So when I just began writing this current blog we had come full circle and back to KL after a holiday away in Sri Lanka. After a three hour flight to Colombo and going back in time we found ourselves with the lovely Acarnley’s in the famous Galle Face Hotel. ‘Asia's Emerald on the Green ... since 1864,’ very quirky hotel with signs on the walls like the one in the picture.

Our main purpose for going to Colombo was to witness the wedding of the now Amy and Ben Hunt, Ben’s parents are old friends of Liz and Patrick. The whole wedding wasn’t without its Sri Lankan traditions, an unreliable priest, no rehearsal, a beggar walking down the aisle in front of the bride then singing loudly while the vows were being said until he got paid to leave. All in all a very memorable day, in a very beautiful setting.

Some more pictures are on Facebook of the wedding, please click the link below;

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=139870&id=503754742&l=c01cbe48f6

After five days in Colombo we drove three hours down the coast to the beach resort town of Hikkaduwa. Here me and Sophie were in surfing heaven, board hire started at 2 pounds an hour and the waves never disappointed. The town is well known for custom-made boardies (3 pounds) and rashies (5 pounds) so we went shopping to our heart’s content. Our villa we stayed in was a great modern build with a sofa (! – first one in ages!) It is owned by a English women so had been furnished to a high standard and was nice for us to have a proper base for more than two days.

During our time there we witnessed a surfing competition held by one of the surf schools. The competition was to a very high standard off the large reef break to one side of the beach, where we actually saw a few barrels (not were we usually surfed!) At the time Hikkaduwa had been infiltrated by the Welsh, 30 beach bums had come for a 6 week holiday, but none of the Welsh could beat the Singaliese talent.

One day we visited a Turtle Farm and Hatchery which was an enlightening experience; In Sri Lankan turtle eggs are viewed as a delicacy and so people actively search for turtle tracks and nests to claim recently laid eggs. The farm we visited finds these eggs and hatches them in safety and then releases the day old baby turtles into the sea en-mass to give them the highest possible chance of survival and even with that they only have a 1 in 1000 chance of surviving due to other sea creatures and birds. They had some day old babies (which Sophie tried to steal!) At the centre they also rehabilitate injured or sick turtles with the hope to release them at a later date.

We also had the privilege of meeting two of the biggest wild Ridgeback turtles I have ever seen, they were easily a metre long. They are wild turtles although are lured into the shallows most mornings with some seaweed, *Caution when feeding turtles or tortoises, their teeth/beaks are sharper than they look!* As well as seeing these turtles in the shallows nearly ever day while we were surfing we would see the odd head pop up in the surf or glide along in a wave, a very cool experience!

If you want to see more photos from our time in Sri lanka pus more cute turtle ones, please click the link;

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=139878&id=503754742&l=c8ec6af5b2

As on Phi Phi the stories of the tsunami were still as raw as ever. The owner of the farm Nimal, had lost his wife, sister and daughter in the disaster. Hikkaduwa town lost 1,200 people on one train after it was swept inland and over 50,000 people died in Sri Lanka alone. Our Welsh contingent on Boxing Day joined in a memorial service in the sea. Fifty-some surfers gathered in a circle on their boards and laid petals in respect for their brothers lost. Talking to friends we made the actual area we stayed in wasn’t so badly affected as the reef there took most of the impact and they only suffered from high water levels, whereas further up into the town there was more damage. Someone suggested this is because they have pulled up their reef to sell to tourists so had no breaker, true or not it is a example as to why not buy and take coral or shells from your holiday.

We heard many other sad stories from survivors; One man we met escaped only by climbing to the very top of a coconut tree with a broken leg and clung on for dear life until the water levels had dropped. Another one of our favourite beach sellers had suffered a lot of injuries after the water came into her house and left her with inches of air by the ceiling. She now even five years on has trouble sleeping. It just makes you think it was an ordinary day for ordinary holiday makers and locals. It appears the government has learned from this disaster, all the houses previously built on the coast have been moved inland, but the ruins of the homes are still there as an ever present remind to the tragedy. If my parents had fallen in love with Sri Lanka or Thailand instead of the Seychelles mine might be a very different story.

Although we had sadness in our time in Sri Lanka the good times and the amazing people bowled us over. We met a very nice Tuk Tuk driver and his family who gave us possible the best dinner of our entire trip. Lonely Plant also agreed that this was the best way to sample Sri Lankan cuisine. The whole family is geared around getting their daughter, who has dreams of becoming a doctor, the best education possible. The schooling although free in Sri Lanka isn’t great; the teachers even hold private lessons after school which parents have to pay for, which does bring up ethical issues as to whether they hold back teaching in order to get paid more in extra tuition!

