Should I stay or should I go...?

Ello blogfans! I know I know I know, it's been a while since I last reported on my misadventures. But lets get the obvious out of the way first - Merry (how depends on consumption levels) Christmas and Happy New Year: rock on 2008! So for a brief update... I finally landed in Perth after l o n g e s t smelliest mineriest bus journey ever and arrived in the rain at casa del Saul who generously offered me a floor to crash on (yikes 2 months later and I'm still crashing on that floor, whoops - and quite literally because Big W just DOESN'T sell airbeds that remain inflated for the duration of a night). Work's good - busy and scary sometimes - and they love me so much I was almost going to be here forever... if anyone knows anyone dodgy in immigration please pass on their contact details to them?

Perth remains to be Perth. The smallest city furthest away from anyway and VERY warm. Much time has been spent attempting to crawl into the freezer (it's not as big as I might have hoped) and oscillating with my number 1 fan (I wish to hear no words from the air-con endowed population - needless to say after a Boxing Day in what was the hottest city in the world at 44 deg, I was a tad relieved to enter the climate controlled comfort of the office). What have I been up to? well I think it all went wrong from the time I crashed an IT party, a few guitar hero sessions later (rock juice gives you all kinds of ideas of coolness and grandeur that are nothing more than illusary) and I may well be a geek. Few trips to the beach and the burning hot sand and freezing cold (aahhhhhhhhhhhhh) water), the usual.

What does one get up to for Christmas in Australia? firstly it feels nothing like Christmas because I'm walking about town in shorts and looking at bizarrely decorated window dressings with snowmen in - just doesn't fit somehow... Well shock horror, one has a barbeque (delicious prawns pictured) and a cocktail party (with ones flatmates, thus not really a party, more just a lot of mojitos)! Yum yum in MY (slightly inflated) tum! And for New Years? One has (surprise surprise) a BARBEQUE!!! These Ozzies have it simple, but why change a formula that includes lots of sun, scrumptious food and a plethora of drink (not that I constantly think of my stomach)...

Oh and blogfans - don't think I'm taking this poll lightly, I have turned over my decision making authority (cos I can't make up my own mind) to the opinion of the majority (it could be interesting should there be a late surge for secret option d) because not even I know where that is...) Should you deem it really necessary to view pictures of some of my Perth people then your kicks are available from here.

Taking the l o n g way home...

Hey Blogfans, how rocks life? So, I rather left you on a cliffhanger last time on my way to the city (town/street) of doom. Oh Katherine Katherine Katherine. But would you believe it this time when I saw Steve (grumpiest man alive) the mechanic he was actually able to hold a conversation without punctuating it with uncomprehensible grunts, he even smiled! Whether that had anything to do with the beer in his hand and giant wodge of cash I had just given him I wouldn't like to judge. And so 1 gearbox (possibly minus 5th gear) and 2 new tyres later ARNIE WAS BACK ON THE ROAD!!! Not wanting to miss the delights of Katherine I went to Woolies and bought some bread, apples and water (all the food groups represented there) and left. YEEHA!!!

The next 3 days pretty much went like this: drive, sleep, eat, sleep, drive, eat, drive, sleep, eat... Broome was some distance away, I was too lazy to put up the tent, there were no showers, you get the idea... I STANK!! And then when I got to Broome and ran into the camp bathroom for a shower imagine my delight as the electricity cut out. NNAAARRRRGGGHHHH! Spent 3 days chilling out on the beach of sunsetty delights and recovering from the road (and mourning the death of the kangeroos I roadkilled - what if they were the last remaining breeding pair in Australia??? Oh the guilt! Actually one so wasn't my fault, I slowed down to drive past it and it continued to run into the side of the car - stupid animal).

