside especially constructed enclosures since as early as 9am that morning, and we were glad to be free of this kind of desperate measure.

After a few drinks we all assembled for the first set of fireworks scheduled for 9pm, which is when of course, our camera decided to freeze-up and die with outstanding punctuality. A little disappointing to say the least, but with promises of photo sharing from other party guests we could at least focus on watching the spectacle unfolding before us; namely, twenty minutes of fantastic pyrotechnics being fired from a series of barges strategically placed in the harbour waters. More drinks and general socialising ensued, and soon after it was time to head outside into the park oppostite for the main event. With the bridge appearing to catch fire at the stroke of midnight, and another series of fireworks lighting the night sky all around us, the celebrations truly began. Old Langs Eyne was completely abandoned in favour of a multitude of Irish songs we had never heard of, but the effect was still the same. We hung around for a few more hours, happy that we'd got to see the New Year in with a nice crowd, but obviously missing the usual familiarity of being with friends and family.

For New Years Day we had a disastrous farewell lunch with Andy and Rachel at The Rocks (anyone for bone in their chicken pie?), took a few calls from some family and inebriated friends at home who were finishing up their own party, and generally used the day to get over our hangovers and plan for the coming the few days.

Our first job was to get ourselves a new camera, an unfortunate but necessary expense, and organising our hire car for the south coast trip. A quick visit to the Blue Mountains, so called because of the hue created by the vapourous gum trees, was one thing we had left on our to-do list, and so we jumped a two-hour train west of Sydney to the famous region.

Anyone who has been to one of our barbecues will not be surprised to hear that it absolutely hammered down the moment we alighted the train, coating the usually picturesque valley in a cloud of mist and fog which rendered many of the attractions useless. A short reprise in the downfalls did give us a few moments to take some rather gloomy snaps of the famous Three Sisters, but generally it wasn't worth hanging around.

It was on this evening that Sarah finally lost her big toe-nail, in scary (for her) but fairly amusing (for me) circumstances. The Inca Trail of two months previous is being accused as the catalyst for the unfortunate loss, and we await with a mixture of dread and frivolity (see above) for the other to follow suit.

One last day in Sydney meant we could take a walk across the famous bridge and get a few more close up shots and also have a stroll around the large Paddy's market, an institutional haven for cheap goods of all varieties.

The thought of spending any more money soon scuppered our ideas to meet up for one last night out, so we had a ring round to say goodbye to those hanging around in Sydney or heading off in other directions, and had a quiet final night in with our room-mates.

All-in-all, a great couple of weeks catching up with some good friends from both home and on-the-road, and an alternative christmas to what we have previously been used to. Sydney deserves alot of time, and I think that in our two weeks we managed to cover a great deal, walking further in this short time than we probably have in the last year! It was time however to leave it all behind until our return in a couple of months to start our East-Coast expedition, and head for what would hopefully be a cheaper and more relaxed discovery of the southern coasts towards Adelaide.

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After a good nights sleep, we were driven over to Victoria Markets, a large undercover area selling all manner of wares, from clothes and souvenirs, to fruit, vegetables and the main reason for our visit: fresh meat. The plan was to buy an assortment of meats from one of the many butchers and spend the afternoon using one of the free barbeque facilities scattered along the nearby Yarra riverbank.

The concept of people randomly turning up at a public area and taking advantage of the free cooking areas without squabbling was a little beyond our comprehension, but we found it to be a very pleasant afternoon with some outstanding scenes of sickly amiability. Where were the uncomfortable displays of self-importance? It was disappointing not to see a single show of 'barbie-rage' all afternoon. We will be writing to the British government as a matter of urgency to suggest a similar venture for the banks of Erith and Thamesmead's waterside areas, perhaps sponsored by Morrison's? Following a few riverside afternoon beverages, that evening we went for drinks in the city centre and met a few our hosts friends who were out celebrating a birthday.

Despite the heavy and late night, we were all up early for a drive down to the Healesville and its popular sanctuary, where for 70 years, this huge bush park has played a leading role in the care and protection of Australian wildlife. First stop was the reptile house, where one of the resident experts manhandled a number of dangerous snakes and gave sound advice on what to do in the event of a bite. We were surprisingly all ears.

Next, we stopped in at the Birds of Prey show, where four different species flew within a whisker of the crowds (Sarah and her strange 'bird fear' loved that part) and showed off their distinct hunting techniques. This was followed by some old fella who ran around unsuccessfully throwing boomerangs and generally teasing the kids. It was then off for a quick tour of the park on foot to see the Kangaroo's sleeping, large Koala's getting stoned on their daily eucalyptus intake, and a platypus swimming manically in constant circles. All entertaining stuff, and something we were grateful to be taken to see.

With Scott back at work the following day and Tash doing some serious job-hunting, we took ourselves off for the day. With over three million people residing in Melbourne's many suburbs, and a vast array of neighbourhoods to visit we knew we'd have our work cut out for us. A mixture of Victorian-era architecture and cutting edge futuristic developments, with lumbering trams running their courses back and forth around the city, the sleepy pace of the site for our
first foray into Australian life was almost ideal.

A gentle stroll alongside the Yarra river towards the ever-nearing City skyline brings you past the splendidly gothic looking Flinders Street station and by contrast the newly installed Federation Square with it's modern array of trendy cafe's and museum spaces.

To get our bearings we jumped onto the free City Circle Tram, passing a few of the government buildings at the eastern end of the city centre before alighting at the Old Melbourne Gaol. This 19th Century prison was home to some of Australia's most renowned bad-boys and naughty-girls from the crime-laden Gold Rush era of the 1850's, including the infamous Ned Kelly who was hanged here along with 136 others in the prison's eighty year existence.

Life here was tough, with prisoners kept in permanant solitary confinement; the use of 'silence hoods' forbidding anyone to talk with or recognise any of their fellow inmates; murderer's and gangsters living under the same roof as vagrants and bankrupts. This wasn't really a tour we'd intended on taking but turned into quite an interesting site, with very striking imagery of a time not so long past. We spent the rest of our day looking around the harbour area and the bustling city streets.

A day of labourious, but required events, like getting washing done and booking onward travel intervened before we walked the Yarra back into the City yet again, and a moving image exhibition that had taken my eye on our previous visit. Once my only slightly willing companion had reached her optimum boredom level and the fidgeting began, I gave up watching some quite interesting student animations and short films, and we made our way to Chapel Street to continue with the all-important quest to find some nice 'going-out tops' for Sarah. With Christmas in Sydney fast approaching, this was a do-or-die requirement, and the aforementioned area with it's mixture of trendy boutiques and, more importantly, budget-style shops was ideal. With our mission accomplished in just under two hours of shopping we stopped for dinner in a reasonable street-side restaurant and pulled in for a quick pint or two in the nearby pub.

For our final day in 'Melbers' we took a stroll through the nearby Botanic Gardens, crossing the impressive Shrine of Rememberance, a memorial built in honour of the Victorian's killed in World War Two, on our way to the Crown Complex, a large hotel and shopping site containing a huge casino.

We'd already seen that gambling is a big part of Aussie culture, with betting shops on every street corner, but this place really took the biscuit. It was only 2pm, but the whole floor was packed with enthusiastic punters throwing their cash at the large array of 'Pokie' machines and Roulette and Black Jack tables. The seedy lower-level Poker floor was quite interesting and Sarah had to drag me away to prevent me from having a little flutter. This however, was a bit of a detour on our part, when we were really here to see what was supposed to be a spectacular Christmas display, but turned out to be a slightly over-billed automated light and sound show.

That evening we suggested a night out in St Kilda, as we'd heard this is where all of the backpackers generally stay, and this would be the most likely place to see some live music. After a quick stroll around the night market, we settled in at 'The Espy', a cool yet grand looking hotel bar. A band were in attendance, but due to the stifling heat we decided to retreat to the relative coolness of the garden to put away a few jugs of VB. This would have to be an area to revisit on our way back through our upcoming journey via the south coast.

