Departures

Seat 38J, Flight EK 015, Dubai - London Gatwick

We are currently 28.5 hours into a 33-hour journey back from Christchurch. I am tired. An excitable infant is screeching somewhere away to my left. I have exhausted the supply of watchable movies and old Top Gear episodes on the in-flight entertainment system so thought I'd take the opportunity to scribble some concluding thoughts. I have decided to do this in the form of a series of not-quite-random memories and accolades jotted down in no particular order. I thought about doing this with the aid of the diaries I have kept but have decided that those memories that spring most easily to mind are probably the most worthwhile anyway, so here goes:

• Turning the corner into Delhi's Main Bazaar an hour after landing on our first day in India to see a seething mass of humanity, motorcycles, dust and rotting vegetables, and wondering if this was such a good idea.
• Best beer - Tui (New Zealand)
• Trying to catch the sleeper train from Agra to Jaipur, squeezing into an approximately coffin-sized berth, realising we were on the wrong train, giving up on our actual train once it was more than five hours late, heading back into the city and finding a hotel room around midnight.
• Best hotel - Hotel Siddartha, Agra, India
• Cycling from Siem Reap (Cambodia) into the ancient city of Angkor and around its remarkable temples in sweltering heat on decrepit but loveable bicycles.
• Distance travelled - 32315 miles
• Days away from England - 129
• Walking along the beach in Arambol, Goa.
• Best beach - Booti Booti, nr Wingham, New South Wales
• Tweedie knocking an old Vietnamese man off his motorcycle almost as soon as we landed in Hanoi, and moments later the smiles on the faces of everyone involved.
• Best country - Vietnam
• Gawping at glaciers, mountains, lakes and the like in New Zealand.
• Best breakfast - bagels at Café Stir, Christchurch
• A longtail boat trip through Bangkok's canal network, lined with riverside shacks and decks.
• Song - a Bangkok busker's interpretation of Radiohead's 'Creep', with enthusiastic "whoop"s inbetween chorus lines
• Album - Is This It? The Strokes
• Escaping the hordes of infant salesmen for the tranquil spleandour of the ancient palace at Fatehpur Sikri
• Best lunch - 'Two-Steak Tuesday' at a forgotten pub on our first day in Sydney
• Climbing a very steep hill in Pushkar and sipping a well-earned mango juice at the summit, only to feel rather less proud on the way down when passing elderly Indian women in barefeet comfortably completing the same ascent.
• Most attractive women - Vietnam
• Most attractive men -New Zealand
• Hopping into a tiny fishing boat in Hoi An where an even tinier old Vietnamese lady had agreed to take us up and down the ruver, only for her to hand me the paddle and roll an enormous reefer.
• Longest bus journey - Hoi An to Ho Chi Minh City, 25 hours
• Longest train journey - Kota to Thivim, 25.5 hours
• Going on an irrelevantly unsuccessful fishing trip with our new Australian friends Paul and Gillian on their friends Ross and Helen's boat on an otherwise empty lake near Yamba.
• Best dinner - Tandoori Pomfret on the beach in Anjuna, Goa
• Going tandem kayaking in Ha Long Bay: amazingly clear and still water, a unique landscape and the opportunity to splash Tweedie.
• Best film - Invictus
• Best book - Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
• Top Ten Places We Visited (in chronological order): Delhi, Pushkar, Jodhpur, Panjim, Arambol (India), Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, Hoi An (Vietnam), Siem Reap (Cambodia), Yamba (Australia)

The screen says we are ssomewhere over eastern Europe. The end is truly nigh. Thanks to Tweedie for coming with me, and for not yet running away with a dashing Indian, trendy Vietnamese or a burly Kiwi. Thanks to my Aunt Joan, without whom none of it would have happened and to whom I am forever indebted. And thanks to you, whoever you are, for taking time out of your day to read this and other such self-indulgent wafflings. I look forward to seeing you soon.

• Autocomplete option #1 if you type "nap year" into Google - "nap year diaries"
• Number of followers of 'Nap Year Diaries' - 7

For the last time,

Over.

Come on England

Hotel Off the Square, Christchurch

In truth there isn't a lot to tell of our last few days in Christchurch but I said I'd write another one while I was here and I've got half an hour to kill. Keen not to leave with the campervan memory souring everything we have spent our last two nights in a hotel which has been a pleasure.

It has been raining most of the time, so we've mooched about a few markets , been to the cinema and the cathedral and seen three generations of a half-Maori family perform a rendition of the Haka at the Christchurch art gallery. The All Blacks are a bit more frightening. At one of the afore-mentioned markets I purchased a fake but not terrible England shirt, ready for kick-off, from a Scotsman. Recognising his accent I asked if he would be supporting the Auld Enemy in South Africa. Irritated, he replied in the negative and with a glint of delight in his eye asked me if I'd heard about Ferdinand's injury on the radio that morning. I had not, so hurried off to check BBC Sport before I could deliver my knockout "at least we qualified" blow. For the record, he said he'd support New Zealand, and after that "anyone but England". Bless.

Today is our last day in New Zealand. I admit to being a touch disappointed by the experience we have had here. Everyone who has ever spoken to me about New Zealand has raved about it, and to an extent I can see why. If one were to come here in season, with reasonable weather, and make a sensible decision on accommodation then the range of things one can see and do is phenomenal, and we've only seen the South Island. And although some of these elements have not been present, parts of our three-week stay have been tremendous and I don't regret coming at all. Having said that, it is possibly the country in which I have had the least good time of those we've seen, and certainly the one I am least likely to revisit.

I do not recommend a campervan, or anything similar, as a holiday option.

Told you there wasn't much to tell. I'll do one more when we get back.

Over.

Things to do before you die

Dub Dub Dub Internet Café, Christchurch

After dinner that evening we went to the casino in Queenstown where my second bet on the roulette spin came up trumps (twelve) and in my excitement I took my winnings off the table before it was allowed, leading to a frightening level of consternation and condescension from the croupier and his manager who was immediately called out to interrogate me on how I could have forgotten this basic rule of casinos. I offered the best I could do at the time - "I just forgot" - collected my winnings and departed $70 richer but feeling rather poorer in stature and with a growing feeling that, after the 111kg episode, New Zealand was having more fun than I was at my expense.

The next day, keen to do at least something exhilerating with our days in the adventure capital of the world, we steamed back into the information office ready to go paragliding, having carefully read all small print for relevant weight restrictions which were thankfully sufficiently liberal. I had the cash in my hand ready to hand over as the lady phoned the office to make the booking only to hear her repeat the words "wind blowing in the wrong direction" and immediately understand that me and extreme sports are a marriage made in hell and the universe is clearly conspiring to keep us apart for both our sakes. This suspicion was confirmed when we next took the gondola ride to the top of the mountain and did a thing they call a 'luge' ride, except instead of sliding down on your stomach you sit on it like a go kart. Unbeknown to me, they are not designed for people of 6'2" in height (on the contrary, this is an activity clearly designed for kids, but since we weren't allowed to do anything grown-up it seemed worth trying) and my scrunched-up legs prevented the brakes working properly until I let them dangle rather ridiculously out of the sides in a less-than-streamline fashion which prevented any great velocity being achieved. Obscenely fat and freakishly tall - what a lucky lady Tweedie is.

The day after this we left Queenstown, a town I feel I liked more than it liked me, and headed north and inland to Mount Cook, where we did a walk through the snow almost up to the foot of the mountain - the tallest in Australasia - before deeming it too cold and too icy to be worth the effort in our less-than-thermal running shoes/converse. In the afternoon we went on to Tekapo, the drive to which along Lake Pukaki and then Lake Tekapo itself was the most spectacular hour of scenery I have seen in my life. The view from top to bottom went something like - blue sky, heavy snow-topped peak, low-lying cloud, mountain-side lightly dusted with snow, valley village, crystal-blue lake, grass, shoes - all of which looked better than it sounds when I read this back.

