the end is Nigh

Its weird how 9 months became 8 then 7 and 6 and finally just a day. We land in the UK on the 23/12 and have spent our last few days wandering the bazaars to pick up those last few pirated DVD's we just can't live without, fitting Roz up with prescription glasses and me with tailored shirts, and enjoying our last hours with the uber spending power of a foreigner in India . We've had a fantastic time but are looking forward to getting back to the real world.

It's been an amazing trip and India with its extreme weirdness was a fitting end. We've been playing a game to try and remember everywhere we've spent the night from the swankiest- (the Mahrani suite in an old Fort in Orchha) to the most manky (probably the hotel without a shower in Bishkek- most of the rooms were converted into sweatshops with people sowing stuff 24hours and we only discovered there was another westerner there when we heard him being propositioned by a prostitute outside our room) and the wierdest (probably the night spent on a bed in someones back garden in Aralsk, Kazakstan). We've met some lovely people- from everyone who gave us food and booze in Georgia to Major Alok (retired) 15th Gurka regement who took us to his house, gave us a bed for the night and regailed us with stories of his time in the Army over a "Snifter" of Whiskey.

We've made a vow not to bore you too much when we get home and will have to do a lot of editing to our holiday snaps before we show them to anyone (we have 18gig each). If you've read this you probably know more than we remember anyway!!

sexy temples and lunch

have put the tamest sexy picture here to save offending parents but some of the gymnastic carvings were really quite eye opening!

Orchha

Beautiful place with loads of temples and forts slowly being eaton by the jungle

Agra

the misty Taj and the marble palace in Agra fort- seems like everything in Agra is marble!

Sadu by the Ghat in Varanasi

nothing on earth was going to persuade me to go swimming in there!

Tiger hunting

Oh for a better zoom! here is us with Oly, the young and sprightly elephant that we chased a tiger on. It felt a bit like the days of Raj except no one had a gun, our only defence was the drivers pointy stick!

Chandigar unIndian India

a weird place, built buy a team led by Le Corbusier, replete with a rock garden created from junk buy a former rubbish collecter. Incedently its also where the Comando's live (thats Roz holding a gun)

hobnobbing with D. Llama

Contary to what you read in the papers the Dali Llama does not live in the exotic sounding town of Daramasala, he lives in a small town up the road called Mcleod Ganj which has a less sexy name. We've been here with a large group of the world's press for the past few days. On our first day we wandered around following the CNN camera man trying to get in shot and overhear people being interviewed to try and work out what was happening- it turned out to be a sort of extraordinary general meeting.

Anyway its a nice place, we visited the rather harrowing museum and have been walking in the hills. We also had cooking lessons. This being India, and a bit of Tibet, every other person in town offers massage courses, meditaion courses, crystal therapy, chakra cleaning and a million other routes to salvation...we opted for salvation through the stomach and are now the maharaja and maharani of Momo making (dumplings).

We also visited Aramitsar and stayed with the pilgrims at the golden temple. The Sikhs were all increadibly friendly and hospitable and everyone and their wife wanted pictures with us.

Amritsar is also the jumping off point for Pakistan and we piled into the back of a jeep with a load of Indians for the border closing ceremony. It's a sight to behold; bus loads of people fill the grandstands on both sides of the border while they warm the crouds up with patriotic techno music (the UK needs some patriotic techno music). Everyone waves flags and dances while the soldiers warm up round the back (you get a better view from the VIP stand where we were sitting and you could see them doing star jumps and calf stretches). A MC whips the crowd up in earnest at 4.30 with chants of Hindustan and Pakistan from the respective camps. the soldiers all then take turns to rush up to the border wrench open the gate and high kick in front of each other their moustaches bristling furiously. The culmination is the simultaneous lowering of the flags which are then spirited at great speed back to their respective customs posts to cheers. It was a real carnival atmosphere, with popcorn sellers and everything.

Next stop is Chandigar the modernist punjab capital (the old one is in Pakistan) and then meandering down south so we have a tan in time for Chrimbo- less than one month to go!!!