Melbourne is definitely an entertaining and culturally diverse city, with lots to offer all manner of tourist whatever their taste. As per usual, we probably didn't get to see everything but with a return visit in mind we knew all was not lost and we felt we'd had a pretty good crack at it. Staying at our friends was a money-saving luxury we were very grateful for, although fully aware we can't have it both ways, did feel that we missed out on the backpacker scene a little. For now, we were off to Melbourne's arch rival city, and although we weren't massively looking forward to the twelve-hour Greyhound coach journey, we were excited once again to be meeting up with a few of our travelling buddies from our journey so far, and some good friends from home over the christmas period.

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It was, for once, a good choice on our part, with good kitchen facilities, a very spic-and-span feel and a great garden to bask in the sunshine. The only down side was that it happened to be owned and run by a couple (the lovely Royce and Linda) who have to be two of the most blatant money-grabbers we're ever likely to encounter; so much so that we felt it necessary to constantly tease them with requests for discounts and refunds. Coupled with the fact that Royce liked to address us as 'Team' every time we came through the door, he would probably rank up there with one of the most annoying individuals we've ever met.

Nelson is only a small town so myself and Steve took out some bikes to take in some of the scenery, and generally dossed around in a bar we found offering free pool tables in the afternoons. Our main aim whilst in Nelson however, was to take a highly recommended day trip kayaking in the Abel Tasman National Park. This beautiful stretch of idyllic coastline can be found on the north-western edge of the South Island, and is renowned for it's secluded bays and seal colonies. This area is named after a Dutch sailor who would have been the very first Westerner to discover New Zealand had he been brave enough to step ashore to face the gruesome looking Mauri's. He did end up claiming Tasmania for Holland, but completely missed Australia, which it has to be said, is a bit of a schoolboy error on his part.

Rising at 5am for our pick-up, we were just about to pull away when the trip was cancelled due to high winds and stormy seas. We were due to leave town the next day, but altered our plans to try once more.

Our persistence paid off when we were fortunate enough to wake to clear blue skies the following morning. After a water-taxi had taken us out to our starting point, we were given a quick briefing and soon found ourselves paddling away from the shore. Despite looking like a fairly straightforward exercise, it only takes an hour or so for your arms to really start aching.

The morning kept pretty calm for us, which made our journey all the easier, and after a fairly leisurely paddle up the coast we stopped for our lunch and more tales of New Zealand's history from Kyle, our exuberant guide. After lunch, the sea became particularly choppy, and it was a real battle to make it through the rising swells.

Finally we reached the Tonga Island Colony, and rested our tired limbs by letting the tide skirt us around the shores in search of the resident seals. We only managed to spot a couple, one of whom showed off his skills by giving us a little wave goodbye as we raised our makeshift 'sail' and let the wind whip us into shore. With the water-taxi ride back to the starting point, our long and tiresome day was over, but an experience we were glad we could partake in.

Back on the bus for our onward journey, we stopped at another more slightly populated seal colony, where we managed to get up close and personal for a few good snaps.

Some fella who was wearing a bright green t-shirt managed to really aggravate the little fella's, which gave us some great photo's. We arrived in Greymouth in the late afternoon, for the only thing that anyone ever stops here for: the famous Montieth's Brewery Tour.

After being whisked around the factory by a guide who told us all about the brewing process at an average rate of 800 words per minute, we were then led to the main event: the tasting session. In just under one hour we sampled at least half a pint of all eight of the different ales, returned for our free pouring photographic opportunity (another couple of beers obviously), and then managed to hold off until the last minibus run so we could squeeze a couple of extra jars in.

It's safe to say we got our money's worth, and a good job too considering what we were unwittingly preparing ourselves for.

Transported to what can only be described as a dodgy social club, we settled in for an all-you-can-eat barbeque. Consisting of sausages, sausages and er, sausages, it wasn't long before we were all back in the bar to wash our splendid dinner down with some more Montieth's Original and a few games of pool. This was soon crashed by Shane, the resident DJ and competitive type, who was quick to offer up a challenge. Not something I'd usually balk at, but the fact that this guy was a midget and could barely see over the table was a worry. There had to be a catch, and being the first to beat him meant that I was the player on the receiving end of the wee-man's big little strop. Not easily deterred however, he then invited us to a doubles game, during which Sarah got collared photographing our first midget-pool experience when the flash went off unexpectedly, prompting the vertically-challenged chap to hoist me onto his shoulder for a 'real' photo.

Not content with this tiny portion of the limelight, he then proceeded to wrestle Steve to the floor WWF style. Little-man syndrome at it's best...

Back on the bus the very next morning, we were unfortunately lumped with a bus driver who had to rate up there with one of the most irratable and miserable characters we're ever likely to come across. Most of the passengers were highly amused when a lady randomly misjudged the angle of her turn and managed to crash her trailer into the front of his bus, sparking a real blow-out on his part, and plenty of denials from us of having seen anything when he asked for witnesses. I think the next step is for most of us to write to Magic asking why this man has a job in hospitality. Luckily it was only a short drive to Franz Josef, a small ski-style resort in the midst of the Southern Alps.

The south-west of New Zealand's south island is Glacier country, and lies in the path of the moisture-laden winds that drive across the open miles of the southern ocean. The Pacific and Australian tectonic plates meet along the alpine fault, which cuts diagonally through the South Island and Franz Josef village. As the wind flow is pushed up over the mountains, a process called 'Organic Lift', the raising cloud is forced to drop huge volumes of rain and snow, giving rise to some of the most dynamic glaciers in the world. Formed by the remaining winter snow that the summer melt has been unable to remove from the cooler heights, the Franz Josef Glacier is the crowning glory. Each year, another layer of snow is added, where time and it's own weight soon transforms this residual snow into glacial ice, which then oozes it's way down valley to melt away in the warmer temperatures. Normally, glaciers move slowly, typically thirty or forty metres per year. The massive snowfalls at the head of the Franz Josef glacier however, means that the rate of ice turnover is amongst the highest in the world, upwards of 2.5 meters per day.

Spending time in Franz means you take any number of excursions onto the glacier, but we were yet again thwarted by bad weather when the heli-hike was cancelled at the last minute. Instead, we contented ourselves with a half-day guided hike, with the aptly named Cliff. Faced with an almost verticle wall of ice, and the reassuring notice board to keep clear in case of unexpected collapse, we donned our crampons and prepared for the ascent.

A quick safety briefing and we were off into the ice. It's strangley surreal to be walking amoungst the dripping walls of a potentially unstable block of ice, but an excellent tour none-the-less, with some rather hairy looking crevasses that disappear into the depths and a tight squeeze through an underground carvern.

Unfortunately, time permitted only about two hours on the glacier itself, and it wasn't long before we were being transported back into town.

Leaving early next morning, we travelled down to Lake McKenzie with it's stunning views of Mount Cook, before being driven on to the picturesque town of Wanaka.

Nestled alongside a giant lake, this was our favourite town in New Zealand, small, quaint and beautiful; a welcome break from the constant day-to-day travel on the bus. We stayed in a traditional ski-lodge, overlooking the blue lake waters, and spent a nice evening having drinks on the patio with some fellow travellers we had previosly met in Nelson, where Steve yet again had his digger out in the hunt for his future wife, a project we'd been secretly enlisted in since our chance meeting in Taupo.

The next morning we took ourselves off to the popular Puzzleworld attraction. As the name would suggest, this slightly geeky theme-park made for quite an entertaining morning, browsing the numerous strange rooms.

The faces that follow, the perspective room, a technique coincidentally used in Lord of the Rings, and the nauseous 'angled room' where nothing is as it seems all played a part, until we finally made it outside to the giant maze, which was predictably not as enthralling as many would quite hope.

