Quadbiking-Doughnutting-more frisbee-Diving

Hey everyone, Billy here:

Had a good time since the last post...
After we got back from the floating market we hired quad bikes for half an hour, went round the 3 tracks with Jack being by far the fastest (don't know how... I had the accelerator down all the way), the jumps were fun but Rosie managed to get a burn on her leg by going round a corner too fast, it didn't look too bad but she went in to the pool afterwards as a result.

On Wednesday, we got up late and went down to the beach, where me and jack spied a big, yellow, rubber doughnut (looked more like a sofa), after some masterful bargaining by jack (it mostly seemed to involve silence but somehow that worked) we got on for 3/4 of the price. We were being pulled by a jet ski and there are no words to describe the experience, the closest that I can think of is terrifyingly fun. Afterwards me and jack enjoyed a well earned massage, while Rosie got a manicure and pedicure (I thought they were very brave to attempt this for only 4 pounds). We were joined by some members of jacks family and went out to the night market to pick up a takeaway, which was filled with some weird and wonderful things... the most interesting item was fried grass hoppers which were surprisingly tasty, although I refused a second one!
On Thursday we went to book our evening transport to Koh Tao, and then walked along the beach to an extremely nice bar, which was sooooo good after the boiling hot day. That evening we caught the bus to the ferry where I managed to catch a few hours sleep (Rosie didn't). On the ferry we were approached by a couple of people advertising dive companies (there's so many on koh tao), and decided to go with Big Blue, which has been very good for diving though the accommodation has been very iffy (after the first night we moved rooms).
We signed up for the open water course, but as Rosie has already done half she just had to do the last bit.
Saturday involved changing from the room with dirty walls, towels, sheets and toilet to one where you have to pay (the other one was free with our course) and has air con, which has been much better. In the afternoon I went off with my group, and Rosie was on her own with an instructor, we went in the boat too Mango Bay, where I just practiced some skills and Rosie managed to go for a fun dive. The next day (EASTER - although we didn't get any chocolate eggs) Rosie finished off her course in the morning, by going on 2 fun dives, where they saw loads of cool fish, but she got 6 questions wrong in the exam later and had to buy her instructor a beer(I got 2 wrong)!!! That afternoon I went on my two first fun dives where we managed to see a hawks bill turtle, which we gloated about on the boat and for the rest of the day.
This morning I went on my last two dives which were really cool, at one stage though I lost my regulator (breathing device) whilst fighting matrix style and in a panic went to my instructors second who says I have to buy her a beer for forgetting I had a second too.
That's where I am off to now...
So Ciao for Now!!
xxx

Photos! (fingers crossed..)

Us with the Thai dancers

The floating market

The crowds for Songkran in Silom street

Khao San's songkran banner

The guards at the Royal Palace.

After our first experience of Songkran

Sailing at Changi Yacht Club

Planting the community garden

The terrible tandem

Billy with his tiddly gun.

Billy and Nufail (sp?!) at our hostel

Singapore - Little India

Koala! (slightly out of place.. hope you can work out the order yourselves!)

Butterflies!

Our bed at Cros and Dales

Billy and Nick on the edge of the world!

Billy looking Manly.

Sydney sights

The 3 Sisters

Me at the Opera House

Evening All,

Fingers crossed we'll be able to upload some photos to let you all know we're 'alive and kicking' (and not too sun burnt)

We spent the weekend in Bangkok and have since headed south to Cha-Am where we're staying with Jack and his family in their lovely apartment. Billy and Jack have enjoyed endless games of frisbee but this morning we escaped for a while and went to the floating market which was very cool indeed. We watched a display of Thai dancing which was fun until we realised we'd become tasty meals for a large number of biting insects. However we've discovered a special Thai miracle jelly which although ponging slightly is very effective on the bites

our last few days in Bangkok we explored the giant Chatachak market which

had over 8000 stalls : Billy was thoroughly shopped out by the end of the Saturday! Despite protests we returned for round 2 on Sunday and managed to come across the puppy section - though you'll be pleased to know Billy held firm on that one. Next I think we're heading to an island somewhere further south (but we're open to suggestions!)

Hope things are good at home,

Lots of love,

Billy and Rosie

xxxx

Water, Water Everywhere But Not A Drop To Drink.. (Honest!)

