China

Our first view of China was of Guangzhao airport, and after three months looking at nothing but paddy fields we ended up stumbling about like zombies from Dawn of the Dead looking in posh electronics shops and hideous golfwear stores. Graeme's favourite shop was the chain of Bruce Lee themed fast food restaurants.

One of the best things about China was the food. At home, neither of us are very big fans of Chinese restaurants, so we were both surprised at the amazing food that we were served at even the tiniest local restaurants where we couldn't understand a word of the menu and had to rely on the staff to choose our food. The best, and also the spiciest, food was in Sichuan province, especially the all you can eat hotpot restaurants, where you pick food from a buffet then cook it in a pot with oil, water, chilli and spices at your own table.

We arrived in China just in time to see the total solar eclipse on 22nd July, which was the longest eclipse of the 21st Century. The day was quite cloudy, but despite this we could see the sun through the clouds as the eclipse progressed, and the clouds shifted giving us a clear view of the 'diamond ring' just before totality. After the eclipse, we went down to the banks of the Qiantang River in time to see the tidal bore, a giant wave that rushes up the river mouth when the tide comes in.

We were pretty underwhelmed by Shanghai; the famous 'Bund' has been turned into a building site as they prepare for the 'Expo 2010'. The most exciting part for us was travelling to the airport on the superfast Maglev train at 300kph and watching the cars on the parallel motorway appear to drive backwards, although we were a bit pissed off that we missed out on taking the 420kph train by 10 minutes.

For Graeme's birthday we were in Chengdu and we went on a daytrip to the Panda Research Centre where we saw cute baby pandas including a nine day old one in an incubator. In the evening we went to the Sichuan Opera and saw traditional performances of fire-breathing and mask-changing.
Our last stop before leaving for Tibet was Leshan, where we fought through the throngs of Chinese tourists to see the world's largest sitting Buddha statue.

We wuz in 'Nam....

Compared to the rest of Southeast Asia, Vietnam was a bit of a let down. The locals were not as friendly as everywhere else, and we always had to be on our guard against scams and rip-offs.

We arrived in Hanoi at 4am, after being on buses for almost 24 hours (due to nightmare bus delays), perhaps not the best time to arrive in any city. All of the hostels were closed but luckily we found a reggae bar that was still open and sat in there drinking until the hostels opened at around 6am.

Hanoi is dirty, noisy and overcrowded. Everyone seems to get around on scooters and crossing a road involves stepping out and walking slowly across letting the scooters (hopefully) avoid you. We couldn't leave our hostel without nearly being run over, or being hassled by an endless stream of people trying to sell us photocopied books or stale cakes, or trying to get us into their 'cyclo' (rickshaw). We did see some cool things though, such as Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body, some old B52 planes you could climb on, and we met up again with our friends from Laos, John and Gem, for a few Bia Hoi's – no place is that bad when it has 10p beers!

We had a week to kill before our flight to China so we decided to go on a three-day boat trip to Halong Bay for Debbie's birthday. Halong bay was really pretty with hundreds of limestone pillars rising out of the sea. We spent one night on a boat and another on an island in the bay. This was much more relaxing than Hanoi, but we were still happy to be leaving Vietnam when we got on our plane to China.

Toobin

Just north of the Lao border the Mekong river contains thousands of tiny islands with no electricity or running water, and apart from tourism no industries except (rice) farming and fishing. We stayed for a few days on one of the larger islands, Don Deth, doing very little except cycling around the paddy fields, avoiding the water buffalo which had wandered onto the paths, and lazing around in hammocks for a few days.

After finally dragging ourselves out of our hammocks we left the island and continued north to see some caves at Ban Kong Lor. A songthaew (pick-up truck with two benches in the back for seats) dropped us off at the cave entrance and from there we got into a small wooden boat which took us along the river that runs through the caves for 5km and out the other side. Afterwards, we spent the night at a homestay in the village and provided free entertainment for the local children.

After so much time in the countryside, Vientiane, the capital 'city' of Laos (population 500,000) seemed like quite a metropolis. We got very excited about cheese baguettes and french wine for a couple of days, although we are converted to drinking Lao-style coffee (served strong and sweet with a shot of condensed millk) and of course Beerlao. While we were in Vientiane we made a pilgrimage to the Beerlao factory, where we were rewarded with a tour of the factory, free beers, and a calendar featuring lots of lovely Lao ladies.