Sadly, time was against us, and so after two days in the idyllic town we moved on to the party and adventure capital of Queenstown. Passing by the world's first bunjee jump which we bottled completely, we arrived in the early evening and went straight for the much preferable passtime of heavy drinking.

A good night was had by all, with all of us eventually ending up in a nightclub where cocktails are drunk in record time by the shot-glass, poured cordially from traditional teapots. Numerous bars, a couple of nightclubs, and a late night Fergburger (probably the best burger in the world!) made for a standard evening on the lash in this part of the world.

For the rest of our time here we amused ourselves with luge rides at the top of the gondola, some truly over-rated crazy golf and a trip to the much lauded Milford Sound.

A five hour drive through the cool temperate rainforest of the Fjiordland National Park in the south-west area of the country, and a three-quarter mile long tunnel brought us to the stunning ferry port at Milford. This was followed by a further two hour cruise through the valley, carved out by advancing and retreating ice glaciers over thousands of years. Spying some playful dolphins swimming under the front of the liner and some typically lazy seals basking in the afternoon sun was a nice bonus on what had been a long days travel.

Back in Queenstown, there was time for one more night on the town before grabbing our hire car and heading to the southern-most town on Invercargill. The bus didn't include this part of the trip, so we thought that our own car might break up the monotony of the long coach trips. Invercargill itself is a strange, scottish-style seaside town, with unfortunately very little to offer the curious tourist, it's claim to fame being that Burt Munrow, one of it's inhabitants, once took his bike across to America and broke the land-speed record.

One night here was more than enough, and so we took the rest of our time with the hire car to traverse our way up the Catlin's Coast area, famed for it's natural wildlife. Stopping for numerous points along the way such as the Petrified Forest (a fossilised area of centuries old trees by the sea), photo opportunities at Slope Point (the most southernly point of mainland New Zealand) and Nugget Point (a highly populated Seal Colony and picturesque headland) we finally arrived in Dunedin after a hard days stop-start driving.

Navigating successfully to our hostel, we were roomed handily with a girl who claimed to have insomnia (despite snoring like a trooper), and needed to have the hostel's cat in her bed for 'good karma'. Just another example of one of the many characters we tend to meet on our journey.

Dunedin is the main centre of Otago, a region recognised for its spectacular scenery, with dramatic bush-covered hills and valleys at the head of a long natural harbour. Scottish migrants established a town here in the 1850's, giving it the name of Edinburgh until gold was discovered some 120 kilometres inland about a decade or so later and the small settlement was renamed Dunedin when it became the centre of Otago's wealth, inspiring the development of soaring cathedral spires, fine banks, a flemish-style railway station, university buildinjgs and a nineteenth-century castle, all of which are still architectural treasures.

After a well deserved lie-in, the three of us donned our supplied head-gear and took part in the all-important Cadbury World tour. Considering that we'd managed to eat our way through a fair selection of the multiple-flavoured chocolate bars over the last month, it seemed only right that we go along and see how it's all produced.

Like all good tourist orientated tours, it was a speedy trip, whisking us through all of the relevant sections of the factory, plying us with the occassional freebie and offering up the odd fact, none of which we could actually remember by the end of it. We did see a chocolate waterfall though which was pretty cool, if slightly sickly. There was time for a little sightseeing, and a spot of shop browsing before we had an easy night in preparation for rejoining the bus the next morning.

Collected bright and early, our first stop on our way out of Dunedin was the World's Steepest Road. Like dutiful tourists, we played the game and struggled our way up the incline, just to say that we'd done it.

It wasn't massively interesting, and we can't really imagine what the poor people who live there must think of the crowds that pile up an down their street every day. Moving house isn't an option I expect. Also en-route were a pleasant, but mildly pointless bunch of boulders, which of course, just had to be photographed.

The penultimate stop on our trip was Lake Tekapo, another small country village sitting beside a large body of water. With little to do here bar admire the scenery, the driver organised a barbeque which we all helped prepare, followed by a card game called 'Sh*thead' with some french girls who we became good pals with, and a challenging game which involved picking up a box with my teeth, without letting your hands and knees touch the floor. I succeeded in making myself look suitably silly whilst Sarah cleverly played spectator, quoting knee pains as her get-out.

Hangovers were in abundance the next morning for our short journey to Christchurch. After a short sharp stroll around the town in the afternoon, one last night on the lash with Steve, who we were finally going to be shot of after three weeks on the road, and our new French mates was all we really had time for. A cheesy nightclub full of teenagers wasn't really what we'd have opted for, but we went with the crowd and were not surprised to find that it wasn't really our bag and so politely retreated to the Irish pub next door for a truly appalling cover-style band.

New Zealand for us was done and dusted, and if we were to be honest, we would probably have to admit that we didn't really give it the attention it deserved. For any future venture, we would definitely take matters into our own hands and hire a car to get ourselves off of the tourist trail a little. Not to say that the Magic Bus was a bad choice. We'd made some good friends, and definitely saw the highlights of this spectacularly beautiful country, even if it was a bit of a whistlestop tour. Our mood and opinions however had dramatically imrproved once we'd become accustomed to the way things work, and although the weather had hampered our efforts on occassion, we were on the whole a little sad that we couldn't devote a little more time to the place.

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This was not to be. We woke at 6:30am to find one of the hostel residents (a speccy lad with a gormless sort of look plastered all over his face) sitting in the armchair looking blandly at our dishevelled forms. I tried some polite conversation, suggesting that the people here rise very early and asking if he was off on a trip, at which I got a shrug and a grunt in return. Soon after, a guy who also declined to involve himself in any conversation arrived to use the internet terminal, and we knew that our sleeping time was well and truly up. As we sat contemplating whether to find ourselves another hostel, Campbell the owner arrived to inform us that our room wouldn't be ready for another few hours. He did however give us the grand tour - Internet: two quid an hour, Laundry: four quid to wash and dry, the Kitchen: tea and coffee isn't supplied, and we could hire a duvet should we require one for a reasonable three quid. Welcome to New Zealand; a country that certainly seems to know where its backpacker bread is buttered, and where nothing comes for free, but if it does, it's probably crap. We were back in the civilised world, and our pockets were about to bear the brunt...

Auckland is New Zealand's biggest city, so much so that more people live here than in the entire south island. The whole city is surrounded by water and is the largest polynesian city meaning that it has a unique blend of cultures living within it's boundaries, with many asian's and indonesian's settling here. Our hostel was situated in the trendy Ponsonby area of town with it's variety of bars and restaurants. Finally something we'd managed to get right.

With our first couple of days being downtrodden by some reverse culture shock and some cracking jet-lag, we lethargically wandered the streets around the city centre and the harbour under the ever-present watchful gaze of the looming Sky Tower, and into the less frantic districts on the outskirts of the city such as Parnell. During the evening's we ate out with a nice German couple, Kirsten and Serge, who were beacon's of light amongst the strange array of fairly unsociable characters at our hostel.

Our first New Zealand trip was to be to the north of the country and the pleasant town of Paihia; gateway to the picturesque 144-strong Bay of Islands. We are slightly ashamed to admit that we copped out a little on our mode of transport for the NZ tour, opting to a take a pass with the Magic bus company, which would essentially see us follow a set route of touristy towns and attractions, with a driver guide who would drop us off and collect us from our chosen accommodation as and when we felt like leaving. Ten weeks of self-organised travel, numerous recommendations from other travellers, and the prospect of driving ourselves through most of Australia was enough to tempt us into the ease of buying a pass that would cover both islands over the next month.

Our debut driver was a bit of nut named Colin, who regaled us with a mixture of ridiculous and interestingly comedic stories during our journey to the north, teasing any unwitting Aussies on the way (a national passtime it would seem). During our journey through the northern sub-tropical rain-forest, with it's giant Kauri tree residing in it's midst, and our onward path to the beautiful coastlines that could be seen as we entered the northern shores, Colin would make the odd swerve in an effort to squash any possums or 'tree destroyers' that happen to be crossing the road, causing disgust amongst a few of the ladies on board, and laughter from a few of the lads, but he was making no apologies.

