West family Round-The-World trip

Our review of the trip!

2010-04-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

WE DID IT: we travelled 91,000 kms (more than twice around the world at 40,000kms !!) over 266 days/9 months, visiting 22 countries, 125 nights in 60 hotels, 110 in rental houses/apartments (plus 21/RV, 16/Boats, 8/Tents) using 54 flights, 72 boats, 25 trains, 15 hire cars and loads of buses, taxis, vans, Tuc-tucs, trams and even an elephant!

In 2009 we visited USA, Canada, Anguilla/St. Maarten, Peru, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, the Amazon, Chile, Easter Island in South America, Tahiti and Cook Islands in the South Pacific & NZ.

In 2010 we visited Hong Kong (twice), Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Japan, China, Borneo, Malaysia, Singapore and London!

We went travelling around the world as a family for a number of reasons:

* To open our eyes to the world away from a cocooned life in London and the UK.

* To experience different cultures & people from a range of countries and histories;

* To make new friends and see the sights of the world;

* To spend time as a family group and most importantly, have some fun doing it.

We decided to record it via Ian blogging here at www.westfamilyrtwtrip.blogspot.com; Sam (12) and Toby (10) wrote daily journals; Sheena did a diary; Megan did pictures.

We took 10,000 + photos (those are the ones we kept) and some 3000 video clips! creating eight 100 page albums! with the kids having their own one each!

The kids were home schooled for 20 weeks and had 12 weeks in total - 6 weeks each at very different schools in the South Pacific & China.

We all made some great world friends and contacts for the future. We all learnt a lot about the different countries. We had some amazing times & saw some awesome sights. It was a really great fun experience all round and one that we would all highly recommend to anyone brave or mad enough to consider it!!

Here is our rough overview itinerary and the blogs of each area are below on this blog - feel free to go to one relevant to you if you are interested.

USA - 8 weeks

Canada - 3 weeks

Anguilla - 1 week

South America - 4 weeks

Tahiti - 1 week

Cook Islands - 6 weeks

NZ - 4 weeks

South Asia - 4 weeks

Japan - 2 weeks

China - 8 weeks

One of the most influential pieces on the internet we read whilst planning our trip was the blog of a young, similarly aged, family from Toronto who travelled for a year round the world. It was incredibly helpful in working out what we did and did not want to do - so hopefully our blog may help someone else decided whether to go for it or not! And if yes, where the appropriate places may be for them.

We had a window of opportunity - We had one year until our eldest sons education gets more serious when he is 13; Our youngest daughter we felt needed to be 3 and a half or more to enjoy it and help us enjoy it (good decision!); We decided to build a basement under our garden so would need to rent for a year anyway; It seemed like not a bad time to leave the UK! We wanted to ensure the children and the adults benefited from seeing the world. The rest we made up - we thought 9 months was about right! We picked the places as a family that we wanted to go - It turns out you cannot see the world in 9 months so you really need to be tough about picking the places and allocate enough time to spend at each place. After 6 months of planning and alot of help from the travel experts at Amex, we were ready to go on a round-the-world ticket.

We would all highly recommend it - although some of us felt homesick at times we felt 9 months was about right. A year would have been too long for us but 6 months would have been too short as well. Each of our views and advice is below - the rest is in the blogs and pictures attached - if you are off - good luck!

Dad/Ian - Even though we spent 6 months planning most details it was alot harder organisationally to take a family of 5 around the world than I thought it would be! We got really lucky on the places we picked as being perfect places for good experiences! The kids going to other schools and experiencing local life really made the trip real. But overall a truly once in a lifetime experience for a Dad and husband!!

Mum/Sheena - You need to be prepared to live out of a suitcase for weeks on end - pack and repack bags for different airline luggage policies. It has opened my eyes to the world and the children are different people - hopefully for the better !! I can't believe we have actually done it....

Son/Sam (12) - It is a great experience but you need to be prepared to give up normal life - your mates etc.... I enjoyed going to school in different countries and meeting people from all over the world. I would recommend it to any 12 year old.

Son/Toby (10) - 9 months is about the right time - 6 is also not a bad length. A good experience to see how different people live, where they live and what they eat. I learnt alot and will miss the friends I made. But pick your places as you can't see the whole world in 9 months!

Daughter/Megan (4) - I have travelled for a quarter of my life - I never wanted to leave anywhere we went - I loved being with my family and meeting lots of friends. I am looking forward to going home.

It was the best thing we could have done - I hope if you do it you will enjoy and get as much out of it as we have.

Borneo/Malaysia - final part of the trip

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After being in China for 8 weeks we were pretty sure we would want a relaxing week before returning to the UK - and sure enough we were right. We arrived in Borneo and were hit be the heat as we met our friends Alice & Mark and their family at the airport. It was great to see some long-term friends, especially as we were being entertained in Alices home town of Kota Kinabalu.

We had a great week of relaxing around the pool, swimming in the sea, doing a small range of activities. A perfect week to prepare us for the UK again!

We stayed at the ShangriLa hotel and it was a nice relaxed family hotel which was perfect for what we needed. The kids did some Flying Fish Ringoing, we visited the islands off the coast, including a brand new resort which looked great but still needed a few customers. We saw the Orangutans in the jungle, the Proboscis Monkeys and fireflies on a night river cruise, and toured the US navy flagship of the 7th Fleet, the USS Blue Ridge. We were well looked after by our hosts Alice and Mark and the kids had a great time together. The food and drinks were great - it was nice to have drinks watching the sunset and dinner outside in the warm with good friends.

A great way to end our RTW trip - a good swansong.......

Our plane from Malaysia was delayed by 6 hours so we re-routed to catch our plane to Singapore via Kuala Lumpur - an extra flight to add to all the others!!! And then catch our BA plane home to London - really, really looking forward to getting home but wondering what it will really be like when we get there, what and who will have changed and how we will all settle in over the next few months......

China - living in Suzhou

2010-04-05T06:41:00.000-07:00

China - living in Suzhou.

We landed in Shanghai after a very bumpy flight and met our guide/car to drive us the hour and a half to Suzhou. We had decided on Suzhou rather than Shanghai itself in order to experience a more Chinese life experience - as we had been told that living in Shanghai was like living in any other big city like London/New York. Suzhou was named "The little Venice of Asia" by Marco Polo but had changed just a little since then and looked nothing like Venice when we arrived! Between Shanghai and Suzhou there was hardly a green field in between the 2 towns - Shanghai is just huge and has 18m people - Suzhou is smaller and has 5m - but with another town Suzhou has merged with next door it is claimed there are 10m - so between the 2 towns there 28m people - nearly half of the UK population in a much smaller area! We started to see why it is so densely populated with apartment blocks!

As we drove into Suzhou we saw huge rows of apartment blocks with huge roads - very well built and quite spaciously laid out but almost like a Milton Keynes meet Hong Kong or Monaco! Our hopes of living in a little village with Venice features disappeared then and there. As we drove through miles of factories for companies like Apple, Black&Decker, Caterpillar & Samsung we realised we were in the hi-tech manufacturing area of China - not little Venice. As we turned down the road to our hotel/apartment blocks we were very disheartened and started to ask ourselves - What have we done?? And then we arrived at HoJo (short for Howard johnson) hotel and apartment all suites hotel to move into our serviced apartment. Our apartment was 170 sqm and on the 11th floor - it was a great little apartment and the view from the balconies was over the town and the JinJi lake - getting better all the time! But no washing machine! We could also see over the city for miles and see the generously laid out (for china) city before us with huge open roads/parks/smart tower blocks and factories all around the city. We arranged the apartment over the internet with Julia - the very helpful lady at Hojo and so we felt we had lucked out on the apartment and the block which had restaurants, a pool, a gym and a concierge, essential in china to help you get around!

We have since learnt that Suzhou is a new town that has been built over the last 5 years for the middle class of China in the area that will arrive over the next 5 years. As a result Suzhou felt pretty empty with many apartment blocks only 30% full and the shops empty except at the weekends. There is also the huge 15km JinJi lake which is very beautiful and has a whole range of attractions/fountains/a birds nest like stadium/cinema/fair all around the lake - which you could cycle round on paths all the way. So pretty nice middle class living - even for westerners - and the shopping centres were brand new with all the major brand shops. All in all Suzhou was probably the best place to live in China - that is what we were told by the local chinese and the expats thought this was the best place to live in China for them as well. Plus all the roads had separate cycle lanes so we could cycle everywhere rather than get into the cheap taxis (£1.50 anywhere) whose drivers were a bit mad. Suzhou had undergone a massive change in only 5 years from a small village in the countryside with fields - to a new big city for the middle classes with all the facilities of modern living - all built and planned by the Government as though they saw that this is how the China of the future will live! And we liked it !!

On the first day - a Sunday - we found a Starbucks and Singha plaza which was a few kms from our base. It was the hangout place for the expats and we bumped into 2 families - both with links to the school that the kids were going to - A bit like our first outing in Rarotonga where we met the locals with links to the school - again the school got a great billing!! We were told we needed a few sports things and trotted off another few kms to find Decathlon - a sports shop. There we bought bikes for us all (£300 for 5 bikes/child seat/pump/locks/hats etc... !!) went to Auchan (the biggest supermarket we have ever seen - it takes 10 mins to walk from one end to the other when there are no Chinese in there!) to get some food and provisions and to search black shoes for school - which are impossible to buy in China!

We cycled home in the cycle lane feeling very Chinese as all the chinese stared at us as if we were mad!! The hotel let us park our bikes in the staff cycle area.

On Monday we were to go to the school and meet the Headmaster and the teachers. Again we had arranged everything by email and the internet so we had no idea what to expect. It was a Dulwich school - an international school housed in the same grounds as Suzhou high school, who shared facilities. We wanted the kids to get an international and chinese experience for the 6 weeks they were here. Immediately we arrived at the school we felt at home - the headmaster was very nice and the other teachers we met were all very welcoming. We saw round the kids classrooms and met the teachers (who were on a training day at the school) and then had an hour long fitting to buy their school uniforms and games kit. Again only £300 for all of their school gear - which seemed incredibly good value. The school felt homely and that the kids would settle in well. We bought their lunch smartcards and school bus passes (the school collected/dropped them from our apartment building each day - even Meggie went on the bus on her own! The first day of school arrived and the kids had a ball and loved the school from the first day. Sam had a small class of Koreans, Americans, HK - 12 in total - no more than 25% of any nationality in each class. Toby had 20 again with a mix of many nationalities and Megan had 4 - with a full-time American teacher and a chinese teacher just for their class! Suffice to say the kids all really learnt alot over the time they were at Dulwich - Sam got 98% in his Maths and was commended for an English essay written on Shakespeares Julius Caesar - and played for the Rugby team against Shanghai - winning the praise of the PE teacher for being a crunch tackler! Tobys English and Maths improved well - partly driven by his challenge to do well so he could go on a school outward bounds course at the end of the 6 weeks - which he passed to go on! And Megan with her almost private tuition learnt to write her name, her numbers, her letters, her shapes and her left from her right - incredible progress in such a short period - All the kids were very sad to leave as they had a great experience at Dulwich. They worked hard, played hard, learnt alot and made a load of friends from a range of nationalities. I think we can say mission accomplished in terms of a learning experience - and our huge thanks goes to Dulwich college and all the teachers who made a real effort with all of our kids despite only being there for 6 weeks - it is a real up and coming school that has only been going for 3 or 4 years - and anyone in the area should consider it as the best option around. Many of the expats we met said that one reason they did not want to go home was because the schooling at home was no where near as good as the education their kids got at Dulwich Suzhou!! Dulwich did so many things well - like Megan got a school report everyday on what she had achieved - the parents got a school manual with every teachers email and school schedule and activities at the school - including all the afternoon activities after school - all in one brochure. And the teachers were all really enthusiastic and immediately seemed to connect with the kids. The kids played in Rugby tournaments which they both enjoyed. We went to visit a school in Shanghai for the tournament which had some good quality rugby players. It was good to meet a few of the other parents who had lived in China for 2-14 years and all had interesting views on China and their experiences. I met a Dane, a Swede and a number of Americans from all over the US. One company was moving their manufacturing operations from China to Thailand which was an interesting move.

The kids made friends and had sleepovers within a few weeks of arriving at school. We felt very safe in Suzhou and the kids generally spent their times with friends in a secure living compound - which sounds horrible but actually they were nice expat housing where all the kids could play safely together. The kids were very sad to leave China and their friends - and did not want to leave - they had a really great time. Sam could not go on his school trip as he could only have gone for a few days before we left and it was a flight away but Toby's outward bounds course was only 2 hours drive away so he was able to go for 3 days and Ian was able to pick him and take him straight to Shanghai airport for our flight our of China. When Ian arrived Toby was being given 3 cheers by 50 kids, given a goodbye book which everyone had signed and he left with tears in his eyes! Sam was also given a goodbye card which his mates/friends had signed and Megan was thrown an English tea party by her friend Kate's mum at school on her last day. We were very pleased Dulwich worked out so well for all of the kids and that it really was a positive school experience. Maybe the home schooling had driven them to really appreciate the benefits of proper schooling again!!

Sheena and Ian cycled everywhere - Suzhou and the lake was made for cycling so it was biking heaven - flat, open roads with your own cycle lane - although the danger of cars turning right whenever they liked was a bit dangerous - or blue construction lorries that seemed to think they could drive through whatever colour light they want!! made it slightly dangerous to cycle around. The lake was really nice to cycle around and cycling made us feel much more part of chinese life - especially when we cycled into the old town of Suzhou - inside the old city walls - where it was very crowded and only chinese people around. Again people looked at us as if we were really odd - which I guess we were.

Sheena and Ian set about organising the 10,000 photos and settled on creating albums via iphotos albums - we created 8 Albums - one each for each of the kids with photos of them and each of the places we visited and relevant text put in with each of them and country facts etc... and 5 other albums for each of the areas we had visited - USA/Canada; South America/South Pacific; New Zealand; Southern Asia; and China. Each album took ages to do but we managed to finish them before we left - quite an achievement we thought as there were 500-700 photos per album over 100 pages - so hopefully some of them will be at home delivered in the UK when we return!

We also had a load to prepare for returning home such as renting a house as the building work on our london house was not going to be finished as expected. Sorting out our return to the UK took up quite a bit of time. But we also enjoyed Suzhou when the weather was good - we cycled round the lake, saw how chinese lived, shopped for food which was a real experience in it s own right! and we both learnt chinese with Mary, our very patient teacher. We started very enthusiastically, 3 lessons a week from as soon as we arrived and Sheena in particular did well. But we quickly realised it was incredibly hard and in 6 weeks we would not really make a dent on the language. So we concentrated on key phrases and words that would help us shop, order food/drinks, talk to taxi drivers, staff at the hotel/Apartment block and generally getting around Suzhou where people generally spoke no English. We made progress and started to feel more comfortable that we could actually get around without staring blankly at each other when asking a chinese person where to go - but yet again we thanked our lucky stars that we are English and our forefathers had gone out to conquer the world and spread the word of English - and so many people we have met around the world speak English as their second or third language which has made it so much easier for us!! We realised in Mandarin that it is so hard to learn that unless the Chinese start to learn English (which they now are - all school kids from a young age have full-on English lessons and more Chinese speak English than Americans!) China will find it hard to become the dominant world super-power because Mandarin is just so hard to learn more than the real basics of the language. Sheena and Ian also tried to get less unfit before returning to the UK. It is harder than we thought to keep fit whilst on the move touring around, especially if home schooling as well. So it was good we could stay in one place, use the gym each day and the swimming pool and generally get back to a reasonable level of fitness.

China kept being a fascinating place each experience we had. We have only scratched the surface in the 8 weeks we were here but there is so much more to learn about the country. We learnt alot about China during our tour around and that was the basics about the history and modern day China. Living in one place showed us more what modern China will be (or hopes to be) in the future. Suzhou is one of Chinas oldest and wealthiest towns and the new extensions around the old city to house millions of the new middle classes was an incredible sight to see - especially as many of them had not arrived yet.... We really had lucked out by selecting Suzhou out of the all of China!! So many times we were told by Chinese and expats that we had probably chosen one of the best 2 places to live in China - and we had such a great time there that we really agree with them. The time came to leave and despite this part being the last part of a trip of 9 months we still felt that we did not want to leave - we were all enjoying it - which after 9 months is a tribute in itself!

There are also a whole range of items which are incredibly interesting in themselves about China - in no particular order: The single child policy from 1980 means that there have been a whole generation and a bit of single children growing up with their parents and grandparents doting on them - I am not sure whether this will be an issue having 300m single children running the country in a few years time or not but i am pretty sure it would be if this happened in the UK! The food we heard was eaten included baby rats as a speciality and dog, cat and rat as regular dishes - we don't think we ever had any of them! The chinese are just starting to live more normal (western) lives over the last 5-10 years - with cars and apartments - there is still a party when they buy their first car as it is a novel situation and a real achievement - so although in many ways China has caught up and is catching up - there is still some time to change the mentality of the people to their new lifestyle; The chinese don't commute generally - they live where they work. Although some people are moving to towns from farm areas to find work - general movement is less normal currently; Many drivers still drive their cars like mopeds - as they are still learning to drive! Chinese are very pragmatic people. It is a country where not everything works like most countries but generally they just get on with whatever they want to get done in a pragmatic way with the tools they have. Democracy would not work in this country - it would be a disaster. There seems to be a push on the government to change in areas where they will become unpopular and probably the thought of a mass protest or mass unhappiness in a large group of many millions drives the government to try to stay one step ahead. You hear of corruption but we never saw any - Is buying the right to have a second child for £5k corrupt or a fine. I don't know. Does having a successful shop license in Shanghai mean you have to keep open a less successful shop in Suzhou - as negotiated by the government - it is hearsay but who knows if it is true - there is usually fire where there is smoke but generally the system seems to work - people know their roles and they get on with it. The government seem to do their best and fight hard to ensure the 1.5bn people are fed with jobs where possible - China seem to have managed the financial crisis better than other countries - certainly than the UK! We felt safer in China than the US or the UK. We were told if the police found a gun they would probably use it on the owner which is a great deterrent. The chinese seemed to be a lovely race of people - very kind and helpful and smiley. The toilets were a bit of a shock, as was the spitting and the noisy eating of noodles and rice. But generally we felt China was a happening place with lots of drive to make things happen and to make money. And a country that has a range of things to change and improve but were charging off in the right direction. And that all made it a very interesting place to have been and to watch/return to in the future.

But now we were all ready to start the trip home, via an Easter holiday with friends in Borneo/Malaysia, before landing in the good old UK. There had been times when each of us had wanted to go home but we all went through to the end - and had enjoyed each part of it as each place brought exciting and interesting new experiences and challenges. Many of the people who we had met who had done alot of travelling told us before we left - you should start with cultures close to your own and gradually move away to cultures furthest from yours - that is really brilliant advice that we luckily followed. We planned Asia and lastly China as a result and really enjoyed them all. If we had landed in China straight from London I am not sure we would have had the same positive and interesting experiences!!

Goodbye China - you were a real thrill and interesting experience for us. There is no doubt you will be the strongest power in the world in the near future - no doubt with a few more bumps along the way - but having visited we are sure you will get there. The driving force that you see in people in the country shows a hunger that we did not often see around the world - and this momentum seems as though it will drive China to the top of the world. We all want to come back - but we are not sure when or where - but we will be back.........

China - our tour Feb 2010.

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China Feb 2010 - Tour of China - ancient and modern history:

(You may want to read China History first - see below between lined sections)

Beijing - capital city and 15m people.

We arrived in Beijing to the real cold - snow, ice and below freezing - for the first time on our whole trip! We stopped on the way to the hotel from the airport to buy jumpers, coats, gloves and hats from a Chinese department store, which was an experience on its own!

We were staying out of central Beijing at the Aman hotel at the summer palace, as it had been recommended to us by a friend and told it was one of the great hotels to stay at. And she was absolutely right - we landed and everything about the hotel was superb. A cinema, fab pool, gym, amazing decor, 3 restaurants, wine tasting, calligraphy, a fabulous suite of rooms and 271 staff just for us and 2 other couples!! the Hotel manager and the deputy manager were all really helpful and we just had a fabulous stay at this hotel. Easily voted top hotel of the West RTW family tour, by a mile! But we did not just come to Beijing for the hotel - although that would have been sufficient!

We set off for the modern Beijing and found the Birds nest, Watercube and a strange shaped hotel built for the Olympics in 2008. We all remembered the Olympics as an amazing ceremony and event so we were all in awe of actually being there and seeing it with our own eyes. It is hard to believe that the chinese built the Birds Nest in only 16 months and inside it was impressive also and huge.

In contrast that afternoon we went to see old Beijing, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Arriving in T square was awesome - it is huge and the history of the place ouses out. Home to 1 million soldiers/people (videos show it is very impressive) every October 1st since the creation of the peoples republic of china here on Oct 1st 1949, it is absolutely massive - and housed with Chairman Maos mausoleum on one side, the Government buildings on one side and the entrance to the Forbidden city and picture of Mao on the other. We moved on to the F city and went through layers of walls, bridges and doors of square cities within cities as we got to the centre where only the Emperor, the Eunuchs and the wives/Concubines lived prior to 1925, when the last Emperor Ping Yu was thrown out of the city. Sheena and Ian had both read the book "the Last Empress" so were very much looking forward to seeing the old city where the book was based. The actual city was fabulous buildings and surrounds but beautiful in its simplicity - and the actual living quarters of these important people were actually very bland and simple - not the gold and pomp you would see in other royal homes around the world. The garden in the centre was not pretty with lots of very ugly rocks and no greenery - a typical town garden. We then visited the Temple of Heaven with its whispering circular wall (you could hear whispers from one side to the other) - it was designed to recreate Heaven but in my view did not do it justice. We visited the Emperors circular sacrificial monument where if you stood on the very middle part your voice was increased to 10 times its loudness. All the steps, layered areas around this area were 9 steps! We saw the Feng Shui layout of the temples with a huge temple on top of the mountain in the North and a river in the south - Good Feng Shui in this area apparently. We then walked out of the north gate of the Forbidden city and saw a huge city wall and moat around - which looked very cool in the snow/ice. We then went to old beijing and were cycled around the real backstreets and went to visit a chinese family at their very old and small house and had chinese tea with them. they showed us around where they slept, cooked and sat - 3 families in a very small area but normal life for them. Very interesting to see in the back streets of Beijing. We then went to the drum tower, where in the old days the huge drums were sounded in the morning & evening to tell people the city walls of the central city were opening/closing. We saw the drum ceremony which was very impressive and this was the same one used to form the basis of the Olympics opening ceremony - and we saw the actual drums as well. We also saw 2 clocks 1000 yrs old - one that kept accurate time over 24 hours using balls and one where a man chimed cymbals every 15 mins - very impressive old technology still working today! An incredible mix of old and new in Beijing.

The other thing that hits you in Beijing is the huge number of people. Everyone talks about the plans for Beijing and how it needs to change in order to house millions more people in the future and how the country need to work hard to plan the food production. And you can see it when you drive around - the massive building works and construction of apartment blocks everywhere. People will live in apartments here as that is the only way to fit everyone in! And you can see their point. There are parks built for old people and families - separately so that people have somewhere to go to get out - and the old people can mix together during the day when retired (which they do quite early). It will be interesting to see the impact of apartment living in the future!

We then had a day out at the Great Wall of china in Janshanling - some distance from Beijing but you could see part of the wall from 400BC and most from 220 BC at this place. Well we had all looked forward to seeing the great Wall of China and it did not disappoint. The area we went was hugely impressive and we were so lucky it was a clear, bright but cold, winters day and we could see for 70km to the far mountain peaks where the Wall and turrets were built along the top of the mountain ranges. It was much wider than we thought and with pretty regular turrets along the Wall. Parts of it were built from 440 BC to protect Chinas individual kingdoms, prior to the first Emperor unifying China for the first time in 220BC. At this stage he ordered the Great Wall to be created - 8000km across the North of China to protect it from the north and mainly Mongolian invaders. This linked old parts and joined them up with the new parts built - an amazing building feat when you realise where parts of the wall are built! Anyway there are around 5500km still standing - and it is very impressive and awesome - that is all there is to say - and it is worth going that extra bit to see the more remote parts. We will be back for a few days long trek along the wall (and another excuse to recover afterwards at the Aman!!) sometime in the future!!

We spent a morning going round the Summer Palace. The Aman hotel is built in the grounds so we entered through a secret door and toured this amazing place which covers a huge area around a huge lake(frozen when we were there). Very beautifully done and a breath of fresh air (literally) from the very enclosed Forbidden City in the centre of Beijing. No wonder the Emperor and the court are rumoured to have wanted to stay longer at the end of each summer before returning to town. The temples, palaces, stairs, covered walkways were all very impressive and well decorated. The kids all dressed up as the Emperor and had a photo of the bows bowing to Megan as they do already and will continue to do so in life - so we have it on camera! We walked for hours around on a nice cold winters day. We found an area dedicated to different areas of China and we found a Suzhou area - old town on a canal - the canal was frozen so the kids did ice skating on sleds which was great fun.

Then it was time to move on from Beijing - it had so much interesting ancient and modern history that we really enjoyed that part. But the city also has the air of an old communist town with grey buildings, high rise blocks and oppressive controlled living - but you can see that is the old way and it is changing pretty fast to new china - an apartment/park life with lots of buzz/activity. Which is such a huge challenge for the government to convert people to a new lifestyle to fit them all in. When we went to the Wall we drove through a few hours of countryside and you saw alot of the old style China with run down farms and farmers but you also saw the incredibly well organised vegetable farms undercover to ensure growth all year round to ensure food for the nation. And it has so much history in and around Beijing both ancient and modern that it is a fascinating place to visit - really really interesting and a good place to start in China.

We moved on Xi'an, the ancient capital of China for over a thousand years, in central China. It was cold there too! But it is also where the real history of China from 2500 yrs ago and before are based! For example, they recently dug up a settlement from 6000BC whilst trying to build a tube line for a small city in China of just the 11m people! The settlement showed it to be a matriarchal society! The city wall of Xi'an was very impressive - 12-15m wide and high with turrets every 120m as the crossbow could fire 60m - so they could hit anyone climbing the wall. As it was Chinese New Year at the time when we were there, there were fabulous lights and silk displays everywhere - especially along the top of the 14km city wall (the size of Richmond Park) and there were fireworks everywhere, all day - and we mean everywhere - handheld by mad Chinese! but great fun to watch - especially the amazing hotel display at midnight on New Years Eve (yes we woke all the kids up to watch this once in a lifetime experience / snowing as well!) On NY evening we walked through town from our hotel to the city wall and the silk lanterns display - In Beijing, we had experienced people wanting photos with kids and wanting to touch Megans face and hair - not in a creepy way at all - just enthralled to see a kids with blonde hair and a cute girl. As China have a single child policy (although you can pay a fine for 2 of £5k - varies in different areas!) wherever we went people looked at our family with 3 children. On this walk through Xi'an in the evening we were the only westerners around walking through the crowds out enjoying New years Eve and with 3 blonde kids and megan in a pink - we probably were a bit odd - but we certainly attracted a bit of attention. And only one person in the hundreds we passed actually spoke English - so we really felt as though we were enjoying the New Year in true Chinese style!