Anyway, we arrived in Tekapo where we spent the next two nights in a park overlooking the lake. During this time we walked to the top of the very steep Mount John (an hour up and 20 minutes down, although the latter was more precarious in the snow and ice) and elsewhere inspected what was sold to us at the local information centre as "one of the most photographed spots in New Zealand" which turned out to be a statue of a border collie next to a "historic" (1930s - Kiwis have a similarly limited sense of the scope of history to the Australians) church. Even in static form the dog was a little frightening.

From there to a town called Geraldine to visit a wool shop which boasted both a giant knitted jersey on the wall (it was indeed giant) and a recreation of the Bayeux Tapestry made out of painted bits of old sewing machine. As we stared in bemusement at this bizarre creation a woman in a Christmas-cracker cardigan appeared at our shoulder to announce "it took my husband (also wearing an absurd jumper - not a good advertisement for their product) 25 years to complete". Every fibre in my body wanted to ask "why?" but diplomacy and the thought of an irate woman wielding a knitting needle prevented me.

After this brief and somewhat surreal interval we proceeded north and east, all the way to the coast in fact, arriving at Akaroa on the Banks Peninsular on Wednesday afternoon. The highlight of our two nights here, in fact the only thing of real note we did, was swimming with dolphins yesterday. After donning an enormous dry suit over normal clothes and a 20-minute catamaran ride out into the Pacific we sighted some dolphins and were basically told to jump in. Tweedie didn't particularly enjoy the choppiness of the ocean waves, and opted to climb back aboard ship after half an hour or so, just before a pair of dolphins swam just a couple of metres past me which was very cool. Seeing the big blubbery mammal up close and personal was a bit of a shock, but the dolphins seemed to adjust relatively quickly.

This morning we drove from Akaroa back inland a touch to Christchurch, our final destination. We will spend the next four nights here, partly because we slightly misjudged the length of our trip at other stages, and partly because we are both keen to come home and being here, close to the airport from which we will depart on Tuesday, feels like a step closer to leaving. I should stress that this doesn't mean we're having a terrible time, rather that we are looking forward to returning to home comforts and the company of friends and family. Something like that anyway.

The end is nigh, but not quite yet. I'll do one more post from New Zealand, and then hopefully one more back in Blighty, depending on whether I can stay awake long enough after landing to write it.

Over.

One hundred and eleven kilograms

Global Gossip, Queenstown

The following day we did a boat/walk/boat trip up the shoreline of and through Abel Tasman National Park, seeing penguins and seals along the way. It rained the entire time.

Later that day we met a representative of Backpacker Campervans Ltd who brought us a replacement van after the tap on our original vehicle had once again malfunctioned. Mercifully the tap on this one works a little better. Less good is that the water tank has the capacity of one bucket, the shower/toilet cubicle floods frequently and the kettle takes 12 minutes to boil enough for two cups of tea. Oh, and unblocking a chemical waste disposal unit on a cold morning in the rain does not feel much like being on holiday. I don't know what we were thinking.

Regardless, we moved on from Kaiteriteri where we had exchanged vans to the West coast and the metropolis of Westport, or more precisely to a one-horse town just south of it called Charleston. We spent an evening in a pub in which we were the second and third visitors of the day (I'm not convinced one couldn't substitute "month" for "day" and be equally accurate), and the following day headed out to the glowworm caves armed with a wetsuit, a mining helmet complete with head lamp and a tractor tyre inner tube. We explored some 30-million year-old caves, listened to a lot of stuff about limestone which reminded me why I hated geography so much at school, and eventually rafted through underwater lakes craning our necks to the hordes of glowworms on the ceiling before emerging from the underworld and rafting back down the river and its few mini-rapids. This was a fun day, made all the better for the fact that it was just us and our guide, Howie. Just occasionally there are benefits to being here in winter.

From there we drove to Greymouth where we were greeted by an English campsite attendant telling us that the only thing to do in Greymouth is the brewery tour and tasting. We obligingly signed up and were ferried to the brewhouse only to discover that we were part of a group of 29 of which 23 were irritating gap yearers and four were irritating middle-aged couples pretending to be gap yearers. Some of the beer was nice though - I recommend Monteiths Original Ale.

The next day we drove to the glacier at Franz Josef, walked across the dusty crevasse leading up to it in something little short of a hurricane and arrived at the ropes 50 ft short of the ice with a pound of sand in each eye and a severe chafing on every exposed piece of skin. In Blenheim we had been advised not to bother with a tour of glacier for the reason that "a glacier is basically just a big block of ice". Upon inspection I can confirm this to be largely true.

We returned to our holiday park and took advantage of the hot spa facilities available onsite, although sadly I am still washing twice-daily in an attempt to remove the stench of chlorine from myself, and in the evening I entered and came not-at-all close to winning a Killer Pool tournament in the attached pub. I have two excuses: 1) the balls didn't run for me; and 2) it wasn't real pool anyway.

We started early the following morning (yesterday) and drove seven hours from Franz Josef to Queenstown, the so-called adventure capital of the world. It has been raining really rather hard and been extremely cold ever since we got here, and consequently we haven't done a great deal of adventuring, unless the afore-mentioned encounter with chemical toilet waste counts. Instead we've been to Starbucks, McDonalds and have just seen Robin Hood at the pictures (ridiculous movie) in an attempt to reconnect with the 21st century ahead of our not-too-distant return to London.

Having spent the last three months trying to persuade Tweedie to do a skydive with me (believe it or not I was keen) I had just about talked her into it, so about an hour ago we marched into the office where one books such things armed with 600 NZD (c. 300 GBP) and a vague air of foreboding only to discover that I am 11kg too heavy (at 111) to "safely" jump out of a plane. I thought the girl at the scales was rather rubbing it in when she looked at the scales, shook her head and let me know "sometimes we make exceptions if it's close, but...". I feel a combination of disappointment, humiliation and vague amusement. Tweedie feels relieved.

Over.

Kia Ora

Cyberworld, Motueka

Watched Invictus on the flight from Sydney to Christchurch and thought it was bloody excellent. Just thought I'd mention that.

Landed in Christchurch to see rain falling outside and feel an immediate and almost-forgotten chill in the air. We prolongued our stay in the warm of the airport itself by discussing campervan options with the very freindly and helpful campervan company representative there - Dennis - and agreed to pick up a van the following day after a night in the city.

Our night in Christchurch was uneventful, but memorable for the shepherds pie and real ale we had in a cosy pub in front of a roaring fire, lending an impression that has been reinforced every day since that New Zealand gets the idea of a pub better than Australia, where the pubs/bars/clubs are, as far as I could tell, universally terrible.

The next morning we collected our motorhome from the depot, and after being instructed in the intricacies of toilet waste disposal (take lid off and turn upside down) drove off in what would become our home for the next three weeks. It has made a pleasant change from three months of hostels and motels, and cooking for ourselves has been a particular pleasure. Whether the rigmarole of erecting and folding away tables and beds twice daily will remain a worthwhile price to pay for enhanced freedom and reduced expenditure remains to be seen, but for the first five days it has been a fun experience. The only drawback has been the daily visits to various repair centres in every town we've visited in an attempt to fix the faulty tap - we are hopeful that today's mechanic, our third, has done the trick.

