Married - the info!

Hi all

It's been a long time but I haven't really known what to write recently. After all, this was a travel blog and that travel is now over. However, I guess i should continue to update for anyone that likes to keep up with what's going on.

So, the exciting news is that we've booked our UK wedding - it's on the 21st June at 3.30pm, followed directly by the reception in a small town called Ashburton in Devon. I'm pretty excited!!! The ceremony is taking place in this hotel on the edge of Dartmoor (near Haytor - the largest tor on top of a hill in the moor) and it is going to be absolutely lovely!



The plan is to come back to Australia probably in September and have another wedding in October, as the air is getting warmer and the nights are getting longer. What a joy it is to imagine that we get TWO weddings! Lucky us!

So there you have it, all the info for the wedding. If anyone from Oz wants to come over, I'd be more than happy to see you there! But given that we're coming over there to have another one, that party will rock also!

Hope you are all well and happy.

Love Tom and Karen x

Finally as promised!

Hi all

I don't know whether you're all still checking this but I'll do it for my own benefit also.

On our last long train trip, from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, we wrote up a list of our Best and Worst of everything. This site doesn't allow me to insert a table so I'll perservere without one. Each category has a response from Tom and a response from me. Here goes:

Best beach - Hat Khom on Ko Pha Ngan (Tom), our lovely private beach on Ko Chang (Kaz)
Best accommodation - Bellvue (T) in Darjeeling, Tiger Huts on Ko Chang (K)
Best cuisine - Indian (T), Indian (K)
Most anticipated beer - first night in Delhi (T), after 3 day train trip in India (K)
Best beer - Chang (T), Kingfisher (K)
Worst travel - we both agree that it was Panaji to Mumbai on the bus
Best meal - Glenary's in Darjeeling with Chicken Reshmi kebab (T), Tom Yum at Beach cafe in Ko Chang (K)
Best scenery - Ko Pha Ngan (T), Jaisalmer in Rajasthan (K)
Worst traffic - Delhi (T), Bangkok (K)
Worst place - we both agree that it was Varanasi (renamed Verynasty)
Best experience - Snorkelling (T) in Ko Pha Ngan, Bikaner with MC's family (K)
Friendliest country - Laos (T), India (K)
Best trains - we agree it was Thailand - brilliant!
Best non-alcoholic drink - Chai marsala tea from Chowrasta, Darjeeling (T), Coconut shake from Coral Bay in Ko Pha Ngan (K)
Best snack - north indian samosas (T), Cornflake mix from Panaji (K)
Best shower - Bangkokk to Nong Kai on-0board-train shower (T), Sam Nuea, Laos (K)
Worst rip-off - Halong bay tour (we both agree)
Funniest experience - the man who spoke hest for tom in Jaisalmer, shisha with Joe in Hanoi (K)
Most tanned - both in Ko Pha Ngan
Biggest disappointment - it was not seeing the Himalayas after 5 days of trekking - damn clouds!
Worst hangover - after the night with Ashok in Panaji (T), after Lao Lao in Ponsavanh (k)
Worst hotel - it was Varanasi - horrible! But at $3 a night, quite cheap!
Best fruit - Palolem (T), coconut on the backwaters tour in Kerala (K)
Best bargain - Beer Laos! (T), samosas for 5 cents (Karen)
Hottest place - the day in the Red Fort in Delhi (T & K)
Coldest place - Sandakphu (T), Kalipokhri (K) both in the Himalayas
Worst smell - smoke in Varanasi from the funeral pyres (T), sewer stench in asia (K)
Best smell - jasmine rice cooking (T), incence in India (K)
Coolest city - Mumbai (T), Bangkok (K)
Weirdest animal - puffer fish (T), bears in the zoo in darjeeling (K)
Best feel good experience - scooter in Ko Chang (T), thai massage on Ko Pha Ngan (K)
Most fun - fishing in palolem in india
Most impressive sight - Raj Ghat in Delhi (Ghandi's final resting place) - Tom, Taj Mahal (K)
Most authentic experience - the tiny bar near the ferry in Panaji (T), visiting the temple with an indian family (K)

The travelling stops here....

Hi All

Well, after 4 long months of travelling, we've decided to head back to the UK. We were going to leave on the 2nd February but we realised that we're not taking much in anymore, so have changed our flights to tomorrow night.

This has been an amazing experience for us. We've learned so much from this travel and feel so enriched from the experience, it's been incredible. We have so many amazing memories and hope to one day tell our kids about what a great time we had.

I will continue to post, however, so keep an eye on the site as I'll upload a heap of photos soon from the travel - we have some real crackers!

We made a "best of" and "worst of" list on the train on the way here to Ho Chi Minh city so i'll post that shortly also. An amazing time and i feel so pleased that we did it!

