Kat & Chris meet an unusual Monk...

So after my last superlative filled blog post we got sick, really sick. So sick that we couldn’t get out of the room in Mandalay without waves of nausea and dizziness hitting us but after a few days of resting we felt well enough to try some sightseeing again. We took a ferry ride to Mingun an hour away from Mandalay where the world’s biggest stupa would have stood if it had gotten finished and they have the 3^rd largest bell in the world, as well as one of Buddha’s footprints (it had seashells for toes) to marvel at! We had a great time and the ferry ride along the Ayeyarwaddy River was really lovely as we sat on deck chairs watching the river villages and hills pass by. The trip proved to us that we were finally feeling better so that evening we caught a night bus to Inle Lake.

Never in all of SE Asia have buses felt as bad as they have over here, maybe it’s seemed worse because we were ill. Recently a new express highway was completed between Yangon and Mandalay and all journeys have been sped up by a few hours but leave at the same time as they used to and they’re nearly all night buses. So every night bus we’ve taken arrives in darkness at 3am or 4am. The reason for large number of night buses is so that locals don’t miss a day of work and we’ve only ever been on a bus with one or two other tourists so that does make sense but it can be painful being bundled out of a bus half-asleep trying to find a guest house and then feeling terrible for the rest of the day.

Inle Lake was fantastic. We spent 4 days there relaxing in a nearby ‘backpacker’ town enjoying the slightly cooler climate after Mandalay’s sweltering heat and smog. We took a boat around the lake and watched fishermen fish and locals transporting goods on canoes, visited lake villages and pagodas as well as the monastery of jumping cats (sadly we were too late to see the monks make their friends the cats jump). The sunset was the absolute best thing about the day as we raced to get home before dark we were treated to clear blues, bright pinks, hazy oranges and a thick oily looking lake. The boat trip was actually a glorified shopping trip (see first China post for Great Wall shopping trip terror!) but it didn’t matter as there was no pressure to buy anything, tea was provided at each stop and it was nice to take a seat and watch people going about their lives on the lake.

After Inle Lake we didn’t have too much time left before our flights so we travelled south to Bago. Naturally the bus arrived at 3am and the town was in darkness. Only one hotel was open so we didn’t really have much choice! After a few misgivings on our behalf about Bago being a scruffy little town we hopped onto a motorbike with a local guide and got shown the sights whilst passing through rural villages. It turned out to be a great day. We met a Monk who is revered for being a 17 foot long and 1 foot wide Burmese python. Watched 1500 Monks line up and eat breakfast, which was more interesting than it sounds and saw many glitzy temples and pagodas.

From Bago we travelled to the Golden Rock which is one of the holiest sites in all of Myanmar. It rained a lot as we arrived but we got ourselves settled into a lovely little bungalow at the foot of the hill where we had a view of the rock. We waited for the rain to clear and headed up the hill with 30 other people crammed into an open top pick-up truck for the steep 40 minute drive through lush rainforest followed by a steep walk to get to the Golden Rock. From a distance coming out of the hazy clouds it looked like a giant potato with a Stupa sticking out of it but as we got closer it became clear it was actually golden and not a muddy brown colour. The rock balances precariously on a cliff edge and it maintains this position because strands of Buddha’s hair were laid to rest there. With all the mist swirling about and devotees chanting it had quite a spiritual atmosphere. The truck ride back down was like a rollercoaster, the brakes worked but the driver didn’t feel he needed them as it was the last trip of the day.

We’re now back in Yangon waiting to get on our flights to Sri Lanka tomorrow. It’s certainly getting to peak tourist season as all of the grotty guesthouses were full when we arrived! Myanmar has been a fantastic place, not so much for the sights but more for the people who are so warm and welcoming. In fact it’s one of the first places on this trip that we feel like we’re moving on too soon, but maybe if we hadn’t been ill we would have been contented.

Hope all is well at home. We’re getting very excited about our return!

Love Chris & Kat xxx

Myanmar – The world’s longest, biggest and tallest...