From Christchurch we drove first to Hanmer Springs, where we bathed in natural springs ranging from 35-42 degrees Celsius which stink of sulphur but remain a thoroughly relaxing way to spend an afternoon. From there to Kaikoura, where we decided against spending $140 per head on a whale-watching expedition (Tweedie has the Planet Earth DVDs at home anyway) and opted instead for a highly scenic walk along the peninsula where we got up close but not quite personal with some seals. Disappointingly they were all asleep so did neither the parping noise nor the back-of-the-hand clapping thing - I made the rather hilarious joke that for this reason they failed to gain my seal of approval. Thanks.

After a day in Blenheim in the heart of the Marlborough wine region sampling Sauvignon Blanc at the various vineyards we ploughed on, with an obligatory and afore-mentioned stop at a campervan repair centre, to Havelock, the self-styled 'Green-Shell Mussel Capital of the World', for lunch. The green mussels were enormous. From there we headed to Nelson, just about the northernmost point of the South Island, where we spent yesterday visiting the excellent Saturday market and stocking up on presents and nik-naks, and walking up a hill to the 'Centre of New Zealand' monument, which supposedly marks the geographical centre of the country but I suspect was actually erected simply to make tourists walk up a bloody steep hill. Excellent views of the city and surrounding lakes nonetheless. Nelson might be the place I would most like to live of all the places we've seen - trendy cafes, cosy pubs and a pleasing bay with spectacular views over to the mountains which lately are covered with a magical misty cloud which gives the whole thing a very Middle Earthy feel.

I write from Motueaka, but we only arrived here this morning after a half-hour drive from Nelson and it's only a small place so I have no obvservations really. The place is mainly used as a gateway to the neighbouring Abel Tasman National Park, which we are due to explore by boat and on foot tomorrow. I will therefore save that particular piece of chatter for another time.

There are a lot of rugby pitches in New Zealand. You'd think they'd have won more World Cups.

Over.

Another airport

Kingsford Smith Airport, Sydney

The next morning we left for Brisbane, arriving at lunchtime. This was, if anything, even more futuristic-looking than Sydney, the river lined with curvaceous overpasses and underpasses, skyscrapers lit up flashily at night time and a large ferris wheel adorning the area they call the South Bank (crazy idea). There is also a man-made 'City Beach', which we viewed from afar without getting sand between our toes largely to avoid the dozens of pasty Brits ogling scantily-clad locals. 

We spent our time in Brisbane mainly exploring the galleries, museum and performance centres, and hanging out in our laid back, friendly hostel. I'm afraid I don't really have any interesting stories about Brisbane, I will only add that it is the sort of place, relaxed but with plenty happening, where I can imagine having stayed for a few months had I done this when I was 18 and had a year to fill.

Yesterday morning we caught an internal flight back to Sydney, and spent a day doing not much except going round and round on the Monorail, an overhead train that loops the city centre, and hanging out in the brashly touristic Darling Harbour area contemplating our four weeks in Australia. It has been a different kind of experience to what preceded it, partly due to its economic prosperity relative to Asia, and partly because almost half our time has been spent staying with friends. As a result I think we have had a more genuinely Australian experience than we might have had going from beach to beach in the Antipodean summer, and have seen a variety of lovely, smaller towns which we would never have gone near without having a) recommendation from locals, or b) a car. When we arrived I nauseatingly told Tweedie that seeing Sydney felt like "the fulfilment of a childhood dream". This starstruck wonder faded rapidly, but I remain immensely fond of Australia and its nationally funny, consistently sensible inhabitants.

In an hour we fly to Christchurch, it is currently 07.58. I have been up since 01.15 watching England win the World Twenty20 Cup. Hurrah.

Happy birthday to my brother. Have a great day Knobs.

Over.

A Few G'days

Peterpan Internet, Byron Bay

We spent three days more with Tom, including a trip back down to Sydney (Tweedie met someone she knew from London on Bondi Beach but he didn't remember her - very embarrassing for her) and a wine tour in the Hunter Valley. Then on to Port Macquarie, a quiet, fairly nondescript beach town whose main feature was that locals had taken to decorating the rocks that form the breakwall, some with 'Glenn heart Julie 4 eva' and variants, but some with really rather artistic designs which enlivened a walk along the beach.

Next stop was South West Rocks, a similar but prettier beach town further up the coast. It was there that, taking out my contact lenses in preparation for an ocean dip on a blustery day, the right one blew out of my hands and away into the sand. I have consulted with William Hill and they confirm that 'contact lens on a beach' ranks above 'needle in a haystack' in the unlikeliness stakes. Fortunately I had not one but two spare pairs to hand. South West Rocks is also home to Trial Bay Gaol, one of the first prisons established by the British when New South Wales was settled. This led to much hilarious banter about Australia being essentially one big prison, a fact of which locals (well, the one barman I spoke to) seemed delighted to be reminded.

We headed inland next to Armidale, a sleepy university town on the cold side of the mountains. The drive there was rather more eventful than we had bargained for, as we followed the first road, rather than the best road signposted 'Armidale'. Only later did we discover the difference. After half an hour we stopped in a town called Bellbrook, although town might be too grand a term for a post office and a general store. We popped into the latter for water and after being shown (unasked for - I don't think they get many tourists in Bellbrook) the largest collection of teaspoons on display in the world (2800 - I wondered if Alanis Morrissette had been there) were asked where we came from ("London? I think you're lost") and what we were doing in Bellbrook. When we answered "driving to Armidale" the reply came immediately: "have you got four-wheel drive?". I answered "no" with a reasonable amount of certainty (we have a Hyundai Getz called Helen - it is tiny). A pause, then a hopeful: "Ah. Well you'll probably be ok". We were, but not until we had completed 3 hours up and down a seemingly endless mountain range conducted exclusively on winding gravel tracks and muddy dirt roads, at one point meeting a lorry coming the other way down a single carriageway and having to reverse 200m downhill and round numerous unsealed corners with a 100 ft drop on the wrong side.

After this the sleepiness of Armidale came as something of a relief. The town is famous for its autumnal brownness (apparently this is rare in Australia) and when asking at the Tourist Information office what we should do with our afternoon we received the beaming yet underwhelming reply : "Just look at the leaves all afternoon". Once we had recovered from the shock of dead leaves in autumn we discovered a 'Heritage Walking Tour of Armidale' and soon after discovered that 'Heritage' in Australia means anything, largely post offices and police stations, older than 1900. I've lived in older buildings.

The next day we planned to drive the Waterfall Way, a scenic 168km of decent road between Armidale and Coff's Harbour lined with National Parks, spectacular scenery and a few dozen waterfalls. Sadly we woke to find rain falling, so drove 130 of these kilometres to Bellingen, a smallish arty town with an award-winning hostel in which we fortunately bagged the best room, with a balcony overlooking the river and acres of rolling hills. We meandered around the town's myriad craft shops and waited for the rain to end, which it unobligingly did only once dark had descended. The next day happily brought sunshine so we retraced our steps, stopping at Dorrigo National Park to see the rainforest, at Woolomombi and Ebor to stare at waterfalls, and at Cathedral Rocks to ponder some precariously-balanced rocks, which was better than it might sound.

We returned to Bellingen for another cheese and wine evening on our balcony, and left the next morning. From here we drove to Yamba (stopping at Coff's Harbour for an obligatory photo in front of the Big Banana) to stay for a few days with our friends Paul and Gillian whom we had met in Vietnam. Upon arrival we went immediately to a campsite and found a tent and a pile of firewood waiting for us. We built a fire, barbequed some burgers and had a thoroughly excellent evening catching up on travel stories. After a problematic night's sleep involving Tweedie, half a box of red wine and a vomit-strewn tent interior we spent the next day doing rugged Australian things. Tweedie and I both caught our first fish - a bream apiece - and we returned to the campsite for another, similarly simple campfire evening.

