Back Home!

We've made it home!















Ruth and Mum kindly picked us up from Heathrow, despite us arriving very early in the morning. As you will see from the pictures, the backpacks had grown to their maximum capacity and it was great to finally leave them somewhere.










We were entertained on the way back from Heathrow by the inexhaustable Indi, Ruth and Andy's black labrador (a new addition to the family whilst we were away). Indi is going through her chewing phase. She makes a great paper shredder too
















We spent a few happy days catching up with Mum, Ruth and Andy. We even got to have a belated Christmas Day! It was great to come back to the full works - turkey, christmas and birthday cakes, mulled wine. After a few days in Surrey we have now made it back into London. I am hanging on to my former travelling lifestyle by keeping my backpack, albeit now filled with jumpers and coats rather than flip flops and shorts. Vania has ditched her backpack for a granny trolley, now rumbling along a London street near you!




So that’s where we are now, happy to be back from a great trip. It’s unbelievably cold, but sunny at least. Having been in 35C in Cairns only a week earlier, we are struggling with the drop in temperature. I am living in my fleece and ski jacket and Vania is wearing so much Alpaca wool that with a longer neck she could pass for one. I queued at a Watford match last night, in the snow and wind (how English), but it still hasn't sunk in that we are back home. London is largely the same - crowded, people queuing and muttering away, houses still cost the equivalent of the GDP of a small nation but the pubs and buzz of the city are still amazing. Nicky Campbell on Five Live is still an idiot. Television is still only allowed to show programmes about home improvement, cooking or reality ‘talent’ shows. I've missed the English sense of humour, or even just being able to understand what people are talking about. The buses now talk to you and tell you where you are (whilst this is a welcome development, having spent seven months on buses wondering where on earth we are, there’s something terribly ironic about being told every thirty seconds where you are on a journey you've done hundreds of times)!



We are now filling our days by trying to resume our previous London lives. We are both keen to get back to normal asap, although with jetlag we've been getting up around 6am for a week now which certainly isn't normal for us! It's 6.30am now, I am writing this and Vania is getting ready for her "power breakfast" CV review in Canary Wharf with Nacho. She looks very good though, I'd give her a job. Sorting our lives out is exciting although knowing quite where to start is a bit daunting. We are very fortunate to have use of Teresa and Peter's flat (thanks so much), after seven months in hostels it's so good to have our own space, clean kitchen and bathroom and to empty the backpacks and spread out a bit. Vania is applying for jobs while for the next few months I am studying and doing some voluntary work. We are really looking forward to catching up with family and friends we have so missed, so please find some time in your diaries for a long overdue drink.



It's the end of a fantastic journey. We hope you have enjoyed reading about how we were getting on and seeing the photos. We hope the "look where we are now" posts haven't annoyed you too much and that you'll still want to speak to us now we're back!










We have met many weird and wonderful creatures on our way, from alpacas to keas, stingrays, kangaroos and of course Frankie, the Maori Wrasse. We've made many friends too, have been helped out by loads of people in the countries we've visited - from bus drivers to hostel and tourist information staff, market stall holders, hardware store owners, Mr Coconut Man, random people on the street - the majority of which have been unfailingly helpful, friendly and often very funny too.










To those of you still travelling, stay safe and enjoy the rest of your trip. Let us know from time to time how you are getting on.





So that's it from us. From Machu Picchu to the Great Barrier Reef we have a whole host of wonderful experiences from a world that now seems a lot smaller and much more familiar than it did. We take with us only memories and leave only footprints (including that great big carbon one, oops). Oh, and thousands of photographs.

Take care,
Tom & Vania

Hong Kong

Hi all!

I spent six months working in Hong Kong in 2001, so it was good to go back and visit friends still there,and revisit some of the old haunts. It was strange to be back after seven years. The place has changed a fair bit, the incessant construction forces the city continously upwards, theres been more land reclaimed for building work and seemingly even more people. Endless expensive shopping centres, each looking exactly the same as the previous one, have appeared. They are the main walkways interconnecting Central's buildings, making it maddening trying to find where you are going amongst the shops. At the other end of the retail scale, there are millions of small food shops, with just about every type of dried fish you could imagine.

Looking at the food on sale in this shop, it was hard to argue with the name!