Cooking at Silom's

The week we spent in Bangkok was great. We did everything we didn’t get round to doing the first and second time we were here. The best thing was Silom’s Thai Cooking school which we have wanted to do for a long while as we love Thai food so much! Jim Thompson’s Teak house was another thing we had missed off doing previously but have now seen and enjoyed. The main reason for heading back to Bangkok besides the food was to secure a Myanmar visa which was easy enough to do luckily as we already had our flights booked.

We’ve been in Myanmar for 7 days now and I absolutely love it. The people are so friendly and genuinely seem very happy for us to be visiting. It’s not empty friendliness either like you get in so many other South-East Asia countries where someone’s only reason to talk to you is to try to get you in their transport or to sell you something. Don’t get me wrong that still happens but a lot of other people who have no monetary interest in us come up to say hello, or just wave and smile as we pass them. I suppose at the moment we’re still somewhat of a novelty which I wasn’t expecting seeing as tourism figures have been going up and up in the past few years.

We flew into Yangon and spent a day walking around the busy former capital seeing various temples and beautiful decaying colonial buildings before catching a night bus to Bagan. We didn’t manage to get much sleep on the night bus and we arrived earlier than expected at 4am! Being half-asleep we got some coffee before heading to a guesthouse and whilst sat down saw the monk’s alms procession passing through the streets at dawn.

Bagan is famous for its huge array of temples which from high up stretch out as far as the eye can see. For 2 days we biked around the temple sites which reminded us a little bit of Ayutthaya and Sukhothai’s crumbling temples in Northern Thailand although much less built up. A Highlight of Bagan was seeing the Ayeyarwaddy River and the village a few minutes from our guesthouse where it seemed like the busy tourist town we were staying in no longer existed as locals washed in the river, kids played in the sand and animals roamed freely amongst the wooden huts. Later that same night we ate at a place called Weather Spoon’s that was owned by a Burmese guy who 2 years ago lived in St George in Bristol working for one of the hot air balloon companies. Small world!



Bagan Panorama



There are no large overseas chains of stores or restaurants in Myanmar due to economic restrictions in place with America and other countries stopping them from investing. Whilst I love the 7/11 stores that are everywhere in Thailand for cheap(er) beer it’s nice to just be dealing with little local stores, sometimes set up outside of people’s homes. It reminds us a bit of Nepal which only has a fake Starbucks nearby the Everest trek starting point.

Moving on from Bagan we got a daytime bus to Mandalay. We once again hired bikes (yes we’re a little bit saddle sore now) and cycled out to the nearby town of Amarapura where the world’s longest teak bridge is. The bridge is built over a lake with very pretty surroundings and it was buzzing with locals, monks and nuns all the time we were there making it all the more interesting.

Applying Gold Leaf

Cycling back to Mandalay we visited a 2000 year old gold Buddha that has for over a hundred years had gold leaf (small wafer thin sheets of gold) pressed upon its body by male worshipers adding an extra 6 inches to the Buddha’s body. Nearby we got to talking with a monk who had a good grasp of English but wanted to improve it further, he told us he’d seen an American movie recently and asked us what the word ‘shit’ meant. Hollywood you have a lot to answer for...

After a brief afternoon rest we visited part of the ‘world’s largest book’ which is stored in two pagodas. The very impressive Sanda Muni Pagoda we went to is made up of hundreds of tiny stupas which each shelter a four foot high marble slab engraved with the text. When read in the correct order these marble slabs make up the 15 books of the Tripitaka (Religious texts). We also saw a 900-tonne Buddha carved out of a single piece of marble before climbing up Mandalay Hill to get a view of the surrounding area before the sun went down.

World's Tallest Buddha

A detour for us was Monywa where the saw the World’s tallest standing Buddha at 424ft – completely unnecessary but quite enjoyable! There was also a huge reclining Buddha at 312ft which had pigeons nesting in its nostrils and whose left buttock was a doorway.  The other main site nearby to Monywa is Hpo Win Daung which is a collection of 492 Buddha Caves that have been carved into the limestone hills mainly during the 14^th century. It’s amazing the amount of detail that has gone into each cave, most feature at least one limestone Buddha, sometimes there’s 7 or 8, and a handful  of the caves also have wonderful murals painted in them.

