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The last blog of the trip: it's a long one I'm afraid (don't feel obliged to read it)... It's Nagano with snow monkeys, deep fried locusts, fish saké, "karaoke" and a stop at the lake to clear our heads; Tokyo with the Shibuya crossing, cherry blossom trees galore, the Kamen Joshi girl group and Asimo the Honda Robot; and Hong Kong with accommodation in little India, Sofar Sounds, a rooftop pool, the peak, soho with escalators and an anticlimactic symphony of lights show.

We went to Nagano after Kanazawa/Shirakawa-go. Our main purpose here was to fulfil Zee's dream of seeing the legendary snow monkeys that bathe in the hot spring saunas up in the mountains. His wish came true! We did a day trip to the snow monkey park and mingled with them for the afternoon as they bathed and huddled together to keep warm. There were lots of baby monkeys too and we witnessed a few adults thieving from visiting customers. Back in Nagano town we thought it about time for another night out as Zee, the machine, wanted to get "aaat on the laaash"...it started orderly but ended with Zee pushing me over on the pavement (accidentally), resulting in a hole in my trouser knee, us all raiding the 24hr family mart for snacks at 3am and then Zee vomiting on return to the hostel whilst laura and I broke the 'lights out in communal areas after 11' rule. Zee had made it his mission to not be outdrunk by me - he matched me consumption wise but not in handling terms, ha! The evening was a cracker though - we went to a great restaurant where we had deep fried locusts as a side dish and a bowl of Saké that is brewed for a while with a fish soaking in it. We devoured the saké and the fish! Then went in search for a Karaoke bar, only to find it was way too expensive, but luckily found a lounge bar that had the instruments of a band all set up but no band. Well, nedless to say we belted out a few numbers - Taylor Swift, The Beatles and Oasis made appearances, and the only two other people in the bar were obliged to politely clap at the end of our set. Not done yet, we headed to a sports bar and muscled in on some locals' night's out, joining them for matches of table tennis and pool before playing clocks on the dart board. So so tired by home time which I expect contributed to the falling down and ripped knee! (I'm so so sorry Mrs Ralph 😜 - soon you won't have to read of my drinking habits)! Hangovers ever present, the next day we took the train up to stay at a lake side lodge hostel called LAMP hostel. It was a great place with comfy beds, log cabin stylings and an onsen style bath which I unfortunately only had a few private minutes in, before 2 slight Japanese ladies arrived, stripped off and got in together (I vacated the bath on their arrival in the changing area as didn't think they'd appreciate a large, bobbing (you float in them) westerner disturbing their chill time). Anyway, we took naps, went for walks in the snow around the lake and ate many a carbohydrate to recover from the night before. It worked well and by the next day we felt ready to take on Tokyo city after our few days in the snowy countryside. Laura's brother and sister in law (Shaun and Becky) were on holiday in Japan and we'd managed to coincide our Tokyo time. We met them for dinner on the first night there and spent the next couple days together. We visited the scramble Shibuya crossing where the volume of people crossing reaches thousands sometimes. Was 'quiet' when we went unfortunately but still had a go at taking some arty slow shutter speed shots like Jack had taught me in HoiAn 🙂. We explored around here some, and tried to plough our way through the hoards of people on Takeashita (lol) street to get to our sushi restaurant we fancied. This was really fun - you ordered on a personal tablet in front of you, then a siren would go off to let you know that your food was about to zoom towards you on a conveyor belt and stop right in front of you. Much fun!! We ended the night at a saké market, sampling a few different ones and made friends with some young people from TaiWan called SunnySu, Celine, Pierre and Paul (see selfie of us all on Facebook)!! Next day was spent in Ueno park under the cherry blossom. There's soooo many blossom trees all over, it looks great! I'd been to Ueno park under two weeks before and it wasn't out very much then but it was now near full bloom 😀. We then went round the Ginza area which was full of pretty posh designer shops so couldn't really purchase anything but we had a nice wander around and a last meal with Shaun and Becky with a few beers to follow. Penultimate Tokyo/Japan day was spent at the Senso-ji temple and doing some souvenir shopping in the Asakusa and Kapabashi areas. One of our favourite nights was then upon us...we'd seen Joanna Lumley (in Japan) go to watch an all girl singing dancing troop where all the audience members (99% male) know all the dance moves and get obsessed with all the girls - we had to see it for ourselves and it definitely didn't disappoint! They are a 30ish strong group called Kamen Joshi and perform twice every night (5 and 8pm). The ticket's a bargain at £12 which gets you entry and two drinks or some tucker! They perform in smaller groups and all the men are so so involved in chanting and doing dance routines to the songs. The girls have different coloured outfits on and the men race forward waving their affiliated coloured glow stick each time their favourite girl took a solo. Afterwards, you can meet and greet all the girls (they all look very young (15-20) and the men's average age was probably 45) - it was fascinating to see the men being so shy then talking to the girls after being so confident on the dance floor. However, the overriding feeling was creepiness, and the men would pay for photos with them or pay for the girls to pose together for photos! Whacky Japan! Final day in Japan was a late start followed by a trip to the national museum of emerging science and innovation, called Miraikan. Had a cool trip down to it on the hybrid train over the docks and estuary - real flashy buildings around here. When there we saw a demonstration by the Honda Robot, Asimo, who ran out of his home giving us a wave. He did some hopping, backwards walking and sang a song whilst doing Japanese sign language along to it! He was so cool, glad we saw him. We also had a go on some Honda "uni cab" prototypes and went on a tour around he museum on them - they're like a sit down Segway that you control with your weight distribution sitting down. The lady was quite strict with us though as I think she could tell all we wanted to do was zoom around on them rather than listen to her tour. She didn't let us go very fast 🙁. Headed back to central Tokyo after and had a great last meal of tender raw steak that you cook on a little grill box on your table yourself - I made the mistake of using my metal chopsticks to turn my meat on the grill and then to feed myself, burning my upper and lower lip on one side in the process (injury no. 547??!!) 😩 Friday was our travel day to Hong Kong with an early start, arriving in HK late afternoon. Initially impressed with the transport into the city our good moods were cut short on arrival to our hostel. The building was called ChingKung Mansions and housed loooooads of hostels on 15 floors. The whole of the ground floor was just like the markets we'd seen in India and as soon as we arrived the hassling started, offering us places to stay and things to buy. Luckily the China based Indian people were less pushy than some of the India based Indian people had been, so there was no bother, was just unexpected as one street over was all the designer shops and posh hotels whereas this building was really run down. The hostel we were staying in had messed up too and were asking us to move rooms to a different hostel after the first night - we said we would at first but then changed our minds so we stayed put. May have been a mistake as in this block only one lift was working so there was a big queue for it or it was walk 15 flights in muggy heat. Queue was so long one night we did take the stairs but to instantly regret it - on the first floor we found a rave and loads of people hotboxing in the corridor, then the staircase smelled so strongly of wee and poo it made you gag - I've never walked so quickly up 15 flights of stairs but was so worried that I'd get sick from it all again, I pelted up them!! All good though. Anyway, our first night in HK we'd booked onto the city's first Sofar Sounds gig which was really good. Last artist was the best but the other two were good too. Met a few people and got some recommendations for things to do in the city. Polished the day of with a second McDonald's in 10hours, oops! Spent Saturday at the Sheraton hotel rooftop pool and spa (bought a day pass) for a well earned rest and to enjoy the warm weather again. Had an interesting dinner at a cooky restaurant where they gave you a free half a roasted pigeon with every meal. It tastes a bit like duck! Strolled the waterfront after dinner and went for a cocktail in a skybar called 'eyebar'. Had a cocktail called 'Susie wrong' which was advertised as HK's version of the Singapore sling - wasn't quite the same I don't think!! Last day in HK was spent with Sian and Dan and their friend Jenna. Dan was working in HK for a few days and Sian had joined him for a holiday. We went up to the top of the peak (getting a really cheap taxi compared to the expensive tram that had an hour long queue) but only got an overcast view of the city as was pretty cloudy and smoggy that day. Then explored the soho area that had escalators running up and down the streets with happy hours galore at bars on every level! Headed over the water then to the Kowloon side to watch the symphony of lights show from the harbour side (all the buildings emit laser beams from their roofs and the building facades light up with loads of different patterns). Unfortunately we were expecting much more than we got. It may have been the cloudy skies that prevented the full effect from coming across but to us it didn't look that different to the lights that are always going day and night on the buildings. Nice to see though and didn't last long :) Afterwards we headed up town to a street food area where we came across a street artist performing our classic hits that we'd performed earlier in the week - we happily obliged his request to sing along to Hey Jude and Yesterday 😁. After tucker we bid farewell to Sian and Dan and headed back for our last sleep of the big fat holiday and left early in the morning with much heavier rucksacks (mine was 18.5kg, started at 14.5) for our journey home. Had two flights with Aeroflot, with a short stop at Moscow airport en route. Unfortunately it was too short of a stop for them to manage to put my back on the flight to Heathrow....my 19th flight and I lost my luggage. Best it happened on this flight though and luckily he was found the next day and is now safely returned to me. Can't believe it's all over, it went by so quickly, but it's lovely to be home. If you've read down this far, I salute you, and fanks!!

