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Travelling Brazil Peru Chile 1 Bolivia Chile 2 Easter Island New Zealand Australia Singapore & Thailand Cambodia Vietnam Thailand India
Bestest Stuff
This is an edited version of our travel log. This last page is our favorite stuff
Here is a short list of our favourite places and things from travelling the world for the past 8 months, so you don't have to ask when we get back, plus a few worst ones too- it can't all be fun! (Don't get me started on the b**tard who ruined our memory card last night, wiping the pictures of tigers and Taj Mahal).
Obviously we have many more funny and amazing experiences to bore you with in great detail when we see you in person.
BEST OF:
City: Overall winner - Sydney. The only place that combined good shops, restaurants, famous sites, nice people, cricket, whilst being warm too. Gemma's choice also is Hanoi- the only non "Western" city where no one hassled you, and very interesting history. Simon's choice Valparaiso, really unique and definitely South American (Chile).
Worst - Dehli. Gemma saw a man doing a poo in the middle of one of the main streets. There is more, but you can't say anything to follow that.
Beach: Tubtim, Thailand. The beach next to where we stayed with family for Christmas. By day you could sit in the shade, swim, play Frisbee, take kayaks. At night they put out tables and chairs and brought you beer and BBQed seafood as you sat in candlelight. Least favorite was the essex "chav beach" on the same island where there was an excess of England shirts and sunburnt people with celtic tattoos, worth going for the euphoric trance music though. 
Journey: Cusco-Puno (Peru) by train. Beautiful scenery and nice food from the restaurant car.
Worst - Nasca-Cusco by bus, 20 hours (4 of which not moving with the driver trying to fix the engine with a rusty screwdriver), no toilet, Peruvians eating fluorescent jelly and throwing up, below freezing all night.
Excursion: Bolivian salt Flats tour. No other people, cars or even roads. Relaxing in hot springs in the open air, seeing lots of strange animals, funny coloured lakes, and a 10,000-year-old cactus in the middle of an ancient coral reef currently at 4000m above sea level. All for $100 in 4 days.
Beer: Anchor, Cambodia. A nice drop, not to be confused with angkor, the other national beer, pronounced phonetically the same, leading to Si still saying "An-CHor" .
Worst -Skol. Sorry Brazil.
Food: Fish Amok, Cambodia. Really nice SE Asia style coconut curry, with really tender pieces of fish.
Worst-Peruvian sandwiches, particularly at Tacna, the border town. Bread made from sawdust, cheese made from plastic, no butter, no nothing, more expensive than an evening meal (would have made a fuss, but an army officer (armed) was eating in there and was obviously friends with the owner.)
Guesthouse: Sunny Days, Arica, Chile. Wasn't technically the best in facilities, or location, but right after leaving Peru we were on the brink and this place had proper coffee, nice breakfasts, hot showers, was really helpful and may well have been instrumental in us not going home in August!
Worst- "Hawaii" hostel in Singapore. Bed in a cupboard, in a rambling den of vice and illegal immigrants. We passed on the complimentary breakfast of cold hard-boiled eggs and the cold hose pipe shower and spent the next night in a 3 star place next door. (runners up, YHA in Easter Island infested with cockroaches and the place in Peru they stole my trousers)
UNESCO Site: Easter Island. end of. Gemma likes Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, but she agrees Easter Island was best. (Visited 15.)
Weirdo: M Zaffar (musician guide), crazy camel guide who talked constantly of his dead father and muttered at us in a hybrid of Hindi, Rajistani and English, one of the Americans on the trip didn't even know he was an English speaking guide until we told her after two days. He moved to the top of the list after stalking us around Bikaner for a day and when told firmly to go away used the line "Yes. Of course. I have tea. Of course, we will be waiting for you." (my precious).
Runner up is a guy we met in Cusco who was very skeptical. He came out with many gems, including justifying being vegetarian with "I don't believe in the food chain" and randomly "I don't believe in jewellery". I didn't think either was up for debate.
Attraction: Water Puppets, Hanoi. There were fireworks and the puppets did backflips and caught puppet foxes. It can't get much more surreal than that. Apart from the Korean guy in front of in the theatre wearing a full surgical mask.
Best misuse of English: Thailand. "Cockage charge" - 200bht. As a beer was 45bht I'm really not sure if they were planning to open a bottle of wine for that much, or something entirely more special.
Runner up- Can Tho, Vietnam. I can only assume they were trying one of those posters you get at home that says "Keep your city clean/don't throw rubbish on the ground" etc etc. What actually came out on the huge Communist posters was "Please Clean our City". I'm not really into cleaning the streets while I'm on holiday, but thanks anyway.
I'm quite amused that there will be a lot of people who check this only once a week (or less) and will not find out we're thinking of coming home (from last week's posts) until we've there.
OK SEE YOU ALL SOON!!!!!!