The 2 best parts of Xi'an were day trips we did from the city. One was to the Huashan mountains - a beautiful dangerous mountain range of 4 peaks in one of Chinas few national parks where chinese go as couples to experience a bit of danger (Yes you can climb on ledges holding a chain!) and they lock padlocks around the peaks to signify their love etc.... We went up by cable car and it was very steep - all huge granite rocks formed 200m years ago (very like the rocks/mountains in Yosemite national park) but vertical 2km straight up - apparently this mountain range was the inspiration of the Avatar floating mountains but that may just be Chinese promotion!

The second trip we did was to the Terracota Warriors - which were truly unbelievable - I mean truly unbelievable - if someone had told me they were made 20 years ago to promote tourism for the area then that would be more understandable! But no they were built in 220BC by 7000 soldiers of Chinas first Emperor who unified China at this time. (See history below!) He also built an underground palace nearby apparently but this has not been opened because it has a Mercury lake to protect it and also it is built so that if you open it wrongly it will collapse! Anyway both of these items were the dream of the first Emperor - who sounds an incredible guy, achieved so much and set China on its course for thousands of years after. But he also tried to be immortal, but died from the immortality pills he was taking - but he also built an army and a palace to come back to in his afterlife if he ever got there! The army to protect him and the Palace to live in!

So the Warriors - 8000 of them (1/km of Great Wall - not sure if true!), 40,000 weapons, all made of local clay which can stand thousands of years and earthquakes as it is so strong. Generals, archers, chariots soldiers all lined up facing the gate of the exit of the pit. Amazing site to see all of these in pit 1 - all were painted but the paint disappeared within days when the air got to them. In the lines of soldiers there were gaps where the wooden chariots had disintegrated. They had recreated 2 chariots from 1500 pieces of Terracotta - said to be the emperors and they were amazing! We met the farmer who had found the site when he was digging for a well in the 1970's - a lovely old farmer who signed our book. There were swords found with chromium plating that was only invented in Germany in 1937! The detail on the faces and shoes was incredible - all the soldiers were slightly different suggesting that each soldier had been independently copied from an original soldier!! All-in-all it was amazing to see and one of the real ancient sites of china - with so much more to find out and learn about the ancient times. We so loved the Warriors that we managed to visit the factory where the new warriors for the museum are made and managed to buy a couple of them and ship them back to the UK - mad but they do look amazing!

After the ancient capital Xi'an we flew south to Guilin, which was warmer, countryside and had very beautiful scenery with limestone mountains all down the River Li and the surrounding area. Now we have seen a few of this mountain type on our travels so we did not appreciate it as much as we should but these were the first fresh water Limestone mountains we had seen. We did however see the best limestone cave we had seen on our trip - it was amazing with huge caverns and reflective water pools - and some tortoises which were apparently up to 1500 yrs old!! That night we saw a very exciting and impressive chinese acrobatic show which we thought would have been a huge success in the west end of London! We did a river cruise down the River Li (and we were the only westerners on board!) from Guilin to Yangshuo - a little town in the country 3 hrs downriver. It was a town in beautiful country surroundings on the river. We saw false teeth being sold but weren't sure how false they were as we were shooed away when trying to take a picture. We went Cormorant fishing - which we watched at night as the floodlit boat shows the cormorants diving and catching the fish in front of our eyes. At £200 a trained Cormorant the fisherman cannot really make a life from it anymore but earns more showing the tourists - but we caught a basket of fish. We walked through the farming countryside and saw water buffalo being watered by the local farmers in the river and crops being grown by locals in allotments under the limestone mountains.

We also cycled into the country and visit an old lady in her 300-yr old house. The countryside was very interesting - pretty run down and very old style farming. The house we saw got water from a well, made Tofu from a stone grinder, had wood fire heating and cooking facilities and was very cold in winter. The old lady was really lovely and gave the kids oranges and local indigenous fruits from underground! She was descended from a famous general 300 yrs ago and still lived in his retirement house - which was a tough life - and that was a good life around here. We cycled through villages where the kids played table tennis on doors with bits of wood as bats. And we went for a Bamboo raft ride down the river - which were punted along by local farmers who had to give much of their revenue to the government in tax for the privilege of entertaining tourists!

We saw a show at night with the limestone mountains behind lit up and a lake before us. It was directed by the same director who did the opening and closing ceremony of the Olympics and this was as good. 700 actors on a lake - typically grandiose and hugely impressive - we were very glad we all went to see it - a real one-off.

But the best thing that happened here was the the boys did Kong Fu lessons for 2 days with a master. They were taught a routine, helped to train by a Dutch master who had lived in monasteries over the last 10 years and studied Kong Fu. Whilst the boys learnt a routine of kong Fu well - they did not learn the discipline we wanted them to learn in life from the experience!!

After a busy schedule we set off to Longji mountains - a long drive from Yangshuo - up some pretty dodgy and steep roads. Longji is famous for its amazing terraced rice fields and we were not sure we were going to be that impressed. How wrong were we - nestled at the top of a mountain valley and carved over hundreds of years, it was a beautifully tranquil place to go. No cars - you walked up or were portered up as Megan and Toby were. It was a really lovely place, with the most basic lifestyle and hotels in the area! The ladies all grew their hair and never cut it - so they all had hair to their feet. A very unique place to visit and very glad we went. We then had a long drive back to Guilin to catch the plane to Shanghai - to go on to Suzhou by car - a town we were going to live in for 6 weeks and the kids were going to school.

We had done a great deal of the best bits and most interesting bits of China on our tour. We had seen and done an incredible amount in only a few weeks. We realised how much more to China there is than we westerners see from our side of the world - and what an interesting, challenging and hugely historical place it is. And as the driving force of Asia and the world increasingly, what an insight we had gained into life in china - and we have not really touched the surface. We got on the plane very pleased with what we had seen and learnt and looking forward to learning and experiencing more of China.

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CHINA FACTS - a few on the History

1. First settlers in China from 8000BC was a matriarchal society. 6000BC settlement found in Xi’an, ancient capital of China from 221BC. Prior to this, it was split into different kingdoms.

2. In 221BC the First Chinese Emperor unified China - his name was Qin Shi Huang of the Qin dynasty. He became king at 13, took control of army at 22 and then unified China in 221BC at the age of 37 after numerous battles. He created a single coin currency; a common language; a single measurement called Chi Cun (3 in 1 metre); standardised the width of the roads so all chariots could move freely around; ordered 8000kms of Great Wall of China to be built/joined up from parts built as far back as 440BC; buried scholars alive and burnt all books except on agriculture, medicine & superstition; ordered his tomb to be built at the Terracotta Warriors & a rumoured Underground Palace with a mercury river around it that apparently is built to collapse if wrongly opened. Achieved so much but died around 55. He was poisoned by immortality pills he was taking. He was the man who really set China on its course of world power & influence as China was mainly a unified country from then on.

3. Beijing is China’s capital city since 14th Century - prior to that it was Xi’an from 221BC.

4. Silk route started in 1st Century - Xi’an was start in Asia - Rome was the end in Europe.

5. There were 408 Unified Emperors and a total of 829 Kings and Emperors in Chinas history.

6. Last Emperor was Qing Pu Yi - Emperor from 3, dethroned 1911 at 8, left Forbidden city in 1925, moved back to home territory Manchuria where he helped Japanese launch attack against China. After several prison spells, he died as a gardener living in Beijing in 1969.

CHINA FACTS - a few on Modern day

1. China has worlds largest population 1.5bn people; Is worlds third biggest land mass 9.6m sqkm (at 140 people per); is currently the worlds 2nd largest economy & catching the USA fast!

2. Main language is a common Mandarin language. 10 Yuan (RMB/Quai) = £1. The cities are huge. Beijing 13m, Shanghai 17m, Suzhou 5m & the largest city in the world Chongqing 35m+ people.

3. China a Communist country with single powerful government who control country. Westerners, until they come here, find it hard to understand how that works - but when here you quickly realise it couldn’t happen any other way & quickly conclude Democracy in China wouldn’t work & the balance with capitalism created is unique in the world. Whilst not perfect (which country is?) it works. Government seem to have 3 key objectives: A. Ensure there is enough food to feed 1.5bn; B. To ensure there are enough jobs; C. Make China self-sufficient. Anything & everything else is secondary. World currency exchange rates, climate change etc... whilst China is sensitive to that, really not having 10% unemployment (150m!) on the streets upset is the primary objective!

4. China changed in 1911, when the Emperor was thrown out. After lots of infighting, civil war & war with Japan, Chairman Mao created the Peoples Republic of China on Oct 1st 1949. He was really the 2nd great liberator of the Chinese people. Although he achieved so much, he also oversaw the “Great Leap Forward which created the Great Famine 1959-62”, “The cultural revolution in 1966-76”. Chairman Mao died in 1976 and is in a mausoleum in Tiananmen Square.

5. Deng Xiaoping opened up China to the world & all leaders since have followed, creating the unique and ever growing power that China is today..... and getting more powerful everyday......

6. The single child policy is probably the most impactful decision on Chinese everyday life - a brilliant invention to keep the population around a manageable level and necessary. But it does impact Grandparents and there are mainly "only children" who are very well attended to - with no brothers or sisters. Although they play with cousins and friends - will this generation of single children impact China or will it be a non-issue - no-one really knows.

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Japan - so courteous and respectful.

2010-02-06T04:13:00.000-08:00

Japan tour - 2 weeks end Jan/early Feb.

We arrived in Japan having really enjoyed the warmer and less developed southern Asia, somewhat nervous about hitting cold weather for the first time on our travels – the northern hemisphere winter. Having just been in 35-40 degrees it was going to be a shock. And it hit us immediately we left the airport building! We were met by a guide to help us onto the bus via the Japanese JR rail office to pick up our JR national rail pass and 14 sets of different tickets which we were taken through one by one and had a very briefing on the ins and outs of the Japanese rail system and how to get around on your own with loads of bags and young kids!! We then got on a bus having queued up in row 3 then 2 and then 1 as the buses came in. We were on the bus for nearly 2 hours from the airport to our hotel. Narita airport is 70km from Tokyo downtown!

We were staying at the Hilton Tokyo – I am not quite sure why – it was quite a way from anywhere and was not particularly nice but fine/OK. The objective of Tokyo was to find out what Tokyo was like compared to London and to see and maybe buy a robot – Toby has been saving up for 2 years to buy a robot (we think as a slave - Which we were all in favour of!). Our guide – Katsumi arrived and off we went on the Tokyo tube and train system around the city. First stop the main temple – Buddhist – down a long shopping open air arcade full of Japanese goods – all in Japanese. We tried some sweets which had sweet potato paste in – which the Japanese adore but we did not like at all! We shook our sticks in the temple to pick out our numbers and our luck charts – Toby and Megan got very good luck – the rest of us just good luck! We saw old Japanese streets, Kimonos and thick clog style flip-flops in the shops – which apparently few people wear these days! We saw a special Japanese city garden and then went on a boat trip (a bit like the Thames!) but we saw old Japanese mixed in with big city life and high-rise residential and commercial blocks. We had hot drinks from the vending machine in the street – café au lait – in a can and it wasn’t bad at all – shame I had to put coins in the machine rather than pay for it with my mobile phone (as others were including paying for their tube tickets!) It was just another day in the developed Japanese world. We walked around the Imperial Palace Park where the black Pine trees (similar to the trees in Carmel/Monterey!) get wrapped in winter and individually protected against the snow and where the duck catching by the Emperor with nets, not guns, all took place. We then went to the “Tea House” and Katsumi kindly took us through the Tea ritual kneeling on Tatami mats. The tea (Green tea) was revolting but the ritual very calming. We moved on to the National Museum where we had a Japanese picnic lunch outside (cold but sunny so it was quick) of sushi, Seaweed sandwiches and rice – all eaten with chopsticks – even Meggie). We had a history tour and lesson around the museum which had Shogun outfits, swords from 600 and each century since then and huge amounts of pottery and historic pictures.

The history lesson covered these key points:

· Japan started 2650 yrs ago when the 1^st Emperor was named, being the son of God. We are now on Emperor 125 and Japan is the only country in the world to have an Emperor. And the only person in the world that the Queen would bow to!

· The Indigenous Japanese were actually like the Inuit Indians – which makes sense cos when Laurasia was together (200m yrs ago) Japan and Alaska would have joined. The first Japanese were actually from Korea (and before that from ancient China) although Japanese and korean have no similarities whatsoever.

· The original capital in 700 AD was Nara until 1603 when it moved to Kyoto during the Edo period. Until 1603 the Emperors had ruled since the first one, although the first Shogun government was in 1162 the Emperor still ruled. In 1603 the Shoguns took over and ruled the country – there was only one Shogun although there were regional shoguns who had their power bases and they were called Daimyo’s. The Emperor was kept in the Kyoto Imperial Palace and had no power other than their title – so effectively they were in exile over this period. The Shoguns ruled for 265 yrs or so until 1868. At this time America sent 4 Black ships to help persuade the then Shogun to give up power back to the Emperor and to open up the country to trade and development – as a closed country Japan had fallen very behind – hard to believe today but could explain part of its driving force! The capital was moved to Tokyo (previously called Edo) from Kyoto, in around 1868 when the Edo period ended. The Emperors have ruled ever since with a prime minister who holds all the real power – similar to the UK’s Queen and Prime Minister. But the main thing is Japan has been democratic ever since 1868.

· The structure of society was Emperor (1), Shogun (1), Daimyo (250~ in Japan), Samurai, Ninja, Farmers and commercial workers.

· Each Japanese person eats (?800kg) of Rice per year – and all the Rice eaten gets grown in japan – but the Rice farmers are poor and all over 65 yrs old – none of the young are interested in becoming Rice farmers as the prices are controlled to be kept low. The Prime minister harvests an acre of rice (as light as snow) each yr and it is televised!

· The average age of a Japanese woman is 88 and men is 85 – due to the healthy food they all eat.

· At the end of the 2^nd world war as a condition of surrender the Japanese Emperor had to go on the Radio and announce that he was not the “Son of God” and that Japan had surrendered although apparently it sounded a bit like “The war has not gone well for us” was as much admission as the Emperor could muster.

We travelled around via a very efficient and actually quite easy to follow tube and train system in Japan. Your JR pass is invaluable and gets you onto all trains as part of it – except the super fast bullet train – Nimoko – although no-one can explain why? We ended up in Electric city, which was the other end of the historical spectrum from all the J history! Ian remembered Electric city as being so much more advanced than the products in Europe – but actually apart from a few twisting DoCoMo phones there was not really anything that we have not see in Europe. We could not find any robots in the normal electronic shops. Katsumi had really looked after us incredibly well and was an incredibly nice guy – very helpful and friendly. And his English was very good that we learned a lot from him about Tokyo. We look forward to welcoming Katsumi in the UK when he takes the tours there! We ended up back at our hotel and set out insearch of a safe family Japanese meal and found it Teppanyaki – absolutely delicious but the shock of the cost in Japan suddenly hit us – we had eaten for a week in southern Asia for the price of our first meal in Japan!

The next day we were on our own with Ian guiding us on the Tokyo railway system – no chance!! We set off in search of robots having done some research overnight via the hotel Concierge. We set off on a 3 connecting train and then a tram treck across the city to the Museum of Modern Science at the Tokyo educational park. This basically has all the new things that Japan is developing which are not all out there yet. The first floor was Food Science – where we learnt about Euglena, a bacteria being developed to create food pills for when food supplies run short in the world; we learnt about the eating habits of the worlds nations where the USA eats the most Kcals per person per year and the Japanese eat the least! And how 1bn of the worlds 6.8bn people are in the starvation zone; and what McDonalds process is to produce a burger in 50 secs from customer order.

The next floor was robots – finally we had hit robots. There was a great demo of how the internet worked – helped us all – we had robots that went into firezones to help people get out. Robots that picked up on peoples moods and played the right music. And then we had “Asimo” a real person Robot developed by Honda. Asimo walked, waved, talked, danced, ran and answered questions and reacted to being asked to dance etc…. All absolutely awe-inspiring. We had a 30 minute demonstration and the whole audience was blown away. I have no idea how much Asimo cost but it seems Honda are nearly there on a marketable product. We then saw a huge globe 30m in diameter – with the world moving around on the TV style surface – again an amazing site. There were some other rockets and stuff about how the human race could conquer the outer galaxies in the future but we decided Asimo had really done our heads and so we set off for the Sony building and the Apple store in downtown Tokyo Ginza shopping district (like New Bond St) . We had visited the Sony Building in New York last July and seen a wide range of amazing products and some robots – the true home of Sony in Tokyo – had one robot but some amazingly thin 3mm TV’s, cool 3D and internet TV’s already loaded with Youtube (sadly not yet 123webtv!!) There was a small dancing robot called Rolly that dances to the MP3 music it was playing and we saw a cool TV wall to put in our basement (having saved up!!) when it is finished! But sadly no other robots. Then on to Apple and we were taken around by Lev, an Estonian Japanese speaker, who helped show Sam that Japans Apple Macbook laptop was the cheapest in Japan versus China and the Uk and that he really needed to buy it now! Bearing in mind he saved nearly £200 it was a very good deal – thanks Lev (Sam is now really enjoying it and Apple have yet again showed what amazing products they make!!) (We now have 11 Apple products with us – 2xiphone, 1 broken iphone that works as an itouch, 1 itouch, 5 ipods, 1 Macbook Air & now 1 Macbook laptop! We could not have travelled around the world without them – they are all invaluable – I used to rile my friends for being Mac bores ad now I have turned into one!!). I am writing this on a bullet train from Hiroshima to Tokyo currently at 300kmph which is a good match for “fabulous product of all time award!” with Apples products.

We then went to find the robot shop we had been recommended in Electric City. Our taxi dropped us in the backroads of Electric city and we searched for the robot shop – eventually a kind Japanese lady took us all a few blocks and showed us up the 4 floors of stairs to the robot shop. How disappointing – the robots were not impressive – there was a moving seal at £3.5k and a poor cousin of Asimo at a few grand but none of them talked or moved other than walking and so our robot hunt for Toby ended – he made the brave decision not to waste his money on these robots and we left Electric city with Toby having his money left in his pocket!

We left the next day wishing we had had another day in Tokyo as we had been quite rushed doing the things we wanted to do. (Audley please note another day would have been good). We had mastered the Tokyo train system and got around quite easily and now it was time to learn about the Shinkansen Bullet train as we caught one to Kyoto.

It was an incredibly fast and smooth journey – easy. The only problem was that we got on an earlier train and were sitting in someone elses reserve seats and so were told off by the ticket collector. We got to our hotel The Granvia, right in the station, where we were due to stay for 6 nights and had to wait 3 hours before we were allowed to check-in. So we went to have lunch and check out the pool – no kids allowed in the pool!! The rooms we were given were at the other end of the hotel from each other (rather than interconnecting which all our other hotel rooms had been!) We were offered disabled rooms next to each other as an alternative which we declined - So we decided to move hotels as it clearly was not going to work being at this customer focussed family hotel for 6 nights!! The manager came out, having spoken to the travel agent and offered us one night in their executive suite – all in one room and not very executive – but a kind gesture. We stayed one night and were very glad we had made the decision to move as they were rules for everything it seemed – and that was just for Ian 7 Sheena – you can’t take your coffee their, you need to do this or that – you cannot share a table if you want the buffet meal versus a la carte!! The next day we thankfully left the “Rule, rules, rules” hotel glad we had escaped and wondered how on earth this hotel Granvia had a reputation for quality and 5-star service!

We moved to the Westin Myoko in Kyoto, where the staff were so helpful and friendly – the kids could swim in the pool and we could use the gym – and the food was pretty good too! We met our Kyoto guide – a great fun lady called Mie who taught us about Kyoto and kept the kids amused at the same time – and started off on the Kyoto tube – each station has its own dedicated colour and music clip – if you put the music clips together from each station then each tube line has its own famous tune – nice touch! We visited the Nijo castle first – having visited the Ninja and Samurai shop and bought Ninja throwing stars and nearly an ancient Japanese sword from the 900’s but we could not work out how or whether we could get it back to the UK. Nijo castle was built around 1603 by the first Shogun who ruled at that time. He built it in Kyoto because his main enemy was the Daimyo of the area and he thought this castle would help him keep control and also control of the Emperor who lived in the nearby Imperial Palace – and as the Emperor had just been thrown out of Japan the Shogun was not sure what games the Emperor might be up to – or even teaming up with his biggest adversary. The castle was beautiful classical old Japanese style – very minimalist and cool – moats, big walls and Japanese Gardens. And best of all, to support the story above about his fears locally, he had all the floors in the corridors squeak when you walked so that he could hear his enemies coming at night!! The rooms inside were simple and Tatami mats everywhere – the waiting rooms for the least respected guests had tigers on the walls (which weren’t in Japan in 1600’s) to intimidate their guests (Sounds like a Sky waiting room!). A great first castle example to see. The Shogun had many concubines – when a new one was introduced to the Shogun they had to bring him a cup of tea – if he did not like the new concubine he said – “You are not my cup of tea!” Apparently that is where the saying came from.

We then went to see an ultra expensive Kimono manufacturer where they were all made by hand and cost £20-30k each – Elton John had his kimono made there for one of his shows. Megan and Sheena both tried one on – a very interesting stop. We then went to a Shinto shrine – one with 10,000 gates – all orange and bought by local businesses to offer support for the gods. We drew on the wooden foxes and left our best wishes for the gods in the now normal way as we did at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. We rang the bell, clapped twice, bowed twice and said our prayer before throwing money into the collection bin; having of course washed our heads at the entrance before we came in with the holy water. Shinto is the religion of supporting your Emperor or any other god you would like to – but basically it says be good and do to others what you would have done to yourself. Buddhism is similar – it is like a mirror – so it sort of says I will help you where I can and give guidance but basically I am a real person like you, and so together we will help ensure you have as happy and as fruitful life as possible – but mainly it is up to you to do that – by being kind and helpful.

We have visited a lot of temples/Shrines in Asia – Hindu, Buddhist and Shinto – and the Japanese ones were definitely the simplest, purest form of temple. No real jewels and fancy stuff – just pure simple religion – and a few different types if you want it, when you want it. No pressure. Quite refreshing and as a result 60% are Buddhist and 40% Shintoists – so quite a few practice a couple – just to make sure the rice grows well!

We then were handed over from Mie to a guy called Duncan – who was going to show us the Geisha girl circuit and explain what it was all about. We met a true Brit who turned out to be from Hertfordshire originally, brought up in the next door village to Ian – what a small small world!! He had a Japanese mother and had studied Japanese and Chinese at Uni and had decided to try his luck in japan – had met another UK lady with a Japanese father – had got married and were a European couple living in Japan. (Japan does not have an immigration problem as to move to japan is really hard – you need to learn Japanese, eat Japanese food which is not easy but when you get through that the people are incredibly kind and friendly to live with apparently and it really is a great place to bring up kids!) Anyway Duncan was a real character and fascinated us with his stories of japan and Geisha girls. Speaking true fluent English we could ask all the difficult questions and understand his answers or dig deeper and Duncan really helped our understanding of Japan as he answered all the questions no-one else had understood! We then had a great tour of the Geisha district, seeing many Geisha girls.

About the Geisha girls - only 70 left - train apprentice at 15 for 7 yrs until 22 - then fully trained - go on until get married when they have to retire. Kyoto is only training place in japan - Geisha girls leave home to live with a new mum who invest £200k in them over the training period buying Kimonos at £20k each and they need one a month. Geisha girls are practiced in Japanese arts - caligraphy, flower arranging, poetry recital, Reading, singing and dancing. They earn money from entertaining in Tea houses – which cost £500 odd per person for a whole 7 course dinner etc... - which are private venues for members (men and women) - very discrete - the Panasonic Sanyo merger was done in Tea Houses but no-one leaked it - also invasion of Pearl Harbour was planned in Kyoto too. The Geisha girls get paid by the stick (incense burning stick at 50 minutes per stick) and at the end of the month they get a payment for the amount of sticks they have earned. Very elegant and unique skill – only 70 people in the world can do it.

The next day we saw a Kendo demo and Tai Chi competition locally - Tai chi very slow and considered - great balance. We saw Tai Chi with swords and all great balance as well - Kendo was bamboo sticks fighting with masks - like fencing but more aggressive - aim is to hit the opposition on the top of the head - then you win - young guys late teens/early twenties. They came over and showed us what it was and allowed us to have a go - very polite and friendly.

The next day we went to Nara - original capital for 1000 yrs - visited old Buddhist temple and Pagoda in Nara park grounds - very wet and cold but interesting still - huge Buddha and statues - deer wandering around - apparently are "messengers from god" and feeding them biscuits was interesting as they were quite feisty. Nara not as interesting as we thought it would be but we had no guide (other than Ian!) and we thought the town of Nara actually very boring and grey! (Sorry).

The next day we had booked to go to the Imperial Palace in Kyoto on an English speaking tour. The Palace was quite impressive and beautifully built in Japanese style - not used any more - it was used for around 1000 yrs as the Emperors home from 764 to 1868 when the Edo period finished, the emperor returned to power from the Shogun era and the capital was moved to Edo, which was immediately renamed as Tokyo (a play on Kyoto letters clearly!). We could not go in the palace but we saw the waiting rooms for the emperor and where the emperor used to live. The gardens were very beautiful and there is still one room which is used by the visiting Emperor when he comes - he comes on via one of 6 gates (only for the Emperor) and parks his car outside (no horse drawn carriages here anymore!) and the room had a mix of Japanese and western furniture. The gardens were very beautiful and serene - depicting the sea, mountains and islands as usual. The most interesting thing was the roofs of layered cypress tree bark, held together with bamboo nails - looked very good (until they became mouldy 25 yrs later). The biggest worry of the time was fire - all the buildings were of wood and joined together - so you could see why this was so. The kitchen was a completely separate building so as not to start anything.