That evening, we were entertained by way of our first Oceanic barbeque with a few of our bus companions, making a good night of it with a select few: Steve, Tess and Kevin.

With a raging hangover, the thought of doing anything the next morning didn't massively appeal, so the speedboat tour we had booked to take us out to the islands and the 'Hole in the Rock' (as exciting as the name would suggest) was a massive result, especially considering that it didn't turn out to be as exhilerating as it may have been billed. We did however catch sight of a family of whales swimming in the bay which was an unexpected bonus, and the saving grace of a rather cold and expensive experience.

Back in Auckland for just one night, where we somehow managed to choose the noisiest, dirtiest hostel of our trip so far, we were then driven south by Mungu, a nice enough Maori chap with some kebab-like body odour issues. He took us for a quick birds-eye view of Auckland from Mount Eden, and then in the direction of Wiatomo on the western side of the north island. Rarely do you visit a place where the view of the underground is more spectacular than what you can see above it. Despite

Waitomo's position in the lush green countryside, most people come here to visit the vast network of underground caves in the area and it's millions-upon-millions of Glow-worm inhabitants.

Here we chose to take the Cave-Rafting excursion, a great trip where the eight person group sit within inflatable tyres and float through the subterranean rivers, over small waterfalls and down a gushing slide in pitch darkness. Any fears we may have had about having to sqeeze through near-impossible cracks in the rocks were quickly alleviated when our thirty-stone guide arrived. Sitting in the darkness some five hundred metres below the surface on rubber rings is a fairly strange experience, and our guides were quite talented at letting off loud bombs at opportune quiet moments to scare the hell out of everybody.

Continuing on, we arrived in Rotorua that evening to be welcomed at our chosen accommodation by a mixture of fifteen cheery looking down-syndromer's - not a problem obviously, but testament to our on-going knack at choosing a hostel. One of the younger girls took quite a liking to me, which made a nice change to solely receiving Sarah's affections, while a couple of others had the habit of strolling the corridors in the middle of the night in their undies, much to the detriment of their hard-working carers and a few of the more miserable guests.

Rotorua is the thermal heartland on the volcanic central north island. Built upon a steaming underground cauldron caused by a break between two giant underground tectonic plates, the whole village is permanantly on the boil with wispy steam curling it's way into the sky from vents in the front lawns and curbside gratings. This is also the spiritual home of the Maori people, the original inhabitants of the lands before Captain Cook discovered and claimed it as part of the British empire in April of 1770. This then seemed like the perfect place to check out a tradition Maori show.

On entering the village, the host of the welcoming tribe issues a challenge of peace, in which the warrior will go through some intimidatory gestures and strange looking facial expressions. Despite this being generally quite amusing, visitors are asked to remain straight faced as a mark of respect. Next the 'Powhiri' is performed, a welcome dance and chant before we were invited into the inner court.

Once inside, the Maori's performed a number of traditional dances and songs, including their most famous number 'The Haka', a war dance which the national rugby team perform before a game to intimidate the opposing side. Finally, we were all led into the dining area where the food was served, straight from an authentic underground earth oven called a 'Hungi'. Beers of course accompanied the delicious food and after some other small performances the night was over. It was here that we also bumped into Steve, one of the lad's we met in Paihia, and he decided to tag along with us for the coach the next day.

Next on the route was a visit to the Thermal Wonderland, the central hub of geothermal activity in the area, where you can walk amongst some hot and cold colourful natural pools and view the somewhat staged eruption of the Lady Know Geyser, caused when one of the staff unimpressively throw's a bag of caustic soda into it.

Next was Taupo, a town beside a lake of the same name, whose surface area amazingly covers more than the whole of Singapore. It didn't seem like a country so tiny could hold such a body of water, but I'm told this irrelevant fact is true.

Here, we checked into what can only be described as sub-standard accommodation, and whisked ourselves off the natural spa for a quick dip in it's therapeutic waters. Not the first thermal pool we've visited, but probably the most naturally scenic. Now that I had my drinking partner in Steve, this was to be the start of a succession of nights where beer would almost definitely make an appearance... and so we went out with a couple of other girls to an Irish bar in the town centre and watched some rugby. All jolly nice.

We were off again the next day however, to our final north island town and New Zealand's capital, Wellington. Here we once again caught up with Tom and Lisa from our South American adventures, and the girl we met in Santiago called Claire who lived in the area.

After a fairly heavy first reunion night on the beer, Claire took us all out in the car the following day for a drive around the bays, but bad weather conditions meant that we soon returned to the safety of the numerous bars in the city. Not exactly a cultured experience, but a nice one all the same and all efforts to go and see the apparently fantastic exhibition covering New Zealand's short, yet colourful history were quickly thwarted by our yeasty liquid friend.

To be perfectly honest, we weren't massively impressed with our first twelve days in the land of the long white cloud; although it was possible that the heightened cost of everything compared to what we had been used to for three months was enough to dampen our views. It was time to wipe the slate clean so to speak, and many people had emphasised that the south island generally holds much more for the curious traveller, and so we left for our early morning ferry with renewed hope...

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The political, economical and financial Capital of Chile is beautifully set, sitting in a wide plain with the magnificent Andes in full view. Compared to home, it's streets seem very neat and tidy, and it's architecture is very 'big-city' while the suburbs tend to exhibit large mansion style buildings, although some are in need of some serious repair.

On our first night we met up again with Tom and Lisa who we spent time with in Cusco, and also had one last night on the town with Tim (the more laid-back half of the warring couple from Iqueque). Finding a really nice hostel run by an American guy who had previously made his fortune in banking, we all contented ourselves for our last few days in South America; blasting, fighting and racing away on the chipped Playstations and X-Boxes, cracking balls around the full-sized pool table and table-tennis, or lazily slouching in the lounge in front of one of the eight-hundred movies on offer. It's safe to say we were all a little sad to be leaving the continent, but new and exciting things were waiting for us in New Zealand which kept spirits high, and the entertaining nature of our final sleeping place did much to keep the mood light. Along with their ridiculous cat and dog fight show!

Sightseeing around the area consisted of little for us: journeying to the metropolitan area by an ultra-clean, ultra-modern tube system that would put London to shame and quick perusals in the many shopping arcades and markets; a quick tour around the Plaza de Armas and a look in the huge Cathedral, in fairness, only to escape the strange guy who had taken up station some five-feet behind Sarah and was making strange movements inside his trouser pocket.

On meeting a girl from Wellington who was at a loose end, we all took an afternoon to visit the nearby San Cristobal hill, taking the Funicular to the top and it's panoramic views over the city followed by the cable car over the top of the hillside park. At it's base lies the bar and restaurant infested area of Bellavista, where we sat and whiled away a couple of hours in the small market and one of the many streetside cafes.

Our last few days in South America were probably not as exciting and wonder-filled as the rest of our journey here may have been, but it dealt us a pleasant last few days in which to relax in preparation for the hectic month to follow and the new experiences that waited on the other side of the Pacific. Our time here will be something we will never forget, and definitely one we intend to repeat in the near future. With still so much to see and do, there is no doubt we will have plenty to choose from...

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Iqueque is an attractive port and city sheltered by sandy-looking headlands and the high Atacama desert beyond. With the unfortunately named Plaza Prat as it's main square it still contains many historic buildings, despite being partly destroyed in the earthquake of 1876. At sunset, as we made our way down the winding road and looked over the town to the golden beaches we knew that this was the kind of place we had been looking for. Heading for our hostel which was located handily across the road from the beach, we took a short stroll around town and after our arduous twenty-eight hour trip, turned in early for the night.