At this point I recruited some new drive companions in the form of Eric and Frank. Given that they were from Taiwan I suspect that these aren't their real names. I told them my name was Juanita Gonzales (ok I didn't cos I came up with the idea 2 weeks too late, but you get the idea). Alas with no money in our pockets it was drive time. Drive drive (camp in most fly infested place in world with resident enormous cow looking on) drive drive stop. Yes, STOP. FOR EVER. In the middle of NOWHERE (not really a surprise given that about 99% of WA is officially nowhere). Spent some time on the side of the road in 44 deg heat. That was nice. Chatted to a few miners on their way past who all wanted to help soooo much with the car situation by saying "hmmmmm, it's buggered mate". Thanks. Managed to hitch a tow from a lovely bearded man to the nearest roadhouse. And I thought Katherine was bad. Entertainment in this place involved cockroach contraception (it's less dodgy than it sounds, involves throwing rocks at the copulating little minxes), eating raw noodles, hats (see pic, dismayed face included) and time delay photos (100's in fact), because the bus was 4 HOURS late (Benno - no worries man, the bus is just a few minutes late dude!). I had to get the bus to Perth. THE BUS!!!! The indignity. Members of the public and all. Tch.

Yes boys and girls I'm back in Perth, oh city of all Perthliness. 4 days later and I'm back at work (I'm on the Northern Development Taskforce apparently). YAY!!!! Actual yay because I am BROKE (I hate that car, the car is the bain of my existence, never buy a car, car sucks, rrrrubbish). The 'keep Jo's belly and bum sizable fund' is now open, chose your avenue of donation here... Oh and join me in sorting out my life and directing me where I should go next on the poll over here----> pick the right answer please! On that note I think it's time I had a drink. a big juicy cold beer. Adios!

on the 'other' side

G'day blogfans! How goes life? So the East Coast adventure has continued... Said a goodbye to Julia who had to fly back to Germany (ha ha unlucky) after a last night in Cairns in which I brutally mocked and laughed excessively at lots of slightly downbeaten fans of the Wallabies, HA HA HA (they've taken to blaming the rules of the game as the reason they lost). Then I got to experience one of my favourite travelling things - an overnight bus journey!!! YAY - how I've missed them... not.

Next stop Airlie Beach, the jump-off point for a trip around the Whitsunday islands. At which point I jumped off onto a maxi yacht thingy (I may pretend but I know nothing about boats...) which was apparently very fast and successful in its day (I suspect that now is not 'its day'). So we set off cruising around the lovely islands, chilling in the breeze and sleeping up on deck (the beds had a 'space' isssue, in that there wasn't any) under the stars. Hit another travelling top 10 moment as I got to steer the boat into the sunset (aaaaaahhhhh - though the picture doesn't do it justice, I was concentrating on driving) while the skipper laughed at my slightly unorthodox style (apparently writing my name in the water with the boat isn't what he meant by 'straight line')... Landed at 2nd best beach in the world (Australians, only 2nd best? astonishing), t'was a bit cloudy (of course, why wouldn't it be) so I took the opportunity to go for a 14km run on the 2nd best sand in the world with the sea licking at my feet (now why wasn't it like this for the marathon thingy) and GOT THE FRISBEE OUT!!!! Squeezed into my sexy stinger suit (damn this poisonous ocean) for a quick snorkel about more of the reef and generally cruised about. n.i.c.e.

Another joyful overnight journey took me to Hervey Bay, the jumping off point for Fraser Island the land of sand. Not surprisingly I got covered in sand. Everywhere. 22 of us piled into 2 jeeps (do not ask me how we fit in, we didn't) that we weren't allowed to get sandy or wet or risk losing at least a million $$$'s - damn car hire, I miss Arnie!!! Alas first thing we did on the ISLAND MADE ENTIRELY OF SAND was get the car covered in sand, and then a little saltwater, who'da thought that possible??? Anyways, much beach driving and track driving and there's a big bruise on my shoulder to demonstrate how smooth the roads were. A little rainforest action, a little lake action (no swimming in the sea, yes it has sharks that will kill you just by looking at you and jellyfish galore), a little floating action, a little beach olympics, a bizarre pet dinosaur and lots of bizarre things that I cannot for the life of me remember at this particular juncture (probably best left on the island I think)...