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Cultured Kanazawa with tea houses galore, Kenrukoen Garden and a nice castle, chased up with a trip to snowy Shirakawa-go

We immediately liked the look of Kanazawa on arrival - nice and compact with easy buses everywhere to all the attractions. We spent our first day exploring the Chaya districts where the town looks more oldy worldy and there are plenty of original tea houses to visit. Joanna Lumley had taught us that in Japan, when you visit somewhere of significance, it's often the case that you can get a stamp for a memory book. So far we'd either failed to remember or the attraction didn't have a stamp option (could only get a hand drawn good will message) but, we managed to get our first one from a tea house visit in Kanazawa 😀! Plenty of Japanese people were dressed in kimonos here and so Zee and I spent some time trying to sneak photos of them. We had a cuppa and unusual dessert at a local tea house sat cross legged on the floor around a little table with the pretty garden in view through the window/door - we felt like right locals 🙂. Got some local curry tucker from the next chaya district before the weather turned on us a bit so we decided to do a bit of shopping and head back to chill in the hostel with a film (slumdog millionaire) and reminisced about all the things we'd seen there that were in the film. Weather had really perked up for us the next day so we went around the beautiful Kenrokuen garden and Kanazawa castle. The garden is rated in the top three gardens in Japan apparently :) It was really lovely and the blossom had started to come out. We took part in a traditional casual tea ceremony too and I think I've decided that when I get a house I'd love to decorate some aspect of it in the style of a Japanese tea house. The castle and its grounds were also beaut and plenty to see and stroll around. Zee burned off some energy challenging me to step jumping contests - he beat me ☹️. Next day we had booked on a coach tour that would take us to the traditional village, Shirakawa-go. It is one of a few towns left that still have original thatched roofed houses that are triangle shaped and have their sloping roofs at a 60 degree angle in order to cope with the snow fall they get. We were all very excited to see and play in the snow, just wish my choice of footwear had been more appropriate as was wearing my slip on pumps. I was close to losing them in the deep snow many times as your legs would disappear into it! We walked around the town, up to the view point, into the forest and across the suspension bridge stopping off for sustenance and warmth at a great cafe where the little old couple running it had lived there all their lives. Got the coach back to Kanazawa late afternoon and went in search of a sushi restaurant we'd been recommended as being the best sushi in town and a favourite of the locals - we were told we had to try the most expensive 'fatty tuna' as was very succulent, which it was! I'm trying to get better at sushi and fish eating and am not doing too badly - I had the raw fatty tuna and miso soup which had whole fish carcasses in!! I tried a bit of laura and Zee's who had a selection of proper fishy ones but couldn't have had a whole selection myself...it's just too fishy!!

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A tiny bit of Tokyo, semi finals of Sumo in Osaka and the Shrines and Geishas of Kyoto

Arrived absolutely pooped at my Tokyo hostel which was aptly called Oak Zen hostel as 'twas wooden and peaceful. Got a good night's rest in ready to take on the city for a few hours on Friday. I was staying in the Ueno area and so had easy access to the big big park there and all inside. Got to see my first Japanese shrines, temples, pagodas, wildlife and a few blossom trees had begun to bloom. Oooo, very pleasant indeed! Saw a karate club practicing by a fountain and cheering each other on to do poses on the fountain wall. There were food markets around the shrines selling some things that looked really appetising, but some not so much! I didn't have time to do much else than the park as was catching my first bullet train to Osaka to meet the guys, but from the few hours I spent, I think going to like Japan! Although this was probably a skewed sample of Tokyo as pretty much only saw green areas! Bullet train ride was smooth, timely and yummy - had a bento sushi box and chilli and lemon crackers with coffee milk for my lunch! The trains here (well any public transport) leave dead on time and arrive usually exactly to the minute it says on your ticket. We each had bought a Japan Railways (JR) voucher back in the UK which you exchange for a pass on arrival. It's gets you pretty much anywhere in the country and around a lot of cities too - we just show the attendant at the gates, get a bow and a "shimamazate" which we reciprocate with an "origato" and bow and head on through 😁! Anyway, arrived in Osaka with Loz and Zee arriving shortly after. We headed out for dinner in a neon lit district and had Japanese pancakes (you get a bowl of the raw ingredients and cook it yourself on the hot plate imbedded in your table) and caught up on all our adventures during the 6/7 weeks we'd been apart 🙂. Osaka is pretty big town so didn't get to see too much of it. We went to the castle on Saturday morning for a little explore and then headed to our main event, the international sumo fighting semi finals! Laura had managed to get us tickets. It was really good! We saw many many bouts in the different seniority levels. Started with the 'non labelled' ones, through to intermediate and then senior sumos. Each level of sumo brought more ritual and build up and slightly jazzier nappy belts! The senior ones would get called to the ring by a man with a fan singing a song, have a special drink from a man in the corner of the dohjo, do their fat slapping and cocked leg stretches to each other and the audience and then face off in a squat. You'd think they were then going to start but would suddenly stand up, slap their belly and thighs a few times more, go back to their corners and grab some salt out of a box which they then sprinkled on their feet and threw into the ring before stepping back into it. They'd do this 3 -4 times though before they actually engaged physically with each other!! The only contact time with each other ranged from about 1 - 30 seconds and then it was all over!! The 1 second fight came from a senior match where a big big sumo really geared himself up so much so the crowd even made some noise (Japanese sports crowds are much much more reserved than British ones) but when it came to the start of the fight, his opponent just stepped to one side so the hyped up guy just flew head first out of the ring and into the judge below, lolz!! Great way to spend the afternoon and we chased it up with a Japanese tapas type meal, ordering bits and bobs that come in very small portions so had to subsidise it with a trip to family mart for sushi snacks on the way home! Headed to Kyoto on Sunday and after dumping our big bags in lockers at the station headed out sightseeing. Went to the golden temple (big golden pagoda looking house set on the edge of a lake) and its surrounding area and then I headed to the bamboo Forrest walk whilst the others went to the castle as had been to the bamboo when they came to Kyoto before I got here. Bamboo walk and the town it was in was nice but it was raining so that was a bit of a dampener. I also didn't anticipate how long it would take to get back to the hostel and so found myself running the streets in Kyoto and trying to catch the right trains in the rain to meet back up with the guys to go to the Geisha show that evening. Made it in time for the show but I didn't have enough cash on me for the ticket so off I went in the rain again to run to an ATM (far away as Geisha's don't seem to use ATMs as there wasn't one in the Gion district area we were in). Missed the first few minutes but was worth the running as saw 7 example performances of the different disciplines Geishas train in - real interesting! Our night then descended into sake chaos starting at a Ramen restaurant where you order your meal via a vending machine (along with sake) and ending with us buying litre carton after litre carton of sake from the family mart and watching Joanna Lumley in Japan in our hostel room, using the rule that you drink every time she says an adjective or exclamative phrase like 'oh darling' etc. It turned out to be a very descriptive and emotional trip for her 😬!! (Please don't judge me Mrs Ralph 😁)!! Nursing our heads the next day we had a feast at McDonalds before parting ways again. Zee and Laura headed on to Kanazawa whilst I finished off a bit of sight seeing in Kyoto. I went to the fushimi Inari Taisha shrine, which is the famous orange square arches (⛩) one, and spent a good while walking up the mountain side there, to clear my head, before catching my train to Kanazawa too. I found a bakery in the station that did so many varieties of bread and baked desserts etc so bought a couple for the ride, you would have loved it Gem! They finally waved my hangover goodbye 🙂

