The Adventures Of Liz & Suzie
In reverse order

The Randle Are Home
Well we've finally got home from our little trip, and we've landed back to earth with a bang. After a few weeks home it doesn't feel like we've been away except for the ten tonnes of photos we've bought back with us, (really should sort through them but I don't think the task will ever end if I start it).

We really enjoyed every minute of it (with the obvious exceptions). New Zealand was the highlight for me as its the most beautiful country, with so much to do.

Anyway wont bore you anymore with our copious amounts of emails but thanks to those who got around to reading any of them (cheers mum and dad). Hope you enjoyed them.

Great to see you all again, Suzie and Liz.

Randles falling from the sky
Oh my God, we just chucked ourselves out of a plane at 12,000 feet, what a rush! By the way, Happy Easter everyone and Happy Touring girls! We've been busy since Nelson, we spent a night in Picton and then said goodbye to New Zealands south island and crossed the Cook Strait to the north. And to celebrate leaving the south, we partook of a few sociable beverages to counter-act the choppy seas and did a superb impression of Bruss! By the time we got off the ferry in the nations capital Wellington it was midnight so we blagged our way to a hostel and crashed. Wellington is a tiny place for a capital city but has everything you could want. Our hostel was just down the road from the Embassy cinema where they held the world premier of the Lord of the Rings films and it has a huge model Gollum peering over the roof, very freaky at midnight! We are so sad that we just had to go and watch The Two Towers again and got to sit in the posh seats! I think my feet must have been resting on Elijah Wood's head! As if this wasn't enough we spent a day in Te Papa, the national museum of NZ where we saw lots of Maori stuff and the LOTR exhibition where they show you how they made everything work. There were loads of miniture sets, drawings and costumes and we even got shrunk to have our pictures taken as Hobbits, its magic you know! In true Kiwi style we couldn't leave without paying to watch a lot of very big men run around in very small shorts. We saw the Hurricanes (yey!) play the Waratahs (boo!) in a Super 12 rugby match and we won, hooray! Again, feeling the need to celebrate we proceeded to drink far too many Tui's in a refurbished toilet block (strange but true) and hit the sack at 4am. Sadly, we had to say bye to Lee who's been travelling with us since Queenstown. To cheer ourselves up we met up with Benji C! Benji C is over here teaching maths to large Samoan kids in long socks and short shorts. Hey, you can tell them they look silly if you like, have you seen the size of them?! We had a fun evening drinking beer, playing pool and endearing ourselves to his lovely girlfriend Rosalie by reciting his Liverpool pants shopping incident!!?!...but thats a whole nother story. So, to celebrate we had the biggest greasiest most deep fried chinese in the history of the world. ever. After a week or so in Wellington we left and had a day in Palmerston North on the way to Taupo. The highlight of Palmy was a trip to a shoe shop as Fred's trainers have died a death, Says a lot about Palmy doesn't it. Taupo is so cool! Got here a few days ago and have cycled to the craters of the moon, my legs ache. Perhaps an explanation is in order. Taupo is at the centre of the volcanic region of the north island with lots of active volcanos and thermal regions. The craters of the moon is an area where the earth is so hot it heats up the ground water which escapes in the form of huge clouds of steam from craters and cracks in the ground. It was amazing, just like being in Jurassic Park! To celebrate Easter Sunday and Kate's birthday (Happy Birthday Boghead) we jumped! Yes Mum, even me. What a rush! We woke up really nervous but by the time we got kitted up with jumpsuits and harnesses and very sexy Biggles hats and goggles we were loving it! We met our jumpmasters, mine was Archie the Aussie and Fred had Freddy (apt) the horny devil and we were off! It was a bit scary as Freddy the devil opened the door as we were taking off and waved to everyone on the ground, I laughed but Fred didn't as she was right next to the door and yet to be strapped in. Fred was last in the plane and therefore first out, hold your harness, smile for the camera, head back, AAaaaaaggggggghhhhh!!!!!! Ok so Fred didn't make a sound, but I was 4th and had to watch the people ahead of me so when it was my turn I grimaced for the camera, head back and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! Not quite so cool. It was 45 seconds freefall but felt like 2. We were falling so fast it took our breath away but we could see a circle rainbow in the clouds which we fell through. All of a sudden the parachute was up, the roaring in our ears stopped and we could see the land for miles around with Mount Doom in the background! I even got to drive! We played with the parachutes making them spin and swoop and before we knew it we were being told to lift up our feet for landing. We even landed on our feet! Hey, its all about the style. So here's the proof, a nice pic of Fred and Freddy and a terrified one of me and Archie, enjoy. Happy Easter! Love Bibs and Fred x p.s. Nice to know you got our Macadamian pressie Mel, hope everyone had a blast on tour! Mine's a pint!

Ice Age
Well we are now in Greymouth on the west coast. Not much to do here but a brewery tour so of course we are staying three nights. The hostel is fantastic though and there's a huge barbie for about a quid so we're set.

We've a great few days since Queenstown so I'll bore you with the details. From Queenstown we stopped a town called Wanaka and went to a Puzzle world. I thought it was brilliant but I'm a bit strange. There was a fantastic room though that was built at a 15 degree angle. It really messed with your head and we took lots of photos for the amusement factor.