Beautiful stuff, plus I finally drank the bottle of wine that I've been carrying around since Perth, not surprisingly since it has been heated up and frozen and cooked and chilled about a million times it did not taste worthy of the effort put into carrying it. But enough of that. Went whale watching the next morning which was AWESOME, one even waved at me! In fact it was totally brilliant fantastic awesome mega cool. Fact fans: Did you know that a baby whale puts on 45-60kgs each day - that's like a whole me every day... sure makes me feel small... CRIKEY!!!! I went to Australia Zoo - home of Steve Irwin & co. An awesome day out as I got to pat a koala, feed kangeroo's, fortunately not feed crocs (they are BIG - up 7m! - and mean, especially when hungry), stalk emu's (ugliest bird in the world) and all kinds of other animal related things.


More photos of all things East to be found here (or again, and you wouldnt believe my cunning, but follow the link entitled East Coast Pictures ---->)...
Right, I'm off to hell (Katherine) now - IT SUCKS, adios.

Jelarkodiles!!!

YAY!!! I'm not in Katherine any more! That's the good news. Bad news, Arnie still is and I have to GO BACK THERE to get him. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.


We had to give in to evil Steve and get the Greyhound up to Darwin, arrived around 11pm, having our priorities well and truly in place we went for a 'quick' cold beer (this is becoming something of a common theme... hello Australia) to celebrate, possibly returning in the early hours of the morning after some crazy dancing (zero gravity kangeroo jumps) and cocktails to celebrate the brilliance of not being in Katherine (maybe it isn't that bad I don't know, but there's something about that place that seems to bring people to attach bits of aeroplane to their face, surely that's not good?). After a slightly late checkout (in no way beer related - and why does my neck hurt so much? ah yes, the dancing, whoops) we had to lick our sans-Arnie wounds and go about the treacherous business of hiring another car (sob sob) to get to Kakadu NP; managed to procure a beauty on the promise that we wouldn't go off road with it, 모 ㅗ드 (sorry, this keyboard keeps randomly popping into Korean for no apparent reason) - ah hem.


Well Kakadu was erm, ok? Not the same without Arnie, who given the expense of the repair job ($2000 and counting, nnnnaarrrrgggh - Perth I may be back a little sooner than anticipated) is not in such good favour anymore, especially as had to leave all our camping gear with him so slept under the stars - this time nowhere near as romantic as it sounds because it was wet, fly ridden and I was much nearer the source of snoring than usual in the tent, grrrrrr. Saw lots of birds in a muddy pond that is somehow both culturally and environmentally significant a la the beloved World Heritage list. Saw some kangeroos fighting which was cool. They fight like girls. Saw some crocodiles, they were big and scary and not to be trifled with. Plus bizarrely went snorkelling in a cloudy waterfall also apparently with crocodiles, thank someone important that I didn't see one because otherwise the water would have turned purple! Listened to Mika a lot on this trip. A LOT: "this is the way you left me, I'm not pretending, no hope no love no glory, no happy ending, this is the way we love, like it's forever, spend the rest of our lives but not together (insert Mike like squeal here *aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh*)" - will these words ever exit my head???


Back to Darwin for the soul destroying and devastating task of saying goodbye to Luka and Benno by sharing a beer at sunset on the beach accompanied by sand wrestling, full volume Mika (again), belly rubbing, bad video diaries and more manic dancing (rock on Darwin).


Have now made the bizarre decision given my current bank balance ($600, could be interesting... tch, who needs food anyway, and milkshake, and accomodation? Baby Kate perhaps?) to head over East to Queensland and am currently in Cairns and just done a 3-day liveaboard dive of the Great Barrier Reef... It was super-duper wonderful, saw lots of fish and reef and sharks (night dive bizarrely between dinner courses) and glug glug glug. T'was awesome my friend. I'm now back landside trying to figure out how to travel several many km's with no money, any ideas???


nB. a jelarkodile is a vicious combination of a jellyfish (prevent swimming in Darwin), a shark (swam with in Cairns) and a crocodile (definitely no swimming in Kakadu). More pictures when Benno gets over his jetlag and properly copies them to a CD, nnaarrrrggh.

Chocolate, bad karaoke, wine, fire unicycle, John Howards thieving little hands, frisbee, out

The title is a pretty good summary of this post, but I'm bored at work (opened 4 envelopes ALL DAY on Wednesday, clearly my contributions are on course to change the world any day now) so have written a suitably waffly bit of waffle for the pleasure of those of you out there as busy as I am.