We then went to visit something at the other end of the spectrum - Japans version of Universal studios - where Japanese action and Ninja movies had been made for 50 yrs or so. The 3D dinosaur movie was very good and the stage show of a typical Ninja/Samurai/Shogun swordfight - which Megan participated in and slayed the nasty Ninja on stage on her own with a Japanese Samurai sword!!! We saw Ninjas and were able to throw the Ninja stars at targets and hold swords and see lots of typical settings from Old Japan - all-in-all quite a fun afternoon out - and better than it's billing from reviews online!! It is also probably the place where the Power Rangers ideas were created !!

We did a day visit to Himeji castle – one of the top 3 Shogun castles and also home to the Honda clan is years gone by. It was very impressive and had an enormous 6 storey keep at the top of the castle which we climbed up. There was no furniture in the castle or the grounds just a few Shogun/Samurai outfits and swords. There was a copy of a legal contract were the Shogun had borrowed 2000 Koto which was repayable over 5 yrs at an interest rate of 1%! The castle was in great Nick but they had not made the most of the stories and the history of what actually happened which was a shame. We then went to the zoo on site which had a great array of animals like Polar Bears, Sea lions, Bears, Elephants and tigers but the animals had little space and so we left early.

It was then time to leave the Westin and Kyoto – we had done a lot of day trips from there by bullet and local JR train and seen a lot. It was time to visit Hiroshima for the day on the way to Miyajima island. Well H was very interesting. We visited the A-dome, the last remaining building within 2km of the blast. 140,000 people died from the Atomic bomb. The Japanese did the Rememberance museum and the history in the national museum of Peace with such class – as you would expect in Japan – Courteous and respectful like the people. It was all done as “We want this episode to be a lesson to all people that peace is more important than anything else and there is a flame burning which will burn until no Nuclear weapons are left in this world” – They are using the episode to tell everyone Peace is best. A great example of how it should be done. We visited the exact place where the A bomb exploded 580m above the ground causing heat of 4ooo degrees Centigrade and devastating everything above ground for a 2km radius – all a very good lesson – especially good history lesson for the boys.

We continued on South to one of Japans southern most islands - Miyajima island – a sacred island which has the oldest Shinto Shrine from 560 – 550 years before Angkor Wat. The Shrine was built on the sea when tide in – unique Shrine gate which you can just walk to at low tide and stands in the water 30m high when tide in. We walked to the highest point of the island (just smaller than Rarotonga) at Mt Misen 500m Above-sea-level – a very hard 3km walk up & 3km down! All good exercise and great views on a lovely sunny cold day. We stayed for 2 nights in a proper Japanese hotel – full Japanese food for Breakfast and dinner – Fish entrails, Fish liver etc….. We found the dinners great but could not get to grips with dried fish and fish entrails for breakfast!! The boys bought Samurai swords and we walked around the lovely old really Japanese old town. A lovely place to visit – we even had a couple of Japanese baths! It was a really nice end to our Japanese trip to stay in true Japanese normality – Japanese Tatami mats to sleep on, eat on with the low table and chairs with no legs at the Ryokan – and a maid to serve you your food.

We left Miyajima for a long days travel back to Tokyo to catch our plane to Beijing the following day – our travel day back to Tokyo consisted of 1 ferry – 4 trains plus interconnections between local and national bullet trains – all quite hard work but the Japanese yet again incredibly helpful.

It is difficult to summarise Japan Sand our 2-week trip here. We have really enjoyed it – we thought the history would be a lot more interesting than it was 8/10 instead of 10/10 (China is the most historical country in Asia so hopefully we will get it there!). Old Japan and Japanese buildings were incredibly cool and awe-inspiring – new Japan appeared grey and dark – with not very much interesting architecture outside of Temples and shrines. Tokyo and the rest of Japan felt to us like London and the UK – very similar but with Japanese people and language – so we did immediately feel at home. We felt safer here than in London and yet again our trip has been made enjoyable by the guides and other people we have met who have been so incredibly helpful and friendly – and courteous and respectful. It seems a great place to live if you can master the language and can live in smaller spaces than most places in the world. It was nice for Sheena to feel tall for a change as well. So again we move on sad to be leaving – but now getting a bit travel weary and a bit homesick. But our last part of the trip is almost the most interesting China for 2 weeks travelling around and then 6 weeks living in Suzhou near Shanghai – where the kids go to school. We are looking forward to our last country – it is the big one – the one which could become the dominant player in the world that we need to help our kids learn about and help them understand for the future to be a brighter place…….but at the moment it is bloody freezing there and we have no clothes for the really cold so we will be shopping as soon as we land in Beijing tomorrow……!!

Our week in Thailand - hot or what!

2010-01-30T05:50:00.001-08:00

We flew to Bangkok and then rushed and nearly missed our connecting flight to Phuket despite it being the same seats on the same plane – but we had to clear customs, recheck in and run 2km back to our seat – why we had to do all this to get back in the same seat we are not sure??

We were taken straight to the boat and met the owner Sean, captain Jod and Tom, who had helped arrange the boat charter. We agreed the route around the Gulf of Thailand and the islands off Phuket for the week we had, and where to moor each night etc…. We had booked a Catamaran called Escape Artist, which was around 55ft, had 4 small cabins and had lots of deck space. We met Bi, the boatman/mechanic and Toon, the cook, and off we went. We were sailing around the huge limestone mountains (created through plates forcing the limestone from the bottom of the sea into these amazing shapes) that rise out of the water near Phuket Island and 50km around. There are literally hundreds of islands and very like Halong bay, which we had visited in Vietnam. The difference is that some of these islands are a little bigger and seem to have been more weathered and eroded into a whole range of different shapes.

And they include some famous islands where movies have been made. James Bond island with its huge slab of rock leaning against another mountain and its unique V-shaped island jutting out of the bay – all as per “the man with the Golden gun”. We also visited Phi-Phi islands. Phi Phi Don had been badly hit by the tsunami 6 years ago and had now been completely rebuilt – and overbuilt and now it is completely ruined, very touristy and busy. Ian had visited 20 years ago and stayed in one of a few huts on the beach with a few stalls – this quaintness had all gone – it was vey soul destroying that us humans now really do get everywhere – and in huge numbers!! We had the weirdest experience of our trip to date when we had "doctor fish" eat our feet of dead skin - the tickliest experience and very wierd - but they certainly did a good job for us all!

We then visited Phi Phi Le – where we saw a place on the rocks where they collect spit from the birds and their nests – for birds nest soup! We visited on the tender an amazing huge lagoon with vertical mountains on each side and only waist deep most of the time. And finally we moored up near Maya Bay which had an amazing beach – and this was where the movie “The Beach” was shot. We landed on all the islands with the tender boat and swam from the shore and wandered the islands where we could. Each night we moored at a different bay or island, swam and snorkeled from the boat. The boys learnt to fish with lines and catch a few fish. We saw turtles and razor fish, poisonous to touch. We wakeboarded with Sean, the owner of the boat, the night before we left and both the boys did well and avoided the Jellyfish. And on the last night saw the truly incredible sunset off the south side of Phuket island whilst having a glass or two!

The crew were really good as a team. The captain Jod was very friendly, ran the boat calmly and was co-operative on the options. Bi was so helpful on getting us to shore and helping with the kayak and fishing etc…. And Toon, the lady cook, served us excellent food – always Thai with a little western food for the kids. The crew really made the trip relaxing and enjoyable. The boat was perfect for the job. As it was hot we had plenty of deck space to sleep at night – as the cabins were not sleepable in due to the heat and were relatively cramped!! There was shade on top for sitting on during the heat of the day. And luckily, plenty of places to dive and jump off into the warm water.

So we really did live outside on the boat during the day, in the water every half an hour to cool off and slept outside on the netting or deck areas between the 2 hulls. No mosquitoes – lovely. We visited the beaches and islands that we were moored near. Most if not all were very busy during the day. We went to visit them before or after the visitors were there and tried to steer clear of the crowds, which we mostly succeeded in. We were glad we were not on land as it seemed incredibly busy whenever we landed on an island – thousands of people everywhere. The islands and the beaches were very beautiful and with the lovely warm weather and the outdoor life we all had a great time. Sheena was the only one who wanted to leave the boat early to get away from the heat but otherwise it was a really good and enjoyable break for us all – a break from the weeks of travelling around that we had all done and from the next stage of the travelling around in Japan and China.

We were sad to leave the boat – the crew had made our stay great and the thought of hitting the cold weather soon was worrying all of us after nearly 7 months in the sun or at least relatively warm weather!

We flew off to Bangkok early in the morning and arrived at the fabulous Four Seasons Hotel where my great friends David and Nuala had been married 20 years ago. A great hotel for anyone staying in Bangkok. We had a guide – Dang – for the day and travelled by train/boat/Tuctuc around Bangkok to see the Grand palace and main temples nearby. Despite having seen many, many temples these were quite interesting mainly because they were Buddhist and had much decoration in the form of Gold and jewels. Travelling around Bangkok versus Sheena and Ians trips 20 years ago, showed that Thailand had really developed and was a much more modern and clean city than we remembered. Because we had our guide we were able to see the old Bangkok as well and see the exciting parts, which are how we remember Bangkok.

Thailand is clearly a leading country of the southern Asia area. More developed than the rest and having never been taken over and controlled by anyone else – it feels assured of its position and the people are friendly and helpful – and we again felt very safe. With 66m people – 10m of which are in Bangkok - there are lots of Thais we did not meet and areas such as Chiang Mai and Koh Samui that we would like to do again one day. But Bangkok was a nice stopover and we flew on to Tokyo Japan after a long weekend to find out how northern Asia compared to the South – sending all our summer clothes and goods home to the UK and getting prepared for some colder weather – 5-10 degrees C versus 35-40 C that we have had in Thailand………..

Cambodia - so powerful 900 yrs ago!

2010-01-24T06:28:00.000-08:00

Cambodia - Siem Reap area

We left Vietnam having really enjoyed it, the people and the very interesting and quite unlucky history. We did not really know what to expect in Cambodia other than maybe more of the same. What we have found in our stay of just under a week is a country that is harder hit, poorer but almost friendlier and more welcoming as the country changes and updates itself going forward. And steeped in a lot more ancient history than Vietnam that has miraculously survived as many international and civil wars over hundreds of years and as recently as 1998. Amazing that just over 10 years it was civil war here.

But as a result we met and saw a hardworking, friendly, kind and helpful group which really enhanced our stay. Over the time here we have visited ancient temples, ancient towns, fed monkeys, ridden elephants, cycled through villages, visited people and farmers in the countryside, visited the floating villages by boat (complete with floating churches, schools and basketball pitches!), seen houses on stilts 50 feet high which have no water around but will have water at their door in the wet season, seen huge catfish, had snakes around our necks, ridden Tuk-tuks, seen Cambodian dancing and visited an orphanage of 35 Cambodian children. Quite a lot in a week.

Of the temples we have visited a whole range of temples from the 1000 odd temples in the area. From Angkor Wat, the main temple in the area built in 4 sq km’s of grounds, to a small one that we cycled past in a village with people living around it - a mere 750mx750m! Angkor Wat was built around 1110 and was meant to represent “Heaven on Earth”. There are 37 levels of Heaven and 32 levels of Hell. The ground is Level zero. All the stairs up from that are very steep and hard to climb as getting up to heaven was meant to be very hard! We got up to level 25, which was as high as you could go without a step ladder!! Not that that was a fair representation of our heavenly worth!! When you go to Angkor Wat, from the entrance where you walk in across a wide moat, that used to have 1 million crocodiles in, to the whole visit, you can just imagine it would have been hugely impressive – even more so than now – which was still very impressive. Angkor Wat is the biggest temple in Asia and just stunning – you have to be there – the pictures do not do it justice and we spent a lot of time wondering what it looked like in its heyday.

We have visited Buddhist temples where the King who built it was the Budhas representative on earth and his face was sculpted into all the buildings, to Hindu temples where there are 3 gods worshipped (Siva – (the most powerful), Visnuk and Praman) and 4 pools of water everywhere representing the 4 elements (Fire, Earth, Air and Water) that were also worshipped to bring good health, crops and everything else. All of the temples were square in pattern with amazing sculptures telling stories of Chinese visitors and life in the times they were built – we saw a Chinese umbrella carving, the Chinese trading with the locals as well as heaven and earth representations. We also visited temples that are still being recovered from the jungle – with one that the King dedicated to his Mother that was very impressive and wealthy with lots of gold, diamonds and jewels apparently in its heyday in 1115 or so – but it had softwood trees and roots growing all over the monuments and temples. When the temples were used there was no forest around – then the forest engulfed all of the temples around and now they are being cleared and parts of the temples being replaced and rebuilt.

We also saw Angkor Tom, the capital city of the Khmer empire at its height. Although many temples in the area were built from 8/900 AD it was not until 1100 that the power base of the Khmer empire was at its peak. This included Cambodia of today, most of Thailand, Vietnam, and some of Southern China. So pretty big. It took 200 years to fall apart as country after country invaded it – with the Monguls finally breaking it up into smaller pieces in the 1400’s. During the peak of power the capital was mainly at Angkor Tom – a city about 12 sq. km’s with a couple of huge temples – Buddhist ones in the city – the Hindus had to live out of the city and attend Angkor Wat temple just half a mile away. About 1m people lived in the city, where there was also a Royal Palace complete with the biggest swimming pool made – even now as it is around 200m long – and was meant for the use of the 3000 concubines the King had. The king had his own pool next to it. The city also had its own impressive Olympic Stadium complete with Olympic flame statue!

The kids were very good and quite enjoyed the big temples. The boys found Angkor Wat amazing – Megan was so well behaved and earned a horse ride in Angkor Wat around the lake as a reward for good behaviour. As temples go they are by far the most interesting we have seen and we are lucky to have experienced them. Feeding the monkeys with bananas and riding the elephant on a proper old fashioned seat, made it all the more fun for the whole family.

Our other activities have helped us learn a lot about Cambodia and get to know the locals, and feel as though we have got under the skin of the country so much more than Vietnam. Your experiences are mainly based on the people you meet and the stories they tell – and for that Cambodia has been an experience.

The 3 most interesting people trips we took were cycling through the villages, going by boat through the floating villages and visiting the orphanage. We felt a real warmth from the people. Very relaxed and laid back in life, you get the feeling that Cambodians are happy cruising along in life, as long as they have enough food to live and no pressures. It certainly did not have the fell of Vietnam of striving to get somewhere! Maybe Cambodia is just happy to have peace and just being is a very happy existence – anyway it certainly gave us a feeling that they are generally happy people. And this despite the poverty that we saw in and heard about through the villages and at the orphanages. Cambodia is definitely poorer than any of its neighbours – and this from a country that had an empire and power 500 years ago.

It was great to meet up with John Palfrey, who was on sabbatical at an orphanage in Siem Reap. John works for Amex in the personal travel dept and had helped Ian plan and book our whole trip. So despite spending many hours on the phone we had never met John. John has been there for around 4 of his 6 months and is helping the orphanage. He showed us around where they house 35 kids between (4 months and 16 yrs old) and feed up to 100 each day. Our kids played football with the boys which they really enjoyed and Megan played with all the girls. A great cause and one we hope to help in the future. As they are about to expand to a second facility – resources are stretched so I am sure john and the other volunteer helpers are making a big difference to many kids. Keep it up.

The Government of Cambodia is democratic with 25-odd parties – but the main party CCP – which is filled with a number of ex-Khmer Rouge people – still holds control – and the government appears to be friendly with Vietnam communist party. There is currently a mini war with Thailand over a temple on the border which the World heritage agreed was Cambodian some years ago which the Thai people claim was given back to them in a recent agreement – with a previous Thai prime minister – Shinawatra (the ex-Man City owner!) - who is now a finance adviser to the Cambodian government!!

Cambodia was more enjoyable than Vietnam – we are not quite sure why – probably because of the more friendly people – but that is unfair to the Vietnamese – as they were all very friendly too. Maybe it was the greater feeling for hope that we warmed to. Anyway we definitely have Cambodia on our list to come back to!!

Vietnam - Ho Chi Min city - formally known as Saigon - the South

2010-01-24T06:23:00.000-08:00

We moved onto the South expecting a less positive Communist view. As the US base was in Saigon during the war we expected a very pro American area. Actually we found although it was positive it was not as positive as we thought it would be. It was hot and we were staying in the centre of the city: near Notre Dam and near the main square (very French built during their reign some years ago). Saigon was more modern than the other cities but still with a huge number of mopeds. When the USA supported south "Nam" was fighting with the north "Viet" the communist north was supported by Russia/China. The war was over the spread of communism or control of this important land for resources. But when the USA left the "Nam" Vietnamese id a deal with the north communist Vietnamese and the USA south was controlled again byt he Communists. The name Saigon was changed to Ho Chi Min city to re-inforce Communism across the new Viet-Nam - a merger of the North and the South to communism.

Although Hanoi is the oldest city and Hanoi is 1000 yrs old on 10/10/10, Saigon is the biggest city - 8m people - 5m mopeds!!

Newer City - around 100 yrs old - less French influence than Hanoi - American influence now - 300 yrs ago Saigon and surrounding area was part of Cambodia.

Vidotour travel agent is private company - pays government a fee each month - government sells off poor performing companies under an "equitisation programme" which privatises part and then the whole of these previously government held companies. Government gets more money.

Houses on Saigon 5m wide versus Hanoi/Hoi An at 2 or 3m wide - so not so tall and thin here.

12k p.a. Killed on road due to mopeds - less than before as now you at least have to wear a helmet - most of the time!

Viet Cong soldiers were soldiers of the North - some were fighting in the south - difficult for Americans to tell the difference and many V Cong were suicide bombers. Very aggressive war - US withdrew in 1973 after 17 yrs due to political pressure in the USA.

Vietnam was a key middle country in the East/West, Communist/capitalist or Cold war as North Vietnam or Viet people were Communist and behind the Iron Curtain - and South Vietnam were supported by the USA/West.

The war memorial in Saigon is very anti-American - although also factual and very scary true representation of alot of it - huge tanks and planes. Lots of gruesome pictures - both Americans and Viet Cong both did some horrible things to each other.

We had a very interesting day touring the horrific war Museum and visiting the Cu Chi tunnels - an area that used to grow fruit and rubber trees near the cambodian border. These Guerilla fighters in USA Vietnam territory kept the USA at bay by digging a whole network of trenches - some of which went to Cambodia, who supported the Viet Cong with weapons - and some went underground to the river for supplies. But these guerillas built a superb defence mechanism and a whole range of guerilla jungle weapons like spiked doors and animal traps/mines which helped defeat the Americans. The tunnels were very small - even my slim (not!) self could only just get through - so the US soldiers with their gear often got stuck! the small Viet Cong soldiers never did.

We had a great last evening in Saigon as all but the most communist person in Saigon now call it - officials call it Ho Chi Min City - everyone living there Saigon. We had a great Vietnamese meal - at the Lemon grass restaurant and wandered the main square where other V families hung out.

We were not that sad to leave Vietnam - our guides were all great and really informative. We learned a huge amount about how this country ticks and the people live. Vietnam has had to endure a huge amount of war - not just one or two but continuous over many many years -and very violent wars as well. It seems V has been in the middle of so many power struggles e.g. between Communism and capitalism. We kept wondering what the V people had done to deserv e it so bad. We could not find anything or any reason that they deserved it other than circumstance and position! But it seems to us that V is still a country chasing a dream - I am not sure the people and the Government have the same dream - but it varies greatly across the country. We had done Vietnam - we found the people very friendly and helpful - but with a mission behind it that we could not fully get clear in our minds. We did enjoy the V experience and would not have missed it but going back to V versus other countries would be a tough call.

And so we went off to Cambodia expecting something similar to the Saigon area of Vietnam...........

Vietnam - Hoi An - the middle

2010-01-24T03:15:00.000-08:00

We moved onto the central part of Vietnam - flying to Danang and then driving on to Hoi An. This was the area where the North and South divide of old V had occurred so it was a changing point of views in Vietnam - we had strongly communist views and also some alternative views expressed for the first time. Danang was also where the US army landed during the V war and where the soldiers did R&R on the beach. Whereas the north had been coldish - the middle was warm and balmy! Hoi An was a stylish old town on the coast and with rivers through the town (a tiny Venice) that had had Chinese and Japanese traders living there for centuries - and the houses and temples are classy and styled by each culture along the very narrow cobbled streets and canals. About 30 years ago the japanese were told they had to go home and so all the Japanese left and then in 1990's chinese left so now a historical town lived in by wealthy vietnamese - the town has a lovely feel to it and a very different one to the hustle and bustle of Hanoi.

We toured the temples - Chinese, Japanese, Buddhist etc... and had tea in one of the old Japanese houses - cultured Vietnam had arrived. We visited the silk factory and the kids made lanterns and learnt how silk worms created the silk. We saw one of Chinas first newspapers from the 1600's - a daily typeface newspaper carved out of wood for each daily edition! (Who said Rupert Murdoch invented newspapers!).

The next day it was pouring with rain so we decided to go on a covered boat trip and find a fisherman for the boys to go fishing with. After a tour around the rivers, we found a fisherman in his wooden canoe. Our guide negotiated and Sam and Toby were despatched on the canoe in pouring rain (the first time we have used our lightweight rain macs that we have carried around the world for 6 months!) The fishing hour was not very successful but one small fish was caught - this fisherman made an average of $5 a day on a good fishing day and this day he made a bit more than that but did not catch much! It was an experience for us all to see a trade in action which earned the fisherman a living - even if sometimes it was very frugal. An essay was written by the boys about a day in the life of a Vietnamese fisherman which were both very good!

We learned a bit more about the politics of the country from various guests in the hotel. The communist party still keeps a strong feeling in the middle of the country. We left to find out about the final bit of Vietnam - in the south.

Vietnam - Hanoi and the north

2010-01-24T01:45:00.000-08:00

Vietnam - Hanoi and Halong bay

We arrived in Hanoi from HK expecting Vietnam to be much less civilised than HK with an air of excitement about how undeveloped and natural it would be. We arrived at our hotel and found a beautiful colonial hotel that was anything but basic – especially after having eaten a great fish BBQ meal at apparently the best restaurant in Hanoi!!

The next day we set off with our guide, Hang, to explore Hanoi, the wars that V have suffered and to find out about Hanoi, the capital city, Communism and Ho Chi Min – the V president who took the country to independence in 1945. The key facts are:

Vietnam summary

* Ho Chi Min president of Vietnam from 1945 when independence gained from French after 100 yrs - he was president for 34 yrs until 1969 when he died. 79 died of old age and smoking alot! Body embalmed in mausoleum in Hanoi.

* 6.5m people in Hanoi - 86m people in Vietnam - ho chi min city 10m.

* Confucious was followed in 15th century by the then King and vietnam had more temples than in China supporting Confucious. V has 3000 yr old history as it's own country.

* After 1945 independence, French came back for a 9 yr war which they lost and then Americans came for the Vietnam war which finished in 1973 - they lost as Russians were helping to defend V and communism. Then Civil war until 1975 between Ho Chi Min communist abd the southern US puppet government - Ho Chi Min supporters won! Communist country now with one party and president elected with prime minister and General Secretary of Communist party is also an important part of the three decision makers in the country.

* Ho Chi Min was described as the countries hero and you could see why – but V life under him was still very tough and on the basis that if it looks too good to be true – it usually is we did find some unrest and differing views about both HCM and also the current V situation. But HCM is generally hugely revered and probably rightly so from what we heard.

* V war was US supporting South Vietnam and Russia/China supporting the North. North, communist, finally won and Viet (the name for the North) became a communist Viet Nam (Nam meaning the south) – when unified then known as Vietnam.

* 117:100 current boy to girls ratio - could go to 150:100. Government now encouraging girls.

* 4 Sacred animals: Unicorn (dog/lion mix), Dragon, Tortoise & Phoenix.

* Yellow colour royal V colour and used for Government buildings - Lotus flower national flower.

* Vietnam Emperor left V in 1945 after independence from French to live in France after advising HCM for 3 months. Family have now died and only distant relatives now survive.

* V people have 24m motorbikes - carry fridges and cows on them. Buildings are very vertical as pay for front space - so tall and thin buildings.

* 54 ethnic minority groups - 86% of V people are V people - other 53 minority groups make up other 14 %.

* V currency is V Dong - and there are 30,000 Dong to a £1 and 20,000 to a $1 - so I felt like a king when I had 4 million Dong from the ATM - but less than £150.

* V hats made of wood frame and palm leaves woven with silk.

* Wishing tree from Mekong river people. They use for making wishes come true!

* 4.8 million people were affected during US Vietnam war by a chemical warfare - called Agent Orange - sprayed over jungle during war - 500k children also affected - will pass from generation to generation - also had blue and white but Orange gad deforming chemical in it - not enough money to support them. Huge political issue across the world – especially between USA and V – still to be resolved.

On our tour the next day we visited the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Min in central Hanoi and visited the French Indo-China presidential palace pre-1945, which Ho Chi Min declined to live in but used as his administrative offices. We visited the 2 houses Ho Chi Min lived in – very basic, simple style in his very small Presidential complex. Although it all looked fairly communist it had a good feel as HCM’s praises were sung by all around. We learnt much about this truly amazing guy who genuinely put the people before him and supported a communist environment that he created with Karl Marx and Lenin as his heroes – neither of whom he met!

We visited temples – especially the Confucious one – which was V’s leading University – only for the top students who went on to advise the Emperor/President. In the 15^th century the V emperor was so enamoured with Confucious that many temples were built and converted to support Confucious – despite the Emperor probably never meeting Confucious – in fact there were more Confucious temples in V than there were in China – where he originated!! We visited the Museum of ethnic minorities where we saw round how the 54 different ethnic minorities lived – accounting for 16 per cent of the V population today – the rest are true V people. We saw the different tribes and buildings they lived in – long houses for big families and tall meeting houses. We also met hoardes of school children from out of town who had never seen a blond girl and so were desperate to touch Megans face all the time (which she was not happy about!) and talk to the boys. We also visited the “Hanoi Hilton” – a prison where the Vietnamese kept American pilots prisoners – including John McCain and found out more about the war. We also visited an arts and Crafts centre where everything was made by the victims of the US attacks using Agent Orange which affected 4.5m people and 0.5m of their children – a real scandal that has not really become a front and centre political issue of the V war – but I am sure it will do one day!