We've been in Bangkok for a couple of days now and are staying at a very lovely hotel where Billy can enjoy a full english breakfast for under 2 pounds (though I am limiting him to only one per day!) We arrived rather too early on Wednesday morning, settled in and then decided to go and see the Songkran celebrations in Si Lom. We returned to the hostel drenched and covered in white powdery stuff after about an hour.. we'd only taken enough money to buy a rather small water pistol and everyone seemed to pick on us! We took the MRT to Chatachuka (sp?!) Park where we hoped we'd be able to visit the butterfly house. Unfortunately due to navigational difficulties it had already closed by the time we arrived, but we enjoyed a wander around anyway! Yesterday we decided to visit the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Taking the bus there was an experience in itself, costing the equivalent of 14p each for about 45 minutes of dodging the frequent buckets of water which were thrown through the windows. The Temple complex and palace were suitably grand and glittery : we tried to estimate how many mirrored tiles had been used in total, it must have been billions! We explored the surrounding market and then headed back to the hostel after eventually figuring out which bus route went the right way. We ate yummy thai food from a stall near our hostel and then headed to Khao San Road which had been closed off to allow thousands of revellers equipped with water guns and the funny white paste stuff (we still havent figured out exactly what it is!) to run wild. As foreigners we got plenty of dousing and returned to the hostel exhausted, drenched and suprisingly chilly! Tonight we're planning to tackle Khao San road again, though now I am equipped with my own very impressive 'Ben 10' gun so should be able to protect myself! Today we went to Pratunam market which was really interesting. I managed to drag Billy away from the wonderful fake Raybans, though unfortunately he was unable to drag me away from the copied 'Kat Cidson' bags.. though mine is quite a good one! Hope everything is good at home, Sorry the photos are still being useless, we'll keep trying! Lots of love, Billy and Rosie xxxx

More Singapore!

Evening All =) Tomorrow we leave Singapore to head up to Bangkok for the Songkran festival which is apparently a spectacularly mad affair involving everyone in the vicinity getting drenched. It should be fun! Our flight leaves at 6am, however, which means leaving the lovely Green Kiwi at 4am... not so much fun! We've enjoyed exploring lots of Singapore over the past few days. On Saturday we ended up racing on the hostel owners 46ft yacht (our reward for our hard work in the community garden!) which was very nice indeed, despite the several tropical thunderstorms and the fact despite several reminders Billy managed to forget his change of clothes! We had drinks in the plush Changi sailing club (why doesn't ours have a swimming pool?!!) and then headed back for a slightly less plush, but nonetheless tasty, pancake supper at the local food court. That morning we also took in the 'only village left in Singapore' on Pulau Ubin where we hired a tandem bike. The lady who hired it to us was reluctant to let us leave after seeing how much we swerved around on our practice run, but by the time we returned we were relatively proficient! On Sunday we decided to visit Changi prison museum to learn a bit about the history of Singapore. The Museum was really interesting though unfortunately they closed up for the day before we'd finished looking as we'd been dawdling so much! On Monday we visited Singapore Science Centre, which was slightly young for us.. but we still had a lot of fun! Billy took part in a Tesla coil experiment holding up a fluorescent tube which glowed once the coil was turned on, though thankfully he wasn't selected to sit inside a cage and be blasted with electricity (he probably would have absent mindedly touched the edge or something). Today we went to buy books as we've got through a lot of ours. Billy was thrilled to discover a copy of TLOTR which he's been looking for all trip for only a quid. He's been glued to it since we got back from the hostel, though perhaps we'll make it out for tea at some point.. Sorry for the lack of photos, it doesnt seem to like uploading them here. We'll try to upload a bumper batch when we get to Bangkok. Hope everything's good at home, Rosie and Billy xxx PS. Please leave us a comment!

Sydney to Singapore!