We weren't so keen on our next stop, Vang Vieng, which seemed like the Lao equivalent of Ibiza. Everyone comes here to go 'tubing' – floating down the river on inner tubes, stopping at lots of bars on the way, where the staff throw ropes which you use to haul yourself in whenever you want a drink. When they aren't tubing, everyone sits in bars drinking 'happy shakes' and watching Friends DVDs on repeat all day.

After escaping Vang Vieng we went to Luang Prabang, the ancient capital of Laos with lots of beautiful old Wats (buddhist temples) to explore and a much more peaceful atmosphere. Naturally we shattered this along with our new friends John and Gem by going out drinking past the curfew and having to wake up the (heavily pregnant) hostel owner to get back in. The four of us also went on a daytrip out of town to visit a waterfall and a local bear sanctuary. This turned into a bit of an adventure when just a few miles out of town we found a tree had fallen, completely blocking the road. We resigned ourselves to having to turn back but instead the enterprising tuk tuk drivers encouraged their passengers to squeeze through a gap under the tree and swap into tuk tuks stuck on the other side. This way everyone got to continue their journeys without having to wait hours for the road to be cleared.

Our final stop before crossing into Vietnam was Phonsavanh, also known as the Plain of Jars. The jars were left behind by an unknown ancient civilization; the latest theory is that they were used as funeral urns, but we much prefer the local superstition that they were used to distill massive amounts of lao-lao, the local alcoholic drink. This part of Laos is the most heavily bombed region of Laos, and Laos is the most heavily bombed nation on earth, perhaps the most surprising thing is that the bombing (by the USA) took place while they were not officially at war. There are lots of unexploded cluster bombs still lying around and there are warnings at all of the jar sites not to step away from the marked paths. Other local 'points of interest' include bomb craters and a cave where hundreds of people sheltered from the bombing raids. People here use bomb shells as ornaments, plant pots and foundation posts for their houses.

Holiday in Cambodia

We crossed the Cambodian border with only the usual amount of hassle and a small bribe, then headed onto Siem Reap, the nearest town to the ruins at Angkor Wat. Our first view of Angkor Wat was at sunrise the next day – it was pretty cool, but we're not sure whether it was worth getting up at 4am for. We preferred Ta Prohm, a nearby temple which has been left an unrestored state, with old trees growing up around the brickwork. However, our favourite thing we saw was a snake vs gecko fight under an archway at one of the temples.

After a couple days we were all templed-out so we left for the capital, Phnom Penh. for a few days. Phnom Penh is an ugly and fairly uninteresting town, but we were stuck there for the weekend as we had to wait for our Lao visas to be processed. Luckily Phnom Penh is home to the cheapest G&T's in Southeast Asia so we didn't have too much trouble passing the time.

We also took time to visit Choueng Ek, aka the killing fields, an area just outside of town where the Khmer Rouge murdered thousands of their victims in the 1970's. Bits of bone and torn cloth still stick out of the ground near to the paths. The site is now marked by a memorial tower filled with skulls dug up from the mass graves.

After getting out of Phnom Penh we spent a few days in a town called Ban Lung, near the Lao border, where we stayed in a dirt-cheap room in a beautiful old colonial house next to a lake. Unfortunately the place must have been just as attractive to the local mouse and ant populations, as armies of both seemed to have set up camp in our room. We went on a daytrip around the local area on the backs of two scooters ridden by our tour guides, and were driven to some local waterfalls and Buddha statues. We also went on an elephant ride through a rubber plantation. After a few days chilling out with the mice and ants, we headed north to the Lao border.

Burmese Daze

Our arrival in Burma (or Myanmar as it is now known) coincided with the rearrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader of Burma who was imprisoned by the government after winning the last election and was due to be released from house-arrest during our stay. More elections are scheduled for 2010, and it would be very convenient for the military government if she could be kept safely in prison until after the poll. The Burmese government heavily censors all forms of media but we kept ourselves informed of current events through the internet, as the kids in the internet cafes can easily hack through the government filters. Locals often talked to us about the situation and were amazed at how much international coverage the story was getting.

