Perth (25 July -10 August )

Finally landed safe and sound in Oz after our 5-month stopover. Funny thing is we're unprepared cos we haven't thought about what we're going to do here and don't even have a guidebook to hold our hand. After 5 months of living cheaply and easily, in decent guesthouses, we're now going to have to slum it in a hostel, cook for ourselves and (no!) get a job....
It's really cold here, coming from Southeast Asia, raining too, we don't have any cold weather clothes, it feels like home, what's going on?!
Perth's a pretty nice city: big, but spread out so that it feels small and is easy to get around and it has some big skyscrapers which, if nothing else, means that you can always tell where you are.
Have discovered that Aussie pies are, in fact, the best in the world (we'd heard rumour)
Went to a chocolate-tasting evening in the city; welcomed with chocolate coated strawberries and sparkling wine. The evening then carried on in one big chocolate eating feast, with the host for the evening keeping up the pretence of teaching us about chocolate.
Had our first tentative dip in the aussie ocean, or at least Rory did, rolling up his trousers Scarborough beach style and having a quick paddle before the ice cold sea froze his toes.
Thought about getting a job here, but got fed up of the city and decided to head up north...

Singapore

Stayed in a tiny hotel room the first night which gave Rory a horrid attack of bedbugs, so we moved out to a great clean new hostel. Singapore is a bit more of an expensive place than we're used to! Stayed in little India, so we weren't short of curry.

Also visited a great big Chinatown where that had some kind of festival going on. Singapore's a bit of a heavy nanny state.





Everywhere there's loads of safety notices and loads of signs warning of big fines for taking food and drink on the metro, dropping litter, chewing gum and so on. The stinky durian fruits are not allowed on the underground, which is probably just as well.

Malaysia - Melacca

Erm, stayed a couple of nights here, saw a fort on a hill, some Chinese temples and that, a pet shop (wow!)...hmmm... had our nicest guest house room yet, it was like a city centre flat, albeit with just a bedroom and bathroom.

Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur

Went part of the way up the (ex) world's tallest building, the Petronas Towers, and also up to the higher 240m viewing platform of the KL Tower for great views over the city as the sun went down. Went to some massive shopping centres, one had an indoor theme park with an indoor roller coaster that was a weird experience. They also had a DNA mixer ride which hurled and shook us around and left Rory feeling seek for the rest of the afternoon, what a wimp! They had great food here (and in all of Malaysia) loads of Chinese, Indian and Malay food, especially at street stalls where they have a huge array of dishes laid out for you to pick bits from, mmmm!

Malaysia - Perhentian Islands (11 - 14 July)

Another beautiful island with white sand and clear blue water. Another shack, but not beach front this time. Caz did two more dives - one to a 70 meter long wreck and another to a 24 meter deep pinnacle in the middle of the sea. She did a backwards roll off the boat to get into the sea - everyone else just fell in but Caz did a spectacular backwards somersault.

More Frisbee playing....and sunbathing....and reading.

We also went snorkeling and saw beautiful coral reefs, a sting ray a small black tip shark, loads and fish. As it was his first time snorkeling, Rory had a few technical problems with his mask so only Caz saw the large turtle, but he finally managed to see the underwater world that Caz has been swimming in for the last few weeks.

Thailand - Ko Pha Ngan (7 July - 10 July)

Chose to stay at quietest part of the island, bottle beach which is so undeveloped there isn't a road connecting it to the rest of the island so we got a tailboat there.
Stayed in a basic but bug-free shack on the beach front and spent a few days sunbathing, reading books and playing frisbee. Heaven!

Thailand - Ko Tao (27 June - 6th July )

On a beatiful tropical island in the Gulf of Thailand. Caz has finished a 4-day open water diving course, where she did 5 dives, including one at 18 metres. All went well bar one dive where the boat got to a dive site just as another did (reef sharks had been seen here the last few days, that haven't been seen since the Tsunami so obviously everyone wanted a piece of the action). About 50 divers from the other boat jumped in after us (about 15 from our boat) so it was a mad scramble to get down the anchor rope and stay in our groups, and throughout the dive there were as many people as fish (lots of both). We didn't see the sharks because we are only allowed to go down 18 metres and the sharks live at 30 metres. As diving is an addictive sport, Caz is signing up for the advanced open water course (night diving, navigation and shark spotting), so we are are staying here for now!

Rory is still lounging around on the beach all day............
So England lost in the quater finals - again; on penalties - again; against Portugal - again. England never seem to go out without a bit of controversy and it was a great exciting game. We found a good place to watch it in the company of plenty of England fans. The night before the barman wound the German fans up by playing 'Vindaloo' at tense moments of the game - great.

Update - Caz is now an advanced open water diver, having seen reef sharks, scared herself doing a Blair Witch Project style night dive, and a total of 11 dives, we are finally ready to leave Ko Tao.