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Farewell to the parents in Nelson, the centre of New Zealand and Earthquake stricken Christchurch

My last little ride in the RV on Friday, travelling from Motueka to Nelson where ma and pa dropped me off at my hostel on their way to Picton to catch their ferry to Wellington. Think dad was sad he won't have someone to be a child with anymore and mum was looking forward to having a rest from us poking fun at her...we do it out of love though Ma! My hostel in Nelson was nice enough and they had a doggie (Kora) so I was happy 😊. Chilled for the afternoon really and did a bit of supermarket shopping with the aim to try to make more meals, than eat out, and reduce the rate that my bank account is decreasing at! Also took full advantage of unlimited wifi and downloaded season 2 of 'Love' on Netflix, 'tis good! Went to the local Saturday arts and crafts market on Saturday which was really good! Then spent the afternoon lying in the sunny grounds of the cathedral, reading HP, watching 'Love' and catching up on blogging and my journal - nice to have a rest for the day tbh! Sunday was spent walking up to the centre point of New Zealand where there's a small monument and great views of the city and sea. Did a short walk over the hills nearby (packed lunch in tow) and made my way back into town to catch an afternoon showing of Kong: Skull Island (6/10 for me). Chased it up with a pizza and hung out with hostel people for the evening. Starting to get a Japan plan together too - Laura and Zee are already there, just need to figure out my first night there and how to get to them the next day...best get learning some Japanese!! Was Christchurch bound on Monday and had to do a fair walk across town with my big ole rucksack to get to my hostel. Hostel is nice but room is often pretty whiffy being a mixed dorm of 8. I did about 9 miles walking around the town the following day and got a couple warmer weather clothes in prep for Japan. The town has a fair few empty areas where buildings have had to be demolished and there is still a lot of construction and rebuild going on after the Feb 2011 earthquake. There's a shopping area called re-start mall that is primarily built from stacked cargo containers which was nice to wander around :) I visited the 'quake city' museum the day next, which was really good and I chose my final meal in NZ was to be a steak which didn't disappoint 😊 Sorry this is a pretty boring blog...not too much to write about when you're on your tod and in regular kind of cities really! On my flight to Japan at the moment though, getting ready for the weird and wonderful and a reunion with Zee and Laura 😁!!

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Double Glacier viewing day - one from the bottom by foot and one from way above it by plane and freefall, pancake rocks and blow holes and Sea Kayaking in Abel Tasman

It was a very busy few days. Whilst still in Fox Glacier town we did a couple of exploration walks - we went round Lake Mathieson and oggled at reflection point where Mount Cook and its surrounding mountain range was reflected pretty perfectly in the lake, making for nice photos! There were hoards of Japanese people here taking so so many photos! We then walked to the glacier viewing point through the valley it's left behind as its melted away - the difference in size in just 50 yeas or so was crazy! And we had our lovely weather back fortunately, just in time for our skydive due later that day. Drove ourselves up to Franz Josef glacier town with mum getting quieter by the minute. She was dropping hints for us to try and reassure her but I don't think dad and I helped much - we did try to restrain the Mumpy fun poking though!! We'd chosen to do a 16,000ft dive which was the middle height they offered (the highest was too high in price unfortunately) and all paid for our instructor to take photos and video us en route! We got suited up and were on the first plane up. Mum was made to get her flying suit and harness on first and was last in the plane - she didn't realise until we told her that this meant she was to be first to jump!! Haha, you should have seen the look on her face when she was told, bless her! She just kept repeating "I don't want to go first" in a tiny voice! On the way up your instructor takes photos out the window of the scenery and in the plane and does a few videos asking you questions like "do you trust me" and "still want to do this" etc - you can hear dad bellow in the background on mum's video "how much to drop her?!"!! She also had a small flap when, at about 13,000ft, they put oxygen masks on you. Mum's didn't arrive 'til a little after mine and dad's which heightened her look of terror 'til she got hers! Alas, 16,000ft arrived, the oxygen masks were whipped off and the plane door was slid open. I was sat opposite Ma - it was a little surreal to see her turn (well the man turn her as she was incapacitated), dangle out the edge of the plane, tuck her legs under the plane, put her head back against her instructor and then just disappear, plop, out of sight! I was next to jump - we shuffled forward and turned out the door, I made my banana shape and then whoosh...I think we did a forward roll in the first few seconds of free fall with my arms crossed across my chest and then TJ (my instructor) tapped me to let me know I could open them out. We fell and fell and he pointed ways I should look - you could see for miles and the earth below looked so coooool! We had the glacier, the mountain range, rolling hills and fields, a river/estuary and the coast line as our scenery - crazy!!! The free fall lasted about a minute-75 seconds TJ said, and was really fun! I had a bit of trouble in that I'd been 'whooping' away and had kept my mouth open so I had a really dry mouth by the end - the photos of me evidently trying to moisten my mouth are funny but it put me in a pickle because as you drop you have to equalise your ears due to the change in pressure - I didn't have anything to swallow to try to equalise my ears so they were pretty painful during the last part of the free fall. I had a try with pinching my nose but it's hard to control ones arms when falling at high velocity!! The parachute opened successfully (yay) and I flopped forwards and down, feeling like a rag doll! TJ then let me steer the parachute and we did spins and side to side things and sudden stops 😀loved it!! Legs up for landing and I saw mum was safely down too - she was having her landing interview for the video and answered 'never' to 'would you do another?' Haha!! Dad and I answered 'yes'. Mum's overall feelings were that she hated falling out the plane, had forgotten that a parachute was going to come out and slow her down, didn't like the parachute part but liked it more than the free fall and was happy to be on solid ground again. She is glad she's done it though and is proud of herself ☺. I loved it and would do another if I'm ever flush with cash!! Oh gosh, this is a long blog...will whizz through the next couple days... Wednesday was a travel day mainly and Harry Potter was great company for me sat in the back and I had a short drive of the van 😀. We made a couple of stops en route - one being the pancake rocks and blow holes where the rocks look like stacks of pancakes and the sea spurts up through the pancakes at high tide...we weren't there for high tide though unfortunately. We did see some dolphins off the coast though 🙂! Made another stop at NZ's longest swing bridge where dad and I had fun walking in step and making the whole bridge bounce to annoy and frighten mum😁! Arrived at our nice camp site in Motueka in time (for dad) to cook bangers and mash for din dins! Next day was sea kayaking day along the coast of the Abel Tasman National Park. Sun was shining all day and the sea nice and still and crystal clear, perfecto! Mum and dad were in a double and me in a single - I wasn't allowed to leave them though as they had all the safety gear (flare and water pump). I saw a massive stingray in the shallow water but it had swum away before mum and dad could reverse back to me. We saw fur seals and flying fish too and of course, plenty of birds to dad's delight - my favourite of which is called a Pied Shag, lol!! We did a solid days kayaking and were probably rowing around for about 6-7 hours! We were all pooped with achey arms by the end so made use of the hot tub they had on our campsite to 'warm down' 😄! Sorry for the essay!!!!