In Mandalay we went to see the Moustache Brothers, who perform traditional Burmese dances but are more famous for openly telling anti-government jokes as part of their show. Two of the three brothers have spent several years in jail and they are blacklisted from performing in public places, so the show now takes place in their own home. Our only contact with military government (except maybe plain-clothes secret police) was when we had our passports checked in the middle of an overnight bus journey by some very drunken soldiers, who excitedly showed us their jar of beetles they had caught to cook up for a midnight snack. Yummy!

Next we headed to Bagan, a plain filled with ancient Buddhist temples. We hired a horse-cart and driver for the day and rode around stopping at countless temples and pagodas. Inside the temples we saw amazing wall paintings and Buddha statues and in some we were able to climb to the top for views of hundreds of spires stretching out into the distance. The peaceful atmosphere at the temples was sometimes shattered by hordes of local children hassling us to buy postcards from them, or, their favourite trick, asking for foreign coins for their 'collection' then selling them back to other tourists. However there are over 4000 temples in Bagan, so there were plenty of quiet places to escape to.

Burmese buses always seem to leave or arrive at strange hours, and the bus from Bagan to Inle lake was no exception, leaving Bagan at 3.30am (why?!?). There seems to be a conspiracy to make foreigners sit at the back of the bus, the least popular seats as the ride is bumpier and the legroom is often used to store luggage. On this occasion we shared the back row with some containers of spare petrol needed for the journey (in Burma petrol is rationed and so most of it has to be bought on the black market), and the fumes coming from these made the journey more unpleasant. To add to our woes, the rainy season had kicked in and our bags, which travelled on the roof of the bus, got soaked through in a downpour. Despite all of this the bus is the most interesting way to travel as you really get to see the country and chat with some interesting locals, such as the two Burmese traditional dancers we got chatting to on our bus to Bagan.

In Inle we made friends with a couple of Mexican girls called Vanessa and Perla and the five of us took a boat trip out onto the lake together. The villages around the lakeshore are home to women who weave cloth from lotus stems, Karen women who stretch their necks with an increasing number of gold hoops, and lots of water buffalo. The lake is also used by fishermen who stand at the front of their boats, sometimes rowing with one leg hooked around the oar to give their arms a rest.

There are thousands of monks in Burma, and every man has to become a monk sometime in his life, although for most it is only for a few days. They all wear orange robes, have shaved heads, and carry big orange umbrellas, presumably to stop their bald heads from getting sunburnt. We have visited several monasteries on our trip, but the one on Inle lake was our favourite by a long way, as the monks have trained the resident cats to jump through hoops held about a metre off the ground, and they were happy to demonstrate this when we visited. We got chatting to one of the monks there, who gave Graeme tips on how to to train cats to jump through hoops and answered our questions about Buddhism, although the only subject he really wanted to chat about was last night's Champions League final between Man U and Barca.

Many of the tourist sites in Burma have a $10 entrance fee that goes straight to the government, and we put a lot of effort into avoiding paying this. We missed out on seeing Mandalay Palace, but in Bago we discovered that government workers finish work at 3.30pm and you can visit after that time without paying the $10 fee. In one of the smaller temples at Bago, we came across the whole Magwe Division football team, who were sleeping and training in the temple before they played Bago division in a few days time.

We were very sad to leave Burma, and Thailand now seems over-touristy and the locals unfriendly by comparison. Many of the Burmese people we met urged us to come back again in 2010 when elections are scheduled, especially after Debbie told them that she used to work in elections. We definitely hope to return one day, and can only hope that things will have changed for the better when we do.

Monkey Finger

Our first AirAsia flight was an interesting experience; we nearly caught hypothermia due to the overzealous air conditioning, and the pilot welcomed us to Malaysia with a cheerful reminder of the mandatory death penalty for drug-smuggling. After arriving in Kuala Lumpur, we met up with Adrian, who we hadn't seen since we left the UK, and caught up with the last year's worth of gossip (Debbie) and Arsenal news (Graeme). Later the same day we met up with Adam, who had just flown in from Brisbane and will travel with us as far as Burma. The four of us went on a daytrip to the Batu Caves, a natural cave system on the outskirts of KL, which has been converted into a kind of hindu temple filled with statues of various gods and goddesses. Our favourite was a cow with a woman's head which had both human breasts and udders. A troupe of very entertaining monkeys also lived in the caves, and we watched one of them steal a packet of crisps from an unsuspecting tourist and sit and eat the whole packet on top of a post just out of her reach. The highlight though was the monkey sitting on the steps giving the 'monkey finger' to everyone that passed by. We have now taken to posing with monkey fingers in loads of our photos. Next we went to Kuala Selangor where we saw more monkeys, which climbed all over us while trying to eat food out of our hands and pockets (lucky we had those rabies shots). After sunset we went on a boat ride to see some fireflies which flash in sync and make the bushes along the riverbank twinkle like Christmas trees.