From there we went straight up to Franz Josef Glacier (Patsy, we missed Fox unfortunately) for a few days. We did a full day glacier walk which was superb, one of my favourite things. I htink we only did it because they gave you crampons and ice picks (so much fun). We walked for hours up the Glacier which is the steepest Glacier in the world. We walked through really steep crevices(?) and thought ice caves and only got lost once. It's pretty scary because the glaciers change every day so the guides have to be really switched on. It was so strange because it was really hot. You don't really expect to wear shorts and t-shirt on a load of ice and snow.

From there we went to the town of Hokitika which is famous for its Jade carving. We stayed at a cool hostel aND CARVED OUR OWN jade necklases. It was nakering rubbed it for 8 hours. We really liked it there. The people were really nice and we sat on the beach all night around a bonfire.

Kiwi stuff
HI everyone! Been in New Zealand about a month now so I thought it's probably about time I got my arse in gear and write some stuff down, I bet you're all itching to know what we're up to...ok maybe not, but I'm gonna bore you with the details anyway. We've done so much since we've been here its ridiculous! New Zealand has to be my favourite place in the world, it has everything. Arrived into Christchurch from Oz at the start of March. Christchurch is a very English town, more so than most of England. Punting down the river, picturesque town square, beautiful gardens, compulsory wierdo's on their soapboxes in front of the cathedral. You get the idea. Had enough of 'England' after a while so moved on to a tiny little town called Tekapo which has got to be one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The lake which our hostel overlooked was pure turquoise and you can see the snow capped mountains in the distance. We even managed to miss the bus, but in true NZ style the manager of the hostel offered to drive us the 110 kms to our next stop. Wouldn't even accept any petrol money! Next stop Mount Cook, NZ's highest peak. Another tiny town where we did a walk up the mountain before practically running back down to celebrate our rare burst of activity with a cold beer. Far more civilised. Hit Queenstown after that which is the adventure capital of the world so they say. You can bungee off the highest bungee in the world here, 134 metre drop, did I do it? hell no! We did have a bash at white water surfing though which was fun except it damn near killed me! Basically you get swept down river armed with only a wetsuit and a body board through anything up to grade 4 rapids, tell me, why did we do this again? The first rapid was named hangover cure, the second, gnashing jaws of death... you get the idea. It would have been fine except I managed to get swept the wrong way onto the bank whilst the rest of my group carried on down river and I had to be rescued by a strapping young man, so not all bad then! The scenery was pretty amazing too, we floated underneath a bridge bungee site and through the part on Lord of the Rings where the two kings are carved into the rock on either side of the river, pretty spectacular! Leaving the boarding with a new fear of rapids we decided that we had done too much adventure and spent the next couple of days/nights juggling getting pissed on a regular basis, with a bout of toncilitis! Met a couple of lads here too, hi Lee and Dan, one of whom Lee, decided in his infinite wisdom to travel with us for a while, strange boy. Continued up the west coast for a few days before our next major stop at the Franz Joseph glacier. We decided to go on a guided walk up the glacier, not for the views as you'd think but mainly because you get your own spiky boots and ice axe!! It was great, we got to climb through blue ice crevasses, through ice caves and I think I've cured my fear of big drops for good by having to cross rickety rope bridges! Are you proud of me Jannie?! Leaving the mountains behind we headed to the beach and a town called Hokitika which is famous for its Maori greenstone or jade. We stayed in a cool little guest house with a mad Kiwi and carved and sandpapered our own jade necklaces and listening to an unending supply of jokes by the mad Kiwi about rubbing our pieces! The best bit was the bonfires and beers on the beach every night with the other travellers and locals. Greymouth was pretty non-descript but we hired a car for the day and headed into the mountains to Arthurs Pass with the biggest picnic you've ever seen. It decided to chuck it down all day long so we did the totally English thing and parked up to picnic in the car! Now we're in Nelson and almost the end of our explorations of the South Island, we'll be in Wellington by the middle of next week to meet up with the lovely Benji C whose working over here now. Still having a good time even though we've been out here for 6 months already and only a couple of months left before home - boo! Hope tour goes well, can't believe you're all going without us!! Have a pint for me in the Black Dog on Sunday afternoon! Take care, let me know all the gossip from home Love Liz & Suzie xx

News from New Zealand
Kia Ora!!!! Well we are finally in New Zealand. The land of kiwis, rugby players and sheep!

We have been in New Zealand for only two weeks but it seems like forever. It is definitely my favourite place and i think Liz's too. Only good things have happened so far, its brilliant.

Well we finally got into Christchurch in the South Island at about 2 in the morning and were gutted when we had to check out at 10 the next morning. Anyway Christchurch was nice. It really reminded me of home. It's famous for being more English than England which is certainlt true. It's got a big cathedral and cobbled streets and even boats punting up the River Avon. Very confusing with people walking around with weird accents (they pronouce pig, pug and peg, pig and also fush and chups!).

We moved on from Christchurch after a couple of days and went to Lake Tekapo. Oh my God it's amazing. There was a beautiful lake the colour of turquoise, surronded by forests and snow capped mountains off in the distance. Wow. So we pretty much just sat and stared for three days. The village was tiny and everyone was really nice. We somehow managed to miss our bus to go to Mt Cook which meant we were in a right mess with no where to stay the night and minor things like that and then out of no where Andrew the YHA manager says he's not busy for the next couple of hours, so he doesn't mind driving us 100km to Mt Cook if we want. What a star!!! He wouldn't even take petrol money from us. So by 5pm we were standing at the foot of the Southern Alps ant Mt Cook, NZ's highest mountain.