So we have begun our 6 day journey to New Zealand to see the folks! Two days were spent in KL where we found possible the best hotel in the world! For a bargain price of 17 pounds a night (relatively unheard of in KL,) we stayed in the AirAsia hotel. The entire place is a walking advertisement which is how they keep their costs down. It was like staying in halls again though my room at university didn’t have a sign above the bed; ‘McDelivery 24 hours a day – NO MINIMUM ORDER!!’ It was hard to resist having a MacDonald’s brought to our bedside but we managed it, no wonder Malaysia is full of fatties!

We spent a brief day in Singapore with our new Kiwi friend Larnie, who we met in Southern Thailand. We wandered around the city in awe, the streets were clean and quiet. The public transport system worked and people didn’t drive cars like they are being chased down the road by Godzilla. Possibly the nicest city we have visited on our travels, although more expensive than we are used to, it was still cheaper than London…and did I mention quieter…and nicer...and everything worked…and the weather was hot! There are actually signs up saying ‘low crime doesn’t mean no crime, please stay vigilant’…! Not the London equivalent; ‘keep hold of your personal belongings as you're about to get mugged!’

We visited the world famous zoo and Sophie saw her nellies so all was right with the world. We also went to the newly renovated Sentosa island where a new Universal Studios is being built, we had great fun on the rides and attractions currently there, including a man made beach (see again better than London!) We all went on the Luge and our picture of using going to the top is pretty funny (none of knew there was a camera there!)

So in short the past two weeks have been amazing, a massive thank you to the Acarnley’s for putting up with us and for taking back 15kg of our stuff (aka rubbish!) We gained an amazing experience going to Sri Lanka, a country we probably would never have visited and also loads of toiletries, a bottle of gin and champers! We are looking forward to meeting the Magoo’s although not so much the 20 degree weather of NZ!

After parting ways with Sophie we met again a 24 hours later on the island of Koh Samui, the most southern of the three main islands of the eastern coast of southern Thailand. A very popular island because of its major airport, the beaches were a little crowded fill with door-to-door resorts. Because we arrived so late in the evening I prebooked us accommodation, though the website neglected to state that it was right next to the Muay Thai boxing arena. This martial art, not unlike kickboxing involves bare feet and fists and very painful knees to the ribs. Every night we were greeted by a Thai Tim Westwood who kept repeating every third word…’tonight, tonight, tonight, the greatest fight of the year, the year, the year!’ Well it can’t be THE greatest fight of the year every night! Every night there are around 8 fights starting with under 8’s then under 10’s. With crying children in the ring and screaming parents in their corners it is an event to be missed. Because of the lack of beaches and lack of sleep we moved on very quickly…

Koh Tao, well known for its amazing diving was our next destination. Here we met up with some friends we met in Vang Vieng, Laos and spent 5 days swimming, snorkelling and joining in with the night activities when all the divers returned from their trips.

We were booked for 5 nights on Koh Phanghan from the 22nd to 26th, although we were anticipating absolute chaos and mania we were presently surprises by the beautiful beaches. Every month around 5,000 people descend onto this island for the party which takes place when there is a full moon party. For the first time in 80 years actually lands on New Years Eve, so the party goers are expected to be around 50,000! They put on a fake full moon party on Christmas day which we joined in, alot of fun where the bars are vying for your attention and Baht by putting on firework displays and fire shows. Christmas day unfortunately just felt like another day, although we were in paradise it would’ve been nice to fly home to see friends and family for the day. We cheered ourselves up by hiring a red Jeep (called Rudolf) and going to the only English pub on the island to have a great roast dinner (and a snakebite!) We both got to talk to our families on Skype around Christmas day which was really nice, although it did seem like there was more staring at us than talking!

On the 27th we made the 8 hour journey due south to Krabi in Southern Thailand, the next day we hopped onto a boat and went to Phi Phi island. Phi Phi is where Leonardo DiCaprio’s ‘The Beach’ was set and every man and his dog capitalises on this. The beaches are white sand with magnificent limestone cliffs surrounding them. We took a day tour around 8 of the islands in a longtail boat with 10 other people. Once again we attract misfortune; whether our boat was overloaded, the captain lost control or something entirely different, we managed to crash into one of the cliff walls of an island and come aground on the coral underneath. After we were pushed off from the wall we discovered the engine had failed. Trying to stop numerous luxury speed boats, as was our preference to carry on the rest of the journey on them, none stopped and some even just waved back. Another long boat came to our rescue and when the battery was finally jump started off we went missing half the front end of the boat. When we made it to Maya beach, where ‘The Beach’ was actually filmed; ‘Leo actually stood here!’ [Sophie]. We were met by hundreds of other tourists and their boats. It was undisputedly beautiful though this was spoiled by everyone else being there.