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Jet boating in Queenstown, Lion in Wanaka and glowworms in Fox Glacier

Bit of a delay in writing these next couple blogs...I've been re-reading the Harry Potter books again and can't put them down! Blog writing goes out the window when a good book's about! Mark bought me the first couple as ebooks for Christmas (fanks Marko 😁) and have now bought myself the next 3 to be getting on with but will endeavour to blog in a more timely fashion! Anyways...we left our valley campsite and headed back to Te Anau and on to Queenstown, the adventure capital of the South Island. Plenty of options to choose from but all at pretty high prices! We decided on jet boating down the upper shot canyon river and booked it for the next day. We had a lovely meal at a fish restaurant in Queenstown courtesy of Nanny, who'd said she'd like to treat us to a meal when here, thanks Nanny!! I had Fush n Chups. Jet boating was awesome - our driver bombed it at full pelt down the river and would go very close to the cliffs either side before quickly turning away and did 360 degree turns every so often. I tried to video it but not sure how well they have turned out as my hand was wobbling all over and it was raining/spitting. Still, much fun! The bus ride there and back was on a mountainside single track that had a sheer drop on one side which made it exciting when you met someone coming the other way! We then drove to Wanaka through more amazing countryside and scenery with lakes a plenty to stop at and have our now regular ploughman's lunch - it's been great being in the RV with ma and pa as the quality of food I've been eating has improved no end, mmmm! The weather was still pretty overcast so we decided to go to the cinema. We saw Lion - really good, quite the tear jerker! The cinema was cool and very retro with half a car in the audience that you could sit in the back of to watch ton film in. We sort of wild camped that evening - driving on in the direction of fox galcier and stopping at a random non managed 'site' where you leave $10 in an envelope in a box on entrance! We'd planned to do a 3hr walk the next day but weather wasn't playing ball really - dry but very low cloud so any walk uphill would be pointless. We instead settled on doing a couple short walks, one to some blue pools (where mum and dad just about stopped bird watching to see two guys jump off the swing bridge into the pools in their pants) and another to Fantail Falls (pretty water fall), and arrived in Fox Glacier town in daylight for a relax and some good tucker (dad's special corn beef hash and bovril gravy, mmm). We did another walk after dark to a bit of forest that had a path to follow to see all the glow worms. They're pretty interesting little guys although aren't very lucky - the first to hatch eats all his brothers/sisters whilst they're still eggs, then they haven't got bums so can't poop so store all their poop in their body and mix it with a chemical that makes it glow, this then attracts insects which stick to their glowing stringy body which they eat, they grow bigger and glow brighter the more they eat before chrysalising and become a moth which then hatches but the moth doesn't have a mouth or a bum so has sex for a couple days and dies (the female laying more eggs before it dies)! Bummer!!

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The southern scenic route, Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound

Wednesday was a travel day but was a beaut travel day as took the southern scenic route from Dunedin to a place called Riverton. We had our first unfounded hissy fit from mother (she can't recall what it was about now) in Dunedin so dad and I left her to have a 'time out' in the van whilst we went ahead and viewed the lovely railway station building which is apparently the most photographed building in NZ. She joined us shortly after and had calmed down, pahah! Honestly!! The route took us all day but we were making plenty of stops including a beach where we were the only ones on it and many a view point with stunning scenery. Got to Riverton where our view was the setting sun over the sea, niiiice! Early start the next day as had to make it to Manapouri for 9:30 to catch our day excursion to and around Doubtful sound. The early morning cloud and mist was cool to see over the landscapes so I kept asking dad to stop so I could take a photo. I also bobbled around trying to make our packed lunch in the back of the van with sharp knives and baps flying all over the place but we arrived in the nick of time. First leg of the tour was a catamaran over lake Manapouri - again the low cloud over the mountain ranges either side was cooool as the tops were peaking out above them. T'other side of the lake we saw NZ's biggest hydroelectric power station and took a bus over the mountain to reach to fiordland the other side. And very very nice fiordland it is too. The only noise was the birds (and dad near the birds with his free hot chocolates that he rinsed) and our skipper giving us a commentary. He only commentated one way though and on our return journey we all caught a few Zs lying on the top deck (taking up quite a bit of room so I expect the other passengers were a bit disgruntled with us)! Mum was spark out when the skipper suddenly announced there were some Dolphins near who swam with us for a little bit at the bow of the boat. It was a great day out, although expensive at nearly £130pp! NZ is eating up my savings for sure!! We had booked onto a Top 10 campsite for the night in Te Anau and caught the last few rays of sunshine before another caravan meal - stepped it up this time and had steak!! We fancied another sound on Friday and drove the world heritage status'd Milford Highway to Milford sound. Again, plenty of stopping on the way to gawp at the scenery and take some photies. There were plenty of snow capped mountains about and big spacious valleys so was quite the drive! We didn't do a cruise around this Sound as had done the one the day before so we had a wander around the area seeing the famous Mitre Peak, and watched all the bellypoppers and dinky planes taking off and touring the mountains whilst eating our ploughmans lunch. We then left the sound behind us and drove back along the 'highway' (an A road in the UK) where we wild camped for the night in a valley on a department of conservation (DoC) spot that had a single porter loo and naffing else - we tested our self contained status our RV has given us to full effect - I was allowed to do my first poop of my life in a caravan toilet. Until last year I didn't know that the reason why I wasn't allowed to do poops in the caravan growing up was because dad didn't want to empty it - I thought it was something to do with the workings of the loo, the blighter!! My life has been a pack of liesss!! Sorry to talk about poop again!!