We travelled back to Mandalay this morning by bus through heavy flood waters / rivers that many smaller vehicles couldn’t get through. The monsoon season’s not been too bad so far, only once or twice have we had to wade through flooded streets!

Love Chris & Kat xxx

Farewell to Sydney

Us at the Opera House

Hard to believe that it all came together in the end...months of thinking about it, weeks of preparing a plan and then within two viewings of the van and a mere 5 days of advertising – Lola was sold, and sold at a higher price than we paid all those kilometres ago!  It was bitter sweet; we love that campervan and were SO sad to see her drive away, but what a relief that it went without having to reduce our price, without having to put up ‘urgent’ posters at the hostels....just brilliant really!

Sunset View on the Manly Ferry

We had been house-sitting for one of my cousins in a suburb just outside of Sydney.  Just perfect for us sorting out the van, getting our return trip organised and for exploring Sydney.  Kay & Pete and their two children, Emma and Luke arrived back from their holiday the day after the van sold and very kindly let us stay for the remainder of our time in Australia.  It was lovely to spend time with the family and get to know Emma & Luke.  Emma showed us her amazing ballet skills and she performed on the recorder in a big concert at the Opera House while we were there; Luke found a new play friend with Chris and spent a lot of time playing draughts with him and showing off his toy car collection!  Kay & Pete spoilt us with cooking us meals, treating us to take away and letting us sample lots of Aussie wines!

Chris at Sydney Airport

After I finished my admin work and a couple of days doing after school care, we made some time for some sightseeing.  We went for a lovely walk with Pete & Emma in the Royal National Park there were some amazing coastal views.  Me & Chris had a day trip to Manly on the ferry across the harbour, it was just lovely and on the ferry back we watched the sunset behind the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it felt really special, I was even a little teary thinking about us leaving Australia behind.  We had another great day on ‘Pete’s Northern Beach Tour’ where we visited some of the beautiful beaches and view points north of Sydney.  We even saw where they film Home & Away!  Picnicing has become a favourite past-time and we had a couple lounging in the Botanical Gardens, it’s just so beautiful in there, could have stayed staring at the view for hours. 

Batu Caves

We left Sydney yesterday, backpacks packed again!  As glamorous as ever, we departed on Air Asia and landed in Kuala Lumpur.  It was really, really busy and then we realised why – for the 2^nd year in a row we are in Malaysia for National Malaysia Day!  Tired from the flight this Asian business was a little overwhelming, but fresh faced today, it’s not been too bad.  We’ve had a lovely day out of the city at Batu Caves, a large Hindu Shrine built into the caves.  It was a beautiful setting in the cliff side and fun to watch the mischievous monkeys stealing the religious offerings!  We headed to Little India for lunch and filled up on roti & curry for a mere £1.60 including drinks...we’d forgotten how cheap Asia can be.  Enjoying seeing all the little shrines dotted about again, the smell of incense and the food stalls...haven’t missed the sewage smells and the squat toilets though!

Off to Bangkok tomorrow.  Very excited for a curry & a Chang!

Miss you all, 3 months and 7 days till we’re home!

Kat & Chris xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Final Road Trip

Getting back on the road with Lola after our time working in Adelaide felt great. Driving long distances and admiring the sights and wildlife is what Australia has all been about for us. Our first stop after leaving those lovable but troublesome horses behind was to Chloe & Dave’s house in the Adelaide Hills where they cooked an amazing Pork Belly roast.