On Sunday we woke early to drive to their friends Ross and Helen's house on the river, and went out on their boat for a breakfast-time fishing trip. We were sadly unable to repeat the feats of the previous day but fortunately Helen had packed bacon and eggs which were barbequed on the bow-end (I got it wrong at the time). After a great trip round the bay we returned to their amazingly zoological home and listened to their stories from a lifetime of being interested in the world. More fishing in the afternoon - Tweedie has decided it will be her new hobby just so she has something to talk about at parties - and I caught another fish, this time a whiting. I don't care how small both fish were, it was very exciting.

We left the following day, after possibly final (although I really hope otherwise) goodbyes and arrived here in Byron Bay yesterday afternoon. This is the ultimate Australian beach party town - there is hardly a shop not designed for tourists - but it remains chilled enough to be enjoyable. A quiet evening yesterday, and a walk up to Cape Byron lighthouse this afternoon. The sun disappeared permanently behind a hitherto nonexistent cloud the second we attempted to begin our afternoon lounging on the beach, hence my presence in this internet cafe.

That just about brings us up to date. Apologies for the 'and then we did this and then we did that' feel of this post, but I had some ground to make up.

Could someone please call me when we have a prime minister? Cheers.

Over.

Ballykissangel

7/50 Peveril Street, Tinonee, New South Wales

In anticipation of potentially monstrous congestion at Bangkok Airport, and because we needed to check everything was ok with our amended flight itinerary and couldn't reach Emirates by phone (something to do with a volcano), we took a taxi there a full eight hours before take-off and spent an afternoon queueing at the ticket office and then mincing around a crowded but not unbearable departure lounge before finally saying goodbye to Asia.

Arrived in Sydney the following morning (some might call it the western world of the self), and spent three days exploring this admirably spacious city, gawping at the harbour and the Opera House and eating amazing steak (after eleven weeks in Asia the price of everything is a bit of a shock - my first beer cost over $10, more than 6 GBP - but steak and chips seems to be a permanent loss leader). A couple of highlights stand out: 1) On our second evening we saw a very funny Australian comedian called Steve Hughes as part of the Sydney Comedy Festival with which our stay fortuitously coincided; and 2) a tour of the Sydney Cricket Ground, a great experience in itself, but improved immeasurably by Tweedie's reaction to discovering that we were not able to take the tour at our preferred time, as a sign outside the stadium informed us that a celebrity guest was entertaining businessmen. "Who the fuck is Richie Ben-ord?" (rendered phonetically here) is probably my favourite quote of the holiday.

After three days in Sydney we drove our rental car five hours north to Tinonee, near Wingham, near Taree, where my friend from school - Tom - is living and working as a vet. This gave rise to my second-favourite Tweedie quote of the trip: "an English vet moves to Australia - it's like Ballykissangel". The drive north was pleasant, although Australian roads could do with some improvement, , but arriving and seeing Tom again for the first time in too many years was tremendous. His excellent band played a gig of Beatles/Eagles/Bowie etc covers at a local cafe that evening to a crowd of raucous support - after eleven weeks away spent almost exclusively in tourist spots it was great to be somewhere real. Since then we've been exploring local beaches, attending friendly barbeques, and messing about in the Pacific with Tom and his engagingly enthusiastic, unfailingly welcoming group of mates.

In terms of firsts, I've seen my first ever kangaroo, and eaten my first real cheese in three months. I know which I enjoyed more.

Over.

Saturated

Peterpan Internet, Bangkok

The closing paragraph of my last post may have been premature. That evening army helicopters began circling the Redshirts' stronghold, and unleashing teargas bombs on the protestors. The last estimate I saw said 18 people died and 800 were hospitalised. All this we found out later from CNN, at the time we were instructed by our hotel manager to stay in our rooms, advice we gladly accepted.

The next day we had planned to catch a bus to the out-of-town weekend market, but all buses were understandably cancelled so we amused ourselves until the evening when we caught the overnight train (the best and most comfortable such transport we've taken in Asia) to Chiang Mai. The only irritation was the constant, slobbering canoodling of the young couple next to us whom I have assumed to be German.

Chiang Mai at Thai new year becomes essentially a giant city-shaped water park, with all locals and hordes of tourists spending a full week engaged in a mass water fight. Huge vats of aquatic ammunition line the streets for the easy refilling of the participant's Super Soaker or bucket, and pick-up trucks crammed with kids drive around the city centre soaking everything in sight.

This includes even those tourists looking to quietly explore Thailand's second city who naively thought that if clearly unarmed they would be granted amnesty, as we found out to our cost through incessant drenchings over the course of the next few days. I was quite spectacularly unimpressed.

After a long and less than inspiring day-trip to see the Longneck tribes of Chiang Rai (the women have artificially lengthened necks, all a bit odd), we set off on a three-day trek through the hills surrounding Chiang Mai, which was the main reason we had come to northern Thailand and about which we were frankly not optimistic after the disappointments and irritations of the last couple of days. We needn't have worried, for the trek was a taste of a different kind of Thailand. Not that it isn't a well-worn route trodden by many tour groups every week, and neither was it a trek as Ray Mears might understand the term, but we did four or five hours proper hill-walking every day, swam in waterfalls and stayed in hilltribe villages with communal dinners and campfire evenings. We also did bamboo rafting, elephant riding and made some friends - of our group of eleven I was one of three who had lived in Hampshire and a further two were from South London. Like I say, not very Ray Mears, but fun nonetheless.

After the trek we returned to Chiang Mai city and had a day walking round a becalmed and immeasurably drier place than the one we had left, festivities having ended in the intervening time. The city acquired a new attractiveness in this new atmosphere, and I began to understand the description of the place as an "overgrown village" which abounds in guidebooks. In a day of pampering Tweedie got a pedicure and we both had a foot massage and a fish spa, which is where you dangle your feet in a fish tank and the hungry minnows nibble the dead skin off. This confers a strange tingle halfway between pleasure and panic, and is not altogether unpleasant.

Last night we caught an overnight bus back to Bangkok and this evening, in a slight change of plan, we fly to Sydney. We have brought forward and extended the Antipodean leg of our trip due to a growing feeling of Asia inertia, and as such this will be my last post from the world's most populous continent. We have spent five weeks in South East Asia of which I would say the three spent in Vietnam were easily the best. We have spent roughly a week in each of Cambodia and Thailand, during which time I have rarely felt like we were in control of what we were doing, and perhaps consequently I do not think we've gathered much in the way of unique experiences. That said, there have definitely been some high points and I think my enthusiasm for this particular variety of temple-fort-palace-bar-hostel holidaying is waning after eleven weeks, which is hardly Thailand's fault.

I realise this is my third post from this particular internet cafe, and second in succession. It's just we've had three different stops in Thailand and this place has the best air-conditioning we can find. I promise I haven't just been sat here all week. Although if I had done my bottom could scarcely be less sore than it is after a night's semi-sleep on a bus with chairs not designed for being slept in. Bring on Australia.

Over.

Pepys Show

Peterpan Internet, Bangkok

The day after I last wrote was Tweedie's 25th birthday, which we spent doing not a lot in Phnom Penh, culminating in dinner by the river which was frankly not as pretty as it sounded. Decent curry though. At the time Tweedie seemed pleased with her Cambodian Rolex, although it has since brought her out in hives. Another dollar wasted.

The next day we caught an early-morning bus to Siem Reap, where we spent three days on rented bicycles meandering round the ancient city of Angkor and its myriad historic temples. The temples are remarkable, but there's a limit to the amount of that sort of stuff I can personally look at in a certain amount of time without eventually seeing just a pile of rocks. The cycling, however, and the early-morning excitement it conferred, made Siem Reap a highlight, particularly as our hotel had a pool in which to soothe previously neglected muscles. I also woke up at 1.30am two days in a row (and stayed up thereafter - we left for the temples at 4.30am to catch the sunrise) to watch English teams get knocked out of the Champions League, a disappointment made bearable by seeing Ferguson's hilariously and presumably deliberately hypocritical reaction.

