Round the World

The full moon was 2 days ago now but the memories (sort of) and battle scars will be around for a while. What a wild night! we did the sensible thing and didnt start drinking or even go out untill about 10pm, even by 3 in the afternoon there were signs that some people on Ko Phang nang wern't going to make it to sunrise, 2 Canadian lads in particualar spring to mind, wandering around covered in chalk and UV paint necking 'mushroom' shakes and generally looking lost, passed by the way side soon after that from all accounts. Our sensible attitude (yeah thats right, sensible!) made it possible for us to last the distance, we kept going until about 8:30am before crawling home and passing out untill 6:30pm!

The night itself was top drawer, 6/7 stages playing an assortment of music, mostly psy-trance/techno, but some R&B, drum and bass and even some decent house, so plenty to amuse everyone, we've got some good pic's and video clips to show everyone. Also lots of fire dancers, juggling types etc... and in general much fun was had by all. The only dissapointing thing is that we wont be here for the next one! the half moon party in a week (near a waterfall and slightly smaller) should soften the blow somewhat.

The party also coincided with the Thai New Year (Songkran) which from what we can understand is just a 4 day water fight! we've been thourougly soaked through since the start (1am wednesday) when we cheered in the year 2549 with the locals. The festival also meant that there were more people than usual at the party (around 15,000 apparantely)

Not much else to add as these past 4/5 days have just been consumed with the full moon but cheers for everyones comments. Others= (non-comment-makers) pull your fingers out!

Cheerybye Ant and Tan xx

It's been a week or so since our last blog and after spending 4 days in a crazy Bangkok getting tucked up by Tuk-tuk drivers, insect salesman and hoteliers we left on the overnight train to Chaing Mai in the North. The train journey was good, less privicy but nicer toilets than the Indian trains plus you can booze on them which gives them an obvious advantage in our eyes!

We spent a couple of days looking around the town and relaxing before our three day trek. We weren't sure what it would exatly entail, we probably should have guessed by it's name that a fair amount of walking was involved but we didn't. It got pretty hot too (about 40c and not a lot of shelter) we were in a group of 9, a New Zelander 2 Israel's and the rest we're Brits. The whole group got on really well......except one, a girl from Morriston would you believe, she went to school with Steve P, Cooper and Mctaggart Rachael Johns?! ring any bells, bit of a pain in the arse typical Morristonite (other than the people we know from there of course!) the rest were a great bunch and we've already made plans to meet up with some of them in Oz. We were treated to a local homemade liquor called moonshine on the trip, bonkers stuff we have the recipie so when we get home we'll give it a go although it's illegal the buzz you get off it is worth the risk! We also got to do a bit of elephant riding (again not that great they didnt seem to like it one bit) and bamboo rafting which was brilliant, we're both covered in cuts and bruses from ambushing any dry people passing at the end, those poor families!

After 5/6 days in Chaing Mai we got another overnight train to Bangkok, after one night there we got the overnight bus to Ko Phang nang with the help of a ferry. The journey from start to finish took 18 long hours, and it didnt help that we were sat behind a snooring middle aged man (with his Thai bride) who took snoring to a whole new level which he started about 5 minutes out of Bangkok. It's the longest and most uncomfortable journey we've had since we've been away and wont rush to book another bus thats for sure.

Ko Phang nang is beautiful, the place we are staying at has a great bar/pool/beach front location and its great to see a beach again after about 4 weeks of travelling about (its a hard life we know) we havent seen a lot of the island yet but are planning to do that once it cools down later (Ant)as i've sunburnt myself, you'd think we'd be used to it by now but it must be in the British genes that sunburn (under any circumstances) is a given.

We have the full moon party tommorrow night, 5000 people raving on a beach I bet it will have nothing on the 'Swansea bay' parties of 2 summers ago eh?!

Will post again after that......probably a few days after, once fully recovered.

Photos seem to be a no-go but we're still trying, we dont look very different, still as beautiful as you remember us!

Toodledo, Anthony and Tania.

We've now arrived in Bangkok after spending 3 days in expensive Singapore.

We left Bangalore without too many problems...........except Tania's card being swallowed by a starving Indian ATM, is all o.k now.