All-in-all Hanoi is a huge sprawling city, hugely populated, the core of the communist party originates from here. And it is a city which is need of upgrading (like much of Danang) to be more modern. Saying that we always felt safe and were fascinated by the huge number of people – always very friendly – and mopeds everywhere with everything from fridges to cows strapped to the back. In the north of V it was a good start to seeing V.

The next day we left Hanoi and drove 3 hours to Halong bay – for those of you that saw the Top Gear programme – this was the route they took too. They were on bikes we were in a mini-bus. We drove past the Vietnamese at work on the land with their bamboo pointed hats,, selling anything and everything from the roadside and their tall thin homes (you pay government rates based on the road frontage width of your house – so most houses are very narrow – go along way back and are 3 or 4 storeys high! Even if built on there own in the middle of nowhere. We arrived at Halong bay remembering the funny time the Top Gear guys had had there. We boarded our junk and sailed off for a 2-day tour through the Halong bay limestone mountains – all 1969 of them – jutting out vertically from the water. We sailed slowly and the mist was in and it was very beautiful and eerie! We arrived at an island which had a sandy beach and a massive cave with Stalactites (from the roof) and Stalacmites from the ground – made from calcium and limestone. It was a big cave and we were the only ones in it at the time. We then went for a kayak with our guide around a range of islands and caves – it was very peaceful as we were in the middle of Halong bay with no-one around. We were the only ones on our private junk! Our guide The and our 7-crew on board to serve us (a bit over the top) were all very friendly. We had amazing food served to us and clapped at every opportunity as a group – especially whilst singing a range of songs accompanied by Sams guitar – and singing loudly a number of times en masse “Vietnam Ho Chi Min” in support of the famous man! Which of course we were all asked to join in with after dinner.

All the boats in Halong bay were interesting – the tourist boats were all Chinese style junks. The local fishermans boats were made of mud and palm leaves and rowed along so quietly – rowing the wrong way (pushing) whilst standing up. We went to the village where all the fisherman and their families lived. Houses floating on barrels – kids who learnt to swim before they could walk – families who had never been on land and who fished for generations living in this particular ring of Halong bay mountains protected from Typhoons. A real treat and experience to see how these people lived in the middle of Halong bay (2 hrs from any civilisation). Pretty basic living but fishing/tourism has kept the fishing village tidy, well kept and the kids/Adults fed and watered - some families have never left their floating villages.

We then headed back to town through the bay enjoying the views of all these extraordinary mountains created by upthrust from 2 plates coming together (no volcanoes involved here) bringing the limestone from below the earths surface to above. The water levels in the bay is around 15-20m deep still – which ties in with when the water levels rose 15m many millions years ago and flooded the mountainous plains – now below the sea.

Vietnam and the north is very much the communist base of old - and actually is still very strong and supportive of communism - selling it as a modified and improved version - which it comes across as. Yopu get the feeling the people in hanoi are striving al the time to improve their lives - a bit like London or other cities around the world. Hanoi does need modernising - it is still old and run down in parts. But it has a character and charm - and the mopeds are speeding everywhere. Crossing the road slowly despite the oncoming traffic is a unique skill we survived to acquire!

With the tour of the north V complete we jumped on our plane to Danang in the centre of V – where the US army landed for the V war. We were interested to learn if there were different points of view to this country which seemed very happy, friendly and content to live happily in a well modernised communist infrastructure. All with 2 mopeds each!!!!

Hong Kong - a great warm up for the Asia part of our trip

2010-01-12T21:39:00.000-08:00

Hong Kong - Jan 3rd 2010:

We arrived in HK after a very good and comfortable flight with Cathay Pacific – an excellent airline! We were amazed at the drive into HK about the enormous range of high rise blocks – so very different to our experiences of the last 3 months really – HK is double the size of Rarotonga roughly – Raro has 9900 people – HK has 7m people!!! So a huge difference. The drive with Dave, our guide, to our hotel in Kowloon summed it all up – we saw Ferraris, drove past homes with values of US$100m and hundreds and hundreds of high rise apartments and office blocks – all around the beautiful HK harbour. We could not wait to visit HK as we had nearly lived here for 2 years when Ian nearly worked for sister company Star TV in 1994. Sheena had never visited and we immediately felt at home.

Our hotel was on Kowloon side overlooking the harbour and HK island itself and the main business area and buildings – a good view during the day and even better at night. The weather was winter in HK so was about 16 degrees C or so – so cold from where we had come from and we actually wore jumpers most days! We set off immediately to a local restaurant for a proper Chinese meal and had a great meal for only US$50 – very good value – and the kids and Sheena made a good start of learning to eat with chopsticks.

We were in HK for quite a few days so we spent the first 2 days touring ourselves around the Museum of the HK story, 100 yrs of China exhibition, visiting Ocean park and the antique shops in Hollywood Road. We got around on the MTR (tube) and ferry and the cheap taxis (only HK$18 (£1.50) for 2km) ourselves and wandered HK – in both the nice western areas and some of the more Chinese areas. It was all very interesting just to be there and see the different shops and way of life versus our normal experiences. We ate local Chinese food and felt very safe. We had a few chores like picking up Malaria tablets for the next part of our trip; getting our new Amex cards which had been cancelled due to card fraud we think in South America; and getting our multiple entry Chinese visas sorted – as well as sending a few more bags around the world!!

On our last full day in HK we had our guide, Dave, take us around to the more touristy places – The Peak (Victoria), which had amazing views of HK and some amazing multi, multi million pound houses (The higher you live the more wealthy you are – apparently – must be true from the people building a new basement!!) – Stanley Market where we bought a Feng Shui predictor and our stamps in our Chinese star/animal signs. We visited Aberdeen fishing village – by junk as it was a floating fishing village and then ate in the world famous Jumbo floating restaurant (famous in the Man with the Golden Gun – for those of us that remember the movie) and had a delicious Dim Sum. We then trekked off miles to see the giant Buddha – biggest Buddha in Asia – getting there by MTR, cable car, bus and then returning by bus, boat and then the star ferry – 4 hours in total and it was so cloudy/rainy we could not see half the Buddha. But we did learn that Buddha is a female and how Buddhism came about in China/HK. And we saw a lot of HK and how the Chinese live on the way out and back!!

HK was handed back to the Chinese on 1^st July 1997, just before Sam was born! The Brits were given it by China as part of the Nanjing settlement in 1845 which sounds like a very one-sided agreement against the Chinese. Macau was given to the Portugese at the same time. A fishing village at the time, it has grown into a huge port and financial centre over this time – I remember stories from friends who lived in HK that it would not be the same after the Chinese took back control in 1997 – but it seemed to us that it was every bit as it was pre-1997 when I spent quite a bit of time in HK. Ridiculous property prices and lots of hustle and bustle! We even had considered buying a big boat and living on that in the marina rather than rent a ridiculously priced tiny apartment.

We really enjoyed HK – the ambience, the Chinese western mix – the hustle and bustle of the place – there was a real buzz to it – and it was a great entry and warm up for our trip through Asia to follow. We left feeling very warm to Asia and really ready and open to the new experiences that the next part of our Asian trip would bring. Our thanks to Dave, our guide, who really helped make our trip to HK a very memorable one. HK is now one for the list of “We must go back without kids” as the shopping (There seems to be a huge shopping centre at every tube station/everywhere as there is no sales tax!) and the fun life look a great option to try out sometime. (Sorry kids!)

Xmas & New Year in NZ - then time to leave NZ sadly....

2010-01-08T05:35:00.000-08:00

NZ Xmas 2009 / New Year 2010:

Xmas 2009 came up on us very quickly. Because we were in the sun a lot over the run up to it, it just was not the same preparation and build up as we would do in the UK! It was great to arrive in lake Rotoiti and meet up with Ians family from the UK – but his brother Martin and family and Sheenas Mum/Dad and brother and their families were also not in NZ and we would normally be around them at Xmas. So 4 days before Xmas we all made a list of what was important to us at Xmas and off we went to purchase it all from Rotorua. It was a day of preparing the house we had rented at the lake into a UK Xmas house. By the end of the day with everyones help we had succeeded with Xmas tree, decorations and enough food to feed us over the Xmas period!

The next few days were great fun as we chilled out, waterskied, fished, went to the hot baths only accessible by boat and enjoyed being around the family and our NZ cousins again. Each day a new set of cousins arrived so that by Xmas day we had all met up with everyone. It was good that we all got along very well and all the kids mixed very well as they were all in a similar age bracket.

On Xmas day we were woken early by Toby who had got the time wrong !! It was 6am so we all got up and Father Xmas had come – So Megan and all the kids were very excited and we got the present opening underway immediately!! All the family then arrived and we had a West/Laskey morning present opening, a Xmas waterski/wakeboard, went for a walk and preparing a full UK Xmas lunch. We set the table outside and had a delicious Xmas lunch overlooking the lake, on the hottest Xmas day in NZ for 10 years! After lunch we lay like beached whales in the garden thinking of swimming but worried we would sink!

In the evening we had a fabulous BBQ at Jim and Eves house next door with all of the cousins and family – about 30 people in total. It started early and went on quite late and was a great end to a Xmas in NZ and outside the UK. Eve and Ians’ dad both made a speech which was also good fun.

For the next week we just chilled out, fishing, waterskiing, wakeboarding, teaching some of the cousins to ski, sailing, jumping from the Pohutukawa tree into the lake. We also visited a variety of historical Maori historical sites and saw boiling mud pools, geysers shooting water out of the ground and hot pools. And a village buried underground called the “Buried Village” which was not that interesting because – it was buried!! We should have figured that one out! All-in-all it was a relaxing time and enabled everyone to chill out and enjoy the activities above and each others company. Especially as at the end of the break some were going to Sydney, some round NZ, some back to England – and we would not see everyone again until April.

It was also a time to get to know the cousins better who we had not met for sometime or at all. The kids all got on brilliantly and it was interesting that similar aged kids on different sides of the world were all very similar! Harry looked like Sam; Megan fell in love with Harry who dealt with it politely and brilliantly!! Ben was a great wakeboarder and by the end a very good mono skier in only a few days and Harry did the best first run on 2 skis I have ever seen – up first time, out of the wake both sides, round the turn again, again and again, and then let go after a long, long go and did not get his hair wet – saying why does everyone think skiing is hard!! Richard taught us all to fish for Rainbow trout in the lake – as a freshwater ecologist and on the fishing council if he could not catch fish then no-one could – but he was an expert tutor with the kids and they all caught fish – with Toby winning our families prize with 2 fish well over 5lbs which Sheena and Ruth cooked to perfection for us. The Stockers took us for a mountain bike ride thru Rotorua forest deicated to bikes – a great fun morning out which the boys really enjoyed – we need to do more of that now that we have been introduced to it.

Helen and her family left on the 29^th Dec to tour the South island as we did before Xmas and so it was really lovely to spend 4 quieter days with Ians Dad and his wife Ruth, with Jim and Eve also around. These were our last days by the lake – I remembered it as a paradise all those years ago and it had not changed really at all – and still lived up to its billing!! Our enormous thanks to Jim and Eve who helped us out enormously with our trip and were so hospitable to us all with an open house and also the lending of all their water gear and especially speed boat! It all made for a fabulous and enjoyable time – and luckily all parts of the family got on like a house on fire and new and hopefully long lasting friendships and family relationships were made. The next generation of kids hopefully will have friends on the other side of the world – and we hope to see our NZ cousins in the UK as they, like most NZ’ers, get their rucksack on and travel Europe in the years to come.

We left the lake with a big sadness – and said goodbye to Jim and Eve. We then had a nice lunch saying goodbye to Dad and Ruth as they went off elsewhere in NZ and then return to a cold UK! We were excited to go to the Cambridge area where the NZ cousins lived normally and Ian had been a tutor at a Private school (like a Public school in the UK) all those years ago. The first port of call was the Cambridge cricket pitch where Ian had scored his first hundred – all very interesting for Ian but not so for everyone else. Next we visited St Peters school which had increased in size by 3-fold and was an extremely impressive school with a golf range/academy, an equestrian arena and the best sporting facilities seen at almost any school! It obviously was holiday time and Ian started nosing around his old house where he was tutor and coached cricket. He found in his old room the current house tutor for the house and said hello and a good chat (see photo). It was great for ian to see where he spent a year of his life but soon everyone else got bored and we moved on to see the NZ cousins again in their current homes. We had kindly been offered to stay with Diana and Todd with Harry and Ben in their house (that used to be Dianas grandparents in Auckland but they had moved in 4 parts 2 hrs south and then put back together – and very well done too!) We had a great afternoon with them and then went to the races (Trots) in Cambridge nearby. The next morning was Megans 4^th birthday and we woke up to presents over breakfast which Diana and family unfortunately had to put up with but hopefully enjoyed. After packing up we went to Dianas brothers house Tim – and his wife Jo and kids Matthew, Thomas and Kate. They had some friends staying also with some more girls who had kindly made cards and over a great BBQ lunch we then had a birthday cake etc… for Megan so an enjoyable birthday for her.

Tim and Jo’s house was amazing – an award winning architect designed house that would fit into the Dream Homes worldwide programme. A great view of the Waikato river and valley/plain out of 270 degrees of the house from on top of a hill – awesome location. Yet again we had great hospitality and the kids swam and played around – thank you to Tim/Jo and Diana/Todd for all your hospitality.

Then Tim took us on a tour of the dairy farm during milking which was very interesting to know that milk comes from cows and not the fridge. It was very funny – as we walked into the milking shed a cow released brown and yellow matter all over the milking man covering him from head to foot – that was funny but we also got covered from knee to foot! And then it happened again – Tim said the cows only did it when the English came to the milking shed apparently!! After our tour and quad bike ride (all NZ farmers now use quad bikes and more farmers are killed by quad bikes each year than anything else!) it was time for our last good byes to the Montgomeries and Stockers and head off on our 90 minute drive to Auckland for our flight to Hong Kong the next morning.

We really have had a brilliant time in NZ – such friendly people we met plus renewing and starting new friendships with previously distant cousins. Fabulous scenery and awesome activities (Bungy, swimming with dolphins, rafting, hiking, fishing, waterskiiing etc…). The lake Rotoiti which really is a special place and the country has a special feel to it for visitors as an exciting outdoorsy type of place with extremely friendly and hospitable people. So another experience on our trip with very few negatives!! Another great memory for us all – next time Ian and Sheena will probably do NZ in an RV!

We got on the plane to Hong Kong/Asia a bit wary of the next stage of our trip as we would encounter a substantial period with out English as the first language; a period of relatively cold weather for the first time on our trip and school in China which we believe will be a hard challenge for the kids. But also we know we are visiting countries we have not spent much time in and so they are really different – but good for more experiences and learning of new cultures and meeting more, different people and seeing what makes them tick! We couldn’t wait……..

NZ - touring around till Xmas

2010-01-07T06:42:00.000-08:00

We arrived in NZ on Dec 6th after flying over the great scenery around Auckland. The adults were very excited about arriving back in NZ after 27 years for Ian and Sheena after 20+ years. We met Ians niece, Emma (who had recently been working with horses in NZ for a few months) and Eve, Ians NZ cousin, in the airport as Eve had kindly brought Emma to the airport to travel with us. We had not seen Emma since July and Eve since 2002 so we had a nice breakfast catching up after an overnight flight. We then jumped into our Toyota Previa (as we were 6 people!) and drove north over Harbour Bridge for the 4 hours to Bay of Islands. We thought it was better to do the drive straight away after the flight and it was. We started on the tour that the Inglis family had helped us design. We arrived in Russell after a ferry trip across and to the hotel lodge recommended well by the Inlgis family. It was in an excellent very central location, with good rooms and we did not move more that 100yds away from the hotel on land for the 5 days we were there! The coffee shop, Ice cream place, lunch café, Thai and seafood restaurants and the small supermarket were all in that radius – and the lodge looked out over the harbour of Russell and the pier with all its activities.

We indulged in relaxing and enjoying the fabulously warm weather for the time of year and used the local activities extensively. We went dolphin watching and swimming with them; caught an 8kg Snapper as well as a range of 4/5 kg ones which we cooked on our BBQ – absolutely delicious (only hours old fresh fish will do now!); went on a tour of the Bay of Islands at breakneck speed on the superfast Excitor and through the hole in the rock at the top of the bay of islands; saw Jesus birds walking/flitting across the water; saw hundreds of gannets diving into the water from great heights to catch fish in front of us and saw stingrays on the beach. And Emma took Megan horse riding in Paihia where Megan rode into the sea on her horse. We all, and especially the kids, enjoyed having Emma travelling with us adding a huge level of fun.

We decided to use our newly gained diving certificates and go diving on the way back to Auckland as we had heard that the diving in Poor Knights islands was great and one of the best places in the world to dive. So we booked a dive/snorkelling boat trip from Tutukaka, on the East coast just north of Whangerei, and sailed out to the islands which look like a Poor Knight (dead) lying down – hence the name from Captain Cook. On the way we saw a huge sail fish, dolphins, penguins and a shark. Sheena and Ian dived whilst the kids snorkelled and saw a range of fish and some huge giant stingrays. We saw a large scorpion fish – a relation of the stone fish which we did not touch! The diving was not as good as it was billed to be with not brilliant visibility and lots of kelp everywhere. The kids did well on their snorkelling and Megan looked very cute in her wetsuit and saw some fish. Then we toured around the Poor Knights islands, which are a mini Galapagos with amazing wildlife being cultivated on the islands (like the native kiwi which is very limited in numbers) but we could not land at all as it is a protected reserve. We also saw huge shoals of fish including blue Maumau which ate krill on the surface in teams and then flocks of seagulls picked up the left overs – an incredible site to see right next to the boat.

We then stayed in a B&B (unusually a late booked B&B!) with a lovely Dutch couple with a gnome garden in a nice B&B. We visited Whangarei waterfall and saw the local school kids swinging from a rope into the river above the falls! And then we went for dinner in Whangarei near the marina. Whangarei is the home in NZ of big and expensive boat building. I recently met a guy who had picked up his latest boat in NZ and sailed through the South Pacific islands on his way to the Caribbean – sadly going through th South pacific before we were there – but certainly a trip we would love to do one day in the future!!

The next day we drove back the shortish distance to Auckland having really enjoyed the Bay of Islands trip. Neither Sheena nor Ian had visited the are on their previous trips and so it was good to have finally got there – although as ever we would have liked to have gone to 90 mile beach and farther north to the northern most tip of NZ – again another one for the future!

We caught a domestic flight to Queenstown in the South island and picked up our best car of the trip so far – a Mitsubishi Delica. When Ian drove up to pick up the family everyone burst into laughter as it looks so odd – although the Europcar lady sold it a hummer look-a-like – it was nothing like it !! But it was the last 6 or 7-seater rental car in the South Island so we had no other choice – and we all decided to blame – sorry I mean thank - Emma for coming with us for this beautiful car to travel around in for 10 days! It even came with a hard disk full of Japanese and Indian sounding music with songs that seemed to be based on British nursery rhymes!

We drove up to our recommended place to stay (thanks again to the Inglis family) and were met by very friendly hosts of the newly converted Lakeside apartments right on Lake Wanaka with stunning views of the lake and surrounding mountains. We had a range of activities in Wanaka and Queenstown over the 5 days we were there and actually should have split the stay between the 2 venues but the Wanaka place we stayed was superb and excellent value.

The first day Ian, Sheena and the boys, did the Siberian experience from Matarora (an hours drive through stunning scenery). This involved being flown by Wayne the pilot in a very small 6 seater plane further up the snowy valley than we already were, having taken off from a grass (quite nicely mown!) airstrip in a field. The flight was pretty bumpy and we flew for half an hour or so into the correct Siberian valley and landed – this time in a field with an orange marker! We all jumped out relieved to have made it – only to be told that we had only had 2 sets of waders and that we would need to cross a very wide and fast moving river (much rain recently!) to the other side – carrying Sam and Toby on our backs with our rucksacks, phones and cameras! Luckily we both made it across without a major fall but only a few slips. We waved goodbye to Wayne the pilot, watched whilst he took off without us and enjoying the peace and quiet of being 4 hours away from any civilisation – but not knowing where the hell we were. Our brief was to cross over the river turn left and deliver a newspaper to the ranger in the hut at the top of the valley – which was an awesome and lonely place – looking to the end of the valley with only huge snowy mountains and dark stormy clouds facing you. After doing our delivery job we were told to walk back down the valley for 3 hours or so keeping the river on our right until we get to 2 dead trees and at around 3pm a jet boat would meet us and take us back to Matarora – our start point. And off we set in the wilderness, with fast changing weather from rain, snow and sun within the walk – and through plains, over mountain tracks and around a mountain. One of the 2 most amazing things were the solitude of just us in this amazing wilderness trying to find our way out to civilisation (with no guide!) and the amazing waterfalls that just came out of the forest at any point being fed by the melting snow above. At one point we could see 10 waterfalls and rivers running down the mountain – many of them merging into huge waterfalls lower down. Anyway we had a great hike through great scenery and really enjoyed ourselves – despite Sams trainer breaking early on and he had to walk with his heel up for most of the way – but very impressively no whingeing (we are not Whingeing Poms!!) . We found the 2 dead trees easily enough surprisingly and waited to be met by out jet boat! At that point we saw Biggles driving up in his jet boat. I say Biggles because he really looked like the name and should have been ultra-English and a fighter pilot. He was a great character and drove us excitingly and at a breakneck speed, with great panache and style back to base as only Biggles could – over 45 minutes. All very exciting and fun. So all in all a great experience and one that we would highly recommend to others.

Shotover Jet boat ride – no Meggie as the water was too high – it was even more exciting than Biggles as we drove so so close to major rocks at each side of the river – and great 360’s – very fast and near the edge – the driver again was very cool – and he got paid to drive it!! Then lunch in Queenstown and then I&S went white water rafting whilst Emma and the kids went up the gondola in Queenstown and did the Luge ride and saw Birdworld including the Kiwi and Possum.

The drive to rafting on the Shotover river was more scary than the rafting for Ian as it was huge vertical drops on a winding, steep, crumbling road with an open drop where the road was so narrow that the wheels had to be on the edge to get down and round the corners – there was a young driver – luckily he was very good but absolutely terrifying – luckily we had a very funny guide chatting to us all the way to the rafting with gags like “no-one has ever died on this road – they all have died down there – over the edge at the bottom of the valley!” All very helpful! Then we actually got briefed and went rafting in a mostly British group with one very annoying German – we had Daniel as our guide with one years experience – we were all warned that a few have not made it down so go carefully. We really enjoyed the shotover raft – all the rapids were fun to go down although we got a few wrong and ended up hitting rocks on the way down. All until the last rapid which was called the “Mother-in-law rapid” and it happened to be very, very unfriendly and scary (unlike mine!) All the rafts were tied up before the rapid as the water was very full as it was deemed to be quite dangerous to go down this rapid. So the guides got into position with the safety ropes and safety canoes and the watchers on the cliff got their video cameras out! When the safety arrangements were in place the first raft went down – only 3 came out at the beginning of the rapid so the next one went – 4 came out of that – and then it was our turn – we were told to paddle hard and then hold on. We went straight into the first rapid wave, falling into it vertically and then bounced straight backwards – everyone fell out immediately except 3 on the left including Ian. Amazingly through luck we kept the raft upright and got through to a round of applause from the audience. Unfortunately all those that fell out went down the rapid from beginning to end underwater! And saved by the canoes, ropes and other rafts. Everyone was very shaken up and scared by the experience – Sheena was very shaken as well but pleased to have made it – and convinced that we should not have been allowed to go down the rapid in these conditions. The next raft completely flipped and everyone came out including the guide so after that they sent the rafts down the rapid the easier way and no-one else went down it that day!! Surprisingly our DVD of the rafting trip did not work when we received it and subsequent attempts to get a copy have failed – is it suspicious or not?

We had a few drinks and dinner in Queenstown – great, lively and buzzing place (Perry we did not find it too scuzzy!) and everywhere we went we were served by British people travelling and working in NZ !

Next day woke up and snow had fallen on the mountain tops around Lake Wanaka – amazing in summer to have snow on these mountains which were not that high. All part of the climate change happening in NZ. Our Milford Sound trip was cancelled today due to bad weather on the west coast and we were meant to be flying so we pulled forward the bungy jump (original one at Kawerau bridge where you can get dunked in the river) that I had booked for Emma, Sam and Toby by a day so we could do that that afternoon.

All very nervous about the bungy jump especially as it was brought forward – Ian had read the conditions small print and had worked Toby would probably not be heavy enough at the weigh in – so I told Toby he may not be able to do it in the morning as needed to be 10 and 35kg and was surprised that he was genuinely upset that he could not do it – so we set on a plan to put on loads of heavy clothes on – at the initial weigh-in he was 31kg and the manager shook his head – we added Sams large and heavy sweatshirt and up to 33kg and another shake of the head. Toby was then advised to drink a litre of water to get the extra weight and at a weigh-in of 34.95kg finally we got a nod and Toby was in on the bungy jump!!

They all walked over to get tied up and do their thing! Sam went first – he was very confident and not scared!! Toby went next and did well – he was one of the youngest to ever do it so deserves an extra pat on the back – even though some of the photos seem as though he is a little scared! So then Emma had to go cos her 10 & 12 yr old cousins had gone despite being very in two minds – but she went and did it as well and Emma got dunked in the river up to her waist – which was very funny. All up very well done by all three of them – very brave and well deserved t-shirts with I jumped the Kawerau Bridge bungy – 43m or in Emmas case 44m! Sheena and ian then wished they should have done it as well!!

Then shopping in Queenstown and walk around beautiful downtown next to lake. The next day we were told no Milford Sound again in the morning so we went to Puzzling World in Wanaka (which the Inglis family had told us was great fun) and they were right………there were big/little rooms, rooms that leant one way but balls rolled the other way and a great maze - which to get around was quite hard – unless you cheated!

We then got a message that M Sound was on that afternoon and we had to hot foot it to Wanaka airport asap as the weather was probably ok to go. So we flew for an hour and a half over Lord of the Rings country and stunning snowy mountains with Paul the pilot who had been doing this flight in a 6-seater plane for 28 yrs – he was very confident – we were all quite scared – flying over a high range of snowy mountains and very high lakes squeezing the plane just below the dark snowy/rainy clouds and just above the mountains – it was only just Ok to go. It made the journeys views amazing – really amazing – but the with snow coming in the front window and quite a few bumps we were all pretty scared cos we could not see where to land!!