On our way over to Victoria we travelled South Australia’s Limestone Coast which we didn’t do last time we were here. We saw Australia’s only colony of white Kangaroos, which looked a little bit like giant bald cats. Took a detour to South Australia’s biggest sight Larry the Lobster standing tall at 17 meters! Enjoyed coastal drives even spotting whales playing way off in the distance! Then we visited the city of Mount Gambier which was built around extinct volcanoes and craters, and has amazing sinkholes that have been turned into gardens. All in all South Australia was a great place to stop for a few months, even if we didn’t intend to! There is a lot to enjoy as a tourist around the state and Adelaide was a fantastic city to live in, easy to navigate as it’s more like a big town, good transport, fantastic library and we made some great friends there as well as getting to look after horses for 6 weeks! J

Entering Victoria we were really excited to drive the Great Ocean Road as it’s recommended as one of the best things to do in Australia. The beginning of the drive was amazing as straight away you see dramatic, sheer cliffs and an extremely volatile Southern Ocean. Cliff fragments such as the 12 Apostles jut up from the sea a short distance away from the coast which is very picturesque. Then the drive takes you away from the coast and uphill into the forest, unfortunately this wasn’t as interesting as there was no ocean to be seen. Back onto the coastal road for the final part of the drive and we began passing through a lot of seaside towns, saw some waterfalls and koalas, visited the lighthouse from ‘Around the Twist’ and went to a interesting surf museum. It was a really nice drive as you’re hugging the coast and can see the ocean at all times but it wasn’t as spectacular as the first section.

Melbourne was next, we had a nice day seeing a Wallace and Gromit Inventions exhibit at the Scienceworks museum, drove to St Kilda and admired the ‘urban’ penguins as well as the view of Melbourne from the pier. Then we made a pilgrimage to where the Australian TV Series ‘The Block’ was filmed this year – we watched this renovation series from beginning to end and loved it so it was really cool to see the finished houses, although maybe that makes us bit sad! Then to Ramsey Street where they film the exterior shots of Neighbours, it looked vaguely familiar but it’s been so many years since either of us watched it – still had to be done!

Melbourne as a city looks a little bit rough around the edges, and by that I mean the suburbs near the city looked rough. Once in Melbourne there’s loads of art sculptures everywhere, interesting looking buildings, a fun evolution of the moving image exhibit at the ACMI and some really great European looking streets filled wall to wall with small cafes and coffee shops. We heard in Adelaide that Melbourne is the place every one goes if they want to do some ‘real’ shopping it didn’t disappoint as the streets were filled with designer shops and boutique shopping arcades – nice to look at but not made for our budget unfortunately.

Away from Melbourne we drove to the Gippsland area of Victoria and visited the amazing Wilsons Promontory National Park. Really nice walks, beaches, kangaroos, emus and coastal views but the best bit was seeing four wombats in the wild. These creatures were so cute, looking just like a giant cuddly toy and when they walk they rock to the left and right making them even more endearing!

Our final stop before driving to Sydney was to visit Liam and Bella in Canberra to receive a Patey Street hangover. We had Japanese food, went to the pub, sang Karaoke and played real life Goldeneye. The next day was not so fun, although we just about recovered by lunch and went to watch The Dark Knight Rises with Liz, Liam’s sister so it wasn’t a totally wasted day.

After a fun few days in Canberra we’re now in Sydney. Kat’s doing admin work for the cartooning club she helped out whilst in Adelaide. I sold my guitar within 2 days of advertising it L We’ve unpacked and cleaned Lola, how much stuff we’ve accumulated! The advert is online and flyers are now posted all over Sydney’s hostels. Fingers crossed for us!

Love Chris & Kat xxx

Heaps good on the Horse Farm

We are nearing the end of our time in South Australia and since I last wrote we have been living in Gawler, about 40mins from Adelaide at a small horse farm where I’ve been taking care of 9 horses.  They are all trouble but I do love being there with them (most of the time!)  There is Jemima the escapee Shetland who I have spent more time rounding up than anything else!  Then we have Sparky the Welsh Pony Stallion, only 12hands tall but full of attitude and for a couple of weeks refused to have anything to do with me!   Little Jazz is mum to the idiot foal Walter, who canters about the place carrying his food bucket and swinging it around.  The comedy odd couple is the big grey, Ferris who has no sense of personal space and Kolbie the 9 month old Shetland foal, who looks like a big woolly dog (I want to bring Kolbie home).  Then the other three live in the field, Orly is the one I ride and a bit of a grump, Harry jumps the field fence regularly and little Ginny gets bullied by the other two!  They are 9 characters and it has been a great experience living with them, Floyd the cat, Jesse the dog and Grandpa Henry at the farm.  I’ve enjoyed it so much that I’m trying to think of a way to work with horses when I get home.

