OUR LAST FEW POSTS HAVE BEEN REVISED- PLEASE VIEW AGAIN

Welcome to our blog (am really clutching at straws when looking for new way to open posts)

We are now in penang staying in an newly refurbished hotel with wifi that does not work. We are pleased with our lot this night as it is our first reasonably priced accommodation at 55 ringets for a family room. It is at this point we realised we have been completely ripped off everywhere else.

The view from the middle station of the funicular railway was pretty good but we are well aware that it could have been a lot better if we had been able to get to the upper station which was closed today because of the broken train.
We were lucky to make it to the railway, at penang hill, anyway as several of the people we asked for directions tried to put us off the scent and one taxi driver even told us that the railway was not longer in use. other than that we have found the malaysian popluation very helpful.
They are also just as friendly and laid back here as they are in thailand.

The whole wood camp is now most excited about going to the cameron highlands tomorrow as the average temperature is 16- 21 degrees C. This will be a lovely cool respite for us. We hear the weather in England is lovely. We are also hoping to be able to find a scenic camping spot where we can stay for a couple of nights whilst exploring the strawberry and tea fields and generally soaking up the English-village-in-malaysia feel.

Have been taking some pretty scenic routes already and see many rice fields that are mechanised, unlike in china.



A View from Our Side of the Bridge- the tale of a man, his car, his trailer and a bridge:

The longest bridge in asia runs from the mainland to penang and is 13 km.
We thought it would be nice to go on it to say we had done it.
The sign said it would be 7 ringets.
We got to the counter.
The man asked for 45 ringets.
Chaos ensued.
Upon principle we refused to pay, that and the fact they were trying to charge us the price for a car with a boat on the back.
Much manovering took place as daddy turned wilma and larry around.
The queue had to be backed up and people had to wait ages for us to get off the major section of the road.
Daddy continued to argue with the bridge manager (that he had called for) and even lifted up larry muscle-man style to show that he should not be charged 45 ringets.

We got the ferry for 7 ringets.

Congratulations to daddy, who gets upset that I don't compliment him enough on a public forum. Does he even know that he's my hero?

the internet cafe closed an hour ago so this is not very detailed/ good- outstaying our welcome

Hai! (we have been assured that this is how to say hi in malay by a malaysian man)

The first thing we would like to do today is say thank you to graham and family, tim and family and our new spam fan- goooooood girl.
We would like to say thank you to these people as they have heeded our vague threats and posted a comment on the blog thus making as feel as though this exercise is bring a little bit of light into some people's lives.

At lunch time we got back from the island of Lankawi where we stayed in an over priced hotel as the ferry we took to the island left an hour late and we only arrived in the main town at 21:30.
however, we did stay in a full sized family room and rent a sick-green air-coned car for 50 bahts- oooooo, ahhhhhh.
did manage to swim a little bit but the beach was average although there was an amusing man who prevented us from parking under a coconut tree for fear of concusion.

tonight we 'landed on our feet' (as daddy loves to say) yet again as, although we did not managed to find an non-silted up beach we are staying in an entire house for 100 ringets (20 pounds). actually above our budget but really rather cheap for a whole, massive three bedroom house all to ourselves.


We are currently been unable to properly arange the photographs that have been displayed recently as the computers in malaysia only show the photographs on blogger when you have actually loaded them. At all other times the the photographs merely take the form of a series of words, dots, dashes and slashes that are only intelligible to computer geeks or other like-minded people.

tessie has been sent home in a cab- not drunk but attacked by mosquitos

in trang for the night,which is a little way inland and not too far from the border with malaysia.

we are hoping to cross the border tomorrow and tessie is really gearing herself up for the imminent singapore-fest.

have had lots of trouble with the internet today and am getting a tad frustrated to say the least.
when writing the blog the photographs only come up as the script that is only intelligible to computer geeks. next time this happens we will need to see our new best friend graham and his family (driving from croydon to cairns)- self-styled 'king of the computer'.

this is the graham and family from the previous post- still stuck in malaysia. had a lovely time with them but little did we know that they would sell us the most useless guidebook known to man. also- our car has never been the same after graham was in it- the very same day we had to change two tyres (one burst,one bulging). have now discovered that the pulley for tensioning the auxillary belt has probably been siezed up and causes various suspicious smells (usually attributed to team tessie tay and lewis wood). thanks graham.


a little message to janice wilson,
as being sober at work must be a new a distressing state of affairs for you we suggest that you might numb the pain by writing a comment on the blog. we know that you now have plenty of time a work.

to those who read janice's special message- it was a subtle hint at writing more comments on the blog. take the hint lest ye be similarly named and shamed.
please.


time to go back to the station inn. well past daddy's bed time. he has to drive in the morning.