We arrived at Milford Sound from the coast as the final entry point inland was too stormy a route so we had to go around. It was a beautiful sound although not a crystal clear day it was not as beautiful as it could have been – it was one of those sights which we had built up so much in our minds and was not as impressive when we got there. We had time to land and walk around for a bit which was good and then we tried to fly home through the 3 shorter routes back but we were blocked by storms/clouds each time and there was no way between the mountains and the clouds! So we flew the long way round again down the suuny coast line, another bumpy ride and great views over the amazing lord of The Rings country and snowy mountains – still stunning the second time!!

We asked Paul about the climate change he has seen since he has been flying and he said the weather patterns had definitely changed with snow in winter for example and also when the bad weather or good weather hits it comes harder and faster than it used to – so when a snow storm there really is no way to go anywhere. Paul also said that some of the glaciers were actually not receding but increasing which was the first time we had ever heard that. There is certainly a plentiful supply of water in NZ!

We then drove to a lakeside restaurant that Ian had found only to be rejected by all the others in a vote! So we drove back and found Missys restaurant in Wanaka right next to our apartment – where the food was awesome and had a great final dinner in Wanaka/Queenstown before driving up the West Coast the next day.

The west coast was again amazing scenery – ferns/trees, rainforest style although in a temperate climate but like this because it is so close to the South Pole – when the weather comes in direct from the South it is very cold! After 4 hours in our delicious Delica we arrived at Fox Glacier village and found our lodge. We went for a walk around Lake Mathieson which at one end on a clear and still day (which we had) has a mirror image in the water of both Mount Cook and Mount Tasman. We walked all around the lake and then had a great dinner in an all glass restaurant overlooking the 2 mountain tops, which as we ate dinner, became cloudless and in the sun which happens very infrequently!!!

The next morning we (leaving Megan with our niece Emma) went off to meet our guide Jared for the Fox Glacier walk and get our briefing. Thinking it would be an easy stroll and a little walk on the ice we were all pretty relaxed. But in the briefing it became clear it was a little more serious than that although ice climbing thankfully was not part of our trip! We were provided with all the gear - climbing boots, crampons and warm weather gear! We were told there was a 1000 step vertical climb with a narrow ledge of around 100m with a vertical drop of 100m on one side and a cliff with a chain to hold onto on the other! Anyone who wanted to bail out now raise their hand – Ians stayed down surprisingly! And off we set. We arrived to see half of a 13km glacier above us, which came down below the tree line which is highly unusual for a Glacier. The Fox Glacier key facts are as follows:

* Fastest moving glacier in the world - 8 times faster than the av glacier.
* 260m above sea level at the bottom of the glacier.
* Currently it moves at up to 1m per day and it takes 90 years to go from top to bottom.
* It's 13 km long and you can see 6.5km from the bottom
* The glacier moves cos of the water underneath - in summer it moves quicker than the winter as more snow melts to create the water in summer.
* Overall currently the glacier is increasing in size but normally glaciers are retreating all over the world - there are 3126 glaciers in NZ.

The climb was pretty tough but Jared our guide thought it was very pedestrian as he was normally out with the heli mountain group but due due a damaged hand whilst free climbing on ice, he had drawn the short straw with a bunch of tourists – which was lucky for us as he was incredibly knowledgeable! His views on climate change that he has seen is based on mainly pivotal movements of the earth round the sun changing the heat to different parts of the globe – that has made most of the climate change impact – with humans only being responsible for a small proportion of it. Humans cannot stop climate change – it is happening – we can only slow it down a bit – and probably a very little bit at that – a very interesting conversation. Also this glacier is expanding not contracting like most other glaciers in the world as the hole in ozone layer over the south pole, NZ and Australia is bigger than anywhere else and so more dramatic weather patterns are developing here – the ozone layer damage being created by Nuclear testing over the south pole – even the French were still doing it in the 1990,s apparently!

The climb was tough, 2 Singaporeans went home half way up due to exhaustion and we proceeded past the 100m vertial drop with Ian holding on tight and the boys breezing along (as ever!) and finally we reached the base of the glacier – WOW! We strapped on our crampons and went off in line up the steps carved out of the ice up into the middle of the glacier which was about 1 km wide. A glacier is defined as ice that is constantly moving – by only 1 metre a day and we saw lots of water flowing through it and down the glacier. It was cold unsurprisingly but very slippery with the water. A unique experience made better by Jared the guide who was extremely interesting and we learnt a lot.

The next day we continued our drive up the West Coast to Punakaiki rocks – also known as the pancake rocks – made of limestone and layered over many years by the sea and weather – very impressive and definitely worth a visit. Then we continued on to Westport where we walked on a great beach and saw a huge seal colony on the rocks nearby. We found a goldmine unused and showing people round where Dan gave the boys some real old gold dust – His great grandfather had started the mine – all very interesting how they got 4.8m ounzes (£1.5bn in todays money) of gold out of the mine over 50 years at the turn on the 19^th Century! We unusually had no B&B booked for the next 2 nights so we drove inland after Westport and headed for lake Rotoiti – the South islands lake by the same name as the lake we were due to spend Xmas in the North Island and found a great little hotel with Great food in St Arnaud. The next morning we got a water taxi to the end of the lake and then walked along the shore checking the stoat traps to see if any had been caught – trying to save the Kiwi birds in the area. It was a lovely walk but the lake I am afraid was not up to the standard of the lake in the North! We then drove to Picton and found another gem of a B&B right on the bay in Queen Charlotte sound – only about 150 bends over a mountain from Picton! An ex-hairdresser (won an award for his hairdressing book in NZ and Australia on how to run a hairdressing business successfully!) and his family of 8 in total hosted us brilliantly and we had a great time in a fab location with their house right on the beach. We caught the ferry to Wellington. The next morning and enjoyed the fantastic views of the crossing. We left Picton in sun and wind and arrived to a huge storm in Wellington. We were staying on the waterfront at Welling ton and while the girls went shopping the following morning the boys went to Te Papa – the NZ exhibition in Wellington which was absolutely superb. First we learnt about the stones of NZ and where they have come from and then we learnt about Gondwanaland and Laurasia – the 2 super continents in the South and North of the globe respectively – from about 200 million years ago. We learnt about volcanoes and the earths core and about an underwater mountain 2km down way off Auckland and how it erupts regularly spewing out battery acid. It really was an interesting and interactive museum – well worth a visit. We also went up the cable car – which is not so interesting but not a bad view!!

Then we flew to Rotorua where we were met by Dad and Ruth at the airport – great to see them since Canada after nearly 5 months ! We then drove off to the lake to see Ians sister and family – Emma being reunited with her parents and brother for the first time in a few months. All very family in a house by the beautiful Lake Rotoiti that was next door to Ians cousins bach. A great location and then we realised it was nearly Xmas and we had to get our skates on and get ready for it – time for shopping for a tree, and all the Xmas decorations to turn the NZ house into a Xmas fit for the UK………..

Cook Islands - Rarotonga - do we have to leave??

2009-12-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

Well we thought it would go fast and it did – really, really fast. The next 2 weeks flew by and with 2 weeks to go we had to make a list of things we had to do before we left and we only just fitted them all in.

The island of Rarotonga in the Cook islands is a really beautiful place, with great white sandy beaches, lagoons, coral reef and clear blue warm water with a jungle interior with mountains that are quite big for an island of this size – 32kms around it is an under 2 hour cycle ride and the road goes all the way around pretty much one house from the beach if not next to it. It has been warm almost all of the time – it started around 25 degrees and has been over 30 degrees on and off in the last week as their true summer kicks in. We have had very little rain and the water supply here is short. The water temperature has been 23 degrees and is now around 25 degrees. Cyclones only arrive when the water temp is 27 degrees so I think we are save before we leave – fingers crossed!! Also from Saturday at 12 Noon to Monday morning - all shops are closed and most restaurants on Sunday - you cannot buy alcohol on Sunday - so it forced everyone to slow down even further at the weekend, from the normally relaxed Cook islands time.

Life here has revolved around 3 things: 1) The school and the kids friends and parents; 2) the sailing club and its very welcoming crew; and 3) diving and other island activities.

The kids have pretty much enjoyed school from day one and it has really been a treat for them to enjoy it so much. If it wasn’t for the 2 hours of English school work each day after school at 2pm then they would have had an even better time! But the school Api Te Uki Ou has been very welcoming, the teachers very helpful and the other kids very friendly and allowing them all to fit in so well. The headmaster Jason and Mandy, the school manager, were very kind to arrange to let us into the school and have helped all of our kids settle in and mix well.

Sam has been in a year 7&8 school year where he has won pupil of the week; won the national Cook Islands Maths quiz with his Te Uki Ou team for his age group; reef swum; played cricket; Kayaked; Snorkelled; played football for Matavera (means “hot eyes” in English); Learnt a bit of Maori and Maori dancing; played several new sports including “Brandy” and Zumba which is a form of Italian dancing with hockey! He has also learned to sail and progressed into the Gold fleet of fibreglass optimists. A French national sailor was watching the youngsters and said of Sam, “That boy is a bit of natural and could be quite a good sailor one day as long as he keeps his eyes open – as he was hit by the boom!” Still good progress. Sam has made 3 very good friends in Sam Read, Arii and Josieh and all of them have gone around together and sailed a lot whilst Sam has been here. A stupid plan by his Dad to allow them to sleep on an island opposite the house in tents was vetoed but Sam has had a very good time here and does not want to leave!

Toby was moved up to a year 5/6 group so he found it challenging in different subjects but progressed well. Toby also participated in the same sports as Sam above but won the Table Tennis for his age group as well and was impressive on the cricket pitch. Toby also learnt to sail, starting in a 2-man boat with his Dad and then progressing to sailing on his own in a plastic optimist and mastering getting around. Toby has made good friends with Tyler, Liam and Felix. All good kids and great fun. Toby hurt his ankle and so has not played as much football as Sam but has thoroughly enjoyed all the different activities at school and with his friends. Liam and Toby have been especially good at camp fires on the beach and burning coconut leaves and bushes for toasting marshmallows.

Both Sam and Toby have integrated well into school and got on with life/kids in a different school, settling very well into their everyday lives – it has given them confidence they can do it again. We don’t think the China school integration will be as easy as this but this experience has convinced them that they can do it! Toby and Sam also both attended Churches with their friends after Saturday night sleepovers – Toby came back with a box of sweets from the annual special island church service where his mate recited a Maori poem solo! He had hit lucky and all kids got sweets – he likes church on the Cook Islands! The island is very safe and so the kids roam freely around and that has been an aspect they have really enjoyed.

Megan has been at pre-school 8-12noon each day. The teachers have been very friendly and helpful and during the Tsunami warning test where they left the school and walked up the mountain Auntie Tu had to take Megan behind a Banana bush to do a wee!! Megan’s group of friends has continued to expand with Imogen, Chloe, Jade and Mahanna from school. In addition, she met a 7-yr old called Hannah (now known as new Hannah as her best friend in England is now old Hannah) who had a pig called Tallulah and chickens – all very exciting and their parents owned the best lettuce production outfit on the island. After travelling so much Megan was desperate to enjoy the company of little girls again and all the girls have really helped Megan’s happiness in Rarotonga. Megan also went sailing with her Dad for the first time and loved it – especially the leaning out bit – so again more water babe status created!

The house we have had has been brilliant – right on the beach with a pool – one of the most idyllic spots on the island. Looking over the lagoon with 4 mini-islands (called Motu’s) in the Lagoon that you can Kayak, swim or even walk to at low tide. The islands have sandy beaches and fabulous coral and shells all around them. You can walk out over the coral to the reef where the waves break all over the island – with only a few breaks in the reef for boats to get out (4 or 5 breaks I think). We have sailed, snorkelled, swam, windsurfed, kayaked and enjoyed the island beach life. We have not tried to kite surf due to those who did it have their own and no-one rents it out – otherwise we would have had a go. There are no jet skis or motor boats inside the reef as there are coral rocks sticking up all over, which you hit occasionally with sailboats and all the centreboards and rudders are spring loaded here to bounce up and down again – motors sadly don’t do that and so no waterskiing, wakeboarding or ringoing here which was a shame. But it did mean that we did all the other things and Sheena and I ran along the beach occasionally to keep less unfit! The sailing club threw various enjoyable BBQ’s whilst we were here and we really enjoyed the life that centred around the sailing club. Run by 2 brothers, Tony and Peter, the young kids are really lucky to have somewhere so brilliant to learn (the lagoon) with warm water and enthusiastic teachers like them – so thank you to you both for all your help.

Sheena and Ian also decided to do something together and we did our PADI dive certificates. The theory and practical parts etc…. We did it at quite a leisurely pace over a few weeks meeting a range of other divers along the way. Luckily we both passed the theory and completed the 2 swimming pool sessions and 4 seawater dives at between 12 and 18m deep. We had a really good dive teacher in Steve and Greg his partner from Pacific Divers at the end of our road - both were great fun and made it very enjoyable. Taking your mask completely off underwater for 30 seconds while continuing to breathe and then replacing it whilst at 18m deep was probably the hardest task to pass but also pretending to run out of air and do an ascent on an emergency regulator was also interesting. We saw a shark and some great fish in a very clear underwater coral reef including parrotfish, a huge moray eel and a variety of other colourful and big fish. Unfortunately Toby and Sam were too young to do it and actually ended up not having enough time really to do the course. We also were able to do the cross-island walk and visit into the jungle on quad bikes through streams etc… and this was great fun. The deep-sea fishing was not fruitful (one day we’ll catch something!) and we watched the Vaka racing (big canoe with a float balancer/extension on the side) with interest during Vaka week – it was a real island spectacle. We even got a commemorative paddle of our own to take home and put on our games room wall! Although we were hoping to catch the end of the whale season here we did not actually see any ourselves although several humpbacks were seen from school and out at sea whilst we have been here! You can’t be lucky all the time. We took the kids to an Island night at the Highland Paradise cultural centre and we saw Maori history, culture and dancing. Ian was appointed one of 4 “Rautavaara’s” – a leader of one of the groups and had to wear coconut leaves around his neck and dance with a lady Maori for all to see in a competition! Needless to say the Rautavaara who was a groom that day was voted the winner! As Rarotonga is the place where the Maoris set off to discover and habitate NZ (they left just near our house) in just 7 canoes – they made it to NZ and the Cook Islands are where all the NZ Maoris are descended from – the Maoris from these 7 canoes!

Our last few days were very special with the school having their annual event day, Megan had the pre-school Xmas party and we had a small good-bye party for a few of the kids and our friends the night before we left at 1am in the morning.

The school event was actually really well done and very well attended by so many parents considering there are only 170- pupils at the school. Each class group did their own event, play or dance. Megan’s group did Hula dancing, Sam’s group did a traditional Maori dance and Toby’s group did a stick dance – which some (un) lucky parents also had to demonstrate to the audience – Yes Ian & Sheena had to do that!! All of our kids participated and did their bit well so we were very happy but overall the quality and confidence of the kids really shone through and showed how natural many of these kids were on stage. There were a couple of 7 year old girls doing a hula dance for 5 minutes in front of the whole crowd – they were supremely confident – probably cos they were so good. After the speeches and prize giving for the kids who were leaving we had the “Umu” a traditional way of cooking chicken and pork underground. The teaching staff had been up all night digging the hole and then cooking the food – quite a committed staff! And then we all ate the Umu food for lunch in plates that the lids had made out of weaved coconut leaves – a really traditional way to end an enjoyable day. Megan’s Xmas do also went well – with all the kids having to do pair dances in front of the audience – which luckily Megan did excellently with her boy partner! Then Santa arrived and gave all the students a present each – Megan was very happy but a little confused why Santa was coming in the hot weather!

On our last afternoon we had all the kids back for a swim and a sail; Imogen & Hannah for Megan; Liam, Tyler for Toby and the famous gang of 3 (Josieh, Sam Read & Arii) for Sam. And then we had some of the parents who we had met dropped in for a drink or 2 including Dave and Mandy; Colin and Jan-Marie; Hamish and Jo; Brett and Kim; and Nancy also popped in to say goodbye. Brett was like Sheenas brother Martin – almost a twin brother in looks and mannerisms!! Kim was very like Martins wife Emma and Brett said Sheena was very like his sister!! So not sure if Dad Chisholm ever visited NZ many years ago!! We enjoyed meeting all of these guys and really enjoyed their company and hopefully we will be able to see them again sometime. It is hard for everyone in Rarotonga as the population is pretty transitory. We even met some people who had lived there for less time than we had! But al these guys made our trip in Raro truly memorable and it was great to meet you all.

We have met some lovely people and hopefully made some friends who we all will keep in contact with. As ever, it has been the colourful, fun and friendly people we have all met that has made this visit so memorable - and when you couple this with the beauty, weather and activities we undertook, Rarotonga is one of the best memories of our round the world trip so far. We certainly would love to return to this idyllic island but the key timing of the kids ages and the school will mean we will probably not come back for such a long period for quite a few years – but hopefully we will be able to visit – may be in April 2011 for a holiday. It is interesting that the island seems to work so well with locals and expat NZ’ers living here in pretty good harmony. Many tell us that this is not always the case in the South pacific – so we appreciate the recommendation from the authors of the South Pacific islands books who recommended that Rarotonga in the Cook islands would be a perfect place to visit for us – and they were absolutely right – it has been fabulous, fun and relaxing here and we will all (and now are) be sad to leave/have left. But NZ beckons and Xmas with Ians family who are all flying over to be with our NZ cousins at Lake Rotoiti in the North Island for Xmas – Ian and Sheena have not been back to NZ for 25 years or so and it will be an interesting trip to see the changes……..Good-bye Rarotonga but we hope not Adieu!!

And now we are half way exactly on our RTW trip - only 4 and a half months to go. Although we have moments of wanting to go back home we can't because of the house!! We are still very much enjoying it - but it is still sunny and summer and we are in familiar language and territories. We are all preparing ourselves for a much harder New Year in Asia when we will hit winter for the first time in early Feb in Japan - where it will be cold, unfamiliar and we will be unable to communicate with anyone!! Challenges to look forward to ..........

Rarotonga - First 2 weeks

2009-11-08T20:39:00.000-08:00

We arrived on a sunny Saturday in Rarotonga after a flight over the South Pacific and its islands on a bumpy small plane. We were picked up at customs by the house manager and given fresh flower garlands around our necks. It was immediately nice being able to speak English again after South America. We arrived at the house that we had only previously see on the internet and it is a good version of what we saw. A 3-bed house on the beach with a swimming pool between the house and lagoon and a kayak launch place. For the island it is a pretty nice house and pretty modern. We immediately felt at home. On the Sunday & Monday (island holiday) we hired an old 7-seater with 105k on the clock, drove around the island (Having got our official Cook Island driving licences, with a picture, for $20 each and a few minutes wait to get them processed), found and looked around the school with no-one there and generally found our way around the island, including the sailing club, which is the hub of social life around, especially for the kids (kind of like the bank of England club back home!). We met parents of children at the school and felt more comfortable that we had made the right decision about the school.

On Tuesday, we took the kids to school at 7.45am to meet the Headmaster and borrow/buy the school uniform. The boys were immediately told that no shoes were needed - so the uniform consisted of 3 pieces of clothing - black shorts, a flowery blue shirt and a t-shirt for games!! and off they went to their new classes. They were all nervous, especially Toby, and we were very keen to see how they had got on after their first day. As all the shops had been shut since we had arrived we needed to get the shopping done and prepare them a pack lunch for 10am (yes that is lunchtime at school!). Megan was very keen to play with little girls her age and so when we picked her up she had had a great time! And when we picked the boys up at 2pm they had both had a great time already. So Day 1 was a success and after Day 2 they were really integrated already and really enjoying it, having met some really nice kids and Toby had moved up a year - so week 1 went pretty well.

Sheena & Ian started running along the beach each morning and ian started renting a boat from Tony, the sailing club captain, to sail in the Lagoon. The kids started to mix and Toby was invited to Liams 10th birthday party including a sleepover (which also involved a fire on the beach, petrol lighting, digging a hole on the beach for the boys which they could all climb into and then cover it and them with coconut leaves - Nancy, Liams Mum, was right up there on the cool Mums award!). Sam was learning to sail in the lagoon with a fun group of his age group Arii, Josieh and another Sam. Megan was gaining a few friends like Imogen and another Hannah and Sheena and Megan visited a few houses with Megans freinds. Megan and Sam went to play with Josieh and Hannah at their house which also incorporates a huge lettuce farm (they are the Cook Islands only producer of lettuces and good they are too!), their own chickens (which Megan saw hatch while she was there) and their own pig called Tallulah. They are home schooled (I am sure better than Sam and Toby as their mother is a teacher!).

On the Friday 30th it was Tobys 10th Birthday. We had a family birthday party at the house which was very quiet compared to last years "Foodfight" ! Toby chose to go Deep Sea Fishing for his birthday so Ian, Toby, Sam, Liam & another friend called Felix went out one afternoon after school and trolled around for 4 hrs and caught nothing - this from a Captain who claimed a 98% success record of catching something each trip!

On the first Saturday night we were invited to the annual sailing club BBQ on one of the lagoons islands. About 70 of us were ferried over carrying our food and booze in the sailing clubs small rib and then we all went off to find wood and dead coconut trees, started the fire and cooked away - all very relaxed and as newly paid up members we were very welcomed and had a good time.

The only other interesting thing of note was Ian got a call from the school for a Tsunami test! A couple of weeks previously there had been the after-effects of the Japan Tsunami which was not too bad here but the test was to check all the parents numbers and the kids had to leave the school and walk up the hill to safety - a good test to know!!

The second week was very similar to the first - sunny, kids mixing with their friends, a bit of sailing (Sam won 2 of his 5 races - the other 3 were fixed!!), a bit of football with a local side! a bit of windsurfing, some running, kayaking around the lagoon visiting the lagoon islands and snorkelling, some visits to some local residents with kids friends and generally finding our way around and meeting people. S&I did the 4-hr cross island walk including walking across the mountain range in the middle to the famous peak of the "Needle" which just juts straight into the sky from the top of the mountain - a very good view. We were taken by the world famous "Pa", who was a real character and was very entertaining with his stories of 28 children and meeting famous people over the years - such as the nude models from Sweden. We had a great walk through the very rainforest-like central bit, quite steep in places and narrow with a few drops. We had 2 dentists from Sweden with us who had brought 3000 toothbrushes to the Cook islands and were touring schools to teach the kids how to look after their teeth properly and a backpacking couple for Manchester, who were 6 days in to a 7 month world tour!! Pa made the tip very interesting and we were both glad we had done it - the views were pretty good from the mountain although obviously no way near as high as South America!

I am writing this on the first day of real stormy weather, thnder and torrential rain - and we are all trying to catch up with our Daily Journals and Blogs etc... Megan has made me a sand pancake and the boys have created crab houses all over the garden and beach for hermit crabs and other huge crabs we catch on the beach at night.

Life here is very relaxed - most things operate on Cook Islands time - so if it is due to start at 12 noon it could be anytime between then & 1.30pm. It has been really enjoyable first couple of weeks - we have thoughts that maybe we could all stay here for a year or 2 and then think lets see how we feel after 6 weeks.

We are starting our diving course next week to try to get our Open Water Padi license whilst we are here - requires some reading and thinking so Sheena and i are gearing up for it!!

So only a month more to go before we leave for NZ - that time will give us a really good feel and view of whether we could really live here or not for a while!! The local residents view seems to be a few years is good and then you either stay for a long time or move on....... we'll see!!

Tahiti from Peru

2009-10-23T20:39:00.000-07:00

We had a night in Lima - the capital of Peru and with 9m people. We had dinner overlooking the pacific coast looking towards where we were headed the next day. We got up early and headed for the airport. Again we had a problem with our RTW ticket but luckily Pedro from LAN was there to help us and sort it out. We flew from Lima to Santiago in Chile - as we flew into Santiago we saw the huge range of snowy mountains - the Andes - which looked amazing - another visit another day. We had a 4 hour wait for the the next plane to Easter island and then onto Tahiti - both 6 hour flights!! We landed in Easter Island - where the Dumdum statue is from if you have seen "A night in the museum". Easter Island is part of Chile and it was the first ever island to be abandoned years ago as the tribes spent all their time building people statues to the gods to be better than the next tribe that they used all the wood/trees to do this and thus all the animals disappeared and they had nothing to eat so they had to abandon the island!! We arrived in Tahiti at 11.30pm (4.30pm our real time) and so we had been travelling all day - 23 hours! And now 11 hours behind the UK.

We arrived at the hotel and slept late in our hut rooms built on stilts over the sea - we had always wanted to try them and we would highly recommend them. We were in Tahiti for 3 days and with very poor internet access (will catch up with the photos when we next get good internet access as each one takes an hour to load!!).

The hotel was just what we needed after a very busy 3 and a bit weeks touring in South America. We just chilled, swam in the pool and snorkelled with amazing fish and slept and prepared ourselves mentally to be in one place and school for 6 weeks in Rarotonga. I hope that life is this enjoyable in the South pacific all over!! And off we went to Rarotonga and to visit the Cook islands........

The Amazon

2009-10-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

We left Cusco after a night at the fabulous Monasterio hotel and an early walk around the main town square - and a night of Toby nosebleeds and others with little sleep due to the altitude.

We flew further east in Peru into the Amazon jungle to a place called Puerto Maldonedo (PM). We flew over miles and miles of jungle with a huge winding river running through it. We landed in a tiny airport and was met by the Inka Terra Amazon hotel guys and by Wilson, our guide whilst in the Amazon.

We were driven through PM with its scooter bikes everywhere (a bit like Vietnam) in an old open air bus with wooden white seats!! for 30 mins to meet the boat. We then jumped on a (very rocky) boat that needed to be balanced by weight on each side !! This took us an hour into the Amazon river tributary we were on and to our lodge on the banks of the Amazon with jungle all around.

We had been very nervous about going to the Amazon with the kids re Malaria and safety but pretty quickly we realised it was much safer than we thought !!??!! Wilson, our fabulous guide, took us on 2 or 3 tours a day to see animals, birds in both day and nighttime.

On the first afternoon we went on a trail walk and saw Fire Ants in a fire ant tree; huge armies of Ants and termites; wild boar. And on the first night time boat trip we saw a load of Caymans (Aligators); Capebara's (the Worlds largest rodent - looks like a mix between a giant guinea pig and a giant rat and can swim with webbed feet); Toads and frogs.