Returning to HK made me realise just how good three features of the place are. The Mid Level's escalator, a series of interconnecting covered escalators that ferry people down to Central and back each day are a genius invention (the peak is very steep and it's very humid in the summer so you don't appear at work like a sweat monster). These escalators ferry the 27.5 billion residents around the city each day, cunningly timed to go up or down with the commuter flow. Secondly, you can check in for your flight in the city centre, drop your luggage and go and enjoy a night out before getting your plane (or, as it was in our case, find out at the in-town check in that those numnuts at American Airlines had forgotten to amend your ticket and cancelled it instead, and have to rush to the airport to go on standby - more on that later)! Finally, their version of an e-payment card for trains and buses can also be used to buy a coffee, or in foodshops, for a newspaper and in lots of other small purchases. Genius. Some things have changed for the better. That massive escalator that takes thousands of people on the daily commute has improved, there is less barging at rush hour that I remember! SARS seems to have had a lingering effect, with some people still wearing surgical masks......not just any masks - this is HK after all -but designer branded ones nonetheless! Including Burberry ones too (HK, along with Essex, are about the only two places where Burberry's brand image hasn't been destroyed)!

We arrived on Sunday night and met up with Jason, a friend from the HSBC graduate trainee days who was kindly putting us up. We went to the main drinking area, conveniently situated right between the offices and the Mid Levels ex-pat residential area. Even Lang Kwai Fong had undergone some form on makeover. The next day we went across Victoria harbour to Kowloon, on the iconic Star Ferry. These ferrys have been chugging away in the harbour for 100 years (some of them look every day of it too), but they are very quick, and impossibly cheap. You spend the five min journey wondering how they can charge only 10p each journey. It seems the one oasis of good value in a place with rampant commercialism, where normally people are out to shaft you at every opportunity. Over in Kowloon is Nathan Road, a frenzy of activity with electronics shops (where you will get shafted unless you know exactly what you're buying), more clothes shops and endless dodgy blokes in the street offering you fake jewellery, fake handbags and a tailored suit, should you need it (or even if you should not). It's hard to walk a metre without someone with a deal that's just so good they had to come out on the street and harrass you into it! Amongst all this chaos is the notorious Chunking Mansions, the near squalar accomodation with cult ex-pat curry house. The food is actually ok, but riding in the rickety lifts or worse avoiding the rats and occasional person sleeping on the dingy stairwell is, as they say, all part of the experience.

In the afternoon we took a walk around Central, admiring the many fine buildings. These pictures are of the Bank of China and HSBC buildings, which are the most stunning skyscrapers I've ever seen. At night they are lit up like Christmas trees and look even better. Afterwards I took Vania round Mid Levels to some of my old haunts and to where my flat was. "Fullview Court" has quite rightly had to change its name due to the Trade Descriptions Act (like they'd have one of those in HK) to "No View Court". As we wandered around, I couldn't resist stopping at my old laundry service for a picture of the name. Fortunately the clothes didn't smell of wee wee,

although they did do a handy line in wrecking shirts and shredding ties! That evening we met up with Kieran, Marcus and Jason. Alex, the Barco's manager, actually recognized me. Were we there that much in 2001?!

On the next day we took a trip to Lantau Island, an oasis of calm in HK, which even has green spaces (well, except for the huge international airport and Disneyland)! As we made our way to the Po Lin Monastry, the mist descended and the temperature plummeted.

We arrived at the Big Bhudda statue and could only make out a knee and perhaps an elbow! It was a shame as it is a fantastic sight. We didn't hang around too long, it was below 5C and we were feeling the transition after being in Cairns a few days earlier. We decided against the cable car ride after hearing some of the cars have dropped off the cable overnight. Curiously there was still a huge queue to go on it. We returned to Central to warm up and met up with Jason for a chinese meal. Thankfully, he didn't repeat his old trick of ordering me chicken's feet!

The next day there was more skyscaper gawping in Central, followed by lunch with Sarah, another friend from HSBC days. Sarah recommended a good tailor (ie not one of the street ones) so after lunch we went across to Kowloon and each had some shirts tailored. After much faffing around with rolls of material and description of styles, interspersed with awkward questions from Vania about what styles women wear in the office, we finally managed to order some shirts. These places are hives of activity, a whirl of tape, stacks of rolls of material and filled with industrious staff. They can knock a suit together in a few days and the frontman is usually a bit of a local celebrity. On the walls there are loads of business cards from previously happy clients, the more impressive sounding the company the more prominently placed the card. After a while I found the HSBC section somewhere down by the skirting board! £20 each including postage to the UK for top quality tailoring isn't bad. That evening we met up with Yue Zhen, another friend from HSBC who was having her birthday celebrations that evening. After a meal in a spanish restaurant we went to another of the endless shiny new bars that have sprung up.

Thursday began with us packing our backpacks for the last time (well, the last time in this trips that is, we'll still be lugging then around London for a few months) and heading off to the Man Mo Temple. This is right in the centre of mid levels, and the waft of incense leads you to it from afar. Given its situation, its size is quite impressive. Lunch with Kieran, Ted and Jason followed, again happily involving no chicken's feet. We had a good meal, with endless food arriving. Vania and I, with our sound chop stick skills, were struggling with the slipperiness of some of the food. After lunch, as the pollution was a bit better, we went up on the Peak Tram to look down on the city. The view from the top is impressive with all the skyscrapers tucked into the hillside. After that, we walked around HK's token park, and paid a visit to my old building, the Citibank Tower. Then we made a quick dash across to the market at Mong Kok. Mong Kok in chinese translates as 'bucket loads of chinese people' (ok, I might have made that up). It is one of the most densely populated places on the planet, and we were off there for a shopping trip. Oh good. Fortunately it wasn't too bad at that time of day, and we rummaged around the marketstalls trying to spot any genuine products. This place is unbelievable, a sea of endless consumer goods in just about every colour, size and shape you could think of. It was conterfeit central, you name it they'll conterfeit it for you. We had to admire the scale of the production. The bartering was generally good humoured too, although you get the impression that in a set up with this many customers the people are doing pretty well for themselves. We bought a few items, then decided our backpacks would fit no more stuff and it was time to return to Central.

With our sightseeing finally done, we went to in-town check-in, unfortunately only to discover that the highly flexible cross company Oneworld tickets that we had were not so easily changed after all. Back in Australia, we had phoned American Airlines customer services and postponed our return flight to London by two weeks. At the time we were lucky to find out that someone at AA had forgotten to cancel our previous flight and double booked us. Fortunately we found out in time, and cancelled the earlier dated booking. Then, in HK when we tried to check in at the British Airways desk we were amazed to find out there was no booking - they could see that AA had changed the flights, but had forgotten to tell BA about it so we had had our ticket cancelled. The news got better when they told us the next available flights was six days later. Instead of the relaxing dinner with Jason we had planned, we ended up rushing to the airport to get our names on standby lists. We spent the next three hours going from desk to desk trying to sort our problem out. In the end we managed to get in a Cathay flight, which actually arrived in Heathrow one hour earlier than the BA flight. In the end it was fine, at least we still got home when planned. We were happy to have made it back to London, although only knowing we had a flight home twenty minutes before it left made it hard to realise that we were finally returning home.

Great Barrier Reef (Australia)

Ola!!

This is it, another life time ambition fulfilled: diving in the Great Barrier Reef!!! And yes, it is as good as people say it is!


















We went on a two day scuba diving trip on Reef Encounter (arf arf)! These trips are not cheap so we were a bit worried when we arrived at the pier to find a decaying boat full of chavs (as Tom described them) waiting for us. Hum... Fortunately that was only the day trip boat which doubles as a shuttle boat for people staying overnight in a bigger boat that remains on the reef. A few sighs of relief later and the next scare came our way: we found ourselves talking with Kathy, the boat's underwater photographer, who lightly told us the CD with our photos cost £40! Blimey! (As it turned out the photos were so good that we bought the CD, hence all the nice photos in this post).


















One hour later and the shuttle boat was meeting the Reef Encounter boat. We transferred boats, leaving behind most annoying people. As a point of contrast visualise this: we walked into the big boat to find a living-room area with comfy sofas, DVD reader and massive TV, a bar and a dining area with great food set on the tables. And there was curry for lunch, much to Tom's approval! Our accommodation as well was incredibly comfortable and well furnished, way better equipped than most places we stayed on the rest of the trip. Wicked!


The Reef Encounter crew were brilliant, very funny and friendly. One of the Dive Instructors, Sam, liked to play tricks like raising the boat's platform a few meters when you're just about to jump in with all your diving gear. I was not amused when the small jump suddenly became 3m one!





















We opted for an intense diving schedule of six dives in a day as this would be our last opportunity in a while. Almost as quickly as we had finished enjoying a gourmet lunch, we were being put in wet suits and thrown in the water. The divemasters and instructors in the boat were great fun but also very professional. After a briefing about the location, off we went in what was our first unguided dive. Uhhhh scary! But also great, we realised we actually knew more about it than we thought. To be honest we didn’t appreciate the surroundings much as we were so focused on not making any mistakes, checking our oxygen levels, maintaining our depth and not getting lost. Fortunately Kathy was down there to give us some directions while indicating where all the stuff worth seeing (and photographing) was. She showed us where to find Nemo and his wife and kids (probably the plot of Finding Nemo II), giant clams (which would feed a large family, if cooked with lemon and cream, hummm...) and several types of coral. Upon returning to the boat we relaxed on the outdoors jacuzzi before going out for a second dive.


































































After dinner we were all excited about doing a night dive when the crew pointed out some three metre long sharks encircling the boat. They were huge! After a lot of reassurance on their harmlessness to divers in we went. As soon as Tom had jumped in the water he saw one just below him as instructed he pointed the light at himself and that was enough to intimidate the shark (it probably though it would choke if it tried to nibble Tom’s “little” feet). The only sign of sharks for the rest of the dive was our torches reflecting off green eyes in the distance. Much scarier were the trevely: these 1.5m long fish (as in as big as myself) silently stalk divers at night for food. When your torch lights up something edible, the trevelies suddenly darts past you towards the fish and gives you the fright of your life! Tom just about resisted the temptation to line up a few little fish for the trevelys' dinner!









six dives a day is hard work........
















































The next day we started diving at 6.30 am. The idea was to capture the fish as they wake up but I suspect we were a bit too early even for the fish. It was hard to tell who looked more sleepy, us or them. To wake us up, my dive computer decided to pack in halfway during the dive and Tom had to control our depth and underwater time until we returned to the boat. He actually had to do it on the following two dives as well since neither of my replacement computers was working.



But the best of all was meeting Frankie, the massive Maori Wrasse (the name comes from the beautiful patterns, reminding of Maori carvings). One of the crew members taught me how to attract Frankie onto the boat’s platform and pet him. He’s so sociable! He hangs around the boat waiting for divers and then comes really close to you and looks you straight in the eyes. Apparently the Maori Wrasse's memory is quite good and he can recognize the diving instructors from one visit to the next. Frankie is just so sweet...




Our underwater disposable camera pictures didn't come out too well but Tom did manage to get the above picture of Frankie. For the rest, Kathy was on hand to get some really good pictures of us hanging around with our new friend!










And this time both Tom and I want one!






























Reef Encounter were looking for casual crew members, we would have loved to have stayed on and worked for our lodging. Sadly our flight out of Cairns meant we had to get back to shore. After a couple of days of rare sunshine, we hit the mainland to a reminder of how the australian summer is!







We then took our flight from Cairns to Hong Kong, via Brisbane. This did at least give us the chance to see the Great Barrier Reef from the air, twice. Seeing it from the air reminds you just how large it is.

Bye for now,

Vania

Cairns and Cape Tribulation (Australia)

Hi there,

When the rain finally eased (downgraded from monsoon to hammering it down) we started to walk to our hostel. With our ever growing backpacks and now also front packs (sorry, that sounds rude) showing just slightly under our drenched ponchos, we were understandably getting some odd looks. Then our route took us past one of the rougher pubs in Cairns. Now Australia does rough old pubs better than most countries – some of the old mans’ pubs in the UK can be a scary experience, but Australian ones are on a different level. This particular pub was full of scary looking blokes in string vests all shouting intelligibly at each other. Some had beards so large that the landlord probably didn’t need to bother sweeping the floor. At any one time (and unfortunately as we were passing) there was a minimum of five fights simultaneously breaking out. As we dodged the beardy brawlers, we passed a particularly attractive woman sitting outside. She took one look at us, grinned, and said “How ya going, Umpa Lumpas?!” Now I have to admit this is a fantastic heckle, but when you’re carrying 40kg of stuff, have just got drenched by a monsoon and spent the last seven hours of your life on a Greyhound bus, you’re not in the best of moods! And she had to spoil the heckle by adding “How ya going” which had started to really get on our nerves in Australia. In any shop, you’ll be asked this at least five times before you're even through the door. I know they’re being friendly, but in addition to being grammatically incorrect, you don’t know how to reply – “like a steam train / backwards / don’t know” are all responses I have tried out, but I’m yet to decide how you are supposed to respond. Anyway, I digress. It was a great heckle but we weren’t in the mood. So we Umpa Lumpa’d off and told her to get lost!