Vehicles

we love the new vehicles we see.
none of them live up to the infamy of the wilma and larry duo though.

Impressive Buildings

we are getting well in there with our impressive building photographs but we have so many to sort through that we have only be able to put up a few at first.

Houses

Border Signs

really trying to get in there with our themed albums.
don't worry,this is only the beginning...

THIS HAS BEEN REVISED- PLEASE READ

these are some of our more beachy/ holiday shots.
not all in the same place but we get excited when ever we see the sea which, since southern thailand, has been a lot.
have only managed to camp on the beach once but we continue to look although so far this has only brought expensive hotels. we say expensive but by this we mean double the price of thailand and a quater of the price of the uk.
what the middle photograph tries to display- aside from daddy and lewis' trim fingures- is that the sea starts a long distance from the beach and even at high tide (of which there is one per day) some beaches require a miles trek through the sea to get to a swimming depth.






View from river in the middle on bankok when we were on our very cheap public transport boat



Thai princess, elder sister of Thai king, dies at 84.
we saw lots of memorials and some people looking sad and wearing black.
we did not understand at first.




a couple of 'the streets of thailand' photographs so that you can get a 'flavour' of the normal everyday sights around the town.
the last two are of all the animals that we have seen for purchase on the street side. the last photographs contains squirrels found in a bankok market that sold
we realise that you require more to get an accurate picture but i am sure that our photographic team (headed by dwight wood) would be more than happy to provide a 'streets of thailand' album for you all to enjoy.






these are supposed to be in the Vehicles album but got way laid because they are that good and i can't move them at this time. it will require further work.
the second photograph i a mother and her two boys rowing to school. this was in the older, original part of the floating market and was just about the only thing worth seeing. the rest was some giant form of tourist trap but round the back were still people living and an old man swimming accross the canal with his belongings in a floating plastic bucket.





first guest house in thailand- very cheap and brand new. lovely open walled breakfast area downstairs and owned by an enlish teacher. lucky to find it as the day was completely dark by the time we started looking for accomodation.



tessie loves a photograph of lewis. this is for her. lewis in bankok at the children's discovery museum. we had a big row with the lady at the ticket counter over the price so only i had the pleasure of going with him. was actually an entertaining and educational experice.





we hope you will love these photographs as much as we do- which is a lot.
finally got a photograph of a typical thai cow.
the boy scouts are infiltrating all four corners of the earth- this is for the fanatics (in cluding bill everett).
the coolest man on the planet? yes. still figuring out how this bicycles works- any ideas? this photograph is also for fanatics.

first beach holiday

greetings to all our loyal fans.

we know that some of you have recognised and appreciated our efforts towards improving our blog. daddy is getting really quite keen especially as some of the blogs of the people we have met along the way have been highly professional.
the slide show is a particular triumph.

for the past couple of days we have been staying on an island two hours boat ride from ranong on the coast of west thailand. staying in a typical beach resort but 'the russian' who runs it has made us feel most welcome and even helped to catch us some fresh fish that we ate for dinner this evening. we had a whole fish each and are feeling pretty fat but content as the fish was more than worth it.

have been having a good dose of human interaction with an english family (graham, loraine, hannah, emily and abigail) that we have been trying to met for a while now; they are drving from london to australia taking about nine months in total.
they came in an appropriate toyota landcruiser but have not been having fun with their car lately as their steering pump has gone and the garage does not have the correct parts. there are toyotas all over the shop in asia but all the parts are different from those that you would get in europe and all the types have seperate parts also.
going to the mainland tomorrow with them so that they can chase up the garage and we can continue south.

have had lots of fun on the island including hiring a motobike that daddy will not ride on with me unless he can drive. chicken. the water on our side of the island is sooo hot- literally bath temperature but everyone loves it.
i got my swimming in early in the morning when the water was cooler (i say cooler...) and the tide in but we still had to walk about a mile out from the shore before i could not stand up in the water. really quite shallow.

we are hoping to be in singapore in about a week so tessie is getting most excited about being back in her homeland.
i'm looking forward to watching the new james bond film.
however, we are all looking forward to camping on some more beaches.

have so far spent only one night on a beach half way done the east coast of thailand with the top cover off the tent. it was quiet with a good sunset and we were left undisturbed. water has been a little bit murky so far though so we are looking forward to malaysia wiht anticipation as daddy has promised us spectacular beaches there.


have met literally some english speaking people since being in this area and we have promised a 'shout-out' to all of them:
1. adrian- the man who showed us the internet cafe in ranong and who subsequently enbarked on a race against time when graham and his family told us on skype that there we had half an hour to catch a boat out to this island. adrian jumped in wilma with us and sorted us out and the tiny port.

