Malaysia

We got our flight to Singapore and got there late on Tuesday night - very nice/clean place (it is illegal to eat chewing gum there!), but you can tell most people go out there on business as beers are so expensive. Though we were very lucky, in that we booked a hotel when we arrived at the airport (very "Marriott" - nice 4 * etc) and upon turning up, as they had sold all their rooms but one, they put us up in their presidential suite up on the 17th floor. Not bad when you've paid 60 quid for the night!

Yesterday, after catching up on some sleep, we took a bus out to Malaysia. We got to Melaka at 8pm and found a backpackers guest house (clean enough, but somehow very different from the suite we'd slept in the previous night!). We are going to spend another night here and head up to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow morning.

We are still walking around and taking in the surroundings, Melaka is an interesting place but I can't really think of how to explain it. In Chinatown there are no pavements on the street, so you end up walking next to deep, long, rectangular trenches that make up the sewage system, regularly dodging cars/motorcycles/tuk-tuks that wizz past you on the other side. The traffic is unbelievable, looks like it's rush hour at any time of the day. And not far from the pavement-less streets, you can find huge shopping centres ("Melaka Mega Mall") with all the McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut and High Street shops of this world.

I look forward to going somewhere a bit quieter (KL will not be it but we want to see it as it is on the way) - e.g. a village near a beach. I am sure it will come in due time, as we are making our way up to Thailand.

C.

On the road again - off to Singapore next*

* Standby flight terms and conditions apply!


It has been a while since my last update as we have been out of Sydney for most of last week. We wanted to do a bit of visiting and also leave Aurelie and Shane some space during the week (they have had guests non-stop since mid December! I guess it's bound to happen when you live in such a nice place).

On Monday last week, we drove down South of Sydney to Jervis Bay and stayed there for one night. We went for a swim and a walk on Hyams Beach, which is - according to the Guiness Book of Records - the beach with the whitest sand in the world. It was indeed very white and looked like one of the pictures you see on holiday brochures. We were swimming along, enjoying the landscape, when we stopped to spare a thought to all our friends back home who were a) at work and b) freezing their backsides off... we might not have many friends left when we go back if I keep on writing comments like that ;)

After Jervis Bay, we drove back up North into the land towards the Blue Mountains, and stayed two nights in a town called Katoomba (I do love these names... Katoomba, Kirri Kirri, Kirribili, Wagga Wagga... I assume they are Arboriginal in origin... ooh that sounds quite poetic!). We went out for a lovely walk from a place called Echo Point - you go down (and I mean down, vertically so) 902 steps, then end up in a sort of tropical forest. There were lots of lizards, birds singing nice exotic songs (our favorite one so far in the whole of the Australia trip has been the Kookaburra - Aurelie makes a brilliant impression of it, I wish I'd been able to record and share it... Aurelie, a tes micros!). To go back up I couldn't face 900 steps up (I'm not lazy, it's just all this running we've been doing :) so we took a little cart back up. It was set up on what they claim to be the steepest railway in the world, at an angle of 52 degrees. Looked pretty steep from where we were sitting, and we thought it was better to be going up on it rather than down!

We got back to Sydney in time for the week end, and on Friday Gary and Shane went out to watch the cricket (Australia vs. South Africa) at the S.C.G., while Aurelie and I had a girly night out in King's Cross.

On Saturday, we were all slightly worse for wear and didn't get up as early as planned, but eventually managed to hit the road towards Nelson Bay (about 2 hours' North of Sydney) in the late morning. Shane had organised a three nights stay in a three bedroom appartment just off the seaside, and their friends Adam and Amanda (who are British but have lived in Australia for a couple of years) spent the week end there with us. It was great: lots of going to the beach, having barbecues, drinking beer and sleeping in. We also drove down to Hunters Valley and tasted some Aussie wine. Yesterday I had a go at bodyboard surfing on the Mile Long Beach, it was really good fun.

We are now back in Sydney - after a tearful goodbye to Aurelie (and a manly handshake to Shane), it's time to hit the road again. We are going to try and get a flight to Singapore this afternoon. It is standby, so if we don't get on we might actually be visiting Aurelie and Shane a hell of a lot sooner than anticipated! If there is no room on the Singapore flight, we will try to go for the Bangkok one. Not sure where we will be in 24 hours' time...

Watch this space!

C.

P.S. Our highlight of the week - took this photo on Shane and Aurelie's street. Shane told us that the first time he saw this, there was a ticket right next to it!

(You should be able to read what it says if you click on the photo to maximize it)

Snakes!

So we've had a very nice few days since arriving in Australia, the weather has been fantastic and of course we got sunburnt despite putting on suncreen (only in the places where the skin wasn't covered either by clothing or sunscreen... hey, that proves how well it works!).

So far apart from Neutral Bay where Aurelie and Shane are based, in the past couple of days we've visited Downtown Sydney, Manly (love that name... when you walk around you see all sorts of sign, e.g. "Manly Veterinary Clinic" - my favourite one had to be "Manly Lifeguard Centre"), Watson's Bay.