All of New Zealand is just amazing. There's just so much to see and do that no one can be disappointed. After a few days we made it to Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand where you can skydive, raft and bungy jump to your hearts content. They have the original and also the highest bungy here. We checking into the hostel and every one was a great laugh. We were there for about 5 minutes before everyone was down at the pub for the night. And the next. My god we are sooo broke.

In order to curb the hangover that was definately thinking of appearing, in a moment of madness we decided that a good way to get rid of it was to swim in a really cold, fast river. Clever. So we booking up to go White water surfing. You basically have a wetsuit, fins, crash helmet and boogie body and swim(?) down a few rapids all in the name of fun. The scenery was amazing though. It was the same river they filmed in the Lord of the Rings and there we were floating down it.!!!!!! I really enjoyed it. We jumped of a few rock ledges, played in whirlpools and surfed a few stationaly waves which was the strangest feeling ever as you felt like you were going really fast but you weren't moving at all! In the end , some of us did the finale which was the Infamous grade 4 Chinese Dog Leg rapid. Scary as hell! Bibs on the other hand showed far more flair for gulping and drowning than for surfing and rapid riding. At one point the river swept the entire group to the right and poor Bibs to the left leaving her washed up on the rocks all alone! The good thing was she had to be rescued by a strapping, blond, well built surfer kiwi dude! Its all good!

Took a day trip out to Milford Sound which is a series of fiords carved out of the solid rock by glaciers leaving an absolutely beautiful landscape which we explored by boat. We saw the Sutherland Falls which are 3 times higher than Niagra Falls !! and sunbathing seals. Stopped off at the small town of Te Anau on the way back before getting back to our base in Queenstown for a few days.

Going on a Luge tomorrow!

Having a great time (if we don't die horribly tomorrow)

Love Bibs and Fred x

Sydney
Hello Everybody. How are you all?

Well when we left you, we were at Surfer's Paradise. We decided to leave there and the really busy hostel and continue our journey to Nimbin. Slight problem due to the fact that our bus tickets got lost/stolen and had to pay $50 to get them reissued. Nimbin came into existance in the 1960's as the venue for the Aquarius festival and all the hippies kind of just stayed there. The town was really colourful. Theres a thriving "herbal" economy if you catch me dift. It even said Sniffer Dogs Prohibited on the Community Centre with made me laugh. It was a great little place and so laid back. From there we went to Byron Bay. It was also hippyish but more commercialised as well. We stayed at a nice hostel, mainly because they had free pancake breakfasts so we were set. We had a great time there and even learned to surf. Well Liz did, I failed miserably but had a great time doing it.

From Byron we Stopped off at a nice fishing town of Coffs Harbour, home of the Big Banana and Russell Crowe to name a few. That reminded us of holidaying in Walse so much mainly due to the rain. A few more days travel from there with Alex our driver via Bellingen and Nundle. Nundle was superb. We stayed at a working sheep farm very much like Dingo was. They pretty much make a killing from the Oz bus from the food and accomadation not to mention the amount of alcohol they sell. There were lots of drinking games and a Bucking Bronko aswell. So much fun, then we danced the night away before sharing our room with a trancula. FYI, the south bound bus won again (namely us).

In the morning wr drove to Syndey and got our first glimses of the amazing city. We drove over the Sydney Harbour Bridge with the Opera House in view before a quick tour around the city through The Rocks and Kings Cross (seedyist place around). We're staying in a YHA here in Sydney at the moment and are absolutly knacked from all the walking we are doing but are having a great time seeing the sights. We've been on a ferry to Manly on the other side of the Harbour and walked around Circular Quay and Darling Harbour. Jammy buggers that we are, we were walking through the Domain (Grassy bit) and stumbled across the Tropfest, the biggest short film festival in the world. It was the finals and they showed the final 16 films on 3 huge screens. So we decided to sit down on the grass and watch them.They were all really good. They had some pretty amazing judges as well like the producer of the Matrix and Russell Crowe who gave out the awards at the end. How cool.

Well off to the Blue Mountains tomorrow for a bit of walking and then back here on the 27th to go to the opera. How posh or wot. We're going to see Orpheus in the Underworld (sure dad with like it) with seats on the front row no less, just right on the edge.

Then off to Melbourne to see Marcella hopefully as you do.

Got to go. Keep well Love suzie and Liz

Surfers Paradise
Hi everyone.
Had no luck in the job front but should be Ok anyway so no matter. Hey who want's to work anyway. We are on the move again and are now in Surfers Paradise which isn't half as bad as I expected. In fact, we are staying here for a week in stead of the 3 days planned. The beach is amazing and the waves are huge. There's alot to keep us occupied but don't think we will have a go a surfing. We did do a sling shot though. Like a reverse Bungee where they strap you in a cage and fling you 80 metres in to the air. Even Bibs did it but did make some rather amusing noises as seen on the video replay. It only cost 5.50 pounds.

Heading to Sydney on about the 21st of Feb via Nimbin, Byron Bay, Coffs Harbour, Bellingen and Nundle (weird names I think). We are also going to Melbourne for a week after Sydney to see what all the fuss is about - should be fun.

More interesting things to come when we get moving again.

Take care

Lots of love Suzie and Liz.

Viva Bris-Vegas, Yes they actually call it that!
Well I hope everyone had a fantastic christmas and new year. By the way great gifts at the christmas party. The flea collar is my personal favourite!