On the second day we went on the canopy walk 100ft above ground at the top of the jungle tree level. It was pretty scary with wobbly wooden bridges with side nettings and only one person to cross at a time! Still everyone coped including Meggie and we saw Monkeys and all sorts of birds and a different view of the jungle from that height. On the way to the canopy walk we found a tarzan rope to swing through the trees on and also a field to catch a whole host of butterflies and grasshoppers in the butterfly nets we had. Toby caught the biggest and rarest blue butterfly in his net but did not catch much else all day - it was skill not luck!!

In the afternoon we went to a lake which was 45 mins by boat and then a 2 hour hike in torrential rain to get to - Megan did brilliantly although Ian fell over twice whilst carrying her on his shoulders through the thick mud. We were then deep in the jungle and from behind the trees Wilson pulled out a wooden canoe and we jumped in and paddled down a tine Amazon river to the bigger Oxbow lake - where we saw numerous wildlife including the Peru Turkey, Vultures and a black Cayman - about 4m long - all from a small wooden canoe - whilst fishing for Piranhas!!! After a long canoe we had another hike back to the boat - in the dark and wet this time! We found Tarantula spiders and huge bullfrogs along the way as well as fireflies and beetles that light up like an electric light as we went. Luckily we had a few torches to guide us in the pitch black as we walked through the Amazon jungle at night!! The loud noise of the jungle at night was quite deafening. Still no snakes .... so far anyway! We made it home by about 7pm and thus had been walking and out on activities for 10 hours that day - got wet and muddy - but we had seen and experienced alot re life in the Amazon!

The next day we decided to leave early to go to Gamitana creek so we had breakfast at 6.30am and left on the rocky boat to go further downriver to a farm on the corner of the big river and the Gamitana tributary. This was an Inka Terra sponsored farm and produced bananas, avacados, mangos, papaya & pineapples etc.... for the lodge to eat. We met Negro and Walter who ran the farm. The boys cut down a banana tree with Wilsons machete - we ate bananas just picked and avacado in the their new kitchen/breakfast room extension overlooking the river (A bit cheaper than our new kitchen extension possibly!!) All very impressive but very, very basic farming.

We then jumped onto a boat with a long motor - propeller on the end of a long metal pole to avoid the logs in the creek. We towed 2 canoes and went for an hour up a tiny river into the jungle. On the way we saw a number of Macaws - Blue and gold; Red and blue - beautiful birds that we had only ever seen in bird books and here they were in numbers in real life! We stopped to fish for Piranhas and catfish. Negro and Walter, the local Amazon people, seemed to be pretty good at this - they caught 5 or 6 - Sam was the only one in our party who caught one catfish - the largest fish in the Amazon not introduced from outside. We donated the catfish to Negro as it was his supper that night. We then had a canoe race - 3 per canoe down to the swimming area. On the way we saw a "3 minute" snake - the second most poisonous snake in the Amazon - called a Fer de Lance. It was swimming right next to our canoe with a fish in its mouth - so it was quite safe as I had Megan sitting next to me!! I was happy to pass on by but Wilson and Negro turned our canoe around and headed back towards the snake - much against my advice!!! We started to chase the snake in our canoes but, unluckily, the snake got away as Negro started trying to attack the snake with his paddle!! So on we went another few hundred yards to the swimming area of the creek. Ian was not keen to swim as we had just seen a deadly snake, but Wilson told us it was pretty safe and highly unusual to see such a dangerous snake a few hundred yards away. So Negro, Wilson, Sam, Toby & Megan all swam from the mudbank swinging from a rope tied to a branch in the tree on the edge of the water. Luckily it was great fun and no more snakes turned up whilst we were swimming. Shortly after the swimming on the way back to the farm we passed over an Anaconda - so all pretty safe for the kids to swim!!!

We got back for a late lunch at the lodge and then we got back on the rocky boat and went upriver for half an hour to dock on a muddy bank to visit an Amazonian Indian family living on their small farm growing potatoes and bananas. They welcomed us in their communal area in their traditional dress and painted us with red paint - 3 stripes on each cheek for the men painted by a man and 2 stripes on each cheek and one across the nose for the women painted by a woman. Wilson translated their Quechua and Spanish mix language and they welcomed us and did a song and dance - which we then had to join in with!! We danced in a circle playing drums with our painted faces - very badly but Megan really enjoyed it. After that we played a game of spinning tops - made with a nut and stick - they won - it was bit like a Beyblades game the boys used to play. Then they started a fire rubbing 2 sticks together - in about 1 minute. Then we had a bow and arrow competition shooting a dummy Macaw high up in a tree - Ian hit the target for the Wests - their 5 year old son - Linder - hit it twice!! We then had a tour of their tiny farm - and a tour of their cemetry where they laid their dead and let them be eaten by Vultures as that helped them be taken up to the right place in heaven - a bit spooky for the boys that one. We then purchased a few crafts and were given a prize for our best bow and arrow shooter and some potatoes from their farm. Armed with all of this we were waved off whilst they played their flutes as we rode off in our boat waving goodbye. It was a very interesting visit - they had 6 people living there - including the 5-yr old boy. Meggie and he made a very good couple!! The leader told us that Amazonian Indians could get married from 13 onwards - if Meggie is a difficult teenager we may send her to be married to Linder!!

We really enjoyed the Indian visit - it was very intriguing and good for us to see how the Amazonian Indians live.

We had one last nightwalk and found Tarantulas and chopped into a huge termite nest - we even had to return a Tarantula to its nest as it had got too far away from it and it had got lost!! LUCKILY THE MACHETE COME IN HANDY FOR THAT!

We left the next morning - back up the river for an hour and a half to the town near the airport. We had all really enjoyed the Amazon but quite relieved we had survived it in tact with all the kids in one piece. But we were still taking malaria tablets and reeking of Mosquito spray!! We said goodbye to our fabulous guide, Wilson, who had made our Amazon experience unforgettable and had really made sure the kids got the most out of it they could. It was sad to leave Wilson behind. We also had fabulous rooms at the lodge with hammocks and our own watering hole at the back of the cabin. So not that basic a campsite really!! And pleased not to have been eaten by a Cayman (aligator) or bitten by a snake or a tarantula. We had survived and were heading back to civilisation and Lima city for a night before flying off to the South pacific islands.

Machu Picchu

2009-10-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

Well this visit to Machu Picchu (MP) over 3 days deserves its own posting - as it was a truly amazing place and one that Ian has wanted to visit for many, many years. We caught the Velodrome train to MP town from Ollytaytambo, which took 90 mins along the edge of theriver/valley with enormous peaked mountains around us, with our guide Hose. We dropped our bags at the fabulous Inka Terra hotel in MP town and went to queue for the bus. The bus took you to the top of MP and took 25 mins of windy roads to the top!!

When you get there the climb to the very top is very tiring due to the altitude but when we got to the top the view was incredible. The actual MP Inca town was built between 2 huge mountains called New and Old Mountain (MP means old mountain). There is a small flat piece between the 2 mountains and that is where they built MP with vertial drops on both sides. They say that at its most MP probably housed 1500 people at most so it is not huge huge. But how the Incas built it you will never know. It is built into the mountain, with the mountain rock in places and perfectly fitted stone - smoothed to stick together (like glass) as they did not have cement. You have to see it to believe it.

MP was linked in with the Inca trails and so there were 2 ways to get to the main gate - the only entrance to the main MP town. It is estimated that MP took around 100 yrs to build and was not finished when the Spanish invaded the Inca territories (but never found MP itself!). It was not known why or when the Incas left MP for the last time but there were still unfinished stonework and areas where houses are not finished - so it is assumed they left in a hurry - probably to make sure the Spanish never found it.

MP was found in 1911 by Hiram Bingham - an American professor. He found it whilst looking for the real last Inca town - Vilcabamba. He came across some locals who said 2 families lived up there and it was very overgrown with jungle when he found it. A boy showed him round MP from one of the families.

No-one really knows what it is. The historians and clever people cannot really agree. It has a very religious feel to it with altars and temples to the Moon, the Sun to every mountain around so it feels like it was a religious centre. The guide books will tell you it was a summer palace for the Emperor and his court - others tell you it was a city to protect and attack the Amazon people (whom the Incas never liked) using MP as a base. Many guides have their own versions - it could also have been never inhabited because it was not really finished. This mystery makes MP all the more interesting.

Ian went round 4 times in total and actually you can convince yourself that each of the stories is true in its own right - but it is amazing that no-one knows - the Incas did not write things down and so the knowledge of the Incas was lost when the Spanish killed all of the "court" of the Incas.

What is not under negotiation is the amazing feat of the skilled building work. I am sure our builders at home in London will do as well with our building work as the Incas did with theirs - but the Incas did not use wheels and had only manpower and no tools. So to create this MP town in a mountain is truly incredible. No wonder it took so long - but still amazing that there could have been 35 or so other towns like MP around the inca empire - it is amazing they had time to conquer as well as build. (Some quarrys were on top of mountains 13 miles away from the towns built!! One archaeologist tested moving a 4 ton stone from this quarry to the position it was situated in a town 13 miles away - it took 400 men 6 weeks to do one stone!!!)

MP really does have to be seen to be believed - it is spooky too to think the Inca Emperors could have lived there - with human sacrifices happening on their altars! The scenery around with the mountains, the air, the way the sun falls on the city and the fact it is between two huge mountains in the middle of taller mountains in the Andes just make this an incredible place to visit.

We all enjoyed the visit - although Ian was terrified with Megan and the rather large drops! So Sheena, sam & toby climbed up to the Sun Gate - the main gate entrance 90 mins walk uphill away from MP - which they enjoyed without their Dad moaning about the heights. You can also climb up Huachu Picchu (New Mountain) which also has ruins on top of it! but you need ropes and to hang on to step ladders - so probably another time for the boys on that one!!

MP new town is a bit of a mess although has character. We stayed at the Inka Terra Hotel - which we voted one of the nicest hotels we had stayed in to date. Partly cos we were upgraded and had a small swimming pool in each suite!!! but also because the hotel had a real Inca history feel to it and the staff were very helpful and friendly.

We left MP felt we had really all done it well - we would highly recommend staying at the Inka Terra hotel in town rather than the smaller Sanctuary hotel at the top of MP. But definitely a must-do visit. Maybe next time we will do the Inca trail 4-day walk to it - Megan not up to it this year!!

The Incas - Cusco & The Sacred Valley

2009-10-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

We flew from Quito to Lima via our Round-The-World ticket - and when we turned up to check-in, our previous flight into Ecuador had not been updated and so we could not take the next flight on the RTW ticket to Lima!!! We had 3 LAN people try to sort it out but they all disappeared and we ended up paying $4000 to buy another flight for us all!! LAN's systems had not been updated - hopefully we will get a refund - but they refused to let us on unless we bought another ticket - a real lesson on arriving at the airport with an extra half an hour to spare!!

Anyway we arrived in Cusco via Lima and was picked by our guide Hose. We were immediately taken to 2 Inca sites - one was at 12010ft called Saqsayhuaman religious site (pronounced like "sexywoman") and this was a huge 3 layered worship area overlooking Cusco (The capital of the Incas) and overlooking an enormous Limestone rock 500 ft high. Bearing in mind this Limestone should have been on the sea bed but it was not 11,200 ft above sea level - it was easy to understand why the Incas worshipped something like that that they had never seen before! These were just a taster of the structures/religious centres and towns/cities we were going to see.

We drove onto and through the Sacred Valley to our hotel - the Casa Andina - which was lower than Cusco but where we needed to acclimatise to the altitude for a few days. (highest point we went to was 12.5k ft asl). The Sacred Valley is a huge flat plain with mountains on every side and it was very important to the Incas as only 0.2% of land in Peru is flat and that is used for farming - that is why Incas never lived on flat land, they lived in the mountains - Flatland was always reserved for farming and creating food for its empire - for example Ecuador had 1.6% of it's land for farming - so for Peru 0.2% is very low. That is why the Incas lived in the hills and used every available bit of land including terracing for farming. For example at the peak of the Inca empire there were 12m people that needed to be fed - every bit of flat land was critical!

We took Diamox (altitude tablets recommended by my nephew Thomas from his Everest trip!) which made us all fine apart from Megan who was ill - it was her turn. So we took a chill out day and then Hose took the 3 boys off on an introduction tour of the warm up Inca ruins before Machu Picchu - we visited an Inca trail (one of 37,000 kms of Inca Trails around the Inca Empire!!) and the Inca gate which controlled who went into the towns - in this case the town of Ollantaytambo, which was a critical town at the end of the Inca reign.

History summary of Incas:

The Incas started from Cusco in 1200 AD - the main part of the incas came from lake Titicaca 12500ft asl (highest natural navigable lake on the planet) to live in Cusco and near the Sacred valley. The Incas ruled for 300 yrs and had 13 emperor rulers - The most important Emperor was Pachacuteq - 9th Inca emperor most important, influential and powerful one. He ruled for 40 years and during his reign much was achieved, including the start of the build for Machu Picchu which he ordered. MP took over 100 years to do and it is believed it was still not complete after that long - when you see it you will see why (See MP blog post).

The Spanish invaded and took control of Peru in 1532 and smashed the Incas. After that there were some rebellious Incas - notably by Manco Inca the last main Inca emperor. He retreated with his depleted forces from Cusco to Ollantaytambo to regroup and fight the Spanish. He pulled the Spanish into the town - flooded it so the Spanish horses and soldiers could not move - and then they threw down the huge stones from the religious hillside temples and terraces down the hill to kill the Spaniards. This was the only victory against the Spanish when the Incas revolted all over Peru!! The Spanish retreated and Manco won that battle - 3 months later the Spanish returned with huge forces and Manco retreated into the valley that leads to the Amazon. Interestingly he never went to Machu Picchu (probably because he did not want the Spanish to find it) and he set up camp in Vilca Bamba - right on the edge of the Amazon. He ruled the Inca empire left from there for 13 yrs as the last Inca independent territory - then a new Spanish Viceroy was appointed and he declared war on Manco Inca and the Spanish bribed some Peruvians and defeated Manco Inca - his head being displayed in Cusco town square for all to see - the end of the Incas - not quite - this was now 1548 and Manco Incas son took over although young - he invited 7 Spanish priests/doctors to live with him - and over a gambling game of cards one of the Spaniards accused the son of cheating and stabbed him to death - all 7 spaniards were beheaded and sent to the Spanish regional ruler in Cusco. It was not until 1572 when the rule of the last Incas alive, holed up in Vilcabamba, was finally completed. This was after the third Emperor after Manco Inca at aged 11, declared war on Spain directly to the King of Spain in Madrid!! Quite a bold move for an 11-yr old!! At that the Spanish sent an army and obliterated the Incas once and for all and the 11-yr olds head was cut off and paraded in the main square - now the end of the Incas. It took from the early 1200's to build, have amazing power for a hundred years or so and then have it all destroyed by the Spaniards. The Spaniards were also to rule for 300 years!

The Incas worshipped nature called Pantheism, many cultures followed Pantheism including the Incas. For example, alot of the temples and places of worship link to the sun, water or mountains or stones like Limestone (normally on sea bed and not at 12,500 ft) or Ignimbright stone on top of mountains - very soft and unusual as normally it lives well below the bottom of the sea in the earths crust but had been thrust up by plate movement to the top of mountains - like at MP.

The Spanish introduced their Catholic religion into the Inca Empire with relish, destroying around 35 towns like Machu Picchu and Cusco and introducing Churches and Cathedrals and destroying the Inca places of worship. They say that much of the Inca Gold collected by the Spanish did not return to Spain but was delivered to the Vatican to repay the funding of the Spanish to spread the Catholic word - but this could be gossip.

At the end of the Spanish reign of South America Peru got its freedom in around 1830's helped by Simon Bolivar (who had also helped other South American countries get independence from Spain. Bolivar was appointed the "Protector" of Peru and tried, with the other countries he had helped become independent, to create a United States of South America. There was even an appointed President of the United States of South America Mr Lamar - who actually never was as it never happened. The idea was disbanded at the last minute when Bolivar was felt to be throwing his weight around alot and he was evicted from the Presidency of Peru by his own army - taking away the major pinnacle of the United States of SA. He was not a popular man in Peru and died and was buried in a plain wooden casket despite being very wealthy through his life.

We had a great lunch in a Hacienda owned by one of Perus long serving aristocratic families - where everything you saw from the garden was once owned by the family - and Simon Bolivar and Mr Lamar had both visited and had their photos their.

We also had an interesting discussion with Hose over lunch about the end of the world - he had studied Scapology - a study of how the end of the world may happen. He had also seen the Mexican Mayans had predicted lots of events accurately to the hour, the day, the week, the month and the year - according to the Mayan calendar - which was 14 months of 26 days. They predicted alot of the worlds major disasters and when they would occur - according to their calendar - e.g. the world wars, napoleon wars and the black plague!!!!

The Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012. But only because their cycle is 5125 years and on 21 Dec 2012 their calendar ends and a new one should start - as the Mayans had a lucky number 13 and their calendar ends at 13.0.0.0.0 - like a car mileage it should go 13.0.0.0.1 etc.... But 3000 years ago they probably thought that someone would gave come up with a new calendar by 2012!!!!! At least the london olympics will have happened by 21st dec 2012!!

We also had a really interesting evening with a very nice but "Mad astrology woman" in the hotel Planetarium. She claimed that Jupiter was hit by a massive storm that made volcanoes erupt on July 19th 2009 - and that she had seen 5 orange UFO's all from Jupiter recently - as Jupiter people, who are 15000 years more developed than people on earth now need to look for somewhere else to go. And everyone knows they will land on earth in 2010!!!

We also found out that in the Taurus constellation there were 2 stars/planets something like 2.5m light years away that had very well developed people that are 15,000 million years ahead of us with such well developed beings that they can morph into things, remetallise and are 1000 yrs old but can make themselves look young. So sophisticated they use brain telepathy communication. They created the universe apparently and could also be the controller of our planet!

This lady also thought that Humans used to be able to live for 800 yrs or so a long time ago BC - but then the bible said man can only live for 120 yrs. And that humans are about to have a quantum leap and be able to travel more in space and find out about the people that live on these other planets.

All-in-all a very interesting few days with a very educational discussion for the boys in particular!

Galapagos - incredible!

2009-10-10T18:54:00.001-07:00

We flew via another main town from Quito and then onto Galapagos airport – not big but bigger than we expected. We were met by our boat crew and taken straight onboard La Pinta. There were 23 guests on board for a boat built to carry 45 or so – so a fair amount of space for each of us.

We were given a briefing very quickly and then lunch whilst we moved to the first island we were going to visit. That afternoon we were issued snorkeling gear and transferred to a beach on an island by rib from the main boat. We saw Sea lions, Marine iguanas, Pelicans, Humming bird and then swam with Sea Lions in the water whilst snorkeling – not a bad first outing – billed as a bit of a warm up!

The format of each day was wake up at 7am – via music over the tannoy system followed by a good morning campers style Red Coat announcement. Breakfast 7.30am. Disembark 8.30am by rib to nearest island. Walk on the island with Pablo the guide. 10.30am return to boat. 11am Disembark with snorkel gear and wetsuits – snorkel/dive to see Sea Lions swimming with you, Turtles, Penguins fish galore etc… even sharks. 12.30pm return to boat for lunch. 1.30pm kip whilst boat moves to next venue – usually a different island with new and different animals geology etc…. 3.30pm Disembark to go to next island for walk with guide or snorkel/dive to see Sea lions/turtles etc…. Back on boat by 6pm. Shower etc… drinks 7pm with talk from guide – dinner 7.45pm – Galapagos DVD 9-10pm then bed. Sleep whilst boat moves to next island for next day!!

Obviously each day was very different because you saw different animals, birds, sea life, lava, volcanoes, geology, plant life etc etc each day. Ian found out his camera was very good underwater and also had a movie function so the snorkels were amazing with Sea Lions, fish and Turtles all within touching distance underwater. Pablo, our naturalist guide, showed and talked to us about the amazing animals with interesting stories and informative lectures and talks – keeping us all interested and teaching us a great deal about the animals, Galapagos and how it all fitted together. He was especially brilliant with kids and included them in group talks and examples of how things worked. Megan took a shine to him and invariably luckily (or unfortunately!) Megan rushed to the front to hold Pablos hand.

Every activity had its own reason for being completed whether there were more Marine Iguanas or Frigates and Blue Boobies (actually birds with wings!) or more Sea Lions and turtles in the water. So you had to do all of them to get the overall feel. Sam and Ian went on a long walk across a very bumpy and sharp lava field to learn all about Lava flows and volcanoes. Very Jurassic look but actually some of quite recent at 1 million years old and then very recent just from April 2009!!! Amazing stuff really – I will look at Lanzarote and Club La Santa in a very different light now with a bit of knowledge.

All the kids including Megan, really enjoyed the snorkeling. We were given wetsuits, flippers and mask/snorkel and we just swam out to sea along the jagged rocks. Megan was incredibly brave and really enjoyed seeing the fish, sea lions and turtles under the water with her mask. She has swam with a snorkel for long ways so has become comfortable doing that. Sam and Toby have mastered snorkeling completely and are using their fins properly and diving down to get closer to the fish and blow bubbles for the sea lion so that it comes closer or copies the bubbles. If I knew how to load video clips on this blog I would show you the videos of the Sea Lions and Turtles looking straight at the camera and playing with us all/blowing bubbles underwater – really amazing stuff. Swimming with the Sea lions and Turtles are really the true highlight of the water activities. On the last day Toby swam with a Marine Iguana but it was too fast for Toby to keep up with. The penguins were interesting but not as playful as the Sea Lions. Although we saw a few sharks (Hammerhead and White Tipped sharks), they were not interested in us luckily and just went on their way.

On Land, although there are many very interesting birds and plants, the highlight really was the Giant tortoise and the Land Iguana. Although we all were intrigued by the Blue-footed Boobies, the Flamingoes, the Frigate birds, Humming birds and the Finches and all the plant life, which at times was very Jurassic and had a scary feeling to it, you have to see the Iguanas and Tortoises, in their natural habitat and up close, to really be wowed. It is hard when each day you see so much but the true definition for me of the highlights is that you would be happy to see that species each day and have the same excited feeling each day.

The last day really summarises the trip as it included most of the best bits in a single day. We started with a deep sea snorkel. We saw parrot fish, puffer fish, a trumpet and angel fish as we swam along the rocks and cliffs. We were just about to get back on the boat when suddenly 5 Sea Lions turned up - including a mother and 2 young. They swam around us, blew bubbles and were generally very exciting indeed. Sadly my underwater camera had just broken - so no new underwater images this time.

We then went to the beach where the kids swam with a marine Iguana, a few Turtles and loads of Sea Lions. Just off the shore in warm water with a beautiful sandy beach. Really spectacular. After lunch we went on a walk on another unique island; we saw all the normal blue-footed and Nazca Boobies (birds) - Sea Lions, Xmas Marine Iguanas and then we came across the Albatross. We saw one take off from the cliff and land - we saw the young and the nests - all around were birds and nests - right on the rocks. And we saw the Galapagos Hawk. Another unique and amazing walk on an Irish like cliff coastline with species of all sorts everywhere.

The Movie “Master and Commander” was shot here and we went to most of the main places from the movie. Several of the photos are classic shots from the movie!

Pablo, our expedition naturalist, taught us so much - the kids have learnt so much - i hope they remember it. Pablo was really a magnificent naturalist leader and made the trip so enjoyable and inclusive for the kids. There were always experiments or examples given which were played out using the kids as part of the examples.

The La Pinta was a great boat to be on. We are still rocking now - staying at the Eco hotel Finch Bay. The staff were very friendly and helpful, especially Galo, who valiantly served dinner to the children every night and kept them entertained, and Luis who fed the kids non-alcoholic cocktails wherever they went. But all were great - relatively small and very efficiently run. Pablo, the on-board naturalist and activity organiser was our favourite.

We feel we have experienced almost all of the birds, reptiles and mammals as well as plant life and lava rock flows in Galapagos. It has been one of our best weeks - right up there with the Wilderness resort as an experience and learning. For those who have followed this blog - you will know that is high praise indeed from us.

We met some really friendly people - all of whom put up with our kids and the kids enjoyed their company as well. Audrey, a travel agent from LA, Debbie, a doctor, Roger and Carol, a lovely retired couple from Florida (and Colorado!) plus Tom and Joy from Microsoft and Dan and Edna from Israel. A real mix and pleasure to meet you all - you all helped make our Galapagos experience very memorable. We leave hoping we will be able to come back when Megan is around 10 or 11 - in the knowledge that Pablo has taught us well - I hope we can all remember it well enough. On now to Machu Piccu and Cusco.

Quito - Ecuador

2009-10-09T17:06:00.000-07:00

Ecuador and Galapagos

We arrived in Quito after flying via Miami from LA early in the morning. Ian found he had 2 bits of paper – one at 6.30am and then he found another sheet in the morning saying 6am flight – we got on the bus at our airport hotel at 4.50am and just made the flight. Amex had sent two different sheets and it was 6am!

We landed in Quito at night where Sam had developed a very bad throat during that day to the point he was quite sick. So the first thing we asked the people who picked us was we need a doctor at the hotel when we arrived to make sure Sam was OK. As it turned out he was not OK and needed an anti-biotic injection in his rear end. Luckily we had planned a rest day for the day after travel and we needed it to get Sam better and get the washing done and generally chill.

The next day Paul, our A&K guide, arrived and took us the equator and a museum about the Equator and Ecuador, which was fascinating. The museum showed us houses from each of the 4 regions of Ecuador: The Amazon, Highlands, Coast and Galapagos. We learnt why bath water went clockwise down the tap in the Southern hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the Northern hemisphere – and straight down on the equator line – and saw a demo right there to prove it 2m’s either side of the equator! We learnt that on the equator the average person was 2.5lbs lighter – good news for us travelers!

Here are some facts about Ecuador

* One of the smallest SA country - 14m people - highest population per sq km in SA.
* Quito - capital & 2.5m people - 2nd biggest city. 62 volcanoes - 2 erupting at any time - last one in Quito was in 1999 - covered in 2 inches of ash - all took day off to clear up. * Ecuador inhabitants traced to 9,000 BC. 4 regions - highlands / coast / galapagos / amazon. Has President like USA - 4 yr terms - 2 terms - current president has 54-88% popular rating.
* The Quito Ice cream sorbet was made in brass pot invented in 1885 - guanabana flavour. Use ice from mountain tops to cool the ice cream.
* Av. income - $300 per month but som highlands families live off $100 a month. Adopted US$ in 1999 after 95% inflation.
* Equator - sun on south sumer post end sept for 6 months - and then winter and then vice versa for northern hemisphere. Also average weight is 2.2 lbs less than normal due to equator and lower gravity.
* At equator bath water has no swirl - in north anticlockwise and south clockwise water on the bath.
* Ecuador was lots of tribes up to early 1500's - then they were invaded by the Incas from the south in early 1500 - over 3 yrs the incas defeated the Ec's and they rueld Ec for 45 yrs - in 1545 the Spaniards defeated the incas and took over Ec and ruled ever since - until 1822 when grand Columbia (venezuela, columbia and Ecuador) was created and independence awarded by Spain due to defeat - one president was appointed over Grand Columbia called Simone Bolivar (he got independence for Peru and Bolivia as well) - in 1830 he stopped being president of Grand Columbia and the 3 countries agreed to be independent from that point. And have been ever since.