Jodpur- the Blue city with an amazing fort

Pushkar Festival

no meat, no booze, no holding hands. But thousands of pilgrims and camels and also loads of people from the Punjab who all carry spears and swords and think its funny that I have no hair or beard. hmph

Jaipur (aledgedly the red city but really jus a bit orangy)

rickshaws and trains- one is more comfy than the other

Bombay traffic rules

Big in Bollywood

Hi from manic Mumbai

After Australia it's a bit of a culture shock wading into the seething mass of people thronging every street and the crazy drivers trying to outdo each other on the roads but its great fun. We've been staying at the Salvation army rest house and eating the most amazing curries and snacks- all lovely and spicy.

On Sunday we were shipped off with 30 other Westerners to Bollywood, to star in "Yuvraaj" after we were scouted wandering around looking lost. It was odd to see all the hippies shedding their fisherman's pants and tie die for suits and ball gowns but we all scrubbed up fairly well- especially Roz with her bright orange lipstick and croyden facelift- courtesy of the make up department (it was telling that all the real stars did there own!). None of the clothes we were given fitted but it did not seem to matter and we spent the whole day swaying and cheering along to Bollywood tracks while the stars pouted and gave cheesy grins to the camera. The whole affair was wonderfuly badly run especially when it turned out that they did not have enough dancers at one point and had to recruit some hippies and teach them a quick routine (girls only and Roz did not want to volunteer). The results were fairly hit and miss as waving your arms around to trance music on a beach and thinking you are dancing is less tricky than actually dancing. At the end we got paid 7 pounds for the day- possibly the lowest I have ever been paid for a days work!.

Anyhow- we've seen ads on TV and the posters on virtually every bus side. Amazingly the film is out on the 24th November so check it out at a cinema near you! Got some great photos which we'll put up when we find fast internet.

I'm in the backgorund somewhere

The three amigos

Hi from OZ

Having just left Liam at the airport we are two again, We've had a fantastic time in Oz, mainly eating and drinking (Liam's influence).

In our rental car we pootled down the coast from Byron to Melbourne. We had 2 CDs; "Rocktober" and "Now!thats what I call winter 2008" and Tessa the surfboard on the roof (along with a a couple of pairs of my underpants; boxers turned out to be very good for stopping rattling noises at high speeds). The Hippies in Nimbin almost choked on their weed when we turned up in a Renault Megan with "Fat bottomed girls" blasting out of the sound system. It's been a fantastic trip despite the leeaches and ticks in the rainforest in grafton, the occasional rain and the freak Liam-destroying wave.

In Sydney we caught up with Izzy from Bristol, God mother Vanessa and Eugine, Sonal and V from AMV and the lovely people in Sutherland A&E who pumped Liam so full of morphine he passed out for 3 hours.

In Melbourne we caught up with Aida ,Chris and Sue from Clemenger, visited wineries and discovered the astonishing cost of shipping wine and surfboards to the UK.

We're currently staying in a scuzzy Manly hostel (Roz rather rather primly declared that it looked like a 14 year olds bedroom when we walked into the dorm this morning) ahead of our flight back to the unknown and on to India.

Thanks to everyone who put us up and took us out and to the guys at home for the exceedingly comfy hotel accommodation in Sydney and Melbourne.

Onwards...

Australia- and then there were 3

two 30 year olds and a 29 year old (who got id'ed)

Hong Kong in the Sun

Thai Chi on the front in Kowloon, tea in a tea shop and cocktails on the 41st floor

crazy Tokyo

Crazy Tokyo- mad city, crazy fish market, amazing sushi

we made it to Tokyo!

Hello from Japan, home of the grape flavoured Kitkat and the streetside beer vending machine (if you can reach the coin slot you can have a beer). Its also where Hollywood stars make their pocket money. Tommy Lee Jones is the face of Suntory "Boss" iced coffee and Jenifer Love Hewitt comes clean about her skin problems and how a certain cosmetic brand came to her rescue on TV.