Our time on Phi Phi was humbled by its history and resilience. The island was hit by the Tsunami nearly exactly 5 years ago and was completely wiped out with masses of casualties not just Thais. Five years ago, hundreds of boats were out cruising the islands just as we were and thousands were sunbathing on the beach and this monstrous wave came and decimated it all. You can see by our pictures we took from a high viewpoint how low lying the town is so would have been completely covered in a matter of minuets with little warning. Now the town has been rebuilt with escape routes and a warning system.

In Koh Lanta we met up with our good friend Sarah who we worked with at CNCF which was really nice. The plan was to ‘rave it up’ on New Years but unfortunately Sophie got really ill so it was a quiet evening in.

We flew to Kuala Lumpur early on the first so it was a good idea we had an early night, we’ve done a whistle stop tour of KL ready for an early morning flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka for a Acarnley reunion and some English goodies.

Just for an update, me and Soph are back together after oe lonely day apart, so no need to worry!

Our elephant photos are now up if you want to have a look, (again no need for a Facebook account, just click the link below)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022141&id=220700053&l=e159c3b23e

Apologies for the lack of blogging but not a lot seems to have happened since our last adventure, mainly due to having to ‘take it easy’ as advised by the doctor. We spent a few days making our way from Chiang Mai in northern Thailand to the southern part of central Laos. After a border crossing involving a bus, a stamp, another bus and a tuk tuk we came to the very French looking capital of Vientiane.

In Vientiane we spent a few days sampling the excellent bagels and pizzas and having our first carafe of (nice!) wine in over two months. Sophie recently acquired a new SLR so we many a Wat (temple in the city); “What Wat is this?” So you should be able to see may of the spoils of our photography. Our main aim of our trip to Laos was to visit the tourist destination for Vang Vieng which is well known for its tubing down the river there.

Vang Vieng in one word is… tour! (A few of you will know what I mean!) Tubing is the activity of floating down the river in a large floating doughnut. Along the 4km stretch of river there are a superfluous of bars, rope swings, slides, trapezes and other such delights (and no me and Sophie did not do any other them!) There was body painting, acrobatics and general drunken antics. The river itself is set in beautiful surroundings and at low season (when we were there) it was very slow flowing with few rapids. In high season it takes only 2 hours to do the 4km stretch and with a mixture of alcohol fatalities are unfortunately heard about often. There are people who have arrived to Vang Vieng planning to stay one day and have stayed (the longest record) 3 years!

Our time there was really good fun, (Sophie is still getting the St George’s flag which was spray painted on her back off!) We met a really nice group of Americans who currently teach in Bangkok in our guest house who we stayed with us to our next location of Luang Prabang.
The journey to Luang Prabang was eventful; the journey time was 8 hours so we decided to make this journey overnight, though it wasn’t the sleeper bus with beds like in Vietnam. We were travelling on the ‘newest road’ in Laos but this still included every turn being a hairpin bend so it was the most comfortable of journeys. The entire journey was 180km and took 8 hours so you can guess at the condition of the road.

In Luang Prabang we had the first task of trying to figure out how we were going to make our way back to Chiang Mai for our elephant project which had been delayed by 10 days due to our injuries. Our orginal plan was to go by bus or boat (trains do not exsist in Laos) but the journey by bus was over 20 hours so we wouldn’t get there in time or the boat option was basically a canoe with a large propeller attached which did the journey in 6 hours along the Mekong River! Unhappy at the prospect that we would miss our elephants we paid a substantial amount to fly with Laos airways, (who according to Lonely Planet haven’t released their safety records publicly because of a bad safety record). Our way back to Chiang Mai wasn’t going to be without incident or so we thought! It turned out that Lonely Planet was behind the times and the plane we took was very new and clean and we had a excellent free meal – something very annoying about Airasia!

After a day detoxing in the very scenic Luang Prabang (see picture of Sophie) we said good bye to our American friends and headed to the elephants!