After spending a few days hanging around in Kuala Lumpur we flew out to Sandakan in Malaysian Borneo. We had booked to go on a jungle trek, but first stayed the night at the tour company's hostel. We were the only people staying that night, and we ended up partying all night with the staff and getting drunk on a local spirit called Arak Wangi (which costs less than a beer and tastes just like alcoholic iron bru) and losing badly to them at Malaysian-rules pool. The next day we headed off on the jungle tour itself, but not before stocking up on more wangi on the way. Next we spent a few nights in the Sungai Kinabatangan jungle, living in six-person jungle huts which we shared with a couple from Bristol called Amy and Adam who were, by lucky coincidence, also big wangi-drinkers. We also shared our hut with a selection of large flying insects and spiders, and a big scorpion lived in a tree across the path from us. The jungle trip included several boat trips down the river and two jungle walks. We saw tons of wildlife including more monkeys, civet cats, crocodiles, an orangutan and some proboscis monkeys which have big fat bellies and ridiculously phallic noses – the Malay name for them translates as 'Dutch monkey' because the locals think that they look like Dutch people. After the jungle trip was over we all spent one last night playing wangi drinking-games, then the four of us headed to the island of Mabul where Debbie, Adrian and Adam had all booked diving courses. Debbie and Adrian both did their Advanced Open Water courses with a chain-smoking German instructor called Marlice. We were both a bit rusty to start with but soon got back into it, and after the the course finished we managed to get hold of permits to dive at Sipadan, which is reputed to be one of the world's best dive sites. Only 120 people a day are allowed to dive at Sipadan and because we got the permits at the very last minute we ended up going with the dodgiest dive company on the island – all of their dive equipment was knackered, and we were pleasantly surprised when none of it gave out underwater, but it was all worthwhile as it was one of the best dive sites we've ever been to with reef sharks, turtles and tons of other fish (we even found Nemo!). Graeme came snorkelling and had a scary moment when he swam too far from the boat and noticed two big sharks circling below him.

While we were diving we stayed in a cute little fishing village on the island, away from the main tourist area, with loads of local kids eager to have their photos taken. We slept in a Malay longhouse built on a jetty out over the sea, where us two had to pretend to be married before they would let us share a room. Every night we were woken up in the night by thunderstorms – both by the noise and because of the water coming in through the broken windows onto our bed.
After finishing our diving courses the two of us and Adam flew back to Kuala Lumpur, arranging to meet Adrian in the Perhentian islands in a few days time. We spent one more day in KL having blind-man massages to sooth our backaches (from carrying heavy rucksacks and diving equipment). Then we headed north to Taman Negara national park, the world's oldest rainforest, according the Malaysian tourist board. We had enjoyed the jungle trip in Borneo, mostly due to the amount of wildlife we saw, but the concentration of animals in one small space there is due to the rapid deforestation caused by logging. Taman Negara, on the other hand, is more like we think a jungle ought to be. The forest is much thicker with mases of huge old trees, although here the wildlife has space to spread out, so we only saw a couple of monkeys and some mosquitos.
The next day we caught the 'Jungle Train' through the rainforest to Kota Bahru, on the North-Eastern coast of Malaysia. This was a slow but interesting way to travel, we were the only foreigners on the train and as the journey wore on we became aware that we were the centre of attention for the whole carriage. Debbie realised she was the only woman on the train not wearing a headscarf, and we stashed away the bottle of wangi that we had been sneakily drinking. At the end of the line, we got on a boat to the Perhentian islands where Adrian had already been hanging out for a few days.
We stayed on the small island, Perhentian Kecil, which is a perfect tropical island with a mixture of Malaysian and foreign tourists staying in wooden huts by the beach. Adrian told us that the best night out on the island was the 'reggae jungle party' which was advertised on handwritten posters all over the island, so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be a wooden bar in a clearing in the jungle, and a makeshift stage with a Malaysian reggae band playing covers of everything from Bob Marley to Metallica. It reminded us of being at a dodgy rave back in the UK, and sure enough at around 3am the police showed up and busted the party. They separated the crowd into Malaysians and foreigners, made all of the foreigners leave and (we later found out) drug-tested all of the Malaysians.
One of the people we were chatting to at the reggae party was a guy from Thailand called Su, who told us that he was a divemaster at one of the local dive shops, so Debbie and Adam arranged to do a couple of dives with him over the following few days.