Yesterday we went out walking in the Royal National Park (about 30 kms south of Sydney) with Aurelie and Shane. We did a really lovely walk along the coast and even crossed paths with a rather big snake (apparently it's very rare to come across them unless you are in some sort of reserve). Check it out!Aussie "lifestyle" (and probably peer pressure from Shane and Aurelie, who are incredibly sporty) has made a bit more active than usual. Between Friday night and Saturday night, so within the timeframe of 24 hours, we did 2 runs and a 3 hours walk. We had planned on going out last night but ended up having a BBQ out in the garden. Gary wasn't feeling too warm - spot the Pom!I am trying to upload pictures on Flickr but it is really, really slow... hopefully I will manage to get them all on today.

Bye for now,
C

Oz

Well hello from Sydney!

We set off from Switzerland on Monday morning and caught a plane which got us to London around lunchtime. Since we had time to kill until our flight at 9.30 pm, we headed out to West London (where else) and went to the bank, Post Office, etc to sort out last minute stuff. At 4.00 pm, with still a while to wait, we thought that the best way to make time go quickly is to go down the pub, so I calmed my last minute "can't-believe-we're-about-to-leave-Europe-for-ages-
and-go-backpacking" nerves with a few G&Ts in the King's Head in Earls Court. Kirstie joined us and it was really nice to be able to say good bye properly (drunks hugs, running after the train on the tube platform at Hammersmith, waving manically, etc).

Now, trust me I am very very ashamed to say this and realise that it makes us look slightly ridiculous as we are supposedly backpacking for the next year, but the fact of the matter is, we were unbelievably lucky and got First Class seats all the way down to Sydney. Makes me cringe just to write this, but I do want to write it as I am sure I will enjoy remembering the lovely experience when stuck on a 1940's bus going around hairpin turns up some mountain in South America. Won't go on and on about it but the flight over was so, so nice.

We arrived in Sydney yesterday at 7.00 am local time to a glorious hot and sunny day. Getting through customs and out of the airport was a lot less painful than we had anticipated, and we were at Aurelie and Shane's house by about 9.00 am. Having our first shower in 36 hours was definitely a highlight (for ourselves as much as for each other!). Gary suggested we walk down to the wharf in Neutral Bay and get a boat out to Circular Quay, which was a fantastic idea as my very first sight of the harbour as we approached it from the sea was breathtaking. As Gary pointed the Opera House, I replied "Oh yes there it is, the Sydney Marriott" - the hotel was neatly lined up right behind it... I am slowly getting over not working for Marriott any longer... I swear (not missing it that much right now!).

We spent the evening with Shane and Aurelie and had the obligatory BBQ in the garden - lovely. We got to bed at 10.00 pm and slept until about 6.00 am so should hopefully fight off jet lag pretty quickly.

The weather forecast is 40 Celsius today! Sunburn here we come!

C.

Swiss break

We are now in Switzerland visiting Béa, Mark, Lucie and Oscar. The past week or so has been filled mainly with long train journeys, which were actually quite enjoyable (better get used to it now).

We spent a couple of days in Paris to see my family - then we left on Tuesday pretty much in the middle of a snow storm. The French suburban train system isn't really the best in those circumstances, in fact it was total chaos. The sight of the day was a little French granny jumping over the ticket barrier, as she probably couldn't be bothered to queue up for 2 hours to get herself a ticket. I say "jumping", but it was more having one leg stuck over the tourniquet and having to be helped over it by the local hoodies. What great solidarity between outlaws!

After a day's travelling we got to Saint Christophe Vallon, where we spent a couple of days with my grand parents. Being her usual self, my mémé Rosette tried to force feed us the whole time ("I know you're a vegetarian, but surely you'll have a little liver pâté?".) When we left on Thursday morning, we were also treated to a packed lunch consisting of no less than 4 croissants, 3 ham/cheese sandwiches, 2 bits of cake, a pack of dark chocolate, 6 clementines, some walnuts and a pack of biscuits. And actually, we did eat quite a lot of it - merci mémé!

(Here's what it looked like!)

On Thursday we spent the night in Lyon, the centre of town is actually a lot nicer than I would have thought. We ended up in an Irish pub of all places. Probably the first in a long series.

We are now at Mark and Béa's in Aubonne. The guys went off skiing this morning and I spent the day with Béa and the kids, who are so adorable but oh dear, it must be so much work to look after them 24/7.

As I have said probably a thousand times already, we are flying from Geneva back to London on Monday morning, and then going to Sydney from there. Can't wait!

C.

Final packing

We're in Southend, leaving the UK tomorrow for a week around France and Switzerland. Leaving Acton yesterday got a bit emotional, and I am flapping again now as we are doing the final packing - backpacks only! It is going to take me at least 5 gos of taking more and more stuff out. I imagine that once we are on the road, I will think I was very silly to pack such and such thing for which I will have no use whatsoever.

It felt so strange not to be in work today. Nice strange! We went to the seafront with Gary's parents and family from the Philippines. It's nice to think we will be seeing them again, probably sometime next month, in Cebu.

Better get back to it...