The Thai Conservation Park houses over 60 elephants; some are rescued from circus or donated after being neglected because machines have replaced them in the logging industry, some are orphans or injured, some have been born and raised in the centre. The baby elephant in the picture is the newest newborn the centre has, she’s only 6 months old and very mischievous. The important factor to remember about Asia elephants are that they would have become extinct if they weren’t trained to be used in the forestry business. Unlike their African relations there aren’t large parts of Asia where they could migrate to or even populate. Although we were part of a ‘show’ twice a day it was used to educate the Thai and tourist audience in the past uses of the elephants and how their natural skills and strengths could be put to use. This did not include balancing on one leg on a podium, spinning around, playing football with a monkey etc etc as I saw in Vietnam in the circus.

On our first day we were designated a elephant and a mahout (the elephant trainer, who works with the elephant usually from birth). I was given Pritheeda a 16 year old male, who was bloody massive and a very friendly, very giggly Mahout called John. Sophie’s elephant was a smaller female called Wan NAAAA (emphasis on the Na is very important apparently) and a Mahout called Mao, though Sophie tended to say Meow much to his delight…!

Our time with the elephants consisted of collecting the elephants at 6am from the forest, very early very cold starts but the elephants were always glad to see us especially with a banana or a sugar cane in hand. The centre has massive of forests of their own where the elephants are put every night. Unfortunately they are chained up, but this is for their own benefit to stop over breeding and so they are forced to graze and not walk off. Elephants in the wild eat all day and because these elephants work between 7 and 4 they need to eat the rest of the time. The elephants did have about 20m of chain so they could still wander around (and still leave a wake of destruction!) The picture shows Sophie’s elephant where we left her at the end of the second day.

We rode the elephants back to main area and we would go off and have breakfast and be back in time for the 10am show. These public shows demonstrated all the skills as I mentioned before and we got to take the elephants for a bath in the large lake. This was the favourite part of everyone’s day including the elephants where they splashed and played and sprayed each other and us without encouragement. My elephant was undisputedly the best at water cannoning, as the picture shows; many a mahout cowered in our wake…MWAHAHAHA!

In the show we have to show off our talents as Mahouts by showing how we got on and off the elephants, throwing objects for the elephants to pick up, generally have a bit of fun. The picture is of Sophie demonstrating getting on/off her elephant; you can see Wannalee Leanne’s elephant she had earlier this year in the photo.

This whole process was repeated again after lunch and then we rode the elephants back to the forest. We had great fun over the three days and learnt a lot of non-transferrable skills (it might be a while before we meet Thai speaking Asia elephant that we need to get our flip flops down from a tree!) It was amazing how much they listened to their Mahouts (their real ones not us!) My elephant was a giant beast who could strip a corn on the cob from its leaves faster than I could using only the dexterity of its trunk. The picture is of Wanna lifting up her Mahout.

I am currently sat on an overnight train (with beds, thank goodness,) down to Bangkok to pick up our other rucksack we left there as our original plan was to fly to Sydney from there. Now we are flying from Colombo (Sri Lanka) to Auckland (New Zealand) instead (via Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Brisbane) so I’m heading down by myself (yes me and Sophie have separated ways for the first time since we left!) I will be meeting Sophie in Koh Samui in a few days to start our Christmas festivities.

Hope that these are getting long enough for you Nick Magoo, and you now agree with the colour changes Mr Acarnley! We can’t wait to see the Acarnley’s in just 3 weeks and the Magoolagan clan in just over 5! Please look out for our article in the Craven Herald, they’ve only just contact me after asking them three months ago!

So the past week has involved a few tears; first it started when we came back (home) to Saigon and our favourite Thai restaurant had run out of our favourite curry. The week ended when we made it to Bangkok in one piece and had our first Macdonald’s in 3 months, yes that is worth tears of joy!

We went with a friend to Phu Quoc island for the weekend. This is the island situated 2km south of Cambodia, though officially still Vietnam. The first day we arrived it was beautiful and sunny with crystal clear waters. The next few days were a little overcast so our original plan of sitting on the beach sunbathing with a few gin and tonics altered slightly.
On the third day our friend Caoimhe suggested we hire some motorbikes to explore the island. A great idea, the whole way down the country we had hired them as they are the best way to see the real unaltered Vietnam.

On our way to the most northern point of the island 30km from our hotel on a deserted country road we hit a large pot hole, resulting in us falling off and arriving a few meters down the road on the opposite side of the road. Luckily we did have Caoimhe and we were wearing helmets so there was no real damage. Although Cara realised she had a rather large hole in her knee (about a penny wide and cm deep – all the way down to the gooey fatty centre!) Luckily for us a fish truck came down the road, scooped us off and took us to the nearest local “hospital,’ and towed our bike for us, very charitable (or so we thought!)