Our week in Cambodia had come to an end (their KFC is better than India's) and yesterday we boarded a "7-8 hour" bus to Bangkok. We were advised of a change of bus at the border; we were not advised of the taxi-coach-walk-border-walk-minibus-coach-walk itinerary which in reality lay ahead of us.

A short twelve hours after departure we arrived in the relative metropolis of Bangkok, and having missed out when we were last here ( 3 weeks ago) I visited the Grand Palace alone this morning, Tweedie having been on one of her thirteen previous visits to Thailand. I was a bit amazed at the glitzy splendour of the place, half-fairytale half-Legoland, but it was definitely spectacular and memorable.

A quick logistical update: our plan had been to go directly from Cambodia into Laos, then across into northern Thailand from there. However, after an inspection of transport options we opted to head back into Thailand and go north from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, making use of the superior Thai infrastructure, and still leaving us the option of getting to Laos from the west. I realise this paragraph reads a little bit like the opening conversational gambit of a middle-aged man at a dinner party, but I thought it might seem peculiar to those familiar with the area that we were back in Thailand.

Thailand's new year celebrations begin today amidst scenes of continuing protest by the so-called 'Redshirts' railing against the new government, offering a positively Pepysian opening for the opportunistic diarist/blogger. Sadly for posterity, this one is mainly swilling lukewarm Singhas on the Khuo San Road and wondering which Mr Men t-shirt (I'm between Mr. Lazy and Mr. Grumpy) to buy from the stall across the street. In my defence, Pepys didn't have to contend with such distractions.

Over.

Party Time

Simon's Guesthouse #2, Phnom Penh

Our 'direct' bus to Ho Chi Minh City turned out to involve a 4.30am (having boarded at 6.30pm) stop-off and change of bus in Nha Trang for 3 hours, although by the time the driver had taken multiple backhanders from locals flagging us down at the roadside and sleeping in the already narrow aisles between the three columns of double-decker berths a change of scenery wasn't entirely unwelcome. We sat on the beach and ate fresh baguettes with Laughing Cow (applied with a penknife - thank you to the donors) as very-early-morning Tai Chi went on all around.

Twelve hours after re-boarding, and 25 hours since our original departure, we arrived at last in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) where we stayed for two nights doing very little other than loafing around, eating and drinking, and planning our route through the Mekong Delta. We eschewed the standard 3-day tour package in favour of an independent trip comprising a night each in three or four delta towns as we made our way towards the Cambodian border. We felt delighted with our tenacity when we arrived in Ben Tre, the first of these, after a two-hour bus ride (by this stage little more than a blink) and checked into a pleasant if somewhat soulless hotel run by and mainly for the Communist Party of Vietnam. Our mood improved still further as we asked the tourist office how easy it was to get a bus to Vinh Long (answer: very, via My Tho; although there are also tourist buses at 8am and 1pm) and spent an afternoon trotting round the town.

The next morning we dutifully took the bus to My Tho and asked for the next bus to Vinh Long, only to be told there was no such bus, and that we had to get a taxi instead. We still had time to go back to Ben Tre and get the 1pm tourist bus of which we had been told, so we turned around and got dropped off "down the road" from the bus station. Having walked 20 minutes up this road and 20 minutes back down it we came to doubt the existence of this bus station, gave up, and decided to check back into the Party hotel and try again tomorrow.

Apologies for the extent detail given here, but in order for me not to look pathetic (any more than is unavoidable) it is necessary to furnish you with some more. A return to the tourist office that afternoon indicated that the bus station in Ben Tre is not where Lonely Planet thinks it is, nor where we were shown by the conductor of day's second bus. Undaunted, we got to the bus station at 7am the next morning, in ample time for the 8am tourist bus, only to be told that there are no tourist buses from Ben Tre, but there was a local bus at 8.30. We waited around for 45 minutes until being approached by a man telling us that the 8.30 local bus had been cancelled for an unspecified reason; the next one was at 1.45pm. We took a taxi back to the riverside in a forlorn attempt to find the English-speaking man we had met in a cafe there the day before who had tried to persuade us to travel two-and-a-half hours, with all luggage, on the back of his motorbike instead of in an air-conditioned bus, for five times the price, although by now this was a trivial consideration. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this proved a fruitless endeavour.

We decided to cut our losses, admitted defeat, and headed back to Ho Chi Minh City, from where we caught a bus over the border to Phnom Penh. To be leaving Vietnam so abruptly was a shame, but having so thoroughly enjoyed the previous two-and-a-half weeks I didn't want to let further, similar experiences sour my memory of this fascinating country, to which I hope to return and which I would recommend to anyone.

First full day in Cambodia today (it is hotter than the mainly coastal Vietnam), and to cheer ourselves up we visited the Genocide Museum (a converted school used as a prison and torture house during the Khymer Rouge regime) and the Killing Fields. These were two of the most affecting places I've been - the image I will be unable to shift is that of cupboards full of unidentified skulls.

The Cambodian currency is called the Riel. This offers comparatively few comic possibilities.

Over.

Savile Row

Mr Hung Internet, Hoi An

It was still raining the following morning when we woke early to catch the 2-hr train to Hoi An. Our four-person carriage was populated by ourselves and two Vietnamese girls of no more than sixteen, dressed-up-to-the-nines, who spent the entire journey draped all over each other in platonic slumber while a procession of fawning men came in to try their luck. This was entertaining in a variety of ways, and made up a little for the fact that the spectacular coastal scenery out of the window was barely visible through the drizzly gloom.

We arrived in Hoi An (the rain had, mercifully, not followed us south) - the tailoring capital of Vietnam - and walked around the streets which are lined with literally hundreds of near-identical tailors' shops. We picked the one that looked busiest, and was recommended by our hotel, and I ordered a suit and Tweedie a dress. Over the course of the next couple of days, happy with the initial results, this snowballed and we ordered more and more stuff, so that in the end we had 8kg of clothes to mail back to the UK (Mum, Dad, expect a parcel).

Two days ago was the 'international renowned' fireworks festival in neighbouring Da Nang (described by one local, not knowing the English word "fireworks" as "hot flowers in the sky"), accompanied by 'Earth Hour' in which all electricals had to be turned off for an hour between 19:30 and 20:30, and the river was lit up entirely by candles and hand-held lanters, which are placed in an open cardboard box and float down the stream in a sort of candlelit duck race. Considering we had no idea this was going on until it suddenly went dark, this slightly magical experience counts as a huge stroke of luck.

Yesterday we learnt how to make spring rolls, hot & sour soup, yellow curry and steamed fish in banana leaf (you don't eat the banana leaf - I checked) at Goi An cooking school on the river - a really fun lesson given by a charmingly insane Vietnamese who insisted on singing everything she was doing ("chop, chop, chop", "slice, slice, slice" etc). Even if I do say so, it was one of the best lunches we're had.

Due to our hotel buying us the wrong train tickets and a protracted argument which finally and unexpectedly resulted in a full refund, tonight we embark upon a 23-hour bus trip to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). We are told that this is a sleeper bus but this remains to be seen. Will update later.

Over.