Anyway we both had a FANTASTIC time over christmas sailing the Whitsundays. It was superb although the couple next to us at the dive briefing thing happened to live on Ise Lodge, typical. Met some great people, most of who thought I was about 21 so of course I love them all now. Got trashed on cheap wine, played cards, looked at the stars, did some diving and sunbathed on Christmas morning on a pure white beach so what more can you ask for?

After the Whitsundays we travelled on the Oz Bus all the way to Brisbane to get there for New Years. We stopped at a cattle station in a cool named place called Dingo for a night and had the best night yet. There was line dancing, tug of war, BBQ, bonfire, boatraces (of course our team won, mainly because Suzie downed her pint in super quick time sandwiched between 5 shirtless men! good girl, taught her everything she knows!), a lot of drinking and pretty much just a good laugh (Hayley and Nicola, you were right about the drinking thing). We went horse riding and our attempt at trotting was just laughable, well pretty much just painful for us. We also stopped for the night at a place called Bargara and Mooloolaba, we had literally minutes of fun with that name with Darryn our bus driver. Mooooooloooooolabaaaa. You had to be there.

Well finally we made it to Brisbane at about 1pm on New Years Eve and having dumped our bags at the hostel, we went out for the celebrations. We went to a really nice Chinese Restaurant which was a bring your own alcohol one as we still had half a carton of wine to finish (think that's weird, they even have drive through bottle shops, not sure if that's a good idea really). We managed to order enough to feed a small army which we though was hilarious due to it being really very cheap wine. Any way we put the rest into a doggie bag (it's the norm you know) and went to South Bank where they put on an amazing fireworks display to rival Syndey's and went round and round on a ferris wheel (my favourite bit - Liz). That place was amazing and we had a great time, one to remember, or not... it was really very cheap wine.

It's now the 8th. The past few days have been filled with knocking on every cafe, bar and restaurant in Brisbane for a job, but to no avail. Oh well, perhaps we will find one down the coast, no sense in looking too hard. For the mean time we are staying here in Brisbane as we have payed for 2 weeks rent on an apartment we are staying at. There's a canadian called Kurt staying they as well. He's really nice and so far has showed no homicidal tendancies so thats good. He's also there for about two weeks. Tonight we all went out to the cinema to watch a very stange French film called 8 femmes (it was actually quite funny-don't worry dad) with some of his friends for his dorm room at the Palace. The apartment is really nice and it even has a TV so I can still get my fix of CSI which is great, sadly only 2 channels work but we did get to watch us thrash the Aussies once! It's a bit out of Brisbane, probably why it's so much cheaper but it's a nice walk or cheap train ride depending on how lazy we feel.

Anyway, Brisbane is a really nice city, and it's nice to stay in one place for a while to get to know it a bit. Hope you are all recovering nicely from the New year celebrations and by the way you better make the Tenerife thing annual so we can go next year!!!!! Hope you all keep your new year's resolutions and are having a good start to the year so far. Keep in touch love DrF and BP.( Suzie and Liz for those not at hockey and if not why not).

Festive Plans
Well Merry Christmas for the people who get this before Christmas Day and Happy New year for those who don't. So then, I pick up the story from Cairns which we left on the Oz Experience bus to go to Mission Beach. Its about 2 hours journey away but it took us 8. It's a good thing this time. We went north from Cairns (Mission Beach is south) but we visited all the interesting things along the way like rainforests and Tablelands and the Big Cassowary (Assies love the build big replicas of things, its very strange). Its good if you don't mind stopping every hour. Well on the way south we stopped at a crocodile farm for a few hours. The bloke who owns it (a guinuine Steve Irwin) was a little mad. He talked to us on the bus for ten minutes then pulled out a baby croc from inside his shirt. The girl in the front screamed. Bless her. It was fantastic. We got the feed Kangaroos and saw Cassowarys and wallabys and of course crocodiles being fed. They are a little scary even behind a six feet fence. The biggest one was over 5 metres which the man went and sat on. At the end we even got to hold some snakes and the baby crocodile. It had its mouth taped up but never mind. Even Liz held the Crocodile and snake. Can you believe it, you must be so proud. Mission Beach was Great. The place we stayed was just a big house and it was so laid back. We stayed there ot 3 nights. It even had a huge Christmas tree. From there we got Oz to Townsville where we got off to go to Magnetic Island. It was beautiful and we stayed there 3 nights as well. We had to perfect the art of microwavable dinners as this place didn't have a kitchen just a hole with a microwave and toaster. Oh well. From there we went to Airlie (NO) Beach via the "big mango" and "big crab". We stayed for a night at a hugh resort called Magnums . We were going to stay over Christmas and New year but didn't like it so we are going further south for new year. For christmas, we asked ourselve what we could do to make it special, other than being in Australia of course. Well later today we are setting sail for a cruise of the Whitsunday Islands. We are at sea from christmas eve to boxing day. Fan-bloody-tastic!!!! We can't wait. It should be fun in the saloon having christmas dinner with a box of wine and a box of Roses. The company we are going with even give a free dive so its double the fun. It should deffinately be one to remember. When we get back we a scooting down the coast via Dingo, Bargara and Mooloolaba to get to Brisbane to see the new year in. Should be fun. Hope everyone has a nice christmas and new year. Don't forget to send us all the gossip from the christmas parties. Love Liz and Suzie