We've visited shrines where there are lots of novel ways to make the experience more fun; lucky dip chose your deity, walk between the stones of true love, crawl through the hole of longlife (bit of a squeeze) and drink the water of good luck among others.

We've also spent a lot of time soaking- if you ever feel remotely stressed Japan is the place to come- the whole place is bubbling with hot springs and lovely little bath houses for soaking- its a little wasted on us as the most stressful thing we do on a day to day basis is choose some where to eat (ohh the choice!).

Anyhow we've manage to secure Sumo tickets for this afternoon then we have 10 days in Tokyo and the surrounds before we have to get on a plane- may have to send a few tonnes of stuff home first to avoid the excess baggage. hope everyone is good at home.

5months 6 days and half an hour

This is us fresh off the train with the driver, a little thinner, a little balder (me) and a lot more weighed down with baggage!

Mid Autumn festival

Its the mid Autumn festival right now (dont think they have and early or late Autumn festival). We arrived in Tokyo laden down with backpacks at about 7pm. We found this stage down a tiny side street while trying to find somewhere to stay. We tried to be unobtusive but someone came over gave us a glass of Whiskey and green tea and we ended up dancing round with everybody.

Japanese Loo's

This one was in our youth hostel-could not help but take a photo. It has a seat warmer, bum washer (with power control), a button to pay tinkling noises while you're using it and a button to raise or lower the seat. We have also found some with powerfull extractor fans. oddly you still have to reach round to the cistern to flush!

Roz wondering what the funny smell is

Zen temples in Kyoto

calmness and serenity in Temples near Kyoto

the Whore of the Orient

We love Shanghi. Its crazy, it makes the rest of China seem provincial and backward. While the rest of China's history stretches back over 2 millenia, Shanghai's is compressed into about a century, from the opium wars and the British concessions to the Japanese invasion, the rise of communism and the more recent rise of the huge skyscrapers. There are 20 million people living here and that gives it the palpable sence that there's things happening.


We've spent our last few days living 2 lives. We're staying in a youth hostel in the cheap end of town and have most of our meals down the market where a meal of dumplings for 2 or noodles with meat is about 80p. But we've spent a lot of our time visiting art galleries and spending more than we should dining in fancy restaurants- it gets addictive! We had cocktails atop an old French building looking down the Bund and across to the crazy skyscrapers of Pudong on the other side of the the river (they turn the lights off gradually from 11pm so it's strange to watch it change). Our best meal in China was in a restaurant which you had to know a secret code to get into (it was all a bit Lord of the rings - get it wrong and the door on your right opens to reveal a brick wall, get it right and the door opens on the left to reveal the waitor ready to take you to your table).



Anyway, I'm typing this first thing in the morning waiting to leave in the rain to Japan. Hope everyone is good at home.

Gumbai!

As the person in charge of an ancient temple full of ancient relics what would you do to make it more accessable to tourists?

Fairy lights!!

This is a commen Chinese solution: both the drum tower and the city walls of X'ian along with countless other Buddest, confucian and Taoist temples, are jauntily lit up at night.

And it does not stop there; we visited a lake in a bamboo forest where they filmed some of "crouching tiger hidden dragon" and were somewhat startled when some tightrope walkers started crossing a wire above us while 2unlimiteds "no limits" blasted out of hidden speakers. All of this is rather disconcerting especialy with the legions of Chinese tourists all hearded around by microphone weilding tour guides everywhere. There dont seem to be many
Westeners outside of Beijing but boy are you aware that there are 1.3 billion Chinese out there.

We spent 5 days in Beijing, and after the scrum and the forbidden palace and the summer palace (vistitor numbers for the previous day over 20,000), we gave up on the great wall and went to try to join the party and get olympic tickets- this was easyer than we thought: as long as China aren't represented, you could by a ticket at face value from a local who did not want to go.

We saw waterpolo (slighly more homoerotic than rugby in that the players grappling with each other are half naked) and the athletics. We had one ticket for the badmington but had not checked the scheduals and were'nt able to get a second as China were playing in