Top Gear

DMZ Bar, Hué

The next morning we set off on a 3-day boat tour of Ha Long Bay (the place with the floating bar where the Top Gear Vietnam episode finished up). Although the weather was decidedly cool and a little misty, the bay was spectacular, full of randomly shaped bits of jutting mountain, and the water transparently turquoise. On the first day we stopped at a floating dock, rented a two-man kayak and paddled around the bay for an hour or so before returning for a beer sold by a passing canoe. I got wet, but Tweedie got wetter, mainly because I was in the back seat and it is easier to flick water forwards than backwards with an oar. We had dinner on the boat with the other 12 people on our trip (mainly Aussies and Brits, plus my first Luxembourgian), and some beers on the top deck before bed. On the rest of the trip we saw some big and capacious caves, a little island full of wild monkeys, and generally sat on deck floating through Ha Long Bay. Memorable.

We got back to Hanoi in the evening and caught an overnight train over the 400 or so miles south to Hué (pronouned as in "Who a-te all the pies?"), where the temperature was immediately restored to its previous South Asian swelter. Hué was the capital of Vietnam many centuries ago, and has some impressive old buildings within its historic citadel, as well as a picturesque river and some buzzing nightspots. It is also used as a base for tours to the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), an area five kilometres either side of the old North/South border which was officially 'demilitarised' during the war but was in reality bombed to buggery, and some of the military bases and results of the destruction wreaked are chillingly preserved. We did a long, long bus tour yesterday - the DMZ itself is 3 hrs from Hué, and is 100 km east to west with no particular clustering of tourist spots - of which the undoubted highlight was scrambling through the Vinh Moc tunnels the North Vietnamese built to protect themselves from American bombling. They are 25m underground, at best sparsely lit and no more than 6 feet tall or 2 feet wide, not to mention muddy and stinking hot. Fascinating though.

We did all of this with a lovely and really fun Australian couple, Paul and Gillian, whom we met on the boat. As well being some relaxing and enjoyable company, this has meant our alcohol consumption has increased approximately elevenfold, and has given me a new audience for my ever-expanding repertoire of Dong jokes.

Today it is raining really rather hard, so we have holed up in a bar with free pool and internet, hoping it clears after lunchtime (locals think this is highly unlikely - "tomorrow also" they inform me, laughing). We have purchased tourist-friendly cagoules, or whatever the correct name is for a sheet of plastic with holes for arms and head, and will probably brave the elements if necessary, although that is easier to say from inside.

Tomorrow is the 35th anniversary of reunification, and various military processions to mark this and celebrate the glory of communist Vietnam are being rehearsed in the old part of the city, over the river from where I write. Their uniforms will be very wet.

Over.

Good Morning Vietnam

Hanoi Guesthouse, Hanoi

Spent a further afternoon and evening doing not much in and around the Khuo San Road, with the exception of an hour-long boat trip around the city's canal network which was an absolute treat.

The next morning, after a minor mishap involving a malfunctioning snooze button and a hurried taxi ride, we arrived at Bangkok International Airport a mere 45 minutes before departure, and at the gate just as boarding was beginning. Disaster averted.

After a bustling taxi ride to our hotel, Tweedie neglected to look before opening her door to get out, and an elderly Vietnamese motorcyclist went flying. He looked throughly shocked and clearly did not understand a word of her mortified and profuse apologies, but after a minute's sit down he was back in the saddle with only a grazed knuckle for his troubles. Tweedie was more scarred than this, and spent much of the rest of the day being as nice as possible to everyone in the hotel and surrounding area in an attempt to regain some half-decent karma.

If this represented an inauspicious start to our time in Vietnam, it didn't take long for the auspices to feel different. Hanoi is an instantly charming capital city full of leafy streets, interesting shops, atmospheric streetside bars and pavement restaurants, and friendly, trendy people. The impression of the last three days is that the Vietnamese are an effortlessly cool bunch, though not too self-involved not to help a lost-looking tourist or explain in broken English the origins of an ambiguous meat. In short, I love this place.

Yesterday we visited the understandably propagandist National Military Museum, but apart from this burst of activity we have spent the last 60 hours meandering through aforementioned streets, poking our noses into shops and galleries and stopping for coffee/beer/noodles as appropriate.

As if this wasn't enjoyable enough, each time we have had a bill to settle in the Vietnamese currency it has been immense fun to ask "How much of my Dong do I need to take out?" or variants on this hilarious theme. I don't see how this joke can ever get old. We have three weeks to find out.

Over.

Premier League

Peterpan Internet, Bangkok

It's been ages, so bear with me.

From Panjim we moved on to Arambol for five days on the beach. This was as uneventful as it sounds- suffice it to say that lounging around reading, playing Indian scrabble, watching films in big-screened bars and going for occasional strolls up the beach to the next resort for lunch was reasonably pleasant. After five nights in a bamboo shack, however, and with sand everywhere imaginable, we were definitely ready to move on.

This we did, via a 12-hour train journey, to Mumbai, where the glorious sight of what a westerner might call a 'proper' hotel room (clean sheets, toilet, television) greeted us. This was particularly pleasing for Tweedie, who by this stage had contracted some relatively minor but nonetheless unpleasant illness which kept us holed up for the first of our three days in India's most cosmopolitan city.

Thankfully she was well enough the next day to take a trip to the Brabourne Stadium (Cricket Club of India) to watch the Mumbai Indians play the Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League. Having failed to source tickets in advance (my failure) we turned up at the box office a couple of hours before the game and were delighted to be issued with two tickets at a cost of approx 20 GBP each. After a bit of lunch we went into the ground more than half an hour early in order to properly absorb the rousing atmosphere, and after negotiating with an obnoxious security guard who tried to stop Tweedie taking her camera into the ground, we made our way into a spectacularly decked-out stadium, only to find that our designated seats did not exist. J1-14 existed, but J16 and J17 just were not there. Failing to spot the longer term consequences of a box office issuing more tickets than there were seats, the ushers instructed us to "sit somewhere else". We asked what we should do when the owners of those seats arrived, and were told that in that event we should also "sit somewhere else". After having moved around our block half a dozen times in the first five overs of the game we briefly left to demand a refund, only to realise the futility of such an exercise and ended up with seats almost as far away as possible from the action, and with a big screen obscuring one-third of the pitch. However, we were undisturbed from then on.

The backdrop to all of this was sweltering heat and humidity, unbearable noise (Tendulkar is the Mumbai captain- the chants of "Sa-chin, Sa-chin" were, I think, incessant), and an attitude of faint amusement from any stadium employee from whom we requested help. As an attempt to turn Tweedie onto cricket the event had not been a complete success - she called this opening sequence "definitely one of the worst hours of my life". The game, as it turned out, was a cracker - Mumbai made 212, and Rajasthan (whom I've always sort of supported) came close, mainly due to a quite insane 100 off 37 balls by Yusuf Pathan, but Dimi Dimi Dimi Mascharenas failed to hit a six off the last ball so the Mumbai crowd went home happy. By this stage in the day this last fact was a major irritation for Alex and I.

The shambles continued the following day. It being our last in India, we planned to get up early and do a load of shopping to mail back to England. We went to Crawford Market at 8.30am -nothing was open. We caught a taxi to a different market - things were being set up but it hadn't got going. After a fair bit of waiting around (details later) we managed to do some of the shopping we had in mind and eat a McDonalds. My bag was searched on the way in - when I asked why the moustachioed gun-toter pretended not to understand.

Later we went back to Crawford market with the intention of spending some money, only to be accosted at the entrance by a horrible little man who said we weren't allowed in until we had read the 'Dos and Don'ts' board in full. When I said I had done this he said he didn't believe I had read all of it so quickly. I decided against telling him I have a degree in reading and opted instead to leave without spending a rupee. This was sadly typical of the Mumbai I experienced - although the place is in parts prettily leafy and architecturally impressive (although of course impoverished elsewhere), the people were unfailingly unhelpful, unsentimentally unfriendly, overtly aggressive, deliberately hostile and unapologetically charmless. It is certainly my least favourite place in India, and perhaps the least welcoming place I have ever been.