Reef Encounters
We've hit Oz-tralia!! But is Oz-tralia ready for us? that's the question! We've been here for 10 days now and are absolutely loving it. We spent a few days in Singapore waiting for our flight and wandering around the extremely clean and hi-tech streets and shopping arcades and looking right out of place exploring the Raffles hotel! We did toy with buying a 'Singapore Sling' but at $18 a shot we decided we'd rather eat for the next few days instead! It was a bit of a culture shock after the cheap living we'd enjoyed in the rest of Asia as it was far more expensive (still nothing like England though). We managed to find a cheap-ish guesthouse with free tea and coffee so to make the most of it spent the last few days on a caffine high We did splash out one day and visit the Singapore Science Centre and had great fun pushing buttons and playing with gadgets which were naturally aimed at 10 year olds but once we'd pushed them out the way, there was no stopping us! We spent 4 hours there and got kicked out at closing time. All too quickly it was time to leave South East Asia and the first leg of Bibs and Freds Excellent Adventure so we grudgingly said goodbye with a beer in a bright neon cafe overlooking the Singapore skyline. We didn't stay sad for too long as the next day we were beginning part II and heading for Oz! The flights were a bit of a slog. We left Singapore's Changi Airport at 9pm and were served dinner at 10pm which was fine until they decided to serve breakfast at 3am pretending it was just before 6! Bloody timezones. We arrived in Brisbane early in the morning and only had an hour before our connection to Cairns. Arrived in Cairns (after our 2nd breakfast...well it was there) around 11am to a wall of heat we'd never experienced before. Eventually we found our way to the Youth Hostel and the first thing we did was jump in the pool...yes POOL!! Well, more like a puddle really it was that tiny but hey, its a POOL!!! We settled in and booked ourselves in on a learn to dive course for the next day. Learning to Scuba dive is one of the best things I have ever done and to do it on the Great Barrier Reef is something special. We spent 2 days in the classroom and swimming pool learning about dive tables and trying not to drown with our instructor Jason who, lets face it, was a bit of a babe! Then 3 days and two nights living aboard a boat on the ocean diving for real amongst the incredibly brightly coloured fish and coral. Once we'd qualified as certified divers we were let loose on our own and saw some amazing things, octopus, barracuda, turtles, clams a metre wide and dolphins. There were reef sharks out there too but sadly I didn't get to see one - gutted! We even went on a night dive, yes me the eternal wimp, dived into the murky ocean with only Suze and a torch to protect me! The whole thing was pretty amazing! We were woken up at 5.45am each morning with a song from the ships first mate Shane who was also a bit of a babe and had a great voice too. Can these Aussies do no wrong?! We were chucked in the water by 6.30 and came back in time for breakfast and a dip in the spa, god its such a hard life. Everyone on board was fantastic and we met loads of really great people, it was just a shame we had to leave cloud 9 and come back to Cairns. I've spent the last few days sorting out our plans for Christmas, turning 26!, wandering why we even bother turning up to play the Aussies at cricket and getting a mere $3 to the pound! (At least they can't take the piss about that!) We're heading south on 17th to a place called Mission beach, then to Magnetic Island and Townsville on 20th before hitting Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands for Christmas and the New Year! We're also going to a Christmas Carol Concert in the park for a sing-song tonight with some friends we've made to try and make it feel a little bit like Christmas! If we don't get a chance to mail again before, have a FANTASTIC CHRISTMAS & NEW YEAR!! Let me have all the gossip from xmas parties!! Take care Love Liz & Suzie xx

Singapore Sling
Hope you are all great. Well done to the first team for your recent wins, keep it up! Anyway I'm here to keep you all informed of our little trip, so here goes: We grudgingly left Ko Pha Ngan and took all day pretty much just get to Surat Thani opposite the island on the main land. Well it was a hole so left. We made our way to Malaysia in a bus (of course) and landed in Georgetown, on Penang island. Very cool place it was to. We spent our time walking around the very laidback streets, and in the evenings watching pirate DVD's in the cafes in chinatown. We saw XXX and even the new James Bond film a few weeks before its in the cinemas. Great fun and the food was lush. After a few days we travelled to Kuala Lumpur (it means Muddy Confluence you know) in the poshist coach you've seen. There was only room for 3 chairs in a row there were so big, they reclined and had foot rests. We spent the hours watching other pre-release pirate films on the hugh TV in the front. We stayed at a typical travellers guesthouse in a box with a fan while there but spent most of our time in the city. KL as it called is fab. Its quite a small city when compared to Bangkok but its still quite exciting. Its really developing quickly, with skyscrapers and shopping malls popping up everywhere but with markets sprawled over the roads and temples hidden up back streets, its an interesting mix of old and new. We travelled over most of the city during the few days we were there by walking or going on the sky rail. Why is it travel in these cities is so easy compared to England. We had a great day visiting the Golden Triangle area (the posh bit). We looked around the really spectacular shopping centre there, we travelled up 41 floors of the Petronas Twin Towers to view the city on the bridge between the buildings (the one on Entrapment - this week we have mostly been impersonating Catherine Zeta Jones) and we went to the cinema to watch Harry Potter (brilliant). We visited lots of (free) museums and art galleries and because we had been saving up, we treated ourselves to a slap up proper Indian meal. It was delicious and well worth it. After a few days, we eventually travelled down to Singapore. Its alot greener than I expected and just as clean as every one said. Its not as expensive as first thought aswell, if you are careful. We have managed to find a nice guesthouse with free tea and coffee so we are making the most of it and are on a caffine high most of the day. The city is big but with good transport links even if it did take us dumbos a good few minuets to figure it out. There is so much to do as well, we are keeping busy. Just like in KL there are shopping centres everywhere and in singapore they really make the effort with Christmas. There are trees and sparkly things everywhere even if it doesn't feel Christmassy to us, I don't think it will this year, the sacrifices we make! Yesterday we visited the Sinapore Science Centre and it was superb. It was huge and everything was so much fun, they had really tried to make it interesting to kids and so of course we loved it. We were there for 4 hours and we still didn't have time to look at all of it as we got kicked out at closing time. We have also visited the famous Raffles Hotel and was that posh. We felt really at home with our scruffy clothes and sandals among all the outside! chandeliers and Gucci shops. Its got a real elegant feel to it. It even had its own museum we visited. For those who didn't know, Raffles is the birthplace of the infamous Sinapore Sling but sadly we didn't buy one as they cost S $18 each (about 7quid). There are so many Raffles things here, roads, shopping centres, train stations, statues. Anyway Singapore is really nice and there is plenty of things to do. We are both enjoying it, but sadly we fly tomorrow to Australia. What am I saying, Hooray. I can't believe that 2 months is already up and we have finished South East Asia. The first step is over and I am sad of that but there's so much more left to look forward to. Looks like the next installment will be from the land of Oz. We are both having a brilliant time and I hope everyone at home is too, keep in touch and take care, Suzie and Liz xxx

