Hi everyone,

As promised, another weekly update now that we are settled into Aussie life!

But before I start on Sydney, I'll go back a week to when we got back to Bangkok before leaving the beautiful Thailand.

We'd left Koh Lanta in the minibus from hell ride back to Krabi to catch our flight back to Bangkok and spent 2 extremely boring days in Krabi. Honestly - never ever spend more than an hour in that town, there literally is nothing to do. We even spent a day in our hotel room just playing Ludo and watching movies (ok ok we did have slight hangovers from too much beer the night before).

We were actually both incredibly glad to be back in Bangkok a) because we were finally out of Krabi and b) because we've both fallen in love with Bangkok which is a good thing because as it happens we couldnt get a hotel room at the national park we had planned to go to so spent the week in the city. Bangkok actually has a lot to offer so we had a very pleasant week.

On our first day I took us off to Ocean World. For those of you who know me this was obviously my first choice when asked what I would like to do! I was so happy I couldnt stop smiling the whole way there (I was on the fab skytrain again aswell which might have had something to do with it) and when we got there it didnt dissapoint. This place is on the ground floor or a shopping centre, the Siam Paragon, but it's absoutely huge and even had a rain forest in it too. We saw hundreds of different fish, whales, cute water rats and otters being fed, crabs, lobsters, everything. In fact, we saw possibly the hugest crabs in the world and we touched star fish and sting rays and a boa constrictor (random!)!

Another day we went to the EGV cinema to see Yes Man. Now this is no ordinary cinema oh no, this is the Mercedes Benz, no, the Ferrari of cinemas I'm telling you! We didnt actually need to see Yes Man but read that the cinema itself is the main reason to go. We turned up, asked for 2 tickets to the movie and in turn were asked what popcorn and drinks we wanted. Bit odd, we thought, but it all made sense 10 minutes later. We walked through a room with plush red velvet arm chairs, beautiful black and white prints of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean etc and a lovely looking bar area. Then we walked through the double doors at the end and into the cinema screen. I think both our jaws dropped at the same time and speed. For a cinema screen that would hold about 400 people in the UK, this one held just 40 (and there were only 5 of us in there)! Each person had their own black leather lazy boy armchair with a remote control and enough room for you a little one with a table for 2 to share. We had just got ourselves comfortable with the pillow and blanket provided(!) and in comes an usher with our popcorn and drinks!! Just how amazing is that??!! The movie wasnt bad but when it came to the end neither of us wanted to leave. Seriously it's worth the trip to Bankgkok just for that!

Now, what else did we do? After having enough of Thai food we cheated one night and went to the Hard Rock Cafe to have a burger and a beer. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending if you're a half full or half empty kinda gal, we arrived during happy hour and managed to down 4 pitchers of beer and demolish a plate of nachos and then couldn't stomach the burgers!! So for me, I ended up with a raging hangover the next day!

One day we took a trip to the floating markets which was far too touristy and tiring after having to leave the hotel at 6.30am but we went to a snake farm afterwards which was pretty cool. We saw a snake show where 4 very brave men played around with cobras and other such venemous snakes, sometimes getting a bit too close to the crowd! One of the guys was playing with 3 at the same time and at the end caught 1 in each hand and the other in his mouth. Very educational as well - did you know a cobra has 2 penises?? Nope, neither did I!

Hopefully you believe me by now that Bangkok is pretty cool, but I havent told you the best bit yet! Kav and I found possibly the best eatery in the whole wide world, universe even! In the Siam Paragon there is a food floor, half of which is small restuarants and half which is little stalls. Within these little stalls is one called Bread Talk (Jamie - I know you're interested already!!). We went nuts I'm telling you. In one sitting we both 2 little cheese boats (bite size doughy bread sticks with chesse inside and on top, a ham and cheese knotted bun type thing, a cheese twist, a smart alex (my favourite!) which is a long bready/pastry thing full of custard, a custard bun thing and a couple of other bits which cost around 2 pounds altogether and was demolished in the same amount of minutes. Suffice to say, we went back the next day for more!! We're still in mourning and very tempted to take one of the chefs home with us!

So after the visits to Bread Talk, EGV and Ocean World we'd seen most of Bangkok and still loved it but it was time to get our behinds to Oz, so here we are!

We took an 'overnight' flight from Bangkok to Sydney on Saturday night - missing out on Alex's 30th birthday party which was gutting - and landed yesterday morning. Yesterday wasnt fun at all. I'd slept for 2/3 hours, Kav didnt sleep at all and we landed at 7am which was 2am for us and tried to do a full day. We just about managed to check emails etc before we were allowed to our room at our 'hostel' (never again!!) and sleep for a couple of hours. After that we booked our motorhome (RV) for the next 30 days and took a walk around in the evening to find somewhere to eat. Fell into bed and slept til 10am this morning.

Today we took the train to the harbour to go see the bridge and opera house and I'm sorry to anyone I offend here but we werent actually that impressed to be honest. The bridge is smaller than I imagined and all I can see is a heap of iron, and again the opera house is smaller than I imagined and not really to my taste. Having said that, after spending an hour or so walking across the bridge, seeing the views, taking in the harbour it did grow on me, but so far, Sydney doesnt really do it for me. It doesnt seem to have any atmosphere or anything spectacular about it for it to stand out from other cities around the world. Tomorrow we are going to see the Australian Museum because after reading Down Under I'm very interested in the history of the country. Then we are going to do a cliff walk from Congee Beach to Bondi Beach, then on Wednesday we pick up our RV and drive off into many sunsets to see as much of the East Coast as possible.

Hopefully by the time we reach Cairns the cyclon will have dissapeared and by the time we fly down to Melbourne the fires will have been put out the temperature will be under 100 degrees!! Talk about timing hey!?!!

So, that's about it for now folks. As always, I send you all my love and miss every single one of you.

Lots of love,

Sally xxx