Paul was very knowledgeable and a great guy with the whole family. He took us for lunch on the edge and top of a volcano – where people lived at the bottom of the crater!! It had only erupted 1500 yrs ago so they considered this safe living. We ate true Ecuador local food which was delicious. The Agi – a sauce that seemed to go with everything – was particularly delicious.

We then dropped Sam at the hotel to sleep and the rest of us went to tour Quito’s old town with Paul and get more history on Ecuador – Paul was very interesting and kept us all interested – the central old town is one of the oldest in South America and the churches were quite fabulous. We walked around and saw the Quito people in everyday life – making great tasting chocolate peanuts in front of us. We saw a church of Gold – pretty amazing and then we were taken to a Panama hat shop and Ian bought a Panama hat – which are all made in Ecuador – not Panama but were made for the workers working on the Panama canal many years ago to shade them – hence the name. They ranged in price from $15 to $600 – Ian chose one very much at the cheaper price and looks cool in it!!

We had a nice day out and got back to find Sam feeling better and the doctor signed him off as ready to go to Galapagos the next day.

USA & Canada - summary

2009-09-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

We have been in the USA and Canada for 10 weeks roughly - 72 days (with over 200 still to go on our trip!!). Arriving in Washington and doing almost a full circle via NY, Toronto, Minneapolis, Calgary, Vancouver, V Island, Seattle, San Fran, LA, Vegas and leaving from Miami to South America. With Ian, Sheena & Megan taking a slight detour to & from Anguilla in the middle for a 10 day holiday whilst the boys were at camp.

We have been on 17 planes (inc. 2 seaplanes & 2 helis), 14 boats, 9 trains/trams, rented 5 cars plus a 35-ft RV and ridden 6 horses! plus ballgame, numerous taxis, campsites and hotels - all-in-all we have had a really good time.

Our top thing as a family was definitely the Wilderness Resort on Vancouver Island - we still remember this fondly. Activities for everyone to do in amazing scenery. A dream of doing something similar again.

We all have our favourites below this - our whole family reunion was right up there at Muskoka Lakes; Camp for the boys was very much enjoyed; The Grand Canyon was amazing and then the best show "O" in Las Vegas.

But we feel we have experienced real America and Canada. Everywhere we met really friendly & helpful people - always taking time to talk and help if needed. The 3 weeks in an RV and visiting many of the major towns in both countries has meant we have met loads & loads of people. We have not met a rude American or Canadian. And the experience with people we have met has really enhanced our trip and taught us much more about how these countries operate and what people think and do.

An amazing change has been the way people talk about Obama - at the beginning he could almost do no wrong - by the end he was being regularly lambasted as a lightweight and unlikely to do more than a 4-yr term!! Quite a change in 10 weeks.

We leave the USA & Canada much better off for the experiences we have had. They are both very diverse countries with so much to experience. Many Americans have said to us, "Well of course Americans don't travel as much as you guys!" There is a reason to that - you have pretty much everything you will ever need in your own country - Wilderness, great towns like Washington, New York, San Francisco & LA, fabulous food, mountains, Canyons, lakes, skiing, theme parks..... Its all here - I have waterskied in 5 different places alone - and could have done much more.

We leave for South America, sad to say goodbye to USA & Canada. We did alot but by no means did we do enough of either country or in depth enough when we were in places. We will need to come back - but we have to move on to our next adventure - South America.

Las Vegas & Grand Canyon

2009-09-29T11:51:00.000-07:00

We arrived in LV around lunchtime and our rooms at the 5,000 room hotel MGM Grand were not ready so we went and had lunch at one of the 30 restaurants/cafes and explored LV for the afternoon. Basically LV does not open until dusk!! Each hotel has its own theme and attraction – so the Mandalay has Britney Spears playing and a shark reef (no relationship!) and the New York hotel has a roller coaster theme park; Treasure Island has 2 pirate ships that fight and one sinks in an hourly show; the Mirage has a Volcano that erupts on the hour and the Bellagio has Cirque du Soleil “o” a water show and an amazing fountain display every 15 mins – I am sure you get the drift!!

As we found out that first afternoon few hotel rides were working during the day – all of the outdoor shows were during the evening. So the perfect lifestyle in LV is go to bed really, really late having watched all the shows at the hotels that are free at nighttime (and gambled!) – get up really, really late – have breakfast at lunchtime then a sleep or lounge by the pool (or gamble) until 5pm when you have lunch/dinner and then go out for the shows in the evening again. That seems to be the perfect LV life.

We really enjoyed the shows – The Volcano and Fountains were great but an evenings “free” entertainment wandering down the strip of LV and seeing all these free and extraordinary shows was awe inspiring for us all. Needless to say we got back very late – thank god for the pushchair as Megan fell asleep at 10pm (wimp!). Vegas reminds us of Dubai - incredulous hotels and exhibitions but fun for a few days .... and very hot & it was autumn!

The next morning we woke up very late and did the Vegas thing - Breakfast at lunch, lounged by the pool after a bit of a walk about and then Sheena, Sam & Toby went to Cirque Du Soleils' "O" at the Bellagio hotel which they said was the best show they had ever seen. As Cirque is normally amazing and we have seen it in London - this is high praise indeed. Basically the stage is a swimming pool and the actors dive in and rise out in spectacular fashion. Sounds amazing. Sadly Amex were told Megan could not go as she was under 5 - so Megan and Ian went to the Blue Man Group at the Venetian hotel - with 3 blue faced men making music and comedy from all sorts of non-instruments - and the most exciting point for Megan was that the audience was covered in toilet (dry by the way!) at the end of the show. I have always to see the Blue Man Group in London - I am glad I saw it - Megan enjoyed it and lasted the full 90 mins - so actually we should all have gone to "O" as Megan would probably have had her mouth open, like Sam & Toby did, for the full 2 hours!

When we got back to the room at 10pm I had a message that our 6am heli flight over the Grand canyon was cancelled due to the heli having tech problems!! I called in and the company could offer no alternatives or any help before we were leaving the following afternoon. Do not use www.alllasvegastours.com - it is a bad and very unhelpful heli GC company!!

So it seemed we were destined not to go to the GCanyon - maybe our 13th floor rooms at the MGM Grand were coming home to roost!!

Luckily I found "Maverick" on the internet and called and they had a space at 7am the next morning - and they had 31 helicopters so we were able to go - but it was a very early morning indeed!

The heli flight to GC was amazing - with the GC appearing suddenly over the 3 sisters. We flew down valleys and canyons, next to huge vertical mountains. We landed on Native American Indian land at the bottom of the GC, 300ft above the Colorado river that winds its away along the bottom. We were about 4000 ft from the top to bottom, although it goes to 6000ft approx. at its deepest. We had a glass of Champagne whilst taking in the awe-inspiring view. It was impressive, but not as impressive as I had imagined. We were on the West side of it and not the centre of it. But it was still very impressive all the same.

It looked as though the GC had just dropped down from the plateau. That is how it looked for the air. Actually it was created the other way around – the tectonic plates rammed into each other and create the mountains – and then over millions of years the Canyons were created by erosion of water and wind – as the rock is very soft.

We flew and landed in the desert for a refuel amongst the cactuses and mountains. Over the lakes and golf courses that have been man-made (yes a 110-mile long man-made set of joined 3 lakes created with the help of the Hoover dam) between Vegas and the GC. And then flew straight down the Vegas strip over the amazing hotel buildings - taking some lovely photos. Maverick and our pilot were great and i would highly recommend them - we enjoyed the trip - and we were back in Vegas by 10am!

It was our last day and we were tired so, after the shark reef visit, we chilled out and sorted ourselves out ready for the South American trip for the next day. We got replacement cameras, batteries and Diamox - altitude sickness tablets etc... and then we flew back at 6pm to LA to stay in an airport hotel and get up for a 6am flight!!

We all enjoyed Las Vegas except Sheena. It was all a bit mad but lots going on - I only gambled once a massive $1 and won it back so I guess we are ahead - I wanted to play poker and Black Jack but we just did not have time with all the things to do. Sheena did not like all the people and the hotel that had five thousand rooms and was full! She did enjoy "O" as the best show she had ever seen. I am sure the kids will come back in the future - Sam loved "O" - Toby loved the roller coasters - & Meggie loved the toilet paper at the Blue Man Group show!! I would like to come back & show how brilliant I am at Poker and lose all my money!! ……

Los Angeles & Highway 1

2009-09-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

We had yet another wonderful drive down H1 and saw much the same great views and amazing drops. I was actually starting to get used to having a dangerous drop on every turn and so we tried to go for it and make the last tour of the day for a place called Hearst Castle in San Simeon. We missed it but saw a great video about William Randolph Hearst and his dream to build this amazing castle on a hillside in the middle of nowhere. It was built over 15 years, cost millions and was huge fitted with antiques from all over the world, especially Europe where he had gone on a world tour with his mother when he was a boy of 11. The trip apparently had such an influence on him that those influences were used to build his dream 30 years later when he built this amazing castle. It is an amazing dream and an amazing place where he entertained Charlie Chaplin and other movie stars and importnat business people from LA and SF - but he was lucky to be a media billionaire by the time he was 35 - so he could fulfill his dream. Apparently, he did a daily journal every day when he was on his world tour and so was able to remember the experiences he had all those years ago - at least that is what we tell Sam and Toby!! Hopefully Sam and Toby will be so much happier than he was in his life !!!

We arrived after that in Santa Barbara - a place that Sheena and i remember as a little fishing village type place just off the 2-way road H1. Guess what - it is now a huge town with 9 different exits off the 8-lane freeway! We eventually found the Four Seasons hotel - and had a great time there - unfortunately it was Sheenas favourite hotel and we only stayed one night here - mainly to see the Pelicans that we remembered as huge - but they were actually big but normally sized! We found that Santa Barbara has a range of 4 or so islands off the coast and as this is the place that hot and cold current flows meet, the channel between the mainland and the islands is rich with food and so more sealife is here than at most places in the USA - more whales cruise through etc... including the Blue Whale - whose tongue alone is bigger and heavier than the biggest Bull Elephant on the planet and whose artery to the heart an adult could easily swim down. So we need to come back here to whale watch between May and early September to see all the sea life. There is also an exhibition on the pier of a real ocean going marine biology research ship and a great guy called ken who brought the sea to life for all of us - octopuses that are as clever as cats and amazing starfish and other creatures - all good for Sma and tobys education and marine biology lessons.

After a good lunch and lots of swimming in the very good pool club , we reluctantly set off for LA. I was delighted to be returning to LA where I had been many times whilst working at Sky over 10 years ago and had not really been back much since then. We stayed at Shutters on the beach which we had been recommended. It was a great position on the beach, very friendly and had a great view of the beach and sea from our rooms. It was a bit out of town for the things we did but good when we got there.

We mainly did the studio tours whilst in LA. We did Universal studios which was great fun - but very much a Disney style tour - mainly for Tobys age and above. The Waterworld show was amazing where they waterski behind a jet ski and a sea plane flies and lands on the set in front of you. We sat in the "wet" seats cos Sam and Toby wanted to and literally got sprayed and then soaked with buckets of water that the cast threw over us!!! Sam was the star on stage at the Animal actors - where he played with the golden Labrador from Marley and me and also Lassie as well as a range of other animals.

The next day we did a tour of the Nickelodeon animation studios where all the Nickelodeon animation is created, planned and finished off. We saw the head of Art for the Sponge Bob series painting a specific Spongebob picture for the Obamas as they like Spongebob as well!! We saw Dora, Diego Max and Ruby and all the other characters on Nickelodeon from the 9 shows they make there. All the actual animation is outsourced to South Korea or india and has been since the start of the animation studios 11 yrs ago. We saw a new show that is due to air in the autumn of 2009 in the USA and probably autumn 2010 in the UK called Fanboy and Chumchum - before other kids had seen it. Nickelodeon were very kind hosts and our thanks to Nicole and Cherie at Nickelodeon who made it happen.

That afternoon we dropped Megan with Michelle - the wife of a work colleague Malcolm Dudley-Smith from Warner Bros. She had kindly offered to look after Megan with her daughter Sienna whilst we had a VIP tour at Warner Bros. which Malcolm kindly arranged. Megan had a great time playing with another little girl and she became best friends with Michelle - hopefully Michelle learnt a little about a 3 1/2 yr old girl to help with Sienna in the future!!! We had a great tour at WB - & it would not have been appropriate for Megan - we saw around the actual WB movie and TV studios - where Friends was made and sat on the set and went into Central Perk - and movies such as Dark Knight were made. We saw around the Gellers parents house - and as Friends fans we really felt very privileged and excited - see the pictures. I actually held Jennifer Anistons coffee cup and she was sitting next to me - on the Central Perk sofa!! WB has had an incredible run of Movies & TV shows over the last few years and the studios really had a feeling of success. With Harry Potter, the Matrix, Austin Powers and Dark Knight and TV series like Friends it was a very unique tour which we will remember for a long time.

That evening we drove back to have dinner with Malcolm and Michelle in their fabulous Hollywood house - high in the hills with a great view over the city - a really great LA house which is very stylish and cool. M&M&Sienna were very, very hospitable and we had a lovely dinner on their terrace overlooking LA as the sun went down - it was lovely to be hosted in someones house - especially one as lovely as this - as we were very restauranted out up until then as we had been 10 weeks on the road! So thank you for your hospitality M&M and we hope to reciprocate in the UK in 2010 - Many thanks.

On our last day in LA we got up very late and started packing for South America. We sent one bag home back to UK (that is 3 suitcases we have sent back so far!!! and we have not bought anything I promise!!!) We went shopping and had lunch in Rodeo Drive (near the hotel) and bought some things needed for SA and then went for a last walk on the Beach and a swim in the Shutters pool. We felt as though we had been in LA for 4 days and nights but had not really done LA and again somewhere else the kids really enjoyed and is on their list to return someday. We left the next morning for Las Vegas dropping off our rental car - our Kia Sedona - which actually was very good, quite fast and lots of room - but we were quite happy to let it go!

Carmel & Monterey - Pebble Beach

2009-09-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Carmel having had a great drive down Highway 1 from SF with some fantastic scenery along the coast. And quite treacherous roads yet again. We stayed at Carmel Highlands Inn, which Sheena & I had stayed at 15 years ago - it was not the same as we remembered inevitably - a great location hanging off the edge of the rocks overlooking the ocean - but a bit quirky hotel - and not really set up for kids. More for couples! but Carmel and Big Sur were lovely (Carmel used to have Clint Eastwood as Mayor) and the beaches and walks along the coast were really lovely - and surprisingly sea misty in the mroning until around 11am until the sun burnt off the mist and won through! We chilled out, walked along the coast, used the gym and swam.

We then moved on (North rather than South so that Ian could play Golf!) for 2 days at Pebble Beach in the scenic 17-mile drive in Monterrey. An amzing golf paradise with 6 fabulous golf courses - most in the top 50 USA golf courses and one (very) private one at number 2 worldwide called Cypress Point - where you have to play with a memebr who are few and far between - needless to say I did not know the right people and so could only play the 2nd and 3rd best of the courses. The first day I played Pebble beach with Alan and Gregg (whose birthday it was!) - as many of you know I was expecting Tiger Woods and Clint Eastwood to play round with me but sadly Gregg and Alan turned up - Alan took 6 practice shots after studying every shot with his range finder - so it was a very long round. PB was a beautiful course, and thanks to Garrett, my caddy, I played OK after not playing for 3 months and played with rented clubs & shoes! I scored 29 points and so was pretty happy with that. I drove pretty well and hit most fairways at 270 yds, hit most of the par 3 greens but few of the par 4 greens in 2 - which is the next part of my game that needs to improve to get down to below 10 handicap.

The next day Garrett persuaded me to play Spyglass Hill - a harder course than PB by around 7 shots apparently - but it was a really, really good course that I would put ahead of PB in all manner of ways. The sun came out and I played pretty well with few missed shots and i got 34 points - 15 on the way out and 19 on the way back including 2 birdies and a few pars. I felt my golf was back to its normal and now i am not going to play for 3 more months again!! It was a really luxurious place to stay at Pebble Beach and lovely for me to play some golf at this golf mecca. I would love to come back on tour with some golf mates and hope that I will be able to do that sometime in the future - it would be a real treat and i will start saving up now!!

The kids had a great time swimming in the pool and chilling out - finishing their homework before moving onto LA, where we would have too busy a time to do any school work.

We all really enjoyed staying at Pebble Beach and wished we had stayed for more time - we really enjoyed the food and after dinner PB had huge outdoor fires and seating around it and we all met some really friendly Americans drinking after dinner drinks, sitting around the fire and chatting. We met a local doctor from the forces and a pilot from Iraq and chatted about the Obama changes that are happening in the country. All very interesting and yet again we found the Americans to be really friendly, polite and so helpful - we have not yet met a rude American in America - maybe the only rude ones leave America!!

San Francisco - People & Luxury!

2009-09-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

We arrived in San Francisco glad to see people and were warmly welcomed by the Argonaut on the waterfront. We checked into rooms that overlooked Alcatraz, dumped our bags and went to the best local fish and meat restaurant we could find - and had a long lunch! Which we all thoroughly enjoyed. Then we went for haircuts and foot cleaning at a local vietnamese hairdresser and all got scrubbed up clean again.

San Francisco was warm and immediately we all felt comfortable very quickly. We wandered along the waterfront, went to a very good wax museum (like Madame Tussauds) and then went to Alcatraz in the afternoon - just as it was getting dusk. It was good to be out in the harbour on a boat towards Alcatraz - the tour of Alcatraz was very good - an audio tour - and luckily Megan fell asleep at the start of the tour and woke up just at the end!! We saw the cells and solitary confinement and the boys were locked in the cells as well. It is amazing to think it only closed in 1963 and had 200 inmates at a time - including Al Capone. We had all watched Escape from Alcatraz the night before so we really had a good idea of what to expect and what to look for - these 3 were the only 3 to ever escape and not be shot or found. The boys saw what a prison was like and were horrified - maybe that will help their education and future behaviour!

The next day we cycled across the Golden Gate bridge - often the Golden Gate Bridge was in clouds but today it cleared and was sunny - it was a very hard and long cycle ride from the centre of town - but we went along the shore of the harbour seeing the huge ships coming in and out often from China (Klavs - you would be in heaven!) and then cycled across the bridge. It was a huge bridge and a huge drop! but the views were pretty amazing - we then cycled onto a village called Sausalito - which was a pretty, classy village on the sea across from San francisco - we got the ferry back.

We cycled back to the hotel along the waterfront and came across 5 guys breakdancing on the pavement - a big crowd and they were very impressive - all the kids thought it was very cool. That evening we went to our first baseball game - the 3rd game of the wild card playoffs - San Francisco Giants and Colorado Rockies - at the At&T stadium in SF. It was interesting going and we all enjoyed it but the SF Giants lost.

On our last day we got the tram and the boys hung on outside the tram. It is incredible that these trams can go up and down the SF hills under control. We got out and walked down Lombard St, the windiest and steepest hill in SF. We really enjoyed our stay in San Francisco and enjoyed the city after a few weeks of wilderness/country. SF is a lovely city with a nice centre, good waterfront, very friendly people, lots of good food and the best hotel of our trip so far - the Argonaut! Right on the waterfront - very kid friendly - good rooms in a nautical finish!! and good wifi! We also found the best ice-cream place called "Cold Stone Creamery" - where they mix in the toppings such as chocolate crunch into choc and vanilla ice cream on a cold stone - dee-licious.

We left to drive down highway 1 - sad that we had done San Francisco and left it behind.

RV week 3 - Yosemite & handing back the RV!

2009-09-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally got through the road block about 6pm and drove through a forest fire mostly put out but still smouldering in many places - about 115 sq miles was burnt so it was a bit like driving through the countryside after armageddon had happened. Quite eerie. Then we got to the pass - with the drop just to the right of the RV and a huge drop - but at least there was a 1 ft wall to stop us falling. The whole of the beautiful Yosemite valley opened up in front of us with a flat valley floor and huge peaky mountains all around. It was stunning - although I did not see it until we reached the bottom as I was looking at the road and getting hooted at for driving my RV over the middle line - away from the edge! We finally arrived at our campsite as dusk set in to find a family in our booked slot in upper Pines campground. They had got our space because we had not called to say we would be a day late (no mobiles worked but we should have called from a call box!) They were from Florida and had been RVing around the US for 4 months with their 3 kids - younger than our kids and with longer hair! They were then off to Chile for 6 months to see if they wanted to live there again! I thought we were adventurous!

Our campsite was just at the base of a mountain called Glacier Point - vertically up from the ground about 500 yds from our campsite. We had 5 days in Yosemite (we managed to extend it a day by Ian queueing up at 6.30am on a Friday morning for a one -night extension - 4th in line for 6 available slots in Yosemitye valley that day at 6.30am!) We cycled, walked up to waterfalls (including Megan), swam many times in pools in mountain streams (very cold - no very, very cold!) at the base of waterfalls and in rocky rivers down stony/slippery mini waterfalls, hiked and visited all the Yosemite museums and indian reservation. We had a terrific time - the boys were really into the swimming and the climbing up the rocky mountain streams/rivers. Megan made it 4 miles up hill to an amazing waterfall - all-in-all we really enjoyed the outdoor life in Yosemite. It is truly beautiful and needs revisiting in the different seasons of the year and you need 2 weeks and no young children (<9) to do all the main walks. The weather was great so although the water was cold you warmed up as soon as you got out.

Our campsite was true RVing though. No electricity, water, dump or showers! We had the luxury of smelly camp toilets but the showers were in the next door village and were $5 each! So we cooked on campfire, ate by firelight and candlelight - we charged the lights via generator for 20 mins per day but could not charge Ipods, computers or phones at all. This for us was the best experience - we really enjoyed it - but for a week or so it was fun - 2 weeks would have been too long without a break.

The kids schooling went well - each morning we did the normal and each afternoon we did an activity - a good schedule that has worked so far. Sam is doing well on Maths and Science I think and still needs to do more on English - Romeo & Juliet is tough for the first Shakespeare ever! Geography & History we learn about as we go and we need to do Spanish before we go to South America at the end of Sept. Toby is doing well on Maths, Science and working hard on English. Again the most difficult subject to teach and mark - maybe it is the teacher, maybe the student - or maybe both!!

We left Yosemite and were sad to be leaving the fabulous wilderness and life you lead there. But after 3 weeks in the RV of sleeping on uncomfortable beds, with no water/electricity and dirty feet from campsites and showers 10 mins walk away and $5 a time - our time was coming to a welcome end! We drove out of the wonderful valley where the forest fire was still going and drove towards our San Francisco drop off. After visiting the Woodbridge - Robert Mondavi vineyard in Lodi we drove to the drop-off - saying goodbye with a mixture of sadness and looking forward to San Francisco, a good bed and other people.

In conclusion - We would all definitely go RVing again - 3 weeks was just about right - maybe a few days too long - a break and a hotel and clothes wash in the middle for a few days would have helped. But doing a convoy with another 1 or 2 families would probably work really well. We want to do Yellowstone national park next time. But overall we all really enjoyed it - Toby enjoyed the campfires best (a real pyromaniac in our midst!) Sam enjoyed the swimming; Sheena enjoyed the ease of moving on to different places and living outdoors; Ian enjoyed the outdoor life and Megan cried when we had to leave the RV saying she never wanted to leave (but she did not want to leave the hotel room the next time either!!). So the RV was a definitely a great part of the trip we have had. But we are glad it is over for a while!

RV wk 2 Lake Tahoe & travelling to Yosemite

2009-09-11T17:46:00.000-07:00

RV – week 2 – Lake Tahoe and travelling to Yosemite.

We arrived at the campsite to reverse in, in the dark. We were helped in by some Americans from Florida. We sat round the campfire and had some beers with them – and I needed a few beers after the narrow road with drops on both sides! They were travelling by Harley and another bike made by an old Harley engineer from the tip of Alaska to the Grand Canyon over a month or so. Around 6000 miles they said they had done. We had met in our first week a British couple who had shipped their Harley out to New York and had driven across the USA (including on Route 66). They had done 9000 miles over 3 months and were finishing in Seattle and then shipping the bike home again! They claimed they had really enjoyed it. Boy Ewan McGregor and that guy Boorman have a lot to answer for!

Camp Richardson was quite big and well organized – on each morning we did schoolwork (Sunday was a day off for us all!) and each afternoon we did an activity.

First afternoon was on the beach – a relaxing afternoon and a campfire cooked dinner! The water felt too cold to swim.

Second was a bike ride, to other local beaches (Where Toby got us all swimming and freezing) and to find wi-fi for a Skype call with the Kristensens and Bryants for Sheena goddaughters 6^th birthday – Tatjana. We sat outside a coffee shop on a bench with a Macbook Air on a video Skype call to the UK – and we all caught up and saw each other – for free - what technology! We also found the Pope house estate – an old summer estate used by wealthy San Francisans for their summer holidays including the founder of Wells Fargo bank who had also owned it. It was a magnificent estate of the main house and 20 other houses for guests and staff – typical of a range of estates all right on Lake Tahoe that were created around the end of 1800’s. Now they are all owned by the State Parks and been returned to be managed by the State Parks so the USA people can use the beaches around Lake Tahoe for access.

On the third day we took the old trolley bus (tramlike and open sided) and went into the hills (and over that narrow pass again !!) to Emerald Bay – a circular bay with a narrow entrance and crystal clear water and mountains all around. We descended down the narrow track to the beach and enjoyed the beach. There was another small estate on the beach called Vikingholme – this time in a Scandinavian style as Emerald Bay reminded the lady owner in 1890 of the Fjords of Norway and Sweden. She had bought the Emerald Bay land (and water) for $250k and then spent another $120k building the main house and surrounding outhouses – with 200 men that camped on the beach over a 6-month period. Everything came in by water, including the people – as there were no tracks down from the road in 1890 – as there was no road! She also built a little caste tea house at the top of the island in Emerald Bay to have tea on about 4 times a summer – apparently all Vikings in Scandinavia build a castle on the island in their Fjord – but probably for defence reasons rather than to have tea!!