After a few days chilling out by the beach we decided it was time to head off to Thailand. Adrian wanted to stay at the island a little longer, so we went our separate ways once again. The two of us and Adam headed to the Thai border, where we were allowed to pass through only after testing negative for swine flu, then on to Raileh beach, a peninsula near Krabi that can only be reached by boat. We hung out there for a few days, getting massages every day, eating spicy thai curries, watching some Thai boxing, and taking walks to neighbouring beaches. The next beach along from Raileh was Phranang beach, with golden sand, cool monkeys and a cave that has been filled with wooden penises of various sizes and colours as a shrine to a local goddess.
Finally it was time to head up to Bangkok, and we decided to take the easy option of booking a flight from Krabi. After spending so much time on the beach, Bangkok was a bit of a shock to our systems, but we managed to do some good shopping at a ridiculously big (14 hectare) market, and also found a little dubstep night after bumping into the dj while on our way back to our hotel for a supposedly early night.
After a few days in Bangkok the three of us jumped in a cab to the airport where we boarded our flight to the land of the jumping cats - Myanmar.

Have you ever...ever felt like this?

We have been mostly leading a fairly quiet life in Melbourne trying to save some money for the rest of our trip. Graeme found a job quite quickly, working at a mental health clinic where he feels right at home. Debbie has been working in lots of odd temp jobs, such as data entry at a clothing company, counting people getting on and off trams at the Grand Prix, proofreading documents through the night for a seawater desalination plant and finally ending up back in local government (is there no escape?), working at the bushfires Royal Commission.

We found ourselves a bedsit flat in a shared house in a suburb of Melbourne called Brunswick. We like Brunswick because it reminds us of Dalston (the area of London we used to live in), right down to the dodgy turkish corner shops and the shops selling tacky plastic bedroom furniture.

The weather in Melbourne has been pretty crazy since we got here. A couple of days after we arrived, the temperature hit 46 degrees, the hottest day on record. This was also the day that the worst of the bushfires started. We went to the beach at St Kilda and had a nice refreshing swim in the sea. Unfortunately, the sand was too hot to sit on and a breeze that felt like when you open an oven door blew it right into our faces. We headed into a nice airconditioned pub instead, and consoled ourselves with the thought that we could easily have been freezing to death in the in the uk.

One of the strangest things that has happened to us here was randomly bumping into our friends Miles and Cloe from back in Brighton. The last time we saw them was at our leaving party (and we only have a very vague recollection of that), and we had no idea they were even in Australia. We were crossing the road in Melbourne CBD when we heard a voice shout 'Damskiiiii!'. Since we were pretty sure there were no other Damskis in Melbourne, we turned around and saw Miles walking right behind us. Cloe is working and travelling in Australia and Miles had come over to visit, and they were living just down the road from us. Since then Miles has gone back home but we have seen quite a bit of Cloe and she even cut our hair for us!

Every so often we notice the occasional descent band touring over here, so continuing on from The Bug with Warrior Queen, Aaron Spectre and Operator Please in Brissy we have also seen Rusko, Gorilla-Step, Starkey, Damo Suzuki (who used to be in Can) and we also went to see local punk band the Useless Children.

At Easter weekend we decided to go on a pilgrimage to Airey's Inlet, to see the lighthouse from Round the Twist. Oh, and we also saw a bit of the Great Ocean Road on the way.

On our last weekend in Melbourne we found out that two of our all-time heroes, Cheech and Chong, were making an appearance in a record shop in Melbourne for World Record Store Day. so we queued up for half an hour, said hello to them and got a cd signed.

After nine months in Australia, we are leaving for Kuala Lumpur on Monday. Although we are sad to be leaving Oz, we are glad to be jobless and getting back on the road again.