So a Happy Easter to everyone. <------This is what I really really dreamed of arriving on Sunday but apparently the Easter Bunny doesn't do long distance deliveries - it would probably get stuck in quarantine anyway - so if you look carefully you will see in the reflection of the glass a little drool oozing down my face (pleasant image indeed). In fairness I did get to nab some free Hot Cross Buns from work - I was just sitting minding my own business (obviously not doing any actual work, why would I?) when this enormous tray stacked full of delightful little buns came round and invited me to take as many as I wanted. Being the generous soul I am I took about 70 (winter hibernation blubber building) and shared 1 with the others back at the hostel, ah the spirit of Easter. Speaking of the 'spirit' of Easter, can I just pass something on to shatter Oz stereotype #4: that Australians really really like their drink. With a lovely 4 day weekend ahead I got all excited about the prospects for entertainment and what do I find come Good Friday... all the pubs were SHUT!!!! Not one serving even a smidgen of a drop to thirsty folk. Huh? Well that's a teeny tiny lie. After much investigation it appeared that there was one place open for the night. A Korean karaoke bar, BRILLIANT!!!! Sadly none of my musical numbers were available so I took a purely spectatorial role in proceedings; never will 'Forever Young' sound the same to me after it's mauling at the hands of two overly enthusiastic (given their lack in tunefulness or indeed knowledge of the actual words) Korean fellows.

Languishing in the aftermath of un pue pompette-edness and having finished my book (Down Under by Bill Bryson, very topical) I got off mon derriere (and Swissland: please at least try to hold in your amusement at my French, boudine ronchon bete ogre citrouille visage) and did my one touristy thing for the week by catching the train down to Freemantle (a town/suburb about 20mins south of Perth centre where there are some actual 'old' buildings, and more importantly lots of nice cafes) armed with a camera with no batteries (when will I learn). There was a street performance festival of some kind going on, as far as I could tell this largely involved hefty applauding of very cute little kids blowing bubbles and clownish men jiggling about on oversize unicycles - what's life for if you don't throw fire sticks around whilst precariously balanced 10ft in the air? Took a quick detour to the beach en route home to relax, ah so nice to be able to just pop to the beach like that - jealousy jealousy jealousy ha ha me winner.

Anyone fancy laughing at Jo (who wouldn't)? Got my paycheck for all my hard work. Mmmmm $720. That'll go nicely in the bank. Hold on a minute, there seems to be some more numbers here... What's that minus sign doing near those numbers? $350 TAX!!!!!! 45%??? OUTRAGEOUS! It would appear that I am destined to single-handedly fund the upkeep of Australia during my stay. Or at least pay for John Howards retirement (and yours too probably Andrew so some sunglasses in exchange wouldn't go amiss!). I herein vow to take FULL advantage of everything they provide for 'free' from now on, even if it means spending all my days riding the bus round and round town.

<------Friendly spider, look at the size of it's legs!!! Run. Fast!!!

And finally those of you who are bigger fans of my Frisbee than me (and lets face it, who isn't?) will be distraught to know that it was judged to be too windy for Frisbee on the beach last week so it has spent most of it's time sulking under my bed, however panic ye not as I am scheduled to spend some quality time with it in the park soon.

Livin’ it Westside style

(Go West) where the skies are blue
(Go West this is what we’re gonna do Go Weeeessst)
(Together) we will love the beach (Forever)

Who’da thought that the Pet Shop Boys would have hit the nail right on the head with those immortal words of genius! And thanks to them I now don’t have to write much on this blog posting because that pretty much covers what’s been going on for me for the past few weeks. What? You want more details? Oh ok then, I’ll indulge you, but just this once. Fact fans, Perth is the most isolated city in the whole entire wide world, being as it is closer to Singapore than to Sydney and once out of the suburbs surrounded by, yes you guessed it, a great deal of nothingness. On arrival in Perth I decided to play musical beds in search of a hostel that was able to maintain an acceptable ratio between number of guests and number of pans in the kitchen (my lowest common denominator = food of course) and am now getting far too settled at the Guv’s place with our chess club (geek is thy name) and some very international drinking rules – apparently Finish for ‘cheers’ is ‘gepissed’. Santé indeed. Have spent a few days on the beaches, which are lovely white sand sparkling Indian Ocean type thingy’s and are perfect for body surfing, volleyball and yes oh yes oh yes oh yes, FRISBEE spielen!