2. richard- the owner of oscar's bar, located on the one main road this island has. we were told to go to him and assured that he would 'sort us out' this was indeed the case as when we arrived on the island we had no idea where we were going and no trasport.

3. two girls from israel that we met in oscar's bar- staying on the other side of the island- we gave them and two friendly german guys some of our bags as we thought we were staying in the same place and could not fit all of them on to the motorbike-taxis we got.

4. the man from israel- meeting him for breakfast on the other side of the island tomorrow before we leave for the mainland tommorrow afternoon (we are trying to make full use of the motorbike we rented for 200 bhat/ day). into kayaking and seems to genuinely enjoy our company. free bed in tel aviv.

5. lovely english speaking french family with children- anything that keeps lewis away from us for a period of time can only be deemed a good thing

will either stay in a hotel in ranong tomorrow or try to go 100 km away from 16:00- 18:00 (when to 2 hours boat ride gets in- when night falls) as we are told that is when the nice beaches on the mainland start.

all getting pretty brown, apart from daddy who is getting pretty pink.

we are really into this blog lark now so will be sorting out lots of new photographs next time.
we know you love it.

Animals we have seen along the way

thailand 1

hello!

made it into thailand with shocking ease. the border crossing was our best yet and took the shortest time of all the crossings so far.
we were massively shocked as the staff were extremely friendly and helpful and we had previously been told that it would be an absolute nightmare to get in.

have had many adventures since entering thailand and have been pleasently suprised by the fun we have had.
met a lovely 70 year old enlish man yesterday in tesco, that's right- tesco, who told us where the long life milk was and where we could find an invertor for our car (after daddy broke it). he took us back to his house for a cup of english tea and we left him with an address for his son in phuket, who sails, and the promise that he could construct any control systems we wanted.
daddy also gave him some rather intersting advise that we had not heard 100 times before on filtration.

last night, as it was getting dark we manged to stumble accross a couple of people who new a guesthouse owner where we managed to stay. it was in a little village get off the main road with a balcony, breakfast area, garden and it was brand new.

getting closer to the capital but, as we decided to take an extra day to get there, we stopped in the town we are in now at 10:30 and so are spending our time exploring the city and and looking for a cinema.
we all want to watch the new james bond film very much so if anyone could tell us if it is good this would be most appreciated in the absence of a cinema.




the last mongolia photograph, promise. we all wanted you to see the 'russian sparkling wine' shot during extreme dinning.



fond farewell to queenie. we are at the border at that moment; it also shows just how relaxed the border is.

typical petrol station for motorbikes in the lao countryside. we thought it was a special drink at first.

welcome to lao! we were really on the ball at that border.

one of the best activities in laos. daddy and tessie were really into it. making rice wine. we also took a photograph of the instructions for when we get home.

vising the caves on the mekong near luang prabang. i am in the picture to illustrate the size of the caves. yes, i did just want to be in a photograph.

the man wealding the tow bar on larry. he is only wearing sunglasses.

daddy using the irish screwdriver to help fix larry's tow bar.

one photograph of the numerous butterflies we have seen since southern china. this one was ginormous and was sitting amoung his friends at a toll gate in laos.

pretty much the only temple we went to in laos. we did not even go in it, it was just just at the side of the road. we are not a fan on temples but there is plenty of choice.

really cool merchant on a bike. he saluted us. we did not get that photograph.

the merchant's wares. the laos equivilant of the man with the long trench coat.

rival slow boat on the mekong, visiting the caves. he won.

wood camp group photograph. we climbed to the top of the hill in the middle of the touristy luang prabang to see the sun set (as the lonely planet guide told us to). the sunset is slightly to our right.

maggots in loas. would higly recommend.

daddy requested the photograph of his boy using chopsticks to eat maggots. it would be more impressive if lewis knew what maggots were.

making paper in a laos village. this is one of 50 similar photographs.

a man making tradional hats for the village.

snooker tables are everywhere in asia. not many are used for chicken's beds.

one of our many unsucessful attempts to to capture a lao village. if you expand the photograph you can see a woman washing in the village shower.


a corn mill actualy being used. the lady has a baby and dog. to the right of the picture are the rest of the village watching her. the laos people are highly relaxed.

we managed to take some covert military photographs despite queenie's efforts.

this was the view that i enjoyed in laos while going to, what we like to call, an 'open-air' toilet.
amazing waterfalls near luang prabang. the brave ones of us swam in it.
the main bit of the waterfall. we walked up the muddy side of it in flip flops. was an amzing sight especially as there had been lots of rainfall.

hopefully hitting the capital tomorrow.