Earlier in the day we had killed time by walking to the Gateway of India, the great arch by the bay that greeted arriving shipments. This was a lovely thing, and sitting on the steps in the surrounding courtyard with a view through the gateway was a fitting place to reflect on six weeks in India. Mumbai had been an anomalous place to finish, for in the main the lack of material attractions had been offset by the charm of locals who on occasion went out of their way to help us, although this was by no means the case everywhere or in every instance. The experience overall had been bewildering: fascinating and frustrating in almost equal measure. I'm not sure I will ever return to India, and despite the many wonderful memories I shall take with me I am not sure I will be in a hurry to do so. Once in a lifetime is probably enough.

A parting gift from Mumbai was the taxi we booked to take us to the airport failing to turn up. We made our way to the airport, however, and landed in Bangkok last night in time for some food and a walk round the Khuo San Road, which most people reading probably know since everyone has been to Thailand these days. Our taxi driver from the airpot was very impressed that I knew who Taksin Shinawatra was- I didn't tell him that any Englishman who reads the sports pages would be similarly knowledgeable.

We are here today, gone tomorrow - we fly to Hanoi at 7am to begin a loop of South East Asia that will bring us back here again in five-and-a-half weeks. This we like to call Stage 2.

Sorry to my mum for leaving it so long since my last entry, and to everyone else for the length of this one.

A belated happy birthday (apologies) to George and McMahon, and a pre-emptive one to Mama Tweeds.

Love to everyone.

Over.

First-class

ISO Internet, Panjim (Goa)

We spent a couple more days in Bundi of which a highlight was hiring bicycles for a jaunt into the surrounding countryside, giving me, as expected, a better impression of the city to take to our next stop - Kota. This was not a pleasant place as far as I could tell, seemingly a town with a chip on its shoulder over the fact that everyone uses it as a portal (the train station is a major intersection) to somewhere else. Anyway, we stayed one fairly uneventful night in a disgusting hotel and caught the train in the morning.

This was a significant train - 25 hours and 1024 miles - taking us from northern India (Rajasthan) into the south of the country (Goa). As a treat, and because we wondered what it would be like, we decided to take this journey in first-class. This was a wise investment (the price was comparable to a London-Winchester open return) as it afforded us air conditioning and comfortable bunk beds, as well as an excellent window view of the changing landscapes as we traversed the subcontinent.

Stepping off the train in Goa immediately confirmed that if one travels one thousand miles towards the equator one will probably get hotter. With this in mind we headed straight to a resort called Anjuna and hit the beach for a couple of days. Welcome changes abounded - beer more readily available, meat and fish that looked edible (the fish is particularly excellent) and locals more accustomed to the sight of white faces. Our hotel had a big beachfront screen that showed movies in the evening - we saw Pulp Fiction and Casino Royale during our stay. The Bond was a particular treat since I had read the book on the afore-mentioned train trip and I enjoyed both versions immensely.

Other notes from Anjuna - our hotel room was so hot and humid that when I hand-washed some clothes and hung them in the bathroom to dry they were wetter when I got back from the beach than they had been when I hung them up. This made for a particularly unpleasant couple of sleeps, so we cut short our stay in Anjuna after two nights and came to Panjim, basically a Mediterranean enclave carved into the Goan coast.

This has made for an enjoyanle change of pace. Last night we took a boat cruise up the River Mandovi for an hour, with something approximating a bar mitzvah going on around us. It seems the Indians who holiday in Goa like to be entertained with loud music, a dancefloor, and an enthusiastic but humourless MC whose main line is to encourage everyone to "get up on the dancefloor" (I did not comply) at every available opportunity.

Today we took a bus to Ponda (about an hour) and visited a spice plantation. This was enjoyable, but not quite on the farm scale I had imagined - it was basically a bit of woodland with some herbs growing sporadically. The free lunch was good though, and enhanced the view that Goa has worked out the idea of creating tourist-friendly experiences like this and the cruise much more quickly than anywhere we saw in north India.

We've been here a month now, and I'm about to begin my sixth book of the trip. If I'd thought of doing this when I was at university I might have done more than scraped a 2.1.

Dinner time.

Over.

Manflu

Cyber World, Bundi

There were many ailments with which I expected to be afflicted whilst in India, but something approximating a heavy cold wasn't really among them. However, I've spent the majority of the last four days in bed with what I could only describe as Manflu.

I don't really have many stories to tell, therefore. After one more quiet day in Udaipur we caught two trains (of which the second was a sleeper class; I think they're ok in the day time) to Bundi and went immediately to sleep. Spent most of the next day in bed, and only ventured as far as a lakeside cafe yesterday. Bundi is a strange place. Lonely Planet raves about it (hence our being here) but I'm struggling to see what the fuss is about. It has an artificial lake and a poorly-preserved palace (which we saw this morning) but the tourism scene hasn't really been sorted yet. However, I think part of the attraction is the surrounding countryside, which we haven't really seen yet due to my bedriddenness, so I may have a more favourable impression next time round.

One amusing feature of Bundi is that it is beset with monkeys, and every time you sit down at a restaurant/cafe they provide you with a big stick with which to scare/beat off errant primates if necessary. I have decided I like the feeling of wielding a big stick.

Over.

Shaven, not stirred

Travel Point Internet, Udaipur

The night after we last spoke a momentous thing happened. We had some meat. Arrived at a suitably upmarket barbeque/curry place and decided to go for it. Definitely a success.

Quiet day after that, then early morning bus (deluxe) from Jodhpur to Udaipur (7.5 hrs) where we have a room overlooking the lake around which the city commercially and geographically revolves, although even if we didn't there are ample rooftop "lake view" restaurants and cafes. Lonely Planet describes Udaipur as "a tourist destination unto itself", a fact borne out by the existence of a variety of hotels, restaurants and experiences clearly aimed at a wealthier kind of visitor.

At such an establishment we had meat once more the night before last. This was good, but to be honest hasn't entirely sated my craving, since within the context of curry the full animal hit isn't quite so profound. What I really fancy now is a steak, or some sausages, or a bacon sandwich.

Boat ride round the lake last night on a tiny, rickety boat. I seemed to weigh more than the other seven passengers put together, and wherever I sat myself the boat tipped unnervingly in that direction. I settled on a spot and lightly perched, rendering the journey scenic but uncomfortable. Better this than scenic and wet, upon reflection.

Apparently bits of the Bond film Octopussy were filmed in Udaipur, and there are hundreds of cafes in the city that show the film every night at 7pm. We haven't indulged yet, but I have taken to calling Alex "Pooshy" and saying "I mussht be dreaming" all the time. (I know this is from Goldfinger but I got it into my head before I remembered this).

Had my holiday beard removed by a roadside barber this morning - a brutal experience. Alex seemed to find it amusing though.

Over.

Semi-Deluxe

Veggi Guest House, Jodhpur

And so to the land of trouser. Actually this is misleading since women are more visible here than anywhere else so far. We arrived in Jodhpur yesterday on a "semi-deluxe" bus from Pushkar, although I would struggle to imagine a less luxurious experience, six hours of knees rammed into the metal backpiece of the chair in front, people hemmed into the aisle like sardines and everyone on board staring intently at the white people with their sunglasses and ipods (a waste of time, since you couldn't hear anything above the rattling of the various bits of bus anatomy).

We eventually arrived, and found the Blue City (as an aside, I would say that Jodhpur is bluer than Jaipur, the Pink City, was pink) a place slightly less dependent on tourism that elsewhere. There seems a greater sense here of a town going about its business on a Wednesday afternoon, although that may just be the area we're in, slightly outside the epicentre. This morning we looked round the Meherangarh Fort, which I would recommend as the possessor of the finest audio guide I have encountered (narrated by what sounds like a subcontinental Olivier impersonator), and also as an interesting old fort.

Before coming here we spent two more nights in Pushkar which were spent mainly in holiday mode. Found a nice cafe showing the cricket and was having a good natter to the owner about Sehwag's technique off his hip, but he worked his way out of my good books by turning the subject to the quality of the charas he was smoking and we left promptly. Later, after several hundred attempts and once every available source of intelligence in the family had been called upon, the hotel did finally get the tv in our room working, but were not subscribed to the channel showing the test match. I didn't quite have the heart to tell them it had all been a waste of time.

Went to a rooftop restaurant last night that didn't have any tables and chairs, just cushions on the floor. I wonder if it should take away the cushions and reposition itself as a semi-deluxe restaurant.

Over

Bingo

K. K. Internet, Pushkar

We spent a further two nights in Jaipur, of which the first was spent having dinner on a 14th floor 'revolving restaurant' overlooking the city. The view was better than the food. The next day we did a day trip to nearby Amber where a ruinous old palace atop a mountain was a relaxing place to wile away an afternoon, before a return to Jaipur for tea next to a group of elderly Indian women playing bingo. There were more than two fat ladies.

Train to Ajmer the next morning (Chair Class is definitely the way to go) for a quick stopover spent mainly in the park overlooking the lake, an experience marred somewhat by the fascination our whiteness seemed to hold for the hundreds of locals who hsd the same idea. A queue of children formed waiting to shake our hands, and after obliging we took our leave silghtly overwhelmed.

Bus to Pushkar the next morning, from whence I write. We have our most luxurious, yet cheapest hotel yet, on a hillside overlooking the town (and a hole in the ground where the lake used to be before they drained it because "it was getting very dirty") with a private balcony and more-than-passable bathroom facilities. Of the places we've been, Pushkar is the most like the India of my imagination, although probably for this reason it is also full of quaint but embarrassing middle-aged hippies. Yesterday we trekked for an hour up a rocky cliffside path to a mountain-top temple before an afternoon on the balcony and spaghetti (after 25 curries in a row this seemed acceptable) for dinner, and this morning we've had an object lesson in the art of making chai. I can report that it is similar to making a cup of tea.

My highlight of Pushkar, if not the trip so far, was Tweedie fixing the strap on my bag with her travel sewing kit while I lay in the sun.

Enjoying the chilled vibe in Pushkar, so may stay for a few days longer depending on whether our hotel can fix the television in our room ahead of the 2nd India-SA test tomorrow.

Over.

Sleepers

Bani Park Palace Hotel, Jaipur

When last we spoke Alex and I were about to go and catch a sleeper train from Agra to Jaipur. This would leave Agra at 20.10 and arrive in Jaipur at 01.25. Upon arrival at Agra Fort station (an hour early, just in case) we were told the train would be late by an unspecified amount of time ("perhaps one hour, perhaps more"). After 2 hours sitting on our rucksacks and a lot of Twenty Questions the train pulled in, due to depart 20 minutes later. Sleeper class didn't seem very chilled, essentially 3-tier bunk beds not really long enough to comfortably house a 6'2" westerner, and with no seeming regard paid to the reservation system to which we had so carefully adhered. With a mother and daughter and an old man asleep in our respective berths we managed to find two adjacent top bunks and squeeze into them. A word of warning at this juncture - "air-cooled" does not mean "air-conditioned", it means there is a window. After a few minutes in what increasingly felt like a horizontal prison cell at altitude, and with the train nearly ready to depart, someone arrived at my berth and said he had booked it. I said someone was asleep in the one I booked. I showed him my ticket, and with the engines beginning to fire he said we were on the wrong train. We scrambled off in time.

After a change of platform and a further hour's wait, with the train now nearly three hours late and with no prospect of getting to Jaipur before 4am, we decided to stay another night in Agra and try again in the morning. Upon return to the city we walked round every hotel we could find without luck, before returning to our previous night's lodgings for one more plead. A gem of a man (if you're in Agra stay in the Sidartha Hotel) switched some people around and we were shown up to a little bit of loveliness in the shape of a clean bed and functioning lavatory. Rather pathetically it was one of the best feelings of my life.

We resolved not to catch any more sleeper trains.

Took the bus to Jaipur the following day, which at 5-and-a-half hours isn't much longer than the train. Not a great deal to report from the Pink City so far. It is significantly more commercially developed than our previous locations; more lights and shops with recognisable names. After what felt like our first brush with untamed India this doesn't feel like a bad thing. With this in mind I spent a good couple of hours this morning watching the test match on the tv in our room. India are getting rolled over, but Sehwag got a pleasing hundred. I will check the Times of India tomorrow to see if it is this feat or Dale Steyn's game-changing seven wickets which generates more excitement.

First Kingfisher last night. I hadn't particularly missed it and won't be hurrying to have another. Wouldn't mind some meat though.

They won't all be this long, or this frequent. I just wanted to tell that train story.

Over.

Taj Mahal

Shahjahan Hotel, Agra

Woke at the crack of dawn today to get to the Taj for sunrise. Sadly a few hundred others had the same idea but we still got a great sighting as morning broke. It is a spectacular building upon which I don't need to expound. I would have expected a plethora of tourist attractions to have grown up on the back of the Taj, but aside from a very pleasant 'nature park' there isn't a huge amount else in Agra.

Partly for this reason, and partly because Alex's friend recommended it, when we arrived yesterday morning (on an exceedingly comfortable train) we got straight onto a one-hour bus (bearing little resemblance to anything on which I've ever swiped an Oyster card) to nearby Fatehpur Sikri, where a new capital city was built in the 16th century but almost immediately abandoned due to water shortage. It remains well-preserved and was an unexpected treat to walk around, although part of its appeal was the escape it offered from the seemingly ubiquitous touts. All part of the fun.

Before Agra we spent a further day exploring Delhi, seeing the Red Fort and a 25,000 capacity mosque as well as our first encounter with real real poverty. Alex cried. I couldn't blame her.

Watched my first cricket in India this morning, the first session of the India-Sotuh Africa test match in a cafe. The only people watching, in the only place showing it in the town, were me, Alex and another English bloke. The waiter said Indians think five days is too long for a cricket match. I disagreed.

Over.

Arrivals

Smyle Inn, Delhi

It's nearly the end of our first full day. I haven't found myself yet.

Arrived yesterday, via a disappointingly western Dubai and a one-and-a-half hour wait to get through passport control upon landing at Indira Gandhi International. Took a tiny, decrepid black Suzuki taxi ride to our hotel just off the main bazaar. That half-hour journey alone showed me a dozen new sights; donkeys grazing roadside, a family of three riding a motorbike with the toddler peeking over the handlebars, two-lane carriageways taking cars five-abreast. After check-in we took a stroll around the surrounding area we took a stroll, had some food and collapsed.

Today saw National Museum and Gandhi memorial and chilled in Lodi Gardens in the afternoon. Still waiting for the first disaster. The only slight problem so far is the ubiquity of overbearing salesmen desperate to sell their particular goblets (backgammon sets are a bizarre favourite) or lead you to a particular tourist site where they get commission. The best tactic, apprently, is to avoid eye contact and ignore everything they say. This I can do.

A highlight today was a small beturbaned bag-seller hearing me speaking English and exclaiming "Alright geezer" in a passable Cockney accent.

Chadders, you never prescribed a code phrase but if you had done I would not have needed it yet. Also, they have cheesecake in a German bakery down the street.

Congratulations to the Tooting Premier League champions.

Over

Success

It seems to work

Test

This is a test