Alas all is not well in paradise for it comes at a price and I’m sure you will all be delighted to know that I have got myself a job. Sounds very posh, this week I am PA to the CEO of the Aboriginal Legal Service. Of course this means that I do absolutely nothing other than take phone messages; yesterday that happened 4 times and I’m sure someone has invented a machine to perform this task, but I’ve never been one to turn down easy (if boring) money. Although I did get trapped in reception when I tried to leave last night, all the doors security locked around me and I had to bang and knock manically on the window for a few minutes until someone came and directed me towards the ‘press to open door’ button which in my defence was cleverly disguised by the label with those same words on. Oh deary dear, not even my Frisbee can save me now… Pictures are 1) just chilling at Scarborough Beach, 2) sculptures on Cottesloe beach and 3) enjoying the 'Sunday Session' l-r Allan, Fredd, Jen, Jan & Sarah - why oh why does it have to be on a Sunday??? - more photo's are available should you follow the link cleverly titled 'more Oz photo's' on your right. Peruse at your leisure.

Beach Life

'ello blogfans, belated Happy New Year to y'all,


You'll never EVER guess where I am now, Thailand, again. It's still pretty nice, if you like that kind of thing. Obviously lying on a beach all day isn't really my cup of tea but sometimes sacrifices have to be made in the name of travel. (fire poi man below, inexplicable candle-eater man not pictured)

I think I do have to take the opportunity to publically voice a note of thanks to my beyond brilliance family for having me home for a wonderful Christmas (and 3 month run up to said day), I thoroughly commend their airport taxi service, the room not too shabby (could do with being a bit tidier mind) and the food (puds in particular) second to none (except - in a hushed voice - perhaps the food here, GIANT prawns, yum yum). I had a super time and molefo recommend it to anyone.


Well quick update on what I've done since leaving the home of all wonder, hopped back onto plane to Singapore to watch Pirates of the Carribean (I didn't fully understand what was going on mind), multiple episodes of Kath & Kim (revising for my next port of arrival) and other such funk. Quick footed it up to Bangkok and then down to sea sea sea. First stop Ko Lanta which weren't too bad, though pales in comparison to Ko Phi Phi (current home), especially as have gone posh (oh the benefit of having a partner in crime to share costs with). Has been a wee bit cloudy mind, but obviously, being british and all, first day sun came out got sunburnt, duh. Went on pilgrimmage day trip to mini Ko Phi Phi which is where The Beach was filmed, very nice but a bit crowded - think it would be worth a swedish shark attack/episode of craziness/scary gun-toting drug farmers to protect said haven (read the book). Here is shot of me pretending to be Leo DiCap, think I carry it off rather well... Also got to go to another beach a.k.a. paradise but could only stay for an hour, despite pleading with the boat man (why couldn't it break down again there?!?).

Ach, must skiadaddle, big coconut pancake and fruit shake is beckoning me, but will leave you with this:


A priest, a rabbi and a monk walk into a bar, the barman says "is this some kind of joke?"

Kuala Kuala but no Bear

So, outta Thailand to Malaysia: it's different. Firstly, there was the hugest police/army presence I have ever seen lining a single and otherwise uneventful road, either that or they were on a mass 'wee in the bushes' training manouvere (hard word to spell) or something. Anyways, moving on from that strange image if I may, spent a night in the lovely (hahahaha) town of Kota Bahru where restuarants have not very encouraging looking dead street cats lying outside. It seems that Malaysia is an odd mix of Indian (curry, lecherous men, more curry), Chinese (i.e. writing I can't even begin to understand) and Western (i.e. more KFC's per square mm than anywere else I've ever encountered - heaven to some) culture, only without the alcohol. Then spent a week or so on the Perhentian Islands (where you last saw me, or my feet anyway), which was marvellous, apart from having the darkest cavern of a beach shack - I never did find the bed (but hey it was the cheapest I could find). Though I did see a TURTLE when diving (he may not have been called Leonardo, mutant or ninja, but I swear he mouthed the immortal words 'cowabunga dude' to me), brilliant.