When we haven’t been busy with the farm – always a fence to build, grass to mow, wood to stain...we have both been working too.  I have been doing kids clubs – vacation and after school for primary kids.  It is exhausting, can be very rewarding but gosh, I’ve shouted like I remember teachers shouting when I was little!  Chris also got roped into the vacation camp and helped us with the 120 little darlings who were having a PJ party and pillow fight day!  Chris has also managed to get a real job doing data entry.

In-between all this working we’ve still seen our besties, Tom & Laura.  The kitchen has enabled us to make roast dinners for each other and cakes!  We’ve also had a random evening at a roller derby (a brutal but entertaining sport that I’d totally recommend) and hopefully will be going out for a nice meal before we leave Adelaide. We’ve also been out drinking cider with Chloe & David.  Chloe is the one great thing that came out of my time doing care work; she was a fellow worker being terrorised by the patient!  So we have totally bonded about our awful experiences and have been meeting up for ciders since then, so lovely to have a few friends in Adelaide J

So leaving Adelaide is our next plan and hopefully we’ll take a scenic trip to Sydney where we will try to work again and sell Lola – sad times, but we need our pennies back!   The plan to go to the US has changed and we’ll be heading home through Asia to save some money.  Excited about moving from heaps good South Australia....really excited for when the van is sold and we can book all our flights home!

Love you all,

Miss you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

How Plans Change...



Chris Suited Up For Work

So last time I wrote we were destined for Tasmania...however, things didn’t quite go to plan!  Lola was sick, we thought terminal at one point, thankfully we were able to get her fixed after driving on 2 cylinders for 400kms!  Much further and we would have completely stuffed the engine, but wonderful Scottish Robbie the mechanic managed to bring her back to life without the valves needing to be replaced (huge sigh of relief).  This rather traumatic experience did show us that if things were to go wrong, we really don’t have much money to save ourselves with...a bit of a reality check I guess.  So that is why we’re not in Tasmania but working in Adelaide instead.

Walk Into Adelaide

Looking for work wasn’t too bad, but just like when you’re home, a few days of looking and continually checking your email can soon feel like an eternity.  I found it especially bad because there are just loads of physiotherapy jobs advertised here, but they won’t allow me to practice here unless I did the expensive and time consuming Australian exams.  After a few days I got a carer position for a lady with Multiple Sclerosis; I was so pleased to be doing something health related and excited to start earning money – it ended up being my worst ever job and I only lasted 2 weeks until her verbal abuse, swearing and general rudeness just got too much for me to cope with.  Lesson to be learnt – do not trust adverts on Gumtree.  In the meantime Chris managed to get a 7 week contract as a receptionist at a pension agency.  He has a beautiful coffee machine there which I hear a lot about, he gets a fair few comments about being a male receptionist and how odd that is, he also gets free alcohol on a Friday at 4.30 each week – so his role is going pretty well.

The State Library - Free Internet :)

We are living in a caravan park, still in Lola.  It is only a 2km walk to town through the Botanical Gardens and past the zoo (we can see into the aviary as we go past) so it is a great location.  It is autumn here and the van is covered in leaves!  The caravan park is small and doesn’t have too many facilities...its too cold to use the pool!  We have lovely neighbours, fellow travellers Tom & Laura, who are also living in a little van and are looking for work.  I’ve been jobless for a few days, so my days are mostly taken up walking into town, using the internet to apply for jobs, meet Chris for lunch, get DVD from the library then I head back to the van to watch it!  The sitting and relaxing bit has been nice after the stress of that job, but now I’m hoping I’ll be back working and earning money again soon.