On our last full day (Sunday) we rented a boat and went around Lake Tahoe and saw much of the lake and shoreline. Not as developed as Lake Muskoka in Canada for example but still pretty nice – with the added weakness of the water being really, really cold – I guess because Lake Tahoe is at 6500 ft and Lake M is much closer to sea level and the water is warm in the summer months. We went back to Emerald bay where we had been the day before and landed on the island and the beach! The island was made of rock so Sam & Toby swam with Sheena and Megan in the ringo while I stayed on the boat and we did a landing! They climbed to the (Tea) castle and back and then swam back out to the awaiting boat. We then had to make a boat rescue whose owners had anchored and swum in and climbed to the castle. We could see them in the castle and were shouting at them that their boat was heading for the rocks but they could not hear. So we drove over and luckily they had left their keys in – so I jumped on and it started – but did not initially get into gear – as we floated towards the rocks. Luckily it went eventually and we returned the boat to the owners (who also had a dog with a lifejacket that swam the family on a ringo to and from the island – which probably summed them up!) and disaster was averted! We had another beachside dinner and watched a fabulous “Labour Day” evening fireworks display during dinner and over the lake – very spectacular.

The next morning it was time to go and we got up early, got the schoolwork out of the way and left prepared for a bank holiday drive with loads of traffic. Luckily, after a mile everyone else went off on the Sacramento and San Francisco routes and we turned off the beaten track for a 6-hour drive to Yosemite. Again the scenery was incredible as we went from 6,500 ft to 10,000 and across plains between 2 mountain ranges, where the plains were at 5,000 ft above sea level. A breathtaking drive. We stopped and shopped in the last town of civilization (it had a garage a coffee shop, bar and grocery store!) before Yosemite and did our last emails and blog etc… with wi-fi in the coffee shop before going into the Yosemite wilderness for a week with no internet and no mobile phones!

RV week 1 – Vancouver to Eureka!

2009-09-07T15:56:00.000-07:00

RV week 1:

We picked up the RV just south of Vancouver and got the lesson and DVD on how to work it. Then this enormous 35ft bus turned up – how were we going to drive it and operate all these functions?? It was quite daunting but shortly we were underway and cruising to our first campsite – luckily only an hour and a half away in Seattle with only the Interstate (Motorway) between the pick-up and the campsite. Our first night was uneventful other than we had no power as I forgot to switch on a voltage button! But we stayed at a KOA that our friends had recommended as the network of KOA’s have playground, laundry, a shop, hot showers, all the connections you need and wireless internet! They are not always pretty but they have facilities.

The first morning of the RV was the moment we have all been waiting for in dread – the day home schooling starts on our schedule! So we dived straight in and the boys were pretty committed – especially as everyone else is still on holiday in the UK. So school in the morning and afternoon activity has been the schedule we have followed in the RV.

Our next 3 nights were spent near a lake and a beach at another KOA near the coast in Lincoln City – 3 nights learning how to use RV, doing schoolwork, getting organised and chilling after a hectic few weeks of travelling and camp for the boys.

We then drove along the Oregon coast highway which was really spectacular – rolling Pacific Ocean waves with jagged rocks in the sea just off the coast and a shoreline that goes from sea level to mountainous peaks. We then drove past the Oregon Dunes – the most enormous sand dunes - We had lunch on the beach in huge sand dunes that the kids enjoyed – jumping off and landing way below. Our only regret was not stopping and doing a Dune buggy trip – which looked awesome – next time maybe! We did stop and see the largest underground Sea Lion cave where the waves crashed underground from 2 different entrances into the cave.

We luckily stumbled across a fabulous state park called Cape Blanco – the western most point of the USA (except Alaska) and off the beaten track – so quite quiet. We spent 3 nights in Cape Blanco – not KOA but electricity only (no internet, phone or laundry etc…)– we walked on an amazing beach each day - long with sand dunes and huge amounts of driftwood – big tree trunks etc… which all looked like surreal Dinosaur bones. We had picnic lunches in the little houses made of wood all along the beach – which were made for refuge from sand storms as the average wind here is 25 mph. There were rocks just out to sea that looked like whales – all very spectacular. The pictures do not really do it justice – and we toured the lighthouse and climbed to the top to find an amazing reflector – which was a piece of design mastery by a Frenchman!

We were sad to move on from this fabulous (almost) desert island and head further down the coast. But our time was up and we drove down the coast on a wet day with a strange sea mist over the coastal area – very eerie!

We arrived in Redwood National Park at lunchtime and saw the oldest and tallest Redwoods and Sequoia trees around. They were 200 years old, 300 ft high and 25 ft in diameter. Some had 12 trees growing off the main tree and the same base. We could walk through them, climb on them and view all shapes and weird carvings from them. After 2 tours and reading lots of signs about trees we were tree’d out and decided to move on to our long trek towards Lake Tahoe. We tayed the first night in Eureka! We still don’t know why it is named that but we stayed in a KOA so got all the washing and emails done!

After schoolwork we set off again and turned off the coast road and the scenery benefits that that had and turned inland. Over the first mountain range it really heated up and we climbed up through mountain roads. Most were very narrow and driving a 35ft RV bus with 1 foot to spare on either side with drops that were either probable or guaranteed death if we fell – our journey time started to slow against the Google maps predictions!! We stopped early and found a campsite next to a reservoir lake…..which, due to a 3 year drought was hardly a lake at all - it took us 20 mins to walk from the campsite to the lake - amazing effect of the weather on the california countryside - actually all the lakes we have seen (including Lake Tahoe) are all 50-150ft down!

Then another long 7 hr drive to Lake Tahoe – very narrow mountain roads for an RV driven by a Brit – many roads were probable or guaranteed death if you came off again – including the worst, a road was so narrow – it was shared by both sets of traffic and had a vertical thousand foot fall from the roadside on both sides – I had vertico and nearly could not go on – terrifying.

But the scenery was stunning around Lake Tahoe - we got to the campsite and had dinner overlooking the lake, next to a sandy beach. It looks as though Camp Richardson is a lucky find via the internet – it has a beach, boat rentals, ice cream parlour and a coffee shop - right on Lake Tahoe - hopefully we will have a great week!!! Although it is a US holiday "Labor day weekend" at the end of the week we are there!). All the Americans have been very polite so far so hopefully lots of Americans will be good! We are at 6,500 ft above sea level - so it is warm by day and colder at night - but it has not rained here for a while........

The Wilderness Resort - Clayoquot Sound - West side of Vancouver Island

2009-08-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

Well, what can we say but this was the best weeks holiday we have had - and we have had some good weeks! It was sold to me as: "The best holiday i have ever had!" and it certainly lived up to that billing. Quite simply everyone who likes any part of the outdoor life needs to go for a week at The Wilderness resort - and you will have one of the, if not the, best time of your life.

Yes we were lucky to have great weather on 6 of the 7 days, and to have a range of fun other guests with kids; but a written description does not really do it justice - but I will try with the help of a lot of pictures.

We left Vancouver by seaplane, which was a treat in itself. Flying across Vancouver island gave great views and showed it was only 285 miles long and about 50 miles wide - but with mountain ranges and quite inhospitable/wilderness/snow capped mountains in much of it. But we can understand why in the summer it is a great place to have a holiday.

We flew down the valley of the Clayoquot Sound to land next to the jetty at the resort to be met by the owner and the team, and ferried by horse and cart to the resorts cookhouse and buildings. We then had a long, extensive briefing from John (the owner) about the tents and what to do if bears attacked us and all the activities etc... the main mantra being - you plan day-by-day and you do what you want when you want - so if you want to get up late and then go fishing at 12 Noon after a late breakfast then that is what will happen! And most of the time it worked like that - which is very enjoyable for the guests and very difficult to organize fr the management. The resort has 30-45 people only in 20 or so tents with a cook house and games room. We live in tents with outdoor toilets and showers - but the tents overlook the Sound and have antiques in - so it is pretty luxurious camping!!

The list of activities is truly amazing. When I told my dad what we did, he asked where we had to go to do them and I said all from the resort - which is a good description of how brilliantly it all works.

We have seen 9 Orcas together and 4 Humpbacks breaching, numerous Porpoises, Sea Otters, Sea Lions, Starfish and bears climbing out of trees. We have shot clays, 22 rifles, archery, climbed rocks, zipwired down a mountain over the water (Dad and Meggie together!), ridden horses, played with the 13 onsite dogs, kayaked, fished and caught loads of Salmon - including a 27lb Spring Salmon (There are Spring, King, Chinook, Coho, Pink Salmon.....but apparently the Spring is the one to catch!!) Meggie has ridden and had a massage and her nails painted most days!! We have hiked "On the Wild side" through forests and beaches and found secret huts that fishermen use when there is a storm. We climbed mountains and swam in the mountain pools at the top next to the waterfalls. The boys paintballed only twice and we also skied, wakeboarded and ringo'ed (only once but the water was too flat not to!)......

Each activity was guided and the guides were all, without exception, excellent. They were fun, informative and added to each of our experiences. That is not easy to do time and time again. For John the owner to hire brilliant people shows a great management skill - but the staff really make the whole place work. Whether it was Cosy efficiently and charmingly arranging our day of activity for us, or the amazing enthusiasm for fishing that Chuck showed us (I have said to my sons that if you are as passionate as Chuck is about fishing in what you do - then I will know that they have found their right job in life!). But all the staff (of which there are over 30) were all superb and really added to everything we did - I guess the best bits were the whale watching experiences but all of the activities were enjoyable and well organized. And each of us had our best activities which were different. So there really is something for everyone - even a 3 & a half year old! We did not do all of the activities and we want to go back to finish off the list!

The food was also really, really good - Tim - the head chef - and his team in the kitchens and restaurant were all great fun and Tims evening meal negotiations with the kids as to what was on offer ensured they tried the largest range of food they have ever tried! And the wine selection was local and tasted good with the food.

So all-in-all an excellent place to go - we have tried to think of something The Wilderness Resort lacks and we have come up with: A tag-along for the mountain bikes for the kids; a new mono ski & adult wakeboard; and a new zipwire from the top of Penny Falls - down the valley to the camp - only a km or so at a cost of $1.2m !!!

So the summary really is that it does have everything you want to do, with all the right gear, with staff that really enhance the experience with a fun attitude - with great food - and in a fabulous wilderness location. That is the summary - you must go - and go for 7 days - it is not cheap but it is certainly great value for money!!

Our best bits: Ian - Seeing the 9 Orca whales together, catching a 27 lb fish and posing for a 45lb fish photo!

Sheena - Horse riding with Meggie, seeing 4 Humpies breaching (Humpback whales) and delicious food.

Sam - The fishing & climbing were wicked - especially as we caught 22 fish that day - and the Paintballing really topped it off.

Toby - Depsite not wanting to go - Whale watching was number 1 and then swimming in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall at the top of Penny falls. Paintballing was also a hit with me - I don't mean being hit by a bullet either - wow that hurt!

Megan - Horse riding and nail painting most days - and going down the zipwire (with Dad) and climbing the rockface on my own.

I don't apologise about the amount of photos here - trust me they are only a very small selection!

Then we left on a sea plane - All Ian was thinking was that the change to an RV from the wonderful Wilderness resort was going to be a much bigger change for the family than I had anticipated!!

Vancouver and interesting Canada facts!

2009-08-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Vancouver and got 2 taxis to the Fairmont waterfront hotel (It is the only city in the world who will only take 4 people in any taxi!! and we are only 4 & a half really!) The hotel was fabulous and the view over Vancouver harbour from our rooms, with sea planes taking off and landing like taxis. We had been wanting to visit Vancouver for ages and we all really enjoyed Vancouver - a relaxed atmosphere, open, very friendly, a great harbour and very multi-cultural - with many more Asians than we thought there would be. We wandered the wonderful waterfront to Stanley park and visited a great aquarium - Beluga whales and 2 calves, Sea otters, dolphins and Turtles. Ate lunch by the harbour and the kids played in the fountains on the waterfront.

We went to see the recent Star Trek movie at the IMAX and then wandered round the city and found the Harley Davidson exhibition in the main street! It was a great city, with a really good feel about it and we will be sure to come back for longer.

Ottawa is the capital of Canada. Vancouver is Canada's 3rd largest city with 2.5m people after Toronto and Montreal. Canada has 10 provinces - when it became an independent country in 1st July 1867 it had 4 and the Provinces were being courted by the USA to join them. British Columbia said they would join Canada but only if they built a railway across the whole of the country - they did and it was completed in 3 years - 3 years ahead of schedule. We have just been on the new "Skytrain" built in Vancouver for the Winter Olympics in 2010 which was great - but again built ahead of schedule (note to UK architects & builders - ahead of schedule please!!)

It is interesting that 75% of Canadians live within 200 miles of the USA border - most of the influences we saw in Canada were USA - although Asian influences in Vancouver were also prevalent. Leaving Canada will be hard - we have enjoyed it alot - and i have w/skied here on very flat water - so top country!!

Calgary and the Rocky Mountaineer train

2009-08-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

We flew to Calgary straight after picking the boys up from camp. We liked Calgary - found the CN Tower of the town to view the surrounding area - visited the zoo and found a launderette to wash the boys clothes - which were a little dirty and smelly after camp!!!

The next morning we boarded the Rocky Mountaineer train very early and for 2 days rode the train through the Rockies and the arid area in between the Rockies and the Columbian mountain range. We followed the rivers and from the viewing platform on the train enjoyed the views - some of which were spectacular - especially around Hells Gate. We stayed overnight in a funny town called Kamloops where the rivers meet. We learnt about the salmon (4000 spawn created per salmon of which 2 survive; takes 21 days to swim from where they spawn to the sea and they always spawn where they were spawned! Cannot wait to catch some Salmon soon!) We learnt about the track, tunnels and the countryside/animals as we passed along from a very informative "Chad" - who kept us enthusiastic and looked after our train cabin superbly. We finally arrived in Vancouver after a long 2 day train ride - where the kids enjoyed bits and were very well behaved in between!! It was a good chill out for all but we enjoyed being in the city again when we arrived in Vancouver.

Camp Lincoln - Sam & Toby at US boys camp

2009-08-11T17:31:00.000-07:00

Ian, Sheena and Megan stayed at GrandView lodge hotel (like Crieff Hydro in Scotland and owned by the same family as the camp) - a hotel to remember with lots of family activities next to the lake - and the next morning we were very excited to pick the boys up from camp.

We loved seeing the boys again and Megan gave them both a big hug and here is their report of their camp memories:

* We both had a really great time at Camp lincoln. 100 years anniversary this year - run by 3 generations of Sams !!

* There were loads of new things to try - such as: Ga-Ga, Tetherball, Roofball, Nuke 'em (Not George Bushes Defence policy!), Gopherball, Street Hockey and Ultimate.

* Sam was in Apache cabin and Toby was in Badger cabin.

* We met some really good friends (we cannot mention them all) but these are some we really liked - Tobys friends were Jacob, Charlie, Roman, Ryan, Daniel, Alec, Langton and Owen. Sams friends were Charlie (from Ibstock Place), Chris Munson, Colin (I don't know his surname!), Robbie (not Williams but I don't his surname either!), Will Beemis, Will York, Prehistoric Creature (Wilson) and Willie the Mexican.

* Our Councillors were all really good fun and looked after us well - the special mentions go to Macca, Tim, Ross, Mouse, Carlton, Punter, DJ Neon, Jamal, Chris and Mooney for Sam and for Toby: Billy, Renato (Tomato!!), Ben, 2 Marks and Punter as well as Macca, Tim, Ross and Mooney.

* Our favourite memory was for Sam: When I beat Ted Hammerly at Archery. For Toby: When we had the carnival with jousting and Sumo wrestling.

* Our 1 line summary of camp is: For Toby: "Camp Lincoln was really great fun because they had loads of activities!"

For Sam: "Camp Lincoln was Freakin' wicked awesome."

* My most scary moment: For Toby: When Jack told Toby the Pioneer story and when i saw Jakes face! For Sam: When my horse bucked and kicked a friend and then the horse ran around out of control.

* We really really enjoyed it - Thanks to the Thesings for introducing the camp to us - we loved meeting everyone - thank you to you all for making it such a fun experience for us.

* Thanks to Ruggs and the Sam family - you run a great camp - we hope to be back sometime.

Anguilla and Cap Juluca

2009-08-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

Wow it took a long time to get here! 3 flights starting at 3am in the morning in Minneapolis via Atlanta and St Maarten arriving in Anguilla 16 hours later with a rather bedraggled Megan! The last plane Ian sat next to the pilot and nearly flew the plane over i.e. my knee kept getting in the way of the joystick. They also lost Megans bag along the way which we got 3 days later.

So we were very glad to get here - Cap Juluca - a great hotel with very friendly/helpful staff and guests. We were there c/o John (Creepy) Crawley the Captain of Hampshire Cricket club who had kindly donated the prize in a charity auction during his benefit year. (When i texted him to say thank you he confirmed he had announced his retirement from cricket - he has been a great contributor to the english game and we wish him well for the future - Good luck Creeepy).

At the hotel, there was white sand, warm blue sea and a strong warm breeze - too strong to do much waterskiing. (I skied anway!) Megan started not wanting to go into the sea but by the end of the holiday was jumping the waves with us and swimming out to the swim platform. Megan introduced to "cockarals" (Megans name for cocktails). Not much else to report other than we slept around 12 hours each night and lots of vegging - a true relaxing week with very friendly and helpful staff. Would recommend it. Meggie married her Dad on the wedding lawn - the day before a real wedding.

We leave in the morning for another day of travel - and a different hotel every night for a week - picking up the boys from Camp Lincoln and then going by train across Canada - so next blog will probably be from Vancouver - but hopefully the boys will do a blog re their camp after we pick them up. Bye bye for now.

Toronto and Lake Muskoka - Canada

2009-08-01T19:33:00.000-07:00

We flew on Fri 24th July to Toronto from NYC and met up with all the West family. It was the first time in 15 years that we had all been together in Canada and we had dinner in my brothers new basement at his house in Oakville. We visited Niagara falls before going on up to the lakes - to a house on Lake Muskoka. Niagara was an amazing experience - both to go behind the Falls and also on lady in the Mist - which takes you to the edge of the falls on a boat - both include getting very wet!

We had a great week in Lake Muskoka - although the weather took a few days to warm up. We rented a ski boat to ski, wakeboard, knee board and ringo and we did a fair bit of that - with everyone giving it a go - even my 70-yr old step mother had a go at ringoing! All the cousins dramatically improved their skiing and most mono-skied which was great to see. We relaxed, ate and had fun on and off the water. It was great to have everyone around and our young kids loved being around the teenage and older cousins - they thought they were very cool!! Very diificult goodbyes as we wont see many of them until Xmas in NZ and some others until after April next year - so it was lovely to spend a wonderful week with all of us together and mixing so well!

And we left early to take the boys to summer camp in Minnesota today..............

New York - July 2009

2009-08-01T19:11:00.000-07:00

We arrived in NYC and discovered taxis only take 4 people so had to take 2 taxis everywhere! NYC was very much more built up than Washington and we were all in awe of the huge tall buildings, straight streets and lots and lots of very busy people. We went straight into Central Park and out to dinner - getting around was very easy and we walked around alot. We visited Rockefeller centre so we could see the Empire State building (much shorter queues than going to Empire State building), Times Square, the USS Intrepid museum, Wall St and the Stock exchange, FAO Schwartz, The Apple Store, Ground Zero and rode the subway downtown and uptown - and had a power cut whilst on the tube. The Peninsula hotel was a great location and served our needs perfectly. The highlight was definitely the helicopter tour on a perfect evening - flying around the Statue of Liberty (much smaller than we all thought!) and over downtown and Central Park. Overall we all liked Washington better than NYC but NYC is probably best done with no kids - to sample the bars and restaurants a bit more than we did in the 4 days we were there!!!

Countdown to trip

2009-07-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

We started packing one month before and we had a very busy month - appointing the builder, packing up the house, having an outward bound course for 11 of Sam and Tobys friends at Middleton, saying goodbye to as many people as we could and choosing Sheenas kitchen with every detail confirmed!! Thank you to everyone who helped us get off on the trip - we scraped in getting everything done just in time!!

These are pictures of us leaving Middleton to go to the airport and of us at T5 just before we boarded our plane. The flight was great - good old BA!

We have had a great time in Washington. It is an amazing place with wide open roads, space and a very relaxed feel to it. We ran every morning past the White House, the Washington Monument, the WWII memorial and down to the Lincoln memorial. Everyone was very hospitable and friendly. We enjoyed touring the Capitol buildings, the Nasa space museum and the Museaum of Natural history and the Imax. The subway was very clean and easy to use.

A few facts we have learned so far: The USA has 50 states the last 2 added were Alaska (49) and Hawaii (50). There are 100 senators in the Senate - 2 senators per state and 435 in the house of representatives - representatives are allocated based on population per state. No Building in Washington can be taller than the Washington monument. Barack Obama is the 44th President of the US.

We have now arrived in New York - having got the fast train via Philadelphia today - now for a few days in NYC - still getting up early - maybe a run in Central Park tomorrow!

RTW trip schedule and pre-trip reasons!!

2009-06-22T07:33:00.000-07:00

we DECIDED we WANTED TO GO TRAVELLING AROUND THE WORLD WITH the FAMILY A FEW YEARS AGO. WHEN WE TALKED ABOUT IT WE REALISED WE HAD A NARROWING WINDOW TO GO AS THE KIDS WERE GETTING OLDER AND OUR OLDEST WAS GOING TO BE 13 SOON AND WE FELT WE COULD NOT DISRUPT his STUDIES AFTER THAT. WE ALSO WANTED TO HAVE SOME WORK DONE TO OUR HOUSE AND SO INSTEAD OF RENTING SOME MISERABLE OTHER HOUSE TO LIVE IN WHILST IT WAS DONE WE DECIDED A RTW TRIP WOULD ACTUALLY SAVE US MONEY! WE ALSO FELT THAT WITH THE ECONOMY IN ITS CURRENT STATE WE WOULD NOT MISS TOO MUCH BY TAKING SOME TIME OUT AND COMING BACK IN SPRING 2010. AND LASTLY WE FELT THAT THE KIDS AND US WOULD BENEFIT GREATLY FROM THE TRIP AND THAT IT WOULD BE A BETTER EXPERIENCE THAN ANOTHER 9 MONTHS AT SCHOOL (23 WEEKS OF ACTUAL SCHOOL TIME).

SO WHAT WITH THE GOOD TIMING FOR THE KIDS, THE ECONOMY, THE BUILDING WORK AND THE EXPERIENCE, WE SET ABOUT THE PLANNING OF THE TRIP. WE ALL PUT DOWN OUR TOP PLACES WE WANTED TO VISIT. WE READ TRAVEL BOOKS AND WE GOT A ROUGH OUTLINE OF WHERE WE WANTED TO GO, WHAT WE WANTED TO SEE AND WHAT EXPERIENCES WE WANTED TO HAVE. SO THE ITINERARY HAS BECOME A BIT LIKE "PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES, with a few boats thrown in!!" MEETS "ROBINSON CRUSOE" ....... AS IT TURNS OUT YOU CANNOT TRAVEL THE WORLD IN ONLY 9 MONTHS!!

YOU NEED TO BE SELECTIVE AND PICK WHERE YOU WANT TO GO - AND GET SOME PLANNING DOWN ON PAPER. IT WAS ALL VERY EXCITING AND THEN........THE WORRY ABOUT " WHAT ARE WE DOING TO THE KIDS AND OUR YOUNGEST ONLY going to be 4 YRS OLD Soon - WOULD THEY AND SHE COPE?" AND THEN I READ THE RTW BLOG OF A FAMILY FROM TORONTO WHO HAD A SIMILAR AGED FAMILY WHO HAD DECIDED within a week and left within a week TO TRAVEL AROUND THE WORLD. THEY LITERALLY FLEW TO A PLACE - WENT TO THE AIRPORT HOTELS DESK AND ASKED FOR DETAILS OF A SUITABLE HOTEL TO STAY IN AND THEN WOKE UP IN THE MORNING WITH THEIR GUIDE BOOK AND DECIDED WHAT TO DO THAT DAY..... THEY HAD A FABULOUS TRIP AND WOULD RECOMMEND EVERYONE TRIES IT IF THEY CAN.... SO AGAIN WE WERE ENCOURAGED THAT WE WERE DOING THE RIGHT THING.

AND THEN WE SET ABOUT TELLING SCHOOLS ABOUT THE PLANS AND WORKING OUT HOW TO TRY TO KEEP UP THE KIDS EDUCATION WHILST WE WERE AWAY.....AND HOW THE KIDS WOULD COPE.........

We now have a month to go and all the flights, travel plans,jabs, visas, holidays and schools have been booked. A summary of our trip is below: Hurrah we leave in a month - lots to finish off before we go!

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RTW Schedule – West Family 2009/10:

Dates:

1st Continent - NAmerica/Canada:(19/7 -29/9):

East Coast (Washington and New York) 1 wk

Canada (Niagara Falls/Toronto/Lake Muskoka) 1 wk

Camp Lincoln – Minnesota American Summer camp 2 wks

Train across Canada - Vancouver Island camping 1 wk

West Coast (Vancouver to San Francisco) in RV 3 wks

West Coast (San Fran to LA) in Car - Highway 1 2 wks

2nd Continent – South America & South Pacific:(29/9/09 s. America – S. Pacific 24/10to 4/12/09)

Galapagos/Ecuador/Quito trip 1 wk

Peru - Inca & Machu Picchu/Cuzco trip 1 wk

Amazon/ Peru end trip 1 wk

Cook Islands – S. Pacific/Rarotonga - Kids school 6 wks

3rd Continent – NZ: (5/12/2009 - 3/1/2010)

NZ tour / North and South Island

then Xmas with family 4 wks

4th Continent – Asia tour:

(Tour 3/1/2010 to 20/2/2010 - arrive Suzhou 21/2 - 2/4/10 then Borneo 2/4/10 to 8/4/10)

Hong Kong 1 wk

Vietnam tour 1 WK

Cambodia tour 1 WK

thailand trip 1 wk

Japan and China tour 3 wks

China (Suzhou/Shanghai) Kids in school 6 wks

Malaysia/Borneo holiday 1 wk

Return to UK 9th April 2010

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