I eventually dragged my sorry bottom off the beach and hopped on a speedboat back to the mainland and the longest most overrated and boring train journey ever, the so called 'Jungle train' down to well, the middle bit of Malaysia. It lasted for 12 hours (12!!!!!) and the view consisted of lots of tree trunks. Wow. I also discovered the culinary delight of poisoned rice (this isn't the ad line the buffet cart went for, but I find it an appropriate description) and lukewarm coffee, brilliant. All this did make me appreciate all the hours of my life that I have spent not being on a train however, so every cloud and all that.

Fortunately there was a point to all this travelling as I got to the Taman Negara National Park. It has a lot of trees in it. Seeing as the rainy season is fast approaching and it is in fact a rainforest, I doubt you will be surprised to hear that it rained. Lots. Mainly as I was walking between sheltered areas. Hello mud. Hello slippery trail. I think we all know where this story is headed. Splat! Having cleaned myself up a little I made it to the Canopy Walkway, which was brilliant if you like walking on wibbly bridges suspended 45m in the air (which I did actually - despite a minor onset of vertigo, which is only common sense all things considered). The views were excellent progress, I was able to see tree trunks and tree leaves, and if I looked really hard I could also make out the ground far f a r below. On the way back I spotted some monkeys and got very excited when I heard a bush rustling only for a pig to pop out (boring, we have them at home). I arrived back alive only to have the tables turned on me after Cambodia and was absolutely feasted upon by a variety of insect species (30 bites and that's just my left hand). Brilliaaaaaaannt.

Leaving behind my tarzan/jane/monkey aspirations I'm in the big city of Kuala Lumpur now. Considering the first I had heard of it was when learning about photochemical smogs in geography classes at school, it's made a good impression on me. This clearly has nothing to do with the fact that when I don't know where I'm going and decide to follow my instinct (always a risky decision) I actually ENDED UP WHERE I INTENDED without having, quite literally, gone round the houses. Brilliant. I went up the much prided 4th highest tower in the world (have found out that the 9th highest tower is in Uzbekistan, you know me, I've cultivated an irrational desire to go there) where there was a pretty good (not too smoggy) view of the city. The excursion was much improved by the presence of a (free) audio and video (!) guide complete with a Malaysian/cockney fella informing me of a variety of pointless yet amusing facts about big buildings. Brilliant. By this time I was getting high off tall towers (get it) so off I went to another tall tower, the Petronas Towers, the 2nd tallest building ---> (it makes a big difference in tall thing classification apparently) in the world. It was, erm, tall. Then I went to a rather posh shopping centre (i.e. I am too poor to be even allowed in the shops) where I got a little confused between doors, mirrors and windows - they were all so clean! - much to the amusement of an entire eating establishment. Cue red face and hasty exit (the doors are the ones with exit signs incidently). Fed myself on a bit of sushi and plodded around a lovely little park wondering if I could really get away with playing in the huge kiddie play area, turns out all the other adults in there had a child with them as a cover story so sadly I didn't qualify and moved on to Chinatown where they have decided to celebrate the Year of the Dog with some quite atrocious lanterns adorned with pictures of pooches (<-----), brilliant, and a veeeeerry genuine market (check out these guys "we sell no fake rolex's" innocent as pie look as the police came round)! ------>

Oh and I quite like the word brilliant today... BRILLIAAAAAAANNT!

can't think of a title

as my brain has rotted.

Am on a beach. In Malaysia. Sand: check! Sea: check! Lots of fishies: check! Nice 'ere innit?