Bibby on the Beach
I suppose its about time I got my act together and made you all jealous once again!! I can't remember the last time I sent an email to everyone, think it might have been Hanoi, so I'll start in Vietnam. We left Hanoi on some more extremely dodgy public transport and headed south. We stopped off in Hoi An which is a beautiful little town on the coast sporting no less than 200 tailor shops! Naturally having told ourselves to be careful with our money it didn't take long for us to get a couple of silky numbers tailor made by a lovely girl called Tuna!! We had high hopes for our next stop of Nha Trang 'Vietnem's premier party town' or so the blurb says, and the first beach of our travels which I was REALLY looking forward to. Sadly, when we got there it poured down and was particularly rubbish! Didn't stay long funnily enough.. Further south to Ho Chi Minh city or Saigon as everyone still calls it. Saigon is superb, loads to do and if you can avoid being mown down by a stray motorbike, pretty friendly. Thought we'd better do the cultural/historic bit and visited the War Remnants museum simply because it used to be called the Ámerican War Crimes museum'! As you can imagine it was fairly grim as they certainly hadn't censored any of the photographs. Its quite scary standing next to a 7 tonne 10 foot high bomb! After a few more visits in this theme like the Cu Chi tunnels, a 250km tunnel complex built by locals over 10 years during the war and the Re-unification palace where Saigon surrendered to the north in 1975, we decided we couldn't take any more war stuff and went to Saigon water park to play on the water shutes! Got my first wally swimming costume shaped tan here - hooray! Decided that we'd had enough of Vietnam although I'd definitely go back and re-visit the best bits again, and left for Cambodia. A mere 12 hour bus ride later and we were in the capital Phnom Penh! Found a guesthouse showing English films (with English subtitles??!!) and proceded to slump in front of the telly for quite a long time! Its amazing what you miss... Phnom Penh was a nice town, quite small for a capital but with lots of character. We visited a couple of the local sights and ended up talking to a Khmer bloke called Kim who wanted to practice his English. He came to Phnom Penh from the countryside over 2 years ago to learn English and get a job so he could support his family and hasn't been able to see them since then. Makes you think doesn't it. The next day we took a trip to the killing fields of Choeung Ek where over 9000 people were executed during the Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge regime of the 70's and 80's. Many of them were killed for being intellectuals or being able to speak a foreign language and in the centre of the field where the graves were uncovered, they have erected a memorial monument which is a 30 foot high glass case filled with the skulls of the people who died. Really scary. Deciding we'd had enough genocide for one day we passed up visiting the prison museum and went to play bartering games at the market instead, feeling really proud of ourselves the few times we managed to get the price down by a couple of riel! Moving on to Siem Riep a few days later where the famous Angkor temples are we got up at 5.00am one morning to go and watch the dawn break over Angkor Wat. It was just amazing, despite the 100 or so other tourists who had the same idea - typical! We spent the day wandering round the temples (and being driven by our two personal motorbike men!!) and ended up at one which looked like the temple in tomb-raider, so naturally we then spent the afternoon trying to be Lara Croft! Leaving Siem Riep on the road to the Thai border, we appear to have been ripped off (amazingly for the first time) when we paid $9 each for the bus ride from hell! For starters, the 'bus' was not a bus it was a pick-up truck and the 'road' was not a road it was a dirt track, half of which had been washed away in the rains. 7 of us spent an excrutiating couple of hours bumping up and down perched on the side of this truck (which incidently was also not our truck, the driver bribed someone else to take us!) As if all this wasn't bad enough, the driver pulled into a random house halfway along the road, made us all get out and filled the back of the truck with crates of iced dead fish, we then had to re-load ourselves and our bags back on top of the fish, along with half his family! As if all this wasn't bad enough, we stopped again to pick up a load of people who had broken down until there was an amazing 28 people loaded precariously on this poor truck. Then a small girl threw up. Eventually we made it back into Bangkok in Thailand smelling a little unsavoury, well fishy to be precise, and decided to spend the night on the infamous Khao San road where all the backpackers stay. Our room was a complete hole, we should have paid attention to the graffiti scrawled across the wall saying 'ýou must have a lot of hate to stay here long'! It was an exact replica of the room at the start of 'The Beach' and the noises during the night were pretty much what you'd expect!! Things improved quite a bit after that as in daylight the Khao San road area is brilliant, you can buy everything from postcards to a fake ID! Grabbed an overnight train the next day and ended up on the beautiful island of Ko Pha Ngan. We spent a week in our very own beach hut overlooking a very quiet sandy beach. I think I've just about got rid of my wally tan but Fred managed to get sunburnt - hooray no pork crackling! Arrived in Malaysia today and am writing this from a place called Georgetown on the island of Penang where we'll be for a few days before going to Kuala Lumpur. Still having a blast, Malaysia is really friendly from what we've seen so far. Haven't got my head round the exchange rates yet but thankfully I have computer Fred to work out the hard stuff for me! Take care Liz & Suze