At the ‘hospital’ we were greeted by a doctor who was ‘very busy doing paperwork and would be with us when he had finished’ so we waited 15 mins (with a big hole) whilst drawing a crowd of about 20 villagers who thought it was great entertainment.

We were helped out by a local student, Bang, who’s English was pretty good, luckily for us again, who negotiated an ambulance to ship us back to the hotel with instructions to go to another hospital the next day. This ambulance was really a white van with a red cross painted on it which needed a push to start it. The one good thing that came out of the experience was that we gave a ride to a very sick woman who was in the hospital when we arrived and would’ve been stuck there as she couldn’t afford the ride to the main hospital on the island. Everyone involved in the ‘excitement’ was given a payout, from the fish truck driver, to Bang’s uncle who towed the bike.
The next day back in Ho Chi Minh we visited an international hospital and were checked out thoroughly. It took over 40 mins and over 2 litres of saline to remove the original bandages from our grazed skin. Our favorite nurse was a Phillipino lady called Therase and she couldn’t believe what the local doctor had done to patch us up. Three days later Cara had a couple of stitches in her knee as it wasn’t clean enough to stitch before, they weren’t cheap at $20/stitch! Sophie is icing herself as we speak to relieve her blood clots caused by the impact of falling off the bike (and from Cara falling on top of her!)

We are fine now 5 days on, with grazes that require redressing everyday. We will definitely never get on a bike ever again and have been advising every traveler we’ve met not to either. The doctor (and Sophie’s mum) advised us not to get in dirty water and Cara can’t bend her knee so the elephant trip has been pushed back to the 10th of December where everything should hopefully be healed up.

We are now in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand so are planning to travel around the area and onto Northern Laos before coming back to the elephant conservation centre.
This afternoon we took it easy and went and watched 2012 in the cinema, at the beginning of the showing the audience leapt to its feet when the national anthem and patriotic images of their King were shown on the screen. We pondered whether Queen Elizabeth II would get the same reception in an English cinema!

Sophie finally got her new SLR camera so expect some snazzy shots to come soon, Cara got a free disposable waterproof camera so don’t expect anything snazzy from her! (The pictures of babies from the centre our friend Sarah took with hers) Tonight we are going to see some Thai Boxing maybe people will think we are tough boxers with all our bandages!

Both the Vietnamese and Thai don’t seem to empathise with our war wounds and either laugh when they find out it was a motorcycle accident or assure us that they (on their bike/tuktuk) won’t crash if we took a ride with them!

Sophie spent two days at the centre before we flew to Bangkok, Cara unfortunately could only do an afternoon. But all the kids are still great and all a lot bigger with the exception of little Mai in the first photo (above left) who isn't too well at the moment. We are waiting on Gokky's (Ngoc) sponsorship to get that moving.

Hope everyone is still good back home (and still in one piece). Congratulations on new auntie Sarah and happy birthday to Holly Acarnley today.

S & C xx

Lost Phone

Hi everyone, we've lost our english phone so now have a Vietnamese number 00841212307431...Bear in mind our number will change frequently as we travel across SE Asia! Watch this space. Longer blog to come soon, Soof xx

And then... and then... and then....

So we are now pros at surfing (our new Russian friend told us so!) Both of us moved onto smaller, fibre glass boards, (so we are now no longer using oversized plastic pens; i.e Bic - sorry surfer joke!) The surf was veryreally good and for about 3 days we hit the surf around 7am for a couple of hours.

We are now in Phu Quoc a small island off the coast of Cambodia, though still belongs to Vietnam, its one of our last destinations in Vietnam before we head back to the big city then on to Thailand. Its one of the least populated parts of the countryside with a large national park and untouched beaches. The water are so clear it’s the only place left where you can scuba dive, all the other locations in Vietnam have bad visibility due to it being the monsoon season. Open Water qualifications start at $250 so Sophie was going to see about doing hers.

We spend 3 days having another ‘holiday away from our holiday’ in Phu Quoc before going back to Saigon where we are going to work for 3 days at the centre. We had some great news on our arrival back, one of the younger girls; Hien has been adopted by a French couple so in about 3 weeks she makes her journey to her new life in France!

We are booking into a elephant conservation place in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand on the 29th November and after that we will make our way through Laos and Cambodia before descending into Southern Thailand for Xmas. Our new flights are booked to arrive in Sydney on the morning of the 31st December.

Hope everyone is well, please send us any news. Vietnam being the communist country that it is, has now, along with China, banned Facebook so we feel devoid of the outside world! Hopefully this will be turned over though its not long until we leave. Ciao for now x x