I wonder where they are now....?

STATS: Day count=27; Current Illness count=0 (all in full health… for now); theft count=0; rip-off count=0.2 (we’re sure we were overcharged for a bus journey, but can’t prove it!); tourist screw-up count=0.7 (no change); Chris’ photo count=300; Emma’s photo count=7 A little while since the last update – we’ve not been in places with internet access in our room and to be quite honest, we have far more exciting things to do than write blog updates! ;-) Seriously, though, thanks for the encouragement about the blog – it always feels very self-indulgent to be telling everyone about our ‘holiday’ in great detail, so it’s good to hear that people (at least some of you!) are enjoying the updates. I will continue for as long as that does. We’ve been away for 4 weeks now – that matches our longest holiday to date. That means we are now officially not “on holiday” but are “travelling”. So I will be growing my hair long, sporting a beard, Em will be getting her hair braided and we’ll both re...

STATS: Day count=22; Current Illness count=2 (Not much left of my body to sunburn now. Dodgy stomach on a bus journey – I’ll spare you the details! Emma got stung by a sea urchin – most impressive injury so far! – and bitten by a fish); theft count=0; rip-off count=0; tourist screw-up count=0.7 (no change); Chris’ photo count=270; Emma’s photo count=7 I still haven’t lost those Project Manager instincts. I know when someone is trying to pull a fast one. Writing out a bus ticket with the date of travel filled in as 23/1/53 wasn’t going to get past me – I know how these foreign scams work, you know. Luckily, I have also long-since lost the rashness of youth (well, youth anyway) so I didn’t insist on finding a tourist policeman (yep, they have tourist police) there and then. Having researched this a little more thoroughly, it seems that Thailand works to the Buddhist calendar, which is 543 years ahead (or behind, depending how you look at it) of the Christian one (it starts when Buddha i...

STATS: Day count=19; Current Illness count=0.5 (sunburn now rife after failed attempt to reduce the ‘tourist red stripe’ effect, Em’s cold abated, some blisters from kayaking for 3 hours, numerous mosquito bites and a claimed “really nasty” red ant bite on Em’s arm); theft count=0; rip-off count=0; tourist screw-up count=0.7 (+0.2 for kayaking straight past the cave we set out to see); Chris’ photo count=225; Emma’s photo count=7 Thanks for the comments on the blog so far. We really like reading them (and the emails), so keep ‘em coming! Any suggestions for places to visit (or avoid) are most welcome – as you can see, we have no firm plans, and advice from people who have been in this area before, or just heard about places, would be great! Thanks Andrea & Wim for the suggestion to avoid Phuket – we had come to a similar conclusion and with your affirmation of that I think we’ll definitely give it a miss (assuming we can get to Bangkok for Chinese New Year – if not, Phuket may be...

STATS: Day count=12; Illness count=1.5 (sunburn pain reduced, big toe recovered but Em has a cold); theft count=0; rip-off count=0; tourist screw-up count=0.5 (no change); photo count=178 Currently in George Town on the island of Penang in Malaysia. I’m still wearing my Liverpool football shirt with (dented) pride. I know our form has been abysmal of late and unfortunately I’m aware of the FA cup defeat, but someone has to set the standard out here. The sale and wearing of Premiership football stuff out here is rife. Liverpool gets a good showing (I suspect some may be in hiding due to recent form) but Man U is prominent, and we cant really be putting up with that. Arsenal shirts are pretty rare, luckily, and Chelsea support is non-existent, as it should be. I saw one confused young lad with a Liverpool shirt on and a Man U cap. Poor kid. I was tempted to set him right on the perils of divided loyalties but his dad was with him and I thought that really ought to be a parental duty....

STATS: Day count=10; Illness count=0.5 (blister healed, cause fixed with a small piece of duct tape; Bad shoulder sunburn in force and stubbed big toe. All Chris’ ailments – Em has escaped all these so far); theft count=0; rip-off count=0 (discovered that cheese slices are expensive, so previous rip-off no longer counts); tourist screw-up count=0.5 (no change); photo count=140 (be afraid….) What links tea bushes, strawberries, bees and orchids? I have no idea, but the Cameron Highlands is ‘famous’ for all these. Apparently. As we were asked by some locals in KL: “Why would you want to go to the highlands? It’s cold there”. And indeed it was. I would hardly class 25degC as “cold” but then if you are used to the 30-35deg in KL, I guess it is! The highlands were cool. Both colloquially and literally. A very pleasant change from the heat of KL. We stayed in Tanah Rata, basically a few dozen shops on the main road. Hostel (pictured)was nice, set away from the main road, very cheap and ...

STATS: Day count=5; Illness count=0.1 (small blister on right foot); theft count=0; rip-off count=0.5 (very expensive piece of cheese in an egg sandwich); tourist screw-up count=0.5 (bad call on a park visit – see below); photo count=90 (just to get you all dreading the slide show when we get back!) (Written Saturday night / Sunday morning) Sleep patterns are still not quite sorted – not sure I can continue to blame the jet lag as we’ve been here nearly a week. After a week away it still feels very ‘holiday-like’ – difficult to imagine we have 6 months+ ahead of us but really nice to be able to do things at whatever pace we feel like and not to have to rush everything. And to be able to plan / change plans as we go along. Shame I’m missing all the snow back home :-( However, we’ve been busy in Kuala Lumpur, but about to head north now. For those interested in what we’ve been up to, here’s a summary… Stayed the first couple of nights in Chinatown, in a relatively nice hotel, priva...

We made it to Kuala Lumpur. Not only that, but our luggage has made it too! Bonus. It’s hot here. Left England in the snow and arrived to 31degs C temperatures. Mind you, the 15hours flying killed most of our senses, so we are only just acclimatising. Slept lots, done very little so far except wander around the area and try to work out what is vegetarian and what isn’t. In general, I think if it is still moving when you ask for it, it isn’t vegetarian. They sell roast chestnuts on the street corners - it’s like being in London. Except it’s 31 degrees in January. More interesting stuff when we actually do something….