So quite an unexciting blog post...but the money we make will fund our American adventures on the way home, so the time spent earning will be worth it.  Not sure how long we’ll be in Adelaide for yet, definitely another 5 weeks to finish Chris’ contract.

Miss you all.

Kat & Chris xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Back to the Northern Territory

So we made it through rainy Queensland, luck seemed to be on our side as roads re-opened and we seemed to be the one of first 2WD vehicles to make it through to the Outback Way, the Highway connecting Outback Queensland with the red centre of Northern Territory.

Pilosaur Fossil

The distances have been huge and since we last posted we have covered 5,000kms in Lola!  But there have been some interesting sights along the way.  We began the dinosaur trail at Hughenden, where they discovered the fossil of “Mutt” the Muttaburrasaurus, there was an amazing replica of the skeleton found on a nearby homestead – the original bones are now in America, where most Archaeology research and funding seems to be.  Impressed, we headed onto Richmond & their Kronosaurus Corner.  Millions of years ago Richmond would have been underwater as part of the Great Inland Sea, consequently the dinosaur bones on display here were mainly of ocean dinosaurs   The Kronosaurus is thought to be the T-Rex of the Ocean - think Jurassic Park 3 when the huge shark type dinosaurs attack the little boat!  And they have also discovered full Pilosaur skeletons, which look more like dolphin dinosaurs.  The incredible thing being, that these are generally discovered by farmers in the area, there is no real research, digs or teams looking for the fossils, who knows what else is out there waiting to be discovered!

As we passed over the border, the familiar bush land continued, vast and flat – not much to see, just straight road and expensive petrol – a bit of wildlife though, Eagles above us and snakes on the road!  The first larger place we got to was Tennant Creek, a fairly large, rough looking town, we passed through to get to the Devils Marbles.  These are huge red boulders, some sphere shaped like marbles.  They pop up from nowhere out of the flat bush, they are thought to be magma that millions of years ago was pushed up onto the Earth’s surface, over time the wind and rain has caused the shapes and now the erosion / splitting of some of the rocks.  They were very pretty to see and we could camp there and watch the sunset over the rocks. 

Alice Springs was the next stop off, for reasonably priced fuel, a Coles shop, a visit to the Reptile Centre (fell in love with a Bearded Dragon named Blossom) and to top-up our car rego.  All good jobs done, then it was off to the MacDonnell Ranges.  These are not far from Alice Springs and there are lots of gorges, water holes, viewpoints and walks amongst the beautiful scenery.  It was really lovely on the West and we stayed there overnight in the National Park with a huge gorge behind us.  The East Macs are much smaller and sadly we were foiled by a boggy road, so couldn’t get to many of the sights, instead we ended up rescuing a mother and baby whose car was stuck in the mud – at 40degrees they were very grateful for a lift to air-con and a telephone!

Chris at Kings Canyon

Our next stop was Kings Canyon.  This is a giant red rock canyon in the middle of nowhere; we walked up the steep gorge and were amazed at the sheer size of the canyon.  The walk was lovely as you went amongst big rock domes which eroded into different shapes over the years.  We also saw wild dingoes and monitor lizards whilst there.  After that is was down towards Uluru.  Ayres Rock is a real symbol of Australia and driving to it feels like a real pilgrimage as you can see it from quite far away slowly getting larger as you approach.  It’s the sheer scale of the red rock on the fairly flat bush landscape that is impressive.  A lesser known wonder is the Olgas nearby, it’s a similar formation of rock but looks like giant beehives.  The walk here was beautiful and you could get amongst the big rocks up a steep climb to a wonderful viewpoint.  The whole Red Centre experience was a good one, the distances are definitely worth it as the sights are so impressive.

We are now back in South Australia in opal mining town Coober Peddy – the flies are even worse here than the centre!  Lola is a bit poorly...again...we have fingers crossed for a minor blip and then we need to head south to source some fruit picking work as the piggy bank is getting a little low and there is Tasmania to visit next month!

Lots of love,

Kat & Chris xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx