HELLO EVERYONE!

Well when all of you went back to work after New Year, we were stuck in smelly Bangkok! We eventually managed to get a trip for a couple of days to Kanchanaburi which is about 2hours North West of Bangkok! It was a nice place, it is where the Death railway line is and also where they filmed the movie The Bridge over the Rver Kwai it was really nice and felt like it had a lot of history. We visited the WWII Museum which was interesting! (We are so glad we weren't alive back then)

We stayed in what they call a floating house, which is basically a large bamboo raft, it was different and so was the MASSIVE spider we found in the toilet in our room, we weren't sure if it was dangerous or not so we got a local in to sort it!!! He arrived with a sweeping brush and shovel!! We think he scared it off rather than killing it, needless to say we didn't sleep that well that night!

The next day was very busy, we went to Hell Fire Pass, then bamboo rafting, elephant riding and feeding, (feeding was the best, they nearly ate our camera) and then we went to the Tiger Temple to stroke the tigers and have our photos taken with them, it was very scary! Probably the most favourite part of travelling for Rod closely followed by the rifle range!!!!

We spent a few more days in Bangkok, ate lots of Pad Thai and visited the Royal Palace, Wat Pho and Wat Phra Kaew which are all very beautiful buildings with so much detail on them! The Thai's are very proud of their Royal Family!

We met our new group who were really nice and then headed South to Surat Thani where we spent a few days in Khao Sok National Park which is a rainforest and of course full of beasties, Vicki and a few others got attacked by Leeches!!!! But it was a beautiful place, excellent experience to sleep in a rain forest! Thank the Lord for mosquito nets!!!!

Then we headed to Krabi for some out of this world beaches!! The place we stayed at was very secluded no other people there it was gorgeous, very relaxing, and we took a boat trip for a day Phi Phi island hopping which included the famous Mia island where they filmed The Beach! The islands are undescribable! Clear waters and white sands! AWESOME!

We took a water taxi to Riley beach the next day, which was interesting the boat was basically a bamboo raft with a turbo diesel escort engine attached to the back of it and a big paddle for navigation!!!! However the Thai massage at Riley beach really made up for the scary boat journey!

Off to Malaysia, Penang first which was nice, we went up Penang hill which involves a scary hill train or tram but has some rewarding views. We also visited the snake temple and there were venemous snakes just sort of hanging around over picture frames and other objects, that was scary!

Up the Cameron Highlands we went on a bus which had no air conditioning and no second gear, we sat in first gear for about an hour at one point, we don't know how we got to the top, but we were thankful when we did because when we got off the bus it was like walking into Scotland, a great big breath of fresh air with no humidity, how fine! in fact it was actually that cold we had to pull all of our winter clothes out from the bottom of our back packs! But it was only for one day!

Then Kuala Lumpar, this is the most multicultural place we have been to yet, its great, all different walks of life with little conflict, well, we say that but one night we saw an indian man and a Malay man having a scrap behind there fruit counter in the market. Bizarre! We went up the Petronas towers to the bridge which joins them which had amazing views, but Rod stayed away from the sides with his fear of hights, the next day we went up even higher up the telecommunications tower which was so high even Vicki got dizzy and sick, so we lasted about 5 minutes up there, we don't even think the lift took that long to get up there!!! But we grabbed a couple of photos a did a shoot!

Then we went to Melaka it was too hot to see any of the touristy things so we attempted it, but failed and found ourselves in an air conditioned internt cafe!

We are now in Singapore, first night there and we are in Raffles Hotel so Vicki can have her Singapore Sling at an expensive $24, she must be maturing because she did'nt like it when she was 18 but does now! its really nice and clean here, with beautiful buildings and far too many shops, Rod is sick fed up of the sight of shops, but a girls got to do it! Rod even said he could live here! Anyway tomorrow is Rods birthday so we are treating ourselves to a seafood buffet at a posh hotel which includes lobster, crab, oysters e.t.c but it also carries a nice price tag so we will fill up and not eat agin until Perth Oz next Wednesday!

Anyway better go for now and enjoy the end of South East Asia!

Role on western food!

Hope everyone is well

Take care

Lots of love