Hello! We've had a great few days. The blue mountains were really spectacular : Billy and Nick got a tour by a slightly dubious Polish man who turned out to be really nice and we enjoyed a gigantic picnic (we barely ate half!). By the time we'd finished eating the picnic we'd missed the sunset which was a shame, but we still took a walk around the headlands which was very pretty. In the morning we said a sad goodbye to the Bowerings and headed across to Manly to meet up with Crosby and Dale for what had been billed as a 'few days of luxury'. We weren't dissapointed as our bed turned out to be wider than me stretched out, and we enjoyed our own bathroom, balcony and amazing view! Dale took us on a little tour around Manly and we bought Billy his very own Manly t-shirt (it had to be done!). We went for a really nice meal on the beachfront in the evening, though thankfully we didnt have to dress up as we realised neither of us owned a pair of smart trousers! In the morning we set off for a fun-packed day taking in the aquarium, wildlife world and sky tower. The dugongs (like weird seals!) were very cute and Billy got very excited over the duck-billed platypuses. At the wildlife world we got a proper taste for Australian animals seeing kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, red back spiders and lots of lovely snakes. The sky tower was pretty spectacular, sadly the weather failed on us and we didn't get to see the sunset but the views were still amazing, and we got to spy on everyone in their offices. Wednesday we spent wandering in Manly before Dale kindly took us to the airport for our flight to Singapore. We'd discovered the flight was 7 hours - a lot longer than we'd expected - so we got plenty of film time in before we eventually landed in Singapore. We caught the airport shuttle without a hitch and were transported back to our very plush home for the next few nights (thanks Lucy and Jerry!) The next morning we set off into the heat to head for Little India where we took in the sights and delicious smells before a yummy curry lunch. We went to look at some amazing temples and then headed back to the hotel for a swim. In the evening we went to the cinema and saw 'Hall Pass', which was surprisingly humorous. Yesterday we discovered on our way to buy breakfast that our debit card was missing from Billy's wallet. After much desperate worry and rushing around I found the card in Billy's dirty shorts pocket. He has promised to be much more careful! We checked out of the hotel and headed over to 'Green Kiwi hostel' where we're staying now. We decided to visit a museum but got lost on the way so ended up in Chinatown which was very interesting indeed. In the evening we ended up helping out planting the community garden which was very hard work but rewarding! We went out to a food court for tea and then collapsed into our beds! Hope everything is good at home, Lots of love, Rosie and Billy xxx

Lake Tekapo - Christchurch - Sydney!

Hello!

Sorry for not updating for so long.

We spent the night in a nice youth hostel in Lake Tekapo and in the morning managed to fit 4 people and 6 bags into the car which was miraculous! We stopped in Geraldine on the way to Christchurch and admired the Guinness world record holding 'giant jumper' - we were surprised how small it was! We arrived in Christchurch and checked into our room - surprised to find we weren't in a dorm - we'd forgotten we'd treated ourselves! We ended up taking both of our hitch hikers a very indirect route to the shopping mall (neither of us wanted to but both of us thought the other had offered it later transpired!) as the Dutch guys usual sense of direction departed him and we ended up heading 20 minutes in completely the wrong direction. I was not amused. We sent our rather large package home at vast expense and dropped off our car to the rental office without any hitches which we were very glad about. After eating as much of our remaining food as we could manage we attempted to get a good night's sleep. Unfortunately the other hostel guest had decided have a party just next door, though we managed to get a few hours before our 3am alarm.

As I'd predicted we arrived at the airport in plenty of time, and spent the early hours of the morning wandering around duty free and attempting to use up the remainder of our phone credit. We arrived in Sydney at 8am and after the Spanish inquisition over the contents of our lunch box (the cheese, bread and butter all came from New Zealand in case you were wondering) made it to our wonderful lodgings for the night - Base backpackers. We were rather exhausted after our flight so spent the day wandering slightly aimlessly around the city - taking in the Botanic Gardens and the giant bats there as well as Bondi beach in the torrential rain. We hadn't planned on heading to Bondi, but on check in we'd been informed that for every bucket of sand we brought back they'd give us a bucket of drink that evening. After lugging 6 buckets full of sand back on the bus and receiving various strange looks in the process we were informed that we were only allowed one drink each. After an interesting supper made using the one sharp knife provided in the entire hostel kitchen we decided to try to get another early night - having been awake for 20 hours by this stage. Once again we were unsuccessful as the hostel staff decided to burst into our room and drag us down to the bar (Billy just about managed to change back out of his pyjamas); though we managed to make our escape before the wet t-shirt competitions began - thank goodness!

In the morning we phoned up Bill and Bonk's friends the Bowerings and were very grateful when they offered us a bed for a few nights - not sure we would have enjoyed the party hostel that much! We explored Chinatown and then headed over to their house where we spent the evening - enjoying a yummy Thai meal and sampling Tom's cocktails. On Friday we walked down to Bondi along the very pretty coastal path and hired out a surf board and a body board for a couple of hours. I'd forgotten how much my eyes hate the mixture of sun and salt water so spent most of the time lazing on the beach whilst Billy enjoyed some spectacular wipe-outs, though he did manage to stand a few times! Next time I fear I may be the only surfer wearing goggles!

Yesterday we decided to do our own walking tour and spent several hours getting lost around the harbour. We went to the Rocks market and watched a slightly interesting fashion show before venturing across the harbour bridge (though thankfully lack of funds excused us from the actual bridge walk!) and catching a ferry back for some amazing views.

Today we're meeting up with Billy's friend Nick and his bride-to-be Bridgett to go to see the Blue Mountains, which should be good!

Hope everythings good at home,

Sorry for the awful spelling - spellcheck has decided to give up on us!

Lots of love,

Rosie and Billy

xxx