Love to you all

Kxxx

Hanoi Vietnam

Hi Guys

Sorry it's been a while since posting but the internet connections have been so slow and frustrating over the past week that i was tearing my hair out. Still very slow here in Vietnam but I'll perservere!

So, we've been to some varied places since we posted last. I think we were in Luang Prabang last time....

We discovered that bus travel in Laos (and consequently in Vietnam) is ridiculously slow... the average speed we've achieved is 30 km/h!!!! Oh my god... my hair went grey with the boredom! But we got to Ponsavanh in Laos which is the local town to the Plain of Jars - eerie standing jars made from stone in the middle of nowhere. And even weirder is that noone knows what they're for!

Ponsavanh was weird - like a wild west ghost town! So we left rather than spend our last two days in Laos there. So we went to Sam Neua - a border town in Laos in the middle of nowhere - another 9 hour journey. Then yesterday we had the most epic journey ever. We started at 6am, caught a large tuk-tuk to the border (open to the very cold elements!), then crossed the border (a 1.5hr ordeal with bag checks), then had to recruit a quarantine officer to help us negotiate with the bus driver to Hanoi who wanted to charge us US$35 for the journey (we got it for US$25 in the end). Then followed the most death-defying bus journey yet - 10 hours of it!

We are so relieved to be here in Hanoi.... what a lovely, cosmopolitan city with beautiful shops, casual cafes, and lovely buildings. Just what the doctor ordered! And you know what's best? I'm getting my hair done tomorrow!!!! - i can't wait.... after 5 months without a colour or cut, it's high time i lose the "minging" look and head towards "somewhat attractive". As you can probably tell, I'm getting sick of looking like shit, wearing the same clothes and just feeling yuck.

Anyway, Vietnam seems really lovely - if a little money-hungry (everyone's trying to rip us off!). There's a great feeling here, and it seems like it'll be a much easier travel than in Laos.

Hope you're all well and happy. Missing you all.

Kxxxxx

Hey Folks

Hope this is in order but:

1. Nasty spiders everywhere in Laos - horrible funnel nests sure to kill you!
2. The rickety bridge made from bamboo on our way to The Other Side - our bungalows
3. Tom squeezing through a crack in a rock, eerily smooth from some water that had obviously flowed through this tight cave sometime in it's past. NEVER GO CAVING PEOPLE!
4. Kaz in front of bars and the Nam Song River in Vang Vieng - note the soaring mountains in the background. Amazing spot.
5. Our bungalows and the view. Not very crap!

Vang Vieng

After a long day, we arrived in Vang Vieng to a beautiful sunset and a cold bottle of Beer Lao but not to the bungalow we wished to find. We spent perhaps an hour crossing and recrossing the Nam Song river to find a bungalow by the river but to no avail. BUT we have found a $3 a night guesthouse - with a bathroom (hot water included) and will move on tomorrow.

We had a wonderful christmas, but perhaps the weirdest one ever. We woke early to have our free breakfast in the hotel, and then returned to bed (a little hungover from xmas eve drinkies) until about 1pm. Hard to move when cable tv has such excellent movies non-stop!

We had booked into the novotel for xmas lunch and arrived at 2pm, only to be told that, at 2.30, they were closing! EAT EAT EAT! Turkey, roast pork, chicken, even steak and duck a la orange for our xmas feast! And yule logs and lots of handmade choccies for dessert. AND we even forked out for a bottle of their cheapest fizzy stuff so that it'd be a bit more special. Was great fun.

But, here's the interesting bit, we decided we hadn't had enough fun so at about 10pm, we found that our hotel had a karoake bar so we of course booked ourselves a private karoake room and sung until they chucked us out at midnight. Weird huh? HA HA HA! We have some great video of us singing all the great tunes... November Rain by GNR, Burning Love by Elvis, and of course The Power of Love by Huey Lewis! Was so much fun!

But here we are now in Vang Vieng by the river Nam Song, in a beautiful location and we're looking forward to getting on an inner tube and floating down the river for a few hours tomorrow.

To those of you who we didn't contact for christmas, hope you had an awesome time and got lots of great presents.

Lots of love from us both.
Kxxx

Wedding news

Well. It's us (Tom the lazy non-blogger as well). We have exciting news. As you all know, we're engaged. And being engaged means at some stage, you get married. We'd always thought it would be 2009, however, the UK government are insisting that we get hitched within 6 months of us landing in England, so that I can become a citizen as Tom's wife.

So. June/July 2008 in England somewhere we will tie the knot, followed by an Aussie wedding soon thereafter (soon as possible depending on our financial situation - weddings are not cheap!)

However, everyone is invited to both weddings and if anyone in Oz wants to come over, start saving!

Bit of a bombshell, we know, but we really hope you can all make it to one or both. Lucky us - we get to have 2 weddings!

Hope everyone has a lovely Christmas. Love to you all.

PS - I'll be wearing more clothes than this.... Tom probably wont!