A couple of lazy days on the gorgeous beaches quickly ensued, the first however being slightly tainted by the fact that both of us had to run back to the hostel every ten minutes for some zero-warning bowel relief. The combination of fatigue and apparent safety of being in a more civilised and well-to-do country meant we had let our guard slip the previous evening and opted erratically for a chinese which was now going through us at an alarming rate.

With the imodium thankfully kicking in, Sunday morning came and I sat around for nearly eight hours awaiting the all-important Spurs versus Chelsea showdown which I had seen advertised the previous day. It was only after getting frustrated at having to watch other random sports shows that I took a quick look on the internet and discovered that my Spanish was still a little rusty, and that I was waiting for a show that wasn't broadcasting until Tuesday. My disappointment was slightly helped by the fact that we won 2-1 (Come on you Spurs!), but as many of you can imagine, I was suitably chastised for 'wasting the day away'.

Having met up with a varied but not unpleasant crowd at the hostel and spending our evenings cooking, drinking and being generally sociable, we all decided to hire a car and take it out to see the surrounding area. Together with Beni and Dom, a pair of slightly unhinged Swiss lads with a Queens of the Stone Age addiction, Jordan, our emotionally volatile Canadian room-mate, and Alice and Tim, a couple teetering on the brink of separation with the former having nothing nice to say about the latter and his evident drink problem, the seven of us set out with nothing but a few cold six-packs and a heavy dose of optimism for the coming day.

First stop was the geoglyphs set into one of the surrounding sandy hills. Consisting rather unimpressively of a series of rocks organised into the shape of a stick man, this was supposedly the last evidence of a people long vanished. Moving quickly along, we visited the now abandoned nitrate town at Humberstone.

Although now essentially a ghost town after being shut down in 1961 when the nitrate workers were made redundant, the remnants of the old church, theatre, school and other ammenities can still be seen and explored. This made for a couple of hours of entertainment before we headed off south in the direction of Pica and it's thermal spa. Quiet, tranquil and surrounded by citrus groves, this was a great spot to finish the day with a relaxing dip into the warm waters.

As the day had progressed, we had all come to the conclusion that the Toyota Jeep we were using for transport was a bucket with a lawnmower engine; something which was sadly confirmed when it broke down on us half way home, luckily in a small town in the desert. While Beni, our only moderate Spanish speaker, negotiated with some local mechanics to take a look, the rest of us sat in the back and sampled a modest variety of the local beers. Three hours later we were finally on our way back to the hostel, most of us well and truly smashed.

After our successful day out (depending on which was you look at it) it was back to the coast for a few days and some beach football and body-boarding. With just two days to go until our planned departure, the arrival of two arrogant Austrian blokes with zero-manners and matching personalities, and a relatively unpleasant english girl who "doesn't bother talking to couples" and a rather annoying habit of putting "ah?" onto the end of every sentence whether it's a question or not, managed to spoil the vibe of the place. All of our crowd were moving on however so we made the best of the last couple of nights.

Our final day arrived, and we only had one mission left to complete before we caught our bus to Santiago. We had sat on the beach for the last week watching the paragliders descend onto the sands next to us, and despite not being massively keen on running off the edge of a large cliff, decided that we couldn't leave without having a bash.

Booked in for a 1:30pm flight, we were transported to the 1200m high jump-off point at the southern end of the resort and kitted up with our suits and helmets. Not knowing a thing about paragliding, we presumed that the strong wind was just what was needed for such an activity. Sarah was up first, and strapped to an ageing german man they attempted take off. As soon as the sail went up and the strong sea-breeze caught, the pair of them were janked powerfully backwards.

The guy charged with the task of holding them steady had absolutely no hope, and after a couple attempts, one of which managed to take the two of them about ten feet into the air before smashing them back to earth and bouncing Sarah's protected head like a basketball along the hard ground (Obviously, I did not find this amusing at all) they decided enough was enough and that today's flight would have to be cancelled. Suitably disappointed but undeterred, we booked again for the following morning in the hope we could have another go before our coach left.

The following morning, with the wind a little less blustery, take off was a little more smooth and we were soon up high above the desert hills and the busy highway leading into town.

Being our first time, it seemed very reasonable to look around at the sights, snapping as we went. Soon however, I discovered that combined with the ups and downs associated with finding the required thermals, this causes a rather uncomfortable feeling of nausea. Although a good time was had by all, the overwhelming urge to chunder tends to spoil the experience slightly, something we are told is very common among first time flyers.

Landing gracefully on the beach just a few yards from our hostel, it was no surprise to discover that Sarah had been as sick as a dog whilst in mid-air and was feeling pretty rough as a consequence. With no time to spare however, we said a rushed goodbye to our friends of the past week and headed for the bus station and our awaiting coach which would take us to the Chilean capital, and sadly, our final South American destination...

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We had six whole days before our pre-booked Inca Trail, and these we had planned to use to see the surrounding area and Cusco itself. Unfortunately, this plan didn't really come to light, as we met a number of good people at the hostel and ended up getting drunk every night, and ultimately quite bothered about sightseeing by the time we rose the next morning. It felt like we were all touristed out by this point, and each suggestion of going to see certain highlights in the area were quickly pushed aside in favour of another beer in the bar, chatting with whoever may be milling about, or the odd live game of English football. Unfortunate, but we'd hit a bit of wall and nothing could get us out of it, and the closer we came to our four-day trek, the more we felt it justified to lounge about.

We did manage to drag ourselves away on a couple of occassions, mainly to visit the Irish bar and it's wonderful English-style food (Shepherds Pie, Curry, Fish and Chips - come on, who wouldn't be tempted when the local delicacy is deep fried Guinea Pig followed nicely by severe diarrhoea?), or visit a bar which showed new and just-released movies at 4pm. Every night in the hostel appeared to be party night, and who were we to deprive ourselves of a little beer-based fun. At 1am, we'd all head to the nightclubs called Mama Afrika's and Uptown in the main square; constantly strobing rooms filled with locals and backpackers alike. The music was a strange mix, consisting of a couple of banging house or techno tunes one minute, some indie anthems the next, before crowd-pleasing with a few party classics. We tried three or four and can confirm this particular dj-ing style was present across the board, and I don't think I'll ever witness such a diverse group of people all singing to the Proclaimers ever again.

On one particular day, we decided enough was enough, and to at least get out and see some of the City. The Plaza de Armas, seen many times at night when going to the above mentioned nightclubs, was a large yet quaint square, containing the Cathedral and the huge El Triunfo, the first ever Christian church in Cusco. Once the capital of the Inca world in AD1100, almost every street has the remains of Inca walls, archways and doors. We crossed into the more traditional part of town, away from the touristy areas where the streets are kept clean and the agency touts are in abundance. Visiting the hectic streets where the locals shop was a real eye-opener; stalls selling raw meat and chicken line the sides without a refrigeration unit in sight. Severed pigs heads stare intently at passers-by and retailers hack dead carcasses to bits in full view of the customer. Not where you'd consider getting your sunday joint, although I suspect that prices are low, even if bacterial content isn't.

Finally, the day of our Inca Trail arrived, promising unforgettable views, magnificent mountains, exotic vegetation and extraordinary ecological variety, plus of course the all important Inca Sites.

The origins of the Inca dynasty are shrouded in mythology and shaky evidence. The best known story is of how Manco Capac and his sister rose from Lake Titicaca in 1200AD, supposedly created by the sun as divine founders of a chosen race. Over the next 300 years, the small tribe grew to supremacy as leaders of the largest empire ever known in the Americas. At 980,000 square kilometres, the four territories of Tawantinsuyo all radiated from Cusco as the umbilicus of the Universe. At it's peak, the Inca empire stetched from the Rio Maule in central Chile,, north to the present Ecuador/Colombian border, contained most of Ecuador, Peru, western Bolivia, northern Chile and northwest Argentina.