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Windy Wellington, welcome to Ma, Pa and the RV and birds birds birds!

My last couple days as a sole traveller (for a little while anyway) were in Wellington. It is true, it is very windy there! I stayed in an Airbnb which was a family house in the suburbs but easily caught a bus into town to explore on the Sunday. I went to the NZ museum - Te Papa which was really good, one of the best I've been too as really interactive and presented very well. They had an exhibit on Gallipoli about the Anzac troops contribution in WW2 - there were 5 really detailed massive models depicting different soldiers and a nurse which were pretty incredible. Had lunch by the harbour and sat on a beach for the afternoon (windy but nice)! Managed to use the fast wifi at the Airbnb to make a few Skype calls too :D On Monday I flew to Christchurch from Wellington and was greeted by Mumpy and Dumpy who were happy to see me in one piece. They'd arrived the day before and mostly slept since their arrival. However, they've been ok overall with the jet lag! We went to collect our RV which turned into a bit of a hullabaloo! Dad was not a happy bunny as the van was 'a bit of a nail' as he called it. It was a bit battered looking and there were a few things that needed fixing and it needed a good cleaning, so he spoke to the manager who got it sent back to the engineers and cleaners whilst we went food shopping. It returned in a bit of a better state and dad was appeased with a half a day discount and mum with a bottle of wine from the (in her opinion) dishy manager - she's such a lush! We set off, a few hours later than planned, to Dunedin/Portibello where we stayed on a nice site. The van has been nicknamed 'the tea trolley' as she sounds like a giant one as you go along and our Kiwi sat nav lady is called Erin (Boag) or 'Paikea' (watch Whale rider, it's a good film) depending on if we're feeling her strong Maori heritage that day! Tuesday brought us birds birds birds...dad was in (bird) paradise with his binoculars permanently attached to his face. We visited the only mainland albatross colony on the Otago headland where we saw big albatrosses flying and gliding around and Alby chicks on the ground waiting for there num nums from ma or pa (depending on who's day it was to go food finding). They're big old birds and at one point the chicks get so chubby that they weigh more than their parents - bit like me and my parents! The wind was pretty bracing but we went down to the viewing platforms either side of the albatross centre and saw seals and sea lions lazing on the beach and rocks. Afterwards, we pootled the RV back down the headland a bit to drive around the coastal roads in search of various wader birds and found them in abundance! One very happy daddy!! Ended the day with...birds. We went back up to the Albatross centre where you could pay to see the rafts (groups) of the native little blue penguins come in from sea, waddle up the beach, clamber up the rocks and scurry into their nests for night nights! They was well cute! Oooo, and we had our first Cavaran (mis-spelt on purpose) meal with all the tinned veg, mmmm, my fave!

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Smelly Rotorua, Lakey Taupo and Tongariro Alpine crossing from Turengi

Arrived in Rotorua on Monday to the whiff of Sulphur (smells like rotten egg) in the air. The town and surrounding areas are a geothermal hotspot with mud pools, hot springs and geysers all over the show. I went to a place called Te Puia which has the biggest active geyser in the Southern Hemisphere, called Pohutu. It blows its top 1-2 times an hour and the water reaches 30m sometimes! Whilst there I also saw my first Kiwi bird and Maori performance of the trip :) Cool to see the Haka up close! Rotorua itself is a nice town surrounded by a sulphuric lake and with all the parks containing random mud pools and steaming hot pools. The museum is supposed the be great but was closed due to a recent earthquake tremor damaging the building - building itself and the surrounding government gardens were real nice though so spent time wandering around them instead. Great couple days! Southward then to Taupo, on Wednesday, as kind of an in between place from Rotorua to Turengi, where I'd planned to do the crossing from. Again, Taupo was a lovely lake side town. The lake is the biggest of the country and sits atop of an active volcano deep below, so it's basically the crater filled with water! Beaut water it is too, crystal clear - if I'd have had longer, definitely would have done a boat or kayak trip on it. I did venture down the Waikato river from town to visit Huka Falls though which were well worth the walk. The river was emerald green and I spotted a campsite that I'll suggest mum and dad stay on with the RV. On the way back I sat at the edge with my feet in the river and had a read of Harry Potter, ooooo lovely!! My next stop was Turengi where I'd booked to stay in a place called 'A plus Samurai Lodge Backpackers'. It had looked a bit eclectic when booking and it lived up to it. The guy running it was called Ian, who was a very Chatty Cathy and was very keen to offer you guidance. Nice man though and he introduced a few of us single travellers and sorted us a lift to our starting point for the walk the next day - basically he kind of badgered anyone that arrived with a car to see if they were willing to give lifts - our car guy was an Italian called Luca. The two I walked with were a French PE teacher (Thiery) that I had met at my Taupo hostel and a Swedish girl (Sarah, the Baker) who arrived shortly after I did. I didn't think I was going to walk with anyone as didn't want to be holding them up but in the end I was glad of the company, especially as we started at the end of the walk which meant we barely saw anyone else until about half way through, when the crowds of people who started at the start were arriving at the summit. I was also particularly glad I wasn't alone when, at the end of the walk we had to hitchhike back to Turengi (my first time hitchhiking), and as the guy who stopped for us was bombing it down the roads, he explained that it was because he'd had a few beers!! He was apologetic for his driving but we were all very glad to get out safely back in Turengi town!! Oops!! The walk itself was really good! It was 19.5km and the route we took was a walk upwards through a forest, a zigzag up the moor looking mountain side with Tongariro lake below, up and over into a moonscape looking plateau with a blue lake on top to get your first look at Mount Doom (Mt Ngurahurue ?sp) from lord of the rings in the distance (across another desert like crater). Whilst walking towards Mt Doom you come across 3 emerald lakes and then had to climb Red Ridge which was a long scree slope with drops either side to reach the highest point of the walk. This was a bit tricky as all the people walking the regular route were coming down the scree slope as we were trying to walk up it, slipping down the slope more than up it on most steps! Had to watch out for falling rocks! The valleys and rock formations all around were crazy looking and mainly red in colour and mount doom looked really coooool! You could have walked up and down mount doom but we decided to give it a miss as would add 3hrs onto the walk and felt we had the best view we could get of it by walking by it at the bottom, ha! A nice downward followed through a volcanic rocky valley and along an orange stream. We did the whole thing in 6 hours! I think I definitely would have been slower by myself as the others kept up the pace and my sweat glands in overdrive, haha!! Great walk though, think it probably lives up to lonely planets accolade of the best one day trek in NZ!

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Auckland with Amy, Bay of Islands with Dolphins and Waiheke with wine (and Amy)!