Dr Fred reports
Its my turn to enlighten you all on the tails of the two wanderers now that I finally have everyones addresses. Anyway, I'm told that it was Hanoi when we last chatted away to you, so, let me continue. We continued our trip after saying goodbye to a Dutch couple we seemed to have been stalking since Vientiane in Laos and left the guesthouse on our second over night coach trip. Will we ever learn! Apparently not. Supprising the first leg to Hue we quite good. We had air conditioning and reclining seats so it wasn't to bad. Plus we had learnt our lesson from the last time and bought lots of snacks for the journey only to discover that Vietnamese buses like to stop fairly regularly. We arrived in Hue at about 10am and had a few hours to explore the town before our second leg to Hoi An. Good job too because it turned out that a few hours was more than enough. We continued our trip in a lighter mood towards all things bus related only to be suddenly broken down upon half way through the trip. Never mind we thought until it started to get dark and we were on the side of National Highway 1,on a bend, on a hill. We only had to wait for two hours so it wasn't too bad luckily, apart from this poor bloke who fell down the embankment and twisted his leg. When we arrived in Hoi An, he found out he had broken it! Hoi An I decided is nice. It is pretty much a small village consisting of Tailor shops and Art galleries. Bibby and Me had decided we are coming back for a holiday and just buying an entire wardrobe its that cheap. We got accosted on the first day by a girl called Tuna (like the fish she proudly annouced) and got dragged along to her little corner of the local clothes market. We accidentally bought a few things but they do look lovely. Nevermind hey. We then hired some bikes and went to the local beach. It was really picturesque but unfortunately blowing a gail force wind. We didn't go in but as we where there we dicided we were going to stay there and god damn enjoy it. There were lots of restaurants in Hoi An. With lots of local specialities like cau lao. Most restaurants were excellent and a few not so. We had lunch at one of the not so good ones unfortunately and than had a second lunch elsewhere as we couldn't eat the first one. There was a lovely market with all the fruit and vegetables you could ever think of and a river to sit next to aswell. The only downside was the endless supply of people wanting to sell you things. We left Hoi An after a few days on another overnight bus to Nha Trang the "party town" of Vietnam. We arrived in the pouring rain after no sleep and it didn't stop raining until we left. That might of had some influence on the fact that we didn't like it too much. That and there were no good bars. But there was the saving grace of having MTV in our room so you can't complain too much. We couldn't face the idea of another overnight bus so we did the remainder of the trip to Saigon during to day. There were a couple of places we stopped at along the way such as Mui Ne that were really nice and we would have liked to have stayed at but unfortunately we couldn't. We finally arrived in Saigon at about 6pm. It was already dark and with the flashing displays and busy roads, it's got a really bustling city feel. We some how manged to find a room on top of a hairdressers, first time for everything, but the room it huge and only $6 a night. First impressions are good so far. Today we did the cultural thing. We went to a chinese pagoda called Emperor of Jade and to the War Remnants Museum. It used to be called the Museum of American War Crimes so you can imagine it was a bit brutal but I'm glad we went. Tomorrow we are going to the Cu Chi Tunnels which were prominant during the war and the following day we are spending at the Saigon Water Park for a little R + R before heading over to Phnom Pehn in Cambodia. Next instolment there probably Anyway. We are both having a blast here (apart from occational Bus Journeys) and wish that you were all here to enjoy it with us. Off to have some delicious vietnamese grub now. Keep well Love Bibby and Fred.