The Inca Empire was one of the greatest planned societies the world has ever known - from it's rise during the 11th century to it's death in the 16th, and based itself on other Peruvian civilisations which attained great skills in textiles, buildings, ceramics and working in metal. What the Incas did during their time was an enormous feat. They conquered enormous territories, and imposed upon them a submission to the Allyu: a village community which had it's worshipped household god and complete devotion to the land, plus a willing spiritual and economical submission to the state. The common religion was the Worship of the Sun whose vice-regent on earth was the absolute Sapa Inca. The mass of the people were subjected to rigourous planning and were alloted land to work, or used in the enlarging of the area of cultivation by building terraces on the hillside. Families were grouped into units of 10, 100, 500, 1000, 10000 and 40000, each group with a leader responsible to the next largest group. The whole system was completed by Pachacuti, the greatest of all their monarchs, who imposed the common language of Quechua and ordered the building of fine paved pathways, now known as the Inca Trail, to connect all of the villages and along which couriers could speed on foot to obtain information and transmit orders.

We were transported from our hostel to the starting point at 2600m in the mountains at what they call kilometre 82 or Piscacucho. Here we met our group for the following days; two Swiss girls and a dutch couple in their fifties whose names we already appear to have mislaid, mainly due to the fact that they put in no real effort to socialise with the rest of us.

Our guide was a quirky young chap called Flavio, who's knowledge appeared to be impressive, his English passable, and his sense of humour somewhat silly. The journey began by crossing the Cusichaca river, and following its path for a couple of hours before heading up to our first lunch stop at Huayllabamba. After lunch (Soup with a heavy coriander taste and fresh trout) we had to tackle our first real climb to 3200m, which took us to the small mountain top overlooking the first of our Inca sites. An hour further onwards and we reached our first overnight camping spot at Llulluchayoc, where dinner (Coriander flavoured soup and beef) was served and with little more to do, it was off to a very early bed.

Day Two began at 6:30. Awoken to a bowl of steaming water for washing by our spirited porters, and a hearty breakfast of pancakes and cereal, we were told that the next few hours were going to be arduous, with the climb from our camp at 3200m to the first pass at 4200m being our main aim of the day. It turned out to be more painful than we could have ever imagined; but seeing the porters bound past us, dripping with sweat as they lugged their fifty kilogram packs helped us realise that it was all possible with a little bit of positive mental attitude. En-route, we walked up through some spectacular jungle settings before emerging at our lunch spot where noodle soup (laced with Coriander) was served. Then it was further up to the summit, and the aptly named Dead Woman's pass or Warmiwanuska.

Looking down from the top it was almost impossible to understand the distance we had come in those seven hours, but we could only hang around admiring the views for so long, as the cloud was beginning to settle in and the cold wind was picking up considerably. Another hour and a half of solid downhill walking brought us to our camp deep in the Pacamayo Valley. After a quick wash up, and a strange dinner of thick Semolina soup (with bonus coriander) and chicken, we managed to get a couple of the porters to partake in a few games of cards with us. Despite their lack of English, it was nice to spend an hour or so interacting with the very people who make the whole trek possible by carrying all of the vital equipment, always with a smile on their face.

Rising early again for day three, it was straight into another steep uphill section for three hours, taking a tour of the ruins half way up at Runkuracay. With weather conditions changing rapidly, the warm sunshine we had experienced the day before was now replaced by heavy rain and thunderclouds. The second pass of the trek was quickly followed by a steep downhill section to another Inca site at Sayacmarca, followed by a quick coriander flavoured lunch.

With the weather brightening, next came the most enjoyable section of the trail, an hour-long jaunt along some mild ups and downs to the third pass, skirting the jungle filled valley's below and going through one of the tunnels, carved through the rock where the Inca's could not build a path. At the top it may have been possible to see the whole Vilcabamba mountain range, but the mornings rain meant that a heavy mist blanketed the view.

After a quick tour of the biggest ruins so far at Phuyopatamarca, the journey began to get really tough. We were told to brace ourselves for a 1200m two hour downhill section which would really take it's toll on the knees, something Sarah wasn't massively keen on considering her dodgy one was already beginning to give out on her. Just thirty minutes into the climb and she was in agony, despite some cheeky chocolate based enticement on my part. The rest of the group went on, and we took it really slowly to try and ease the pain in Sarah's knee, but the high steps were a real killer and even I was starting to feel it. With the darkness beginning to settle in at 5pm, we could tell that Flavio was getting a little anxious about being stuck out on the trail in the dark, and so we both began supporting Sarah as much as possible in the hope we could speed up the descent.

Although we were on the home stretch, it was tough going and it wasn't long before the porters appeared, having climbed back up the steep path to check we were alright. Refusing to be carried however, Sarah carried on using us as support, and we finally limped into camp in pitch darkness after taking just over four hours to complete the afternoon section. At this point, we really fancied a beer or two and some coriander-laced delights, both of which were handily served. With a 4am start for our final day in the backs of our minds we all gladly headed off to bed at around 9pm.

With aching limbs and tired eyes, we all rose for what was to be our final two hour section of the trek. Passing the final checkpoint, the others went ahead again while we slowly made our way to Intipunku, more famously known as the Sun Gate. It was tough going yet again, with one steep fifty-step section where we literally had to drag Sarah up by the armpits. Flavio took it all brilliantly though and told us this was nothing compared to his experience of two weeks prior, where him and a porter had had to carry two 30 stone American's for 75% of the trail because they wanted to 'achieve' it. Apparently, they didn't even tip, something we had no intention of forgetting after all of his help.

On reaching the Sun Gate, and seeing Machu Picchu for the first time, there is a tremendous feeling of awe. The ancient Citadel straddles the saddle of a high mountain with steep terraced slopes falling away to the fast-flowing Urubamba river snaking it's hairpin course way below on the valley floor. Perhaps it is the general fatigue or wonderful sense of achievement at completing the centuries old trail which causes this sensation, but with the giant Huayna Picchu mountain towering overhead, and the green jungle peaks surrounding the site, it provides a truly majestic scene.

Machu Picchu is a complete Inca City. For centuries it was buried in jungle until the american Hiram Bingham stumbled upon it in 1911. Despite being abandoned some 400 years prior after the spanish conquistadores finally overthrew the Inca's in Cusco, Bingham took a Yale university expedition to explore the ruins and found it to be in a remarkable state of preservation; uncovering the remains of staircases, terraces, temples, palaces, fountains and some 150 houses. On further inspection, it was revealed that the style of masonry appears to depend on the importance of the building and that every single building is built at the same inclination.

After an interesting two hour tour of the site, our tiredness finally won, and our guide took us down to the village of Aguas Calientes below. After a quick Coriander-less lunch in a local restaurant, we took ourselves off to the thermal baths in the hope it would help relax our aching muscles. After a short 14 hour nap, it was off to catch our three hour train back to Cusco. We were seated across from two apparently scottish old ladies, who made us feel welcome with professional sneers and a zero conversation.

Our final night in Cusco was Halloween, and the hostel had a large fancy dress party in the offering. We spent most of the following day hunting for costumes, Sarah securing herself a sensible cape and witches hat, and myself going all out with face paint, a large black poncho, and the crowning accessory: a vile and slightly smelly Llama foetus (called John) who I managed to attach to the top of a broom handle. He went down a real storm as you can imagine and everyone wanted their photo taken with my new sidekick.

After what can only be described as one hell of a party, vodka jelly and all, we all went onto somewhere called Bar Seven. The concept is simple: purchase the beverage of your choice on the right hand side of the bar, and your preferred quantity of top class peruvian Cocaine on the left. Not really our bag, but an experience none-the-less, with many people taking full advantage of the police services easily corrupted outlook on such activity, and cutting their lines openly on the tabletops. A cracking night all in all... and a great ten days in the Peruvian city.