It was a bit sad leaving India but the excitment of going to a whole new country was enough to soften the blow.

Singapore was nice, very clean, quite expensive (about 2/3quid for a beer, a scandal!) so with our budget in mind 3 days was more than enough there. It also rained everyday (I know that will please some of you) but was about 30c so we muddled through. We spent most of our time there in Chinatown which was very nice, lovley buildings and even better food.

We left for Thailand (2.5 hour flight) on 30th and arrived at our hotel just off Koh Sarn Road about 4pm. Went straight out to the Ko Sarn to take in and become part of the 'madness' it's a fantastic street, anything and everything under the sun being sold and a mad mixture of sights sounds and smells (the smells a mix of street food and crusty hippy types) we've spent 4 days now sussing out the city and doing the usual sight seeing bit. We head tonight on an overnight train to Chang Mai for some treking, rafting and other good stuff like that will keep you all posted.

We did upload some pic's from Singapore but somethings gone wrong...............we're still on the case.

Tongiht at 11:55pm we leave India (Bangalore international) for Singapore, we feel like theres still so much to see here!. Even so we've had a fantastic 5/6 weeks and its been a brilliant start of our trip, we have to keep reminding ourselves that it is still so early on but if the rest of the trip go's anywhere near as quickly as this time has gone then we're going to be back very very soon! and even though we'd love to see everyone we're not quite ready to be back in Blighty.

Bangalore's been great, a very different kind of city to Kochi, and I dont think theres anywhere like Bombay. It's quite Westernised, lots of shops and names we recognise KFC, Lacoste, Nike etc.... and lots of neon lights at night it almost feels like we've already left India......but you still get the stares and curries here so maybe not. It's slightly refreshing for us (as westerners) to suddenly have all these things on offer but we both hope this isn't the India of the future, unfortunately to a point its inevitable.The most appealing thing about visiting India is the vast differences there are to how we live and definately how we treat people, it sometimes makes you feel slightly uncomfortable and some of it's hard to get your head around, but ultimately it's what makes this place so interesting. It go's without saying that money will help the poverty although it doesn't yet seem to have had much of an impact in Bangalore, but we hope the money doesn't create another America or Britain and India stays Indian, if that makes sense?!

One thing the money hasn't done is 'create reasnable opening hours' for pubs and bars, 11:30 is the latest they can get a licsence for. We only discovered this on Friday when we went out for a few drinks, thankfully after about an hour of searching for somewhere to carry on we came accros a bar that was just closing up (around midnight) and the owner, once he saw we were 2 white people immediately re-opened and had a lock in untill about 2:30am! it just emphasises how friendly and helpfull everyone here is, and we'll definately miss that but we're both sure we'll come back again, possibly not as travellers maybe as honeymooners! who knows.

We'll update again, hopefully with pictures from Singapore.

Bye for now, Anthony and Tania xx xx

As from Monday afternoon me (Anthony) and her (Tania) are engaged to be married. Sorry we havnent let everyone know personally but we've been drunk for the last 2 days straight and have been unable to drag ourselves into an internet cafe (if only they sold beer in these places!) We went and got a ring yesterday to make it all official and I have to be honest if Tania just makes a little bit more of an effort with the washing up and improves her cleaning skills just a little then i'm sure she'll make a cracking wife! (Its Tan now! Of course he is joking-I couldnt get any better at washing-up or the cleaning-maybe if he improves we could live a very happily married life!! We are joking btw!)

Seriously though we're both very happy and are looking forward to having a bit of a shin-dig when we get back......in about 6 months! no definate plans about a date etc... all in good time.

Other than the news not a lot to report, as I mentioned we've just been sat in some dark, dingy, smelly little bars for the past 48hours its been very romantic necking booze and scoffing pork scratchings.

We're off on another night train tonight to Bangalore (our final destination) leaving at 8:30pm arriving at 7am, no doubt another interesting experience.

We'll love you and leave you (dont get any ideas Tan!) speak to you all soon.

Anthony and Tania (soon to be Mr and Mrs David-Wallace-Jones.....maybe) xx