Good Morning Vietnam!
GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!! Has to be said, bet the locals are sick of hearing it though, never mind, little things... After leaving the crazy world of Bangkok we headed north to Chaing Mai which was great, no hassle, no one trying to rip you off, bliss! From our base in Chaing Mai we went off on a 3 day jungle trek to climb mountains, raft down rivers, ride elephants and get pissed on our guide John's special brew! We slept in Thai hill-tribe villages and showered in mountain streams, needless to say by the time the three days were up we were absolutely knackered and needed some well earnt R&R back in Chain Mai before our next adventure! Having spent about 10 days in northern Thailand we decided to move on to Laos via a two day boat ride down the Mekong river with a night stopover in a very small, very rat-infested, village on the way to Luang Phrabang. Luang Phrabang is one of the three or four largest cities in Laos and is roughly the size of Burton Latimer! Couple of bizaar things about Laos: They have outlawed western music in Luang Phrabang, they make coffee with condensed milk (surprisingly quite nice) and you have to get written permission from the Ministry of Information and Culture if you want to sleep with a Lao! Not that we've looked into it or anything... From the dizzy heights of Luang Phrabang we embarked on a 10 hour bus ride to the capital Vientiane (size of Corby - wow). The bus ride was interesting considering Laos doesn't have any roads to speak of, more like dirt tracks which are prone to landslides! We has a minor holdup on the single lane 'road' from north to south as a couple of very old rusty JCB's were clearing an aforementioned landslide which had just happened, glad we didn't leave early! Vientiane is a capital city without anything in it except a monument in the style of the Arc de Triomph comemmorating I'm not sure what. We managed to arrive right in the middle of the country's busiest festival of the year, a four day event to celebrate the end of the rainy season. Needless to say it was raining. This involved lots of people selling lots of the same things and a Lao 'celebrity' wailing into a microphone to a dodgy background track! Not realising this was going on for days we checked into the only hotel we could find with rooms backing directly onto the main stage with only one window pane to cover 2 window gaps - doh! Still, loud noise is illegal after 11.30pm so we did get some sleep! What they don't mention is the Lao day tends to start with loud music at dawn - foiled again! We had to relax for a few days in Vientiane waiting for our Vietnam visa's to kick in before embarking on the bus ride from hell. A 26 hour slog from Vientaine to Hanoi is enough to rattle anyone, but when it is spent in a completely full public bus with people sleeping in the aisles, someone's 3 piece suite on the roof and their luggage of sacks of rice and cages of live cats, yes smelly live cats, it is unbearable! Oh and just when we thought it couldn't get any worse the blasted Chesney Hawkes greatest hits through the loudspeakers! We we're glad to get to the Lao-Vietnam border at 6am only to discover it doesn't open till 8, never mind we thought, we'll get some breakfast as we haven't eaten for 15 hours...no breakfast. We toyed with barbecued cat but thought we'd probably be able to survive until Hanoi, a mere 10 hours away. The only scheduled stop we did eventually make (not counting the endless unscheduled stops to pick up the drivers mates, more sacks and to drop off the sofa) was a 30 minute break half an hour away from Hanoi so the driver could have his dinner! I'll never complain about our public transport ever ever again. We did make it to Hanoi in the end, showered, ate and slept! We're had our first full day here and it's great, I wish I could buy everything and take it home! We've done a couple of the museums and been to the water puppet theatre which was odd to say the least. We've got another day to chill out here before heading up to Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island on the north east coast - finally a beach! Shame the weather in Vietnam currently resembles a drizzly Autumn day in Skeggy! For the hockey girls, hope you stuffed Charnwood in the cup today and I hope at least one of you got to say 'pick that f***** out' just for me! I'll expect a full update and Mel, will you please let someone else have the kag, keeping it is just greedy. Take care, Globe 'trotting' pig and the Dr.

Jungle Jims!
Hi all, just a quick note to say we made it to Chiang Mai and it is so much better than Bangkok. Its cleaner, smaller and much more laid back.
We survived our jungle trek, which was superb, in fine form. The scary thing is we meet a girl called Anna in Bangkok, and two lads on the train to Chiang Mai who were all on the same trip as we were, small world. The weather was great, the bamboo huts uncomfortable and the waterfalls ace. And we met lots of hill tribe folk.
We went elephant riding, and rafting on a few bits of bamboo. And i only fell in once, which made Liz laugh for a good 5 minutes. But by the time we went through the rapids, everyone was just as wet as me. It was a good thing in the long run as i think we all needed a clean. Of to Laos tomorrow via boat which will take two days!! but it was the cheapest way so thats a good thing.
Keep sending the emails to keep us up with the news back home. Suzie and Liz xxx

Randel Report
We made it to Bangkok and as soon as we taxied to the end of the runway it began to rain and didn't stop for 2 days...just our luck! So having plodded around in the flood water on Sat and Sun its now lovely and sunny and just right for getting a wally tan, or in my case wally burnt bits!
We have moved from our posh hotel in Sukumvit (right in the middle of the second most popular tourist spot according to the book (I hate to use the words 'red' and 'light', but if the cap fits...) to the centre of China town which is a whole lot busier and smellier!
Been to lots of 'wats' temples to you and I and have seen lots of monks in orange raparounds, very odd I thought but apparantly all the young men do it for a while! Off to the Grand palace tomorrow, tried to go today but its some sort of holy day so we weren't allowed in, shame. We've had all sorts of fun getting around Bangkok over the last few days, we've been on the skyrail, very clean and cheap and quick, we've been in a taxi, not quite so clean or cheap and we've been on lots of 'tuk - tuks', bizaar 3 wheel contraptions which are definitely not clean but we managed to acquire our very own driver for the entire afternoon for 20 bahts (approx 35p) and we've pottered up and down the river on express boats which are just ace!

Tomorrow night we're going on an overnight train to Chaing Mai in the north to embark on a three day trek into the jungle for a ride on an elephant and a raft down stream! Can't wait! After that we've got a couple more days in Chaing Mai and then off to Laos. Met loads of lovely people who have all been really helpful and friendly and I think we've even managed to avoid being ripped off so far...there's always time though. And we haven't come across any ladyboys either yet so sorry Kate and Telf!
Having a huge amount of fun and only one hangover so far so we're doing ok I think!
Let me know all the goss if there is any...
Take care
Liz