Unfortunately, after a number of vodka martini's and dodgy peruvian cigars, we discovered John's apparent knack with the ladies, and leaving him alone for just a few moments in one of the dodgy nightclubs we can only guess that he pulled some local totty, never to be seen again. If anyone happens to see a crusty looking Llama feotus answering to the name of John, ten inches tall, with small sprouty hairs on his chin and a small odour problem, please tell him to come home to Daddy...

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On arrival in the town we discovered that our preconceptions were not far wrong. Puno is billed as Peru's folklore centre, with a vast array of handicrafts, festivals and costumes, and a rich tradition of music and dance. After fighting our way through the fifteen or so touts, all vying for our custom at their respective, but probably not respectable abodes, we jumped a taxi and plumped for one of the many hostels from the guidebook. The hotel in question won't be remembered as one of our favourite stopovers, but it sufficed for the one night we would need it. We walked into town, past the baroque style Cathedral but there wasn't a great deal more to see, and so taking advantage of the new drinking partners, we all headed straight to the main street for some food and all important bonding over beer. The night turned into quite a heavy one, and it was fairly late by the time we returned from the strange Reggae/Rock-style bar we had been drinking in for most of the evening.

Heads were a little hazy the following morning, as we arose early to catch our boat to the collection of 40 tortora reed islands. A quick forty minute sail, and we were dropped to the first of three islands we would be visiting that morning. Here our guide explained to us the living habits and practices of the people who permanantly live out on the floating islands of the lake. Life for these people is hard. Forced out here as the Incan Indians pushed further and further into their territory, they use the reeds which grow naturally on the banks of Lake Titicaca and matt them down. The islands rot quickly from the bottom and so the fresh reeds need to be added constantly in order for the islands to survive. The sensation of standing on these islands was like walking across a waterbed; almost spongy and unstable under-foot. The people fish, hunt birds and live off the lake plants, most importantly the reeds used for the making the boats, the houses and the very foundations of their islands. They also have to travel long distances for fresh waterm which has meant that now fewer than 200 Uros live on the islands, many having now integrated themselves back into the mainland.

Unfortunately, it is now clear that tourism is one of their main sources of income, which has turned the islands we visited into floating souvenir stalls. Whether tourism has done irrepairable harm to this area is yet to be seen, but the mini-supermarket with internet access and pay telephone we saw on one suggests that it may have tarnished what was once a traditional way of life. One young boy took us into his home to show us how his solar-powered TV worked, which again spoilt the image slightly. After a quick journey on one of their traditional reed boats, we were taken back to the mainland. Although an interesting sight, by the time we left it wasn't clear to us whether we should be contributing to the Uros livelihood, or leaving well alone.

Back on dry land and with just moments to spare, we took a taxi to the bus station for our seven hour ride into the mountains...

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Probably one of the most prominent features of the Altiplano, Lake Titicaca, at 3,821m, is the highest navigable body of water in the world. Referred to as 'The Sacred Lake' by many Bolivian's and Peruvian's who share the ownership within their borders; if someone (for instance a fisherman) falls into the lake it is traditional not to rescue them, but to let them drown as an offering to the Earth Goddess Pachamama. Quite a hefty sacrifice for the sake of a few Trout. The surface area itself is just over nine thousand square kilometres and an average depth of 100m, it's volume of water is so big that it actually moderates the climate for a considerable distance around it. Sometimes it is hard to believe that you're not looking at an ocean, as the waters stretch for almost as far as the eye can see.

A note had been left on the message board in the Brew Hostel to ask if anyone was heading in the direction of Copacabana, and we therefore had a girl from Sheffield called Sarah in tow. The three of us arrived at our destination in the early afternoon, and reading reasonable reports about a new hotel overlooking the beach we headed there to find a bed. Handily, there were less than eight people in the whole place, which I suppose says something about our taste in accommodation.

It might share the same name with the famous Brazilian beach resort, but Copacabana in Bolivia couldn't really be more different. It has none of the glitz and glamour of Rio, but instead offers small town charm where unfortunately, because of it's existence as a gateway to the Isla del Sol and Isla de la Luna, it becomes a real tourist trap, with prices for just about anything being judged in accordance with your nationality. After a light and unfulfilling lunch we had a walk around the village, and then Sarah MkII suggested that we walk to the top of the Cerro Calvario, a reasonably large hill overlooking the lake and the town. Good practice for the upcoming Inca Trail we thought.

Not really prepared for the level of ascent, we took an hour or so to climb the less-than-difficult trail, but the altitude makes everything hard going. There are fourteen stations of the holy cross on the way up, and then at the top we found a number of eery looking tombs to greet our arrival. The area at the top of the Calvario however is now covered in grafitti, and such is the quantity of litter strewn all over the surrounding hillside that I doubt if it has ever been cleared, tainting what should really be a lovely place. Finding a suitable rock, here we settled down to watch the sun setting over the lake which was quite spectacular. Like all traditional nights in these regions, as soon as the sun dips behind the horizon, the temperature drops by around fifteen degrees, and so three of us, and an Australian girl called Jenna who had been admiring the views with us, rapidly descended for some hot coffee liquors in one of the town's many overpriced cafe's.

That evening we met Jenna again, and went for a reasonable meal in one of the many restaurants in town, followed by a few beers in a really laid-back bar run by a native french guy. Here some fella played the Saxophone for a while which was surprisingly good, and then everyone just sat around on the nicely arranged beanbags and pillows, chatting, smoking and listening to numerous cool tunes in a really relaxed atmosphere. At last we actually felt like travellers. If only we liked weed and could go for a month without washing our hair...

The following morning Sarah MkII left us for Cusco, and we had planned to visit the nearby Isla del Sol for the day. It was then that we realised we had a problem. Enquiries for a cashpoint were not being met enthusiastically (basically there wasn't one in town), the one and only bank was shut for another two days, and our hotel manager was offering little in the way of solutions. We had 100 Boliviano's left on us; enough to get us to the island, and leave us with the equivalent of four pounds until we reached the Peruvian border 28 hours later. Faced with the thought over a very dull day in the town, we opted to continue with our plans, and boarded our boat to the Island of the Sun with moments to spare.

The journey out to the island to just over two hours, due to an engine which would have had trouble powering most domestic lawn-mowers. Sarah managed to keep her chunder-eyes under control almost until docking, when she finally turned a little green as the water became more choppy. Landing safely, and vomitless, we then discovered that the visit to the Inca Site and museum on the island would cost us extra money which we clearly didn't have. Not being overly sold on hanging around for the boat to return us to the mainland four hours later, our only option was to take the 20km hike from the north of the island to the south.

And so off we trudged, with only a two-litre bottle of water and packet of week old cookies to our name. Quoted as a two-and-a-half hour walk, we hiked through mountain pathways, across a near deserted beach where a guy tried to charge me for photographing his pigs (or he may have just been angry because I had to have a poo in a bush behind his house), and over the top of two fairly high passes, arriving at the southern port nearly 4 hours later, and only just in time for our return voyage.

Although yet more good practice for our upcoming main hike event, we were both now quite tired, very hungry and a little bitter. There's probably nothing worse than having money in the bank, but not being able to get at it. Except possibly not having money in the bank. We'll try some of that when we get home. At this point, the only viable option we could see to forget the hunger and mild resentment was to go straight to bed and hope that we could sleep through the night. And so, at just after 6pm, we did. And with resounding success I might add.

Waking early, and with the hotel bill pre-paid, we helped ourselves to as much of the free bread and jam breakfast we could manage. During this gargantuan feast, we got chatting to a young couple from Wolverhampton and as they were going in the same direction, we all went to catch our connecting bus to Puno on the Peruvian side of the lake.