Arrived in Auckland and avoided the long passport queues by being British and having a newish passport! Billy bonus!! Had to show my walking shoes at customs as had been 'in the wilderness' in them - they passed though :) Amy and I had a bit of trouble finding each other in town as we missed each other by a few minutes it seems but found her in the end and we got the ferry over to Devonport, where she and Andrew live. They've got a great little house, a 2 minute walk away from the seafront! Andrew's mum is staying with them for 6 weeks so they had a full house with me there too. I stayed one night with them before heading to the Bay of Islands for a couple days to then return to theirs for the weekend. The Bay of Islands was beautiful!! Caught the bus up there (after a morning stroll round Auckland centre) and stayed in a town called Paihia. It was my first foray into traveling alone (excluding all lone flying done so far) and it went pretty well. The hostel was nice with good wifi so watched a bit of tele and explored the town. Bought fresh food from the market and had my first salad in ages!! Soooo nice to have crispy fresh food again and not worry about it! I also bought a bottle of milk and drank nearly all of it in one go, oh how I missed milk!! I did a days Dolphin cruise with a company called Corino who have the licence that allows its guests to swim with the wild dolphins under certain conditions (if there's no young with the pod and only if they are not resting). We saw a pod of about 20 shortly after setting off but they had 3 babies with them so we couldn't swim with them, but very cool to see them all though and I couldn't take enough photos!! We also saw little blue penguins! The cruise takes you all through the bay and the all female crew tell you all about the area and local islands. One private island was bought for 100 million dollars for a holiday home!! We anchored up for an explore of an island and a snorkel around whilst the crew cooked us up a BBQ on the boat! Then we sailed around a bit in the afternoon and I got off in the oldest town in NZ (Russell) and had a pint in the oldest pub in NZ followed by a nap on the beach! Lovely jubbly! Fish and chip tea followed at another beach I walked round to and more chilling at the hostel. Bay of Islands was a good choice for my first stop! Back to Auckland, and Amy's house, on Saturday to explore Devonport. Weather wasn't playing ball initially so we planned and booked my week ahead and then went for a walk up North Point for some great views when it had cleared up :) I floated the idea of going to see La La Land (been wanting to see it for so long) and Amy was happy to see it too, yay! Loved it! We plied ourselves with Mexican food and wine and had a good old catch up after :) On Sunday we had great weather and took the ferry over to Waiheke island, famous for its vineyards. We went to a lovely one called Te Matu for lunch and some more wine!! Followed it up with Onetangi beach where they were holding their annual horse racing day! We caught the last race of the day luckily and had a dip in the sea :) On our return home, Amy spotted that the tide was in and suggested we jump of the pier, so we collected Andrew from home and did a few jumps :) Had a lovely first few days in NZ and catching up with Amy was great! She's got a good thing going over here, very nice indeed!!!

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Nha trang with another upgrade and infinity pool, great food and the last couple days in 'Nam.

We'd not had glowing reports about Nha Trang before our arrival and so our hopes weren't high. However, it turned out to be just what we'd wanted it to be. The sun was out most the time, which hadn't been the case too much over the past week, and on arrival at the hotel we had been given a free upgrade to a brill room! 'Twas real big with a massive bed, bathroom (oddly with a big window between bedroom and bathroom but luckily with a blind) and balcony. I had also forgotten/not realised that the roof top pool was an infinity pool, so that's 2 so far! We spent some time by the pool and went to a mud bath and hot springs resort one day, walked the coast up to some ancient Cham Towers to get a bit of culture the next and had a whole day poolside for the last. Lovely time relaxing and recuperating from the busy previous couple weeks. It seemed we needed it as we were sleeping for about 10 hours a night! We interspersed our relaxing with some great food. Loads of choice nearby the hotel and we happily obliged to sample it. Most memorable was a massive meat platter from a Greek restaurant called mix. So good! I also tried curry again to 'get back on the horse' but it was too soon...! Feeling well rested, we returned to pretty much where we started back in Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday, in that we'd unknowingly booked a hotel that was just round the corner from our first one there 2 weeks ago. Quite a step down from our Nha Trang place but comfortable enough for our last couple nights. We walked and explored the city some more on Sunday night and visited the manic night market. Some more walking of the city on Monday with a visit to a street food market, to make sure we had some more steamed buns before we left, for lunch. Then, in the afternoon, we went to the war remnants museum. It's a good museum and we were pleased we got to learn more about the country's history. It was quite hard to read and see the pictures though, particularly the graphic descriptions of torture of prisoners and the Americans' use of agent Orange on the land with the long term affects of its exposure on the people still being around today. Pretty shocking stuff all round! Our evening was much lighter though as we met back up with Zoe and Jack for our final evening. Went to a restaurant that overlooked a park area right next to the Notre Dame lookalike cathedral and caught up with all their adventures from the last few days - they'd had an odd welcome to their hostel apartment but had enjoyed their often private beach. Zoe had had her first request for a photo with her from a local and the resulting photo is a keeper! Such glee on the lady's face! Took a short stroll after dinner where Zoe and Jack lead us to places we'd not been but really should have been in the city (we'd missed a fair few sights, oops), and then bid them farewell until my return to the home country. Mark was likely to see them tomorrow evening as they had the same first flight booked to Dubai. Tuesday was goodbye day for Marko and me, sad times. My flight was late afternoon and his late at night so I took a taxi to the airport early pm. Sad to say bye to him but we had a great holiday and survived 2 and a half weeks together with no probs 😀! Am on the plane to New Zealand as I type, meeting Amy in Auckland city centre this evening all being well!

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Lantern lit Hoi An, cycling like locals and the marble mountains, ft. Zoe and Jack

Hotel was lovely in Hoi An so we were pleased that we had a 4 night stay there and didn't need to pack our rucksacks again for a few days. Marko and I wandered round to Zoe and Jack's hotel on Sunday morning for our reunion. Had a good old catch up and story session about what we'd all been up to. Lovely to see them. Their hotel was very swish with 2 pools!! We spent our first day together exploring the old town and visiting some of the historical sights. Hoi An old town's streets are lined with hanging lanterns so it all looks very colourful, especially at night time. We went to the Fujian Chinese congress building, the Japanese pedestrian bridge, the ceramics museum (we thought of you Elsie) and a house that had been passed on for 7 generations of a family who still lived upstairs whilst you explored their ground floor. Ralphy found a tailor to make her some jazzy lemon tree print trousers for about 25 quid - they looked great when we picked them up the next day so she ordered another pair in blue, and I wanted in on the fun too, so ordered myself a pair of black ones for work 😀. Strange experience to be standing in the middle of a shop being measured up every which way possible on your lower half - we didn't even introduce ourselves before!! We documented the procedure and the photos make me look like a giantess as the lady measuring me was quite a little lady! After a couple more fittings we had our tailored garments, what fun!! On day 2 we rented bikes for free from our hotels and got to grips with the traffic. No rules really apply on the roads and overtaking happens at any point so long as you pip your horn/ring your bell the whole time. At one pint jack had a bit of a standoff with a minibus on a cross roads but we all made it safely to and from the beach safe and sound. Beach was nice but the weather wasn't playing ball really so we didn't stay on it too long - although we stayed long enough for the tide to come in and pour into Marco's shoes soaking his socks and trainers through! oops! Had a nice pizza at a beach side gaff for sustenance. Day 3 took us to the tailors in the morning, as had become tradition, to get our last fitting as they'd not quite got it right. It was pouring down in the morning but gave us chance to mess around with our cameras and attempt to take some arty farty shots with a slow shutter speed catching bikes whizzing past as blurs whilst we stood stick still in the road. We used the tailors as shelter and probably outstayed our welcome. Although, it meant that we saw our trousers get picked up by moped and presumably taken off to the associated sweat shop! It had cleared up in the afternoon and so, after a spot of shopping for the Ralph, we headed out to explore the marble mountains. You take a glass elevator up to the top and then there's a selection of different caves, pagodas and temples to walk to around the mountain side. The view from the top was of the ocean and the many surrounding marble carving shops that sold anything you could think of (in marble). We did a bit of scrambling to get to the view points but had all come prepared with appropriate footwear as our Zoe had advised :) The day was a lovely way to spend Valentine's Day. We had some lovely food over our Hoi An time and sampled the local beers and cocktails on rooftops. Started off at a random place that only sold one food - fresh Spring rolls that you constructed yourself after they brought you a mound of every ingredient going! Jack was the most daring here and had (possibly questionable) shrimp fried spring rolls within his hand made spring rolls. Turned out to all be fine though and was cheap as chips! We trip advised for our evening meals and had 2 good'uns! Zoe got a freebie dinner at one place cause her duck was a little fatty (she didn't complain to them at all, they just saw that she had left some and asked why) and we all got a free 'dessert' (of an unknown identity) too. I think it's safe to say our favourite was Nu Eatery though. It was a tiny little place down an ally way where you felt like you were eating in their front room as they cooked the limited menu dishes in the back. Fewer choices but everything was so good! 2 rounds of steamed buns each and a Banh mi for me! Lovely jubly! Overall, a lovely 3 days spent with Zo and Jack with Hoi An done good. We parted ways (mark and me going to Nha Trang and Zoe and Jack going to Quy Nhon) but shall reconvene in Ho Chi Minh city for our last eve in Vietnam...