The next day we took a two day tour to Cape Tribulation: with a name like that we just had to go and see it! Cape Trib is a very small town in the middle of the Daintree National Park, which is possibly the oldest living rainforest in the world. It is also the only place in the world where two world heritage sites come together: the rainforest runs right into the beach and the Great Barrier Reef. For a change you still can’t bathe on the beach: to all the previously named dangers add the crocodiles which nest on several river mouths and have been spotted swimming around in between them.

On our way from Cairns to Cape tribulation we stopped for a little river cruise: a one hour canoe ride with a slightly sadistic guide, in swollen river infested with crocodiles of all sizes and bad intentions. As soon as we got on the boat the guide started saying how we had chosen the worst possible time of the year to spot crocs. Apparently there were hundreds of them but we only got to see three smallish ones. Spot the croc on the photo!

The guide suggested we could volunteer to attract some but surprisingly no one fancied a swim despite the stifling heat. Since it was midday the water was warm so the crocs just stay in it and all the females were out in the bush guarding their nests. Furthermore the river was heavily swollen (see all our complaints about the monsoon in Queensland over our last, oh, ten posts) so even if the crocs wished to be out basking in the sun there were no vegetation clear riverbanks available. Fortunately our guide knew were some crocs liked to hang around so we managed to see some juniors hiding between the leaves and one big mama by her nest. Of the big man eaters we only got their names, Fluffy, Cutie and Pinky. No actually the names were more along the lines of Scarface and Fat Al, but I still think Smily would be a good name.

We did see some pythons sleeping on tree branches and some green frogs and loads of Phileas (aka the Flying Foxes). There were so many of them that one of the branches broke down, setting of a massive commotion as the bats tried to avoid falling on the water. Apparently crocs are so clever that they wait under the bats' favourite fruit trees just in case this happens.

That night we did a night expedition into the forest. Our two guides were slightly mental and we started wondering whether anyone had done some research on the effects of living in this place on human mental stability. One of them was mocking the other for getting bitten by a snake during the previous night’s tour when he suddenly jumped into the woods, grabbed a snake and got himself bitten. Hum, was this Dumb & Dumber performance just a work double act or were they actually like that in real life? More importantly, should we walk into the rainforest, with all its poisonous snakes, frogs, plants and spiders with D&D as our guides? Of course yes! They provided loads of entertainment and fortunately no one else got bitten that night. We also managed to learn a few things from them. For example, we saw Green Apple trees, so called because of the fruit's smell, although its taste is rather disgusting.



We also learned how to find lemsip substitutes in the rainforest: just suck the backside of one of these leaf ants! We didn't try it but supposedly it is very lemony. Yummy! These massive green ants leave in the trees. They make their nests by "gluing" leaves together and stay there until the leaves start to rot. If you need to clean your lungs, you just grab one of these nests, crash it between your hands and inhale the vapours (yuck!).







We had so much fun with these crazy guys that we placed our lives in their hands again in the following day: we went zip lining! The ones we did in Costa Rica were faster, longer and overall more exciting than these but this turn we had plenty of time to take in the surroundings. The helmets had appropriate names like Scooby Doo, Smurf or Casper, although mine and Tom's were even better than that: Dr Doolittle and Austin Powers!! Feel the mojo!









What a pair!!! Watch out James Bond!

















Austin Powers's on the upside down run........





















































George W went AWOL in the jungle, what a loss to the world! Actually everyone refused to wear this one, it's one thing to be a Smurf but being a George Bush is going too low!










In the afternoon we just cooled down (literally) on the hostel's pool or in one of the many water holes around the area. The tricky bit with the water holes is how do you know there will be no crocs there? The guides say that the water is too cold and no croc can stand it. Well, to be honest neither can Vania's! Notice my "this-isn't-funny" look on the photo. But it is true that the setting was beautiful and we had it all for ourselves!






Tom, looking for some loose change at the bottom of the pool.

Me, after about fifteen minutes of debating the virtues of the water with Tom (me: "-It's flipping cold!", Tom:"-No, it's so nice, it's very refreshing, you should definitely come in.", me:"-Are you mad?!? No way!") and still in doubt of whether this had been a good idea.

On our way back to Cairns we had one last treat: a Cassowary with two chicks crossed the road! We weren't quick enough to get photos but it was very special to see a wild big bird like this. As usual they are endangered and with them the whole of the rainforest. Cassowaries are the only birds big enough to swallow these trees massive seeds and to, huh, spread them around the forest.

Bye for now,

Vania and Tom