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With nothing more than good old British luck, we found ourselves sitting directly behind an inebriated group of Salt Flat workers, one of whom took a particular fancy to Sarah and her 'lovely blond hair'. He sat admiring her amourously whilst attempting some of his best English chat-ups, which included asking where we were from some fifteen or twenty times. Realising his luck just wasn't in, he soon thankfully turned his attention to another of the girls in the group. Next, a rather large Bolivian lady arrived, carrying her large rucksack-style blanket wrap on her back, and an extemely young child in her arms. With four of the back seats taken, she plonked herself handily into the middle one, at which point the baby began to scream manically. This was to last approximately seven hours, and it wasn't long before the baby's one and only shitty nappy was thrown on the floor in front of us. The Salt Workers played their sole CD of Bolivian pop music over and over again for the whole journey, and the bus spent the first four hours of the journey bouncing us heavily over dirt roads before finally hitting some tarmac. Where are those armed gunmen when you need them?

La Paz lies at the bottom of a steep canyon, and we had hoped to catch some spectacular views of the highest capital city in the world, but by arriving at nearly 1am, we had lost our chance for now. Finally catching some good fortune however, we managed to check into the first hostel we turned up at. Now that we were back in mild civilisation, the following day was to consist of organising some arduous necessities such as laundry, and in the evening we found ourselves taking a nap at 7pm, and not waking for some 14 hours. Lazy yes, but quite necessary.

We decided for our third night to move to a different hostel, and had been recommended one near the bus station which suited us fine. A much more modern place, the Adventure Brew Hostel neatly incorporated its own brewery, which meant that much to my disgust, we would receive a free beer every evening. Still finding ourselves a little rough from the 3,500m altitude, we took it easy again in the hope we would acclimatise fully for the mountain bike trip booked for the following day.

Rising early, we met the Gravity guides at a small cafe in the main strip, and boarded their bus which would take us to our starting point at 4,200m in the nearby mountains. Sarah's lack of riding experience in the last 20 years, and the unsurprising knack of going over the handlebars on her last Oz trip, aided her wise decision to just come along for the ride in the jeep. Kitting the twelve riders out with all of the relevant gear, we started our descent at around 8:30am, riding mostly without the need to peddle for the first hour down the paved mountain highway. Then we were told to prepare for a small uphill section, which managed to almost kill me. With two hours gone, the professional biker guides announced that we were now sitting at the very top of the main event: a single width dirt road, which hugs the edge of the mountains and is wisely named The World's Most Dangerous Road!

So called because it claims some twenty-odd vehicles and the lives of anywhere between two and three hundred people per year over it's vertical edges, this fifty-mile commercial passageway between Bolivia and the Yungas is the main route used by cargo lorries and a number of local bus services. The bird's eye view is on the left, where the earth itself seems to open up and you get amazing views of the Coroico River rushing to join the Amazon some half a mile below. Gravity is now the only company which can still claim to have not had anyone killed on one of it's daily mountain bike tours. Reason enough to pay that little extra for the peace of mind, even though they tell you that you must ride on the left next to the gaping ravine. There's no accounting for being able to handle a bike however, and with the track at barely three metres wide there is little margin for error, and it soon became clear why many people might have a small fatal accident.

I tried to stick with the front guide as much as possible as this was the only way to see how best to take some of the hairpin corners and narrow bends at speed. During our ride, crosses at the roadside marked the locations of fatal accidents whilst the guides regaled us with stories of previous victims and showed us a number of wreckages, one being that of a bus which had slipped over the edge just one month ago, taking forty-eight unfortunates with it. Luckily, this was the dry season, but during the wet season the rains will come cascading down the walls of the chasm and huge waterfalls will drench the road turning its surface to slime. There are pleasant stories of truckers too tired or scared to continue, who pull over for the night hoping to see out an Andean storm. Parking too close to the edge however, the road is washed away around them and they are swept to their deaths while sleeping.

This part of the ride took almost three hours, and by the end with concentration levels waining we were ready for the all-inclusive buffet and a dip in the pool. Following the presentation of our 'survival' t-shirt and some quality time with a few monkeys, we all clambered into the back of the mini-bus for our ascent back up the very road we had just defeated.

If anything, this was worse than the actual mountain biking, and we were all pretty nervous as the small coach inched it's way up the winding track, our lives dependent on the driving skills of one local man who had been up since 5am. On occassions it was possible to actually look out of the window and see nothing but the sheer drop below. We also picked up one of the human traffic lights which are positioned along the route, who began to tell us that he was employed to signal manage this point of the road due to a young french girl going over the cliff-edge on her bike about a year ago.

At around 2,800m, the late evening cloud drifting around the van didn't do a great deal towards settling our nerves. Thankfully, we arrived safely back in La Paz at around 8pm after what had been a long and thrilling day. I was aching all over, but can honestly say that this was one of the best experiences of my life. Perhaps something I would have to consider in greater depth now that I am more aware of the consequences of one small slip in the wrong direction. For many of the tour companies at least, it seems that ignorance is bliss.

With just one full day left in La Paz before we headed north, we felt it was only right that we take in some sights, despite my unwilling limbs. First we walked down into the Plaza San Francisco, where a demo was taking place in the grounds in front of the giant cathedral. This is apparently a regular occurance in Bolivia, as the disgruntled natives passionately appeal for better working conditions or to stop the illegalisation of Coca, something the government are now trying to impose. Although not violent, this wasn't somewhere we wanted to hang around due to the masses of people congregating in the area. Menacing looking lads in balaclava's mill about aimlessly in the intense sun, but these are just shoe-shine boys, hiding their appearance so as not to bring shame on their families.

We quickly headed in the direction of the Witchcraft market, where we were expecting to find all kinds of weird and wonderful things, but were a bit disappointed to see just the normal tourist style knitwear and trinket stalls. In the middle however, we stumbled across the Coca museum and decided to go in and take a look. Despite doubts that it might be a little dull, it was actually really interesting, with insights into why the Latin American's believe this plant to be such an important part of their lives.

There is evidence to support coca leaves being used for a variety of purposes since as far back as 2500 BC, and it is now such a big part of Andean life and ancestory that the people will probably fight until the end of time to keep the tradition. According to the locals, chewing the leaves gives them some kind of extra energy, to the extent that miners would not even consider entering the workplace without their ration. Although it is said that the people chew, in actual fact they are just sucking on the dry leaves, and only using their teeth enough to release the juices contained within. A few minutes later, there is an intense anesthetic effect in the cheeks, throat and tongue. The ingestion of the juice supposedly acts as pain relief and it has been commonplace for centuries to take coca infusion to alleviate pain for a wide range of ailments including headaches, toothaches, intestinal cramps and so on. Of course, the leaves are most famous for their use in the battle against altitude, where the stimulating effect on respiration is the perfect complement to offset the chronic lack of oxygen at 4000 metres plus.

It was Vassili von Anrep who first perceived in 1880 the anesthetic properties of cocaine derived from Coca leaves. Later Karl Koller, an associate and friend of Sigmund Freud (who was later to introduce Cocaine as a recreational drug), had the opportunity of using the drug for anesthetic purposes - an ideal and long awaited medicinal breakthough. Many big pharmaceutical companies endevoured in its manufacturing and numerous 2% cocaine solutions were soon being introduced and used as medications against the likes of birth pains, ointments for hemorrhoids, solutions to relieve dental pain in infants, drops for earaches and during abdominal surgeries and the suchlike.

In 1887, Dr. Sttyth Pemberton from Atlanta gave birth to the world of Coca Cola. He manufactured the now famous non-alcoholic beverage from the leaves of the Andean Coca plant and it wasn't until 1902 that the Cocaine itself was removed from the product. Coca leaves are still however used in the flavouring, and to this day, the U.S. remain the biggest importers of leaves from South America. Sorry if you don't think any of that was interesting, but we did...

We continued our self-organised city tour by going to the Sopocachi neighbourhood, and visiting the central park and the Plaza Murillo, before heading back for our final night in the hostel and a few beers and a barbeque with some chirpy Aussies. Overall, La Paz held a mix of adrenaline, fascination and unfortunately, normal city activity but will always be remembered as the place where I could have accidentally killed myself in the pursuit of a little excitement...

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