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Tiger took us to Ha Long Bay, Lan Ha Bay and Cat Ba Island

Early pick up from Vega Travel in Hanoi to bus us to our pick up boat in Ha Long town which took us to our sleeping boat in Ha Long Bay. On the way we were introduced to our tour guide, Chang, who goes by the nick name Tiger. He was fluent in English but had a brilliant accent and phrasing - much fun to decipher what he was saying. Really good tour guide though, very informative and funny! The big boat took us on a wider tour of Ha Long Bay and served us a big ass lunch. It then anchored down for us to Kayak through a couple of lagoons and paddle over to a mountain side that contained 'surprise cave' - the surprise being that a large rock in the middle was shaped like an erect willy!! (Sorry nanny)!! Nice to see a cave all lit up compared to au natural as we had seen on the Hang En tour but obvs very touristy! Got great views of the bay from the entrance too. Tootled back to our big boat and had a feast for dinner! I'd requested no seafood (thought that after all me dicky tummy episodes, it wasn't the time to be trying to teach myself to like seafood as is the aim of this year), so I was being brought special meat dishes! After dinner, we fished for squid off the boat - only one was caught for the whole group! Pah! Next day was an early rise again to beat the crowds and get to the top of Ti Top island (named after the guy who offered to teach the north for free about defeating American air force in the war). Great views again :) Then followed a beaut cruise through Lan Ha Bay (much less touristy) and a mini adventure on Cat Ba island. We cycled inland to a small village who served us 3 types of rice wine - Hibiscus, White and Snake!! We tried all three! Not that tasty tbh! There were some cute puppies and pigs to play with too! From there we went on a walk and rock climb in a big loop up and over the little mountain. I did something a bit silly - there was a point where Tiger said we could use the hanging tree roots to climb up a rock face of about 10m (holding the root with your hands and walking your feet up the rock face, legs either side of the root). I wanted to have a go but didn't think I'd be able to do it so was going to go up a bit and take a photo to send and scare mum. But once I was halfway up, it was easier to keep going than come back down and luckily made it safely into the hole at the top! Tiger was very surprised that only 3 girls from our group tried it and no guys. Silly girls! Never mind eh?! We completed the route that included a bit more rock scrambling and cycled back to our boat. We sailed through more limestone karsts and through a big floating village to reach the harbour of Cat Ba island. Hotel on Cat Ba was nice and had a see view balcony, ooo, fancy! Quick dinner and earlyish night as pooped!! Next day was a travel day really....took the couple of different boats back through Lan Ha and Ha Long bays and bussed back to Hanoi all with Tiger guiding us very well indeed :) Ended the day with a flight to Da Nang and transfer to Hoi An to meet up with our Ralphy and Jack tomorrow...

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Hang En Adventure, first free upgrade and Hanoi

I woke up feeling much better than the night before and felt good to go. Had our briefing with our leader, Seven, packed our kits, borrowing their shoes and off we trotted. 45min bus journey first through the national park with great scenery to see. Bit of up to start and a long down to reach the valley floor and start our day of river crossings. Water came up to our waists on the highest crossing and currents were quite strong but fun. Marko made some spectacular recoveries after slipping many a time. He didn't once go arse over tit which was an achievement considering how many times he 'Bambied' around over slippery rocks (or anything he came across tbh)! We learnt that he wishes to continue walking at the same pace regardless of terrain! Ha! Lovely walk though through the valley surrounded by many green mountains. Had a great lunch at a small village (43 people) and went on to our first stop - Dark Cave. To get in you had to wiggle through a slanted crevice in the rock face or dip under it and just have head above water to go under the eroded rock. Once inside we walked, waded and climbed for about 200m into different caverns finding fossils on the way. When we all turned our head torches off, it was complete darkness. Very coooool! We walked on then to Hang En cave where our porters had set up our camp ahead of time. Our first glimpse of it was from the top of the cave looking down into the 3rd largest cave in the world!! They cooked us up and feast and served rice wine (for Marko only as I'm not allowed to drink on these antibiotics 😒) and we got one of the best nights sleep in our tent. Woke early the next day to see the sun burn off the mist in the cave and turn into a massive beam of sunlight that reflected off the water surrounding us in the cave. They took us to explore the rest of the cave then - up and over big piles of boulders and different rock formations finding little beaches and pools along the way and ending at the other entrance the other side of the mountain! 'Twas awesome!! Quick snack back at camp and then walked back the way we came (minus another trip to dark cave unfortunately), lunch at the village again and the big walk uphill in the heat and humidity to nearly finish me off! The last bit was though but the trip was so worth it! We stayed overnight at the Oxalis head quarters to recuperate and flew to Hanoi the next day. It was a dinky little propeller plane - Kate, you would have been in tears! Arrived safely though and transferred to our Hanoi Graceful Hotel which was great. They gave us a free upgrade to the executive suite (we booked a standard double)!!! Wahoo! We had a rooftop balcony! Fanks Hanoi Graceful Hotel, how gracious! We spent the afternoon getting to grips with the old quarter in Hanoi and did an LP suggested walking tour dodging the thousands of motorbikes as we went. For dinner we went to a rooftop restaurant called Red Bean that turned out to be pretty posh - felt quite underdressed in my lumberjack shirt! Oops!