These are my feet (in case you're anatomically challenged and didn't realise) ----------------------->

Ciao (on that continental note - why do all europeans lose their sense of style when they come within a 10 mile radius of a beach? Surely there is some EU treaty-type-thing against flouro swimgear and dodgy tie-dye t-shirts)...

in an octopuses garden

I'm on beach! I'm in Thailand! The sun is shining! Woo wooo! After another stopover in Bangkok (I went to the Grand Palace, again, to fill in time, and certainly did no shopping...) I'm on the lovely island of Ko Tao. Have been here for don't quite know how many days and have been learning to scuba-doo (or self-contained underwater breathing apparatus dive as the tekkies have it) which is absolutely brilliant, love it! I have my Open Water cert, which involved watching lots of very dull videos on decompression whatnots and doing a few dives which were pretty good. Though yesterday things got even better when went down down down to 30m (sadly didn't get nitrogen narcosis) where I played with egg yolks (?) and saw lots of sharks (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggghh!!!!!), they were pretty friendly though and apparently well fed as my arms are still intact. Sadly diving has been put on hold for a few days as have delightful infection in my left ear so am just going to laze about on the beach for a while (yayayayayayay - beats sitting on the sofa watching Postman Pat - the video that always came out when I was ill as a child) while gunk pours out my ear and try to remove these slightly dodgy wetsuit tan lines that I have developed and then I'll get back to the important matter of finding wee Nemo, just keep swimming and swimmming...

If any of you are reading this in an office, look away about now:

mwah ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

And oh my word, let us take a moment to comprehend the sad news of legend Steve Irwin (not to be confused with Crocodile Dundee, whoops), it's the end of an era of "crikey!" and "streuth!" and his demise is like a sting in the heart to me... Oh and thanks to Mr 'it's a great city' Canberra (you know who you are!) for the on the pulse news bulletin.

Oh CAM ERN!

(Vietnamese for 'thank you' - not quite as much fun as the Laoian (?) one, li li liiiii li li). For now this one's just going to be writing I think as the speed of this computer is comparable to that, of well, something very slow (life's too short slow) and can't actually view website from here anyway - something to do with site being blocked due to my uncouth remarks about Uncie Ho probably...

So anyway, I struggled to tear myself away from Hanoi and went to a wee town called Ninh Binh which was nice, the scenery was similar to Halong Bay but different because lots of rice paddies - not too surprising given that it's known as 'Halong Bay in the rice paddies'. Had a fantastic bus journey down to Hue as there was a distinct inbalance between the number of passengers and the number of seats available - when he realised this problem the driver/conductor dude started shouting into his phone for about 30 mins as if would create seats from thin air in this vain, finally gave up and promptly fell asleep in a hammock (not whilst driving).

Had a 'DMZ day' which was rather educating I must say, I now know (I think so at least) that the Viet Cong were the northern Vietnamese army who were fighting the US of A in the south with the aid of the Ho Chi Minh trail (lots of tunnels to transport stuff from China (I think) to the south to take out the evil americans). Have a lovely picture of the DMZ as it is now (this is of the 'border' on the north side, apparently they kept fighting to have the tallest flagpole and stuff - the things that count in war...), though apparently it wasn't as 'demilitarised' as intended back then with people living in tunnels for 5 years (!). Consider that a history lesson, didn't stop me pretending to be Forrest Gump or generally being silly with weaponry (see right) though. Oh, and for lunch we ended up gatecrashing a wedding, no-one seemed to mind a whole bus load of tourists there, in fact I think they quite liked it. Bizarre. And then a very weird 'small world' moment as pretty much literally ran into someone from RAMSBURY!!!! Yikes!

Am now in Hoi An, it's really nice here. And I haven't got lost here. A significant achievement given my past record. Loads of good food too, yum yum. There was a full moon/Japan-Vietnam 'cultural exchange' festival on the other night which involved boat races, the requisite b.a.d. music and lots of pretty twinkly candles out on the river, very nice. Hoi An is famous (well amongst travellers in Vietnam anyway) for it's tailor shops (over 200), somehow a trip to buy a pair of shorts has resulted in me buying 2 shorts, 2 shirts, 1 suit, 1 dress and 1 jacket (whoops), but for the record I look hot (with a capital T) in a suit - shame it's not soo practical whilst travelling... Hired out a motorbike yesterday (don't panic assorted aged rellies, I securely wrapped myself up in cottonwool before embarking on such an exercise - actually it wasn't for the first time either, eeek) and drove up to the 'marble mountains' near Danang, which are probably as far from being mountains as possible (thankfully as all the pagodas and caves and stuff were kindly located at the top) and then spent the rest of the day chilling on China Beach, and I'm going back there again today. It's such a hard life.