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A very lonely, sad day, a happy reunion and snapshot of Ho Chi Minh City

My worst day of the trip (thus far but hopefully the whole trip) was Friday 3rd February. Pick up at 5:45am from hotel to airport was smooth, and catching the first flight ok. Had brekkie at Costa which I thought would be a safe bet - this may also have been the culprit of what was to come, I can't decide. Anyway, I started to feel very uncomfy in my tummy during flight one (Delhi to Chennai). Exited plane sans symptoms though and found a spot in the arrivals lounge next to the loos to spend the next 10 hours til my next flight. These toilets and the toilet attendant became my companions for the day. I was a very poorly girl indeed. Luckily the medical room was a short walk away and there was a pharmacy on the top floor so I managed to see a 'doc' (think she was a doctor, I didn't ask for credentials) and get some antibiotics and anticramping tablets prescribed. Trouble was I couldn't stop being sick to keep any of the tablets down! So there I sat, frequently wheeling all my luggage to and from the toilets. At one point an Indian lady took pity on me (after the toilet attendant spoke to her in Hindi and explained what had been going on) and offered to do a heeling practice on me! She moved her hands in very specific ways all around me and adjusted my aura (I presume) and I cramped away and wishfully thought that anything will help!! She was nice lady though and escorted me to the departures terminal too where I made my next camp. A stroke of luck happened just before my flight - in desperation I started asking foreigners if they were any kind of medical professional. I found a French lady who spoke a little English and managed to advise I took this peppermint thing she carries with her to stop me feeling sick - only problem was I had to take it with food and I couldn't keep it down. Whilst I was talking to the lady, 2 American guys came over and said, 'I overheard you, are you ok, I'm a doctor'. I cried! Ha! Was so relieved to talk to an English speaking person!! I showed him all that the Indian doctor had given me and he advised to not bother with 2 of them but take the antibiotic when I could. He also gave me a bunch of pepto bismol chewable tablets that would help with the cramping. Thank you kind strangers! A German lady was nearby as all this was going on and it turned out she was on the same plane as me! She stuck with me through check in and security and changed my money for me whilst I stood keeled over in the massive security queue just praying I didn't have to go toilet! Anyway, Frauke looked after me well and the following 2 flights (chennai - Bangkok - Ho Chi Minh City) went ok with only a few trips to the bathroom. To be honest, I slept any where I sat - it was like I had narcolepsy, so so exhausted by that point. Luckily ma and pa and co were on the end of the whatsapp line to help me too! And Ralphy is bringing me some medicines to help me gut recover when I see her in Hoi An, Vietnam! Arrived pooped at the hotel and chilled in the lobby (alongside their nice clean facilities) until my room was ready. Luckily I made contact with Marko and he agreed to make his way to the hotel so I didn't have to leave the place again that day. Napped and managed to get 2 abx down me!! And then Mark arrived!! Yaaaaay!! So so good to see him! He'd had a pretty seamless journey but was feeling a bit spaced with the time difference and lack of sleep so we had a chilled one at the hotel and their rooftop bar. Quick explore of Ho Chi Minh city on Sunday led us to the shopping centre to get me a long quick dry shirt and some sunglasses (I'm 2 pairs down already). We stumbled across an ice cream shop named Fanny which was my source of amusement sorted for the day (and still now as I type tbh)! Then headed to the airport to catch our flight to Dong Hoi and transfer to Phong Na. Felt pretty rubbish by the end of the day and it was touch and go whether I'd be up for our 2 day, one night trekking/caving adventure the following...

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Testing travel day, New Delhi and the Taj Mahal

To get from Mumbai to Delhi turned into one of our toughest travel days yet. I'll list our day: We were late setting off from the hotel (our fault) We had ordered an Uber and set the pick up place - he parked and waited for us a hundred meters away from us and we didn't have data to see this (shared fault) The uber driver took a wrong turning which resulted in us sat in traffic for half an hour at least the other side of the airport completely! (Uber guys fault) We had to beg and look exasperated in order to try to get to the front of the check in queue (non chalant (?sp) airline people fault) The security line for women was massive - 3 queues for women, 9 for men (India not employing enough women's fault) We ran to our gate and joined the boarding line. On arriving at the plane door, the security people hadn't stamped his hand luggage tag or boarding pass so he had to go back to security! (Both parties fault)! Laura and I waited at the door and he thankfully appeared. They closed the doors behind us! Close call! At the other end, in Delhi, we had a job to find our way to our hotel as everyone kept telling us different information on how to get there across the railway tracks. We were then harassed the whole way walking to our hotel. Not a fun day of travel!! Next day Laura and I hit some sights in Delhi whilst Zee, still scarred from the day before, decided to stay in the hotel and use their wifi. Loz and I visited the red Fort and had a lunch at Connaught Place and a hunt for a working atm. We all then spent a few hours on a train platform waiting for the train to Agra - Indian trains are very late very often! Taj Mahal day started with a bit of a kerfuffle in that our tour guide was really late to collect us - too late in fact as we chose to leave without him and guide ourselves so off we trotted feeling miffed with India's inefficiency once again as we wanted to see the Taj at sunrise. Turns out the gates don't open til after sunrise anyway so our frustration subsided and we had a grand old time at the Taj Mahal. It's pretty spectacular!! Very picturesque! We loved it! I then left Laura and zee to go back to Delhi and onward to Vietnam! Found my way to my hotel ok (after another train delay but befriended a young Indian girl to keep me company) and had room service which turns out may have been the source of what was to come...

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Mumbai with a local, drinks at the Taj Palace (hotel) and Dharavi Slum tour

We arrived in the early hours and got our first actual taxi ride, rather than tuk tuk! Strange to be in a car again! We met up with Zee's old work colleague, Tannay, who kindly gave us a driving tour around the city. Luckily we arrived on a Sunday so the traffic was clearish (especially compared to what we experienced on Monday)!! He also bought us lunch which was a billy bonus! We saw the most expensive house in the world and a cricket ground which has trained some of the big name Indian cricketers. Cricket is so big here! Oooo and we also went to a Starbucks, a very welcome retreat! We ventured out ourselves in the evening and saw the gateway to India that was heaving with people - Laura was asked to hold a baby girl so her family could take their photo - the baby started crying so she handed her back sharpish! Then treated ourselves to a couple cocktails in the poshe (and second most photographed building in India), Taj Mahal Palace. Saw that lots of famouses have stayed there including ole Queenie and Obama, cooool! To round off our day of feeling more human (antibiotics are working) in the most cosmopolitan city we'd seen for nearly a month, we went to pizza express for tea!! Mmmmm dough balls. Our next day in Mumbai was a stark contrast to the last, we had booked ourselves on a slum tour in a place called Dharavi. The company had been doing the tours for 10 years and the people of Dharavi were accepting of it but request you didn't take photos. The company give back too - a percentage of the proceeds made by the company are put towards a community centre they run and tech English, IT and social studies to anyone who wants to enroll from the slum community. The tour itself was really interesting. Learnt that Dharavi is one of the largest slums in India (1 million people in about 1.2km square) but it's also one of the most productive in industries - they produce 750 million dollars worth of revenue a year from recycling plastic and aluminium, and making leather and clay products and loads of counterfeit brands! However, they have only 700 toilets for 1 million people and the government can knock down any house/space that's built with no warning if it was built after 1993! Each house is 10ft across for 4 people! Mental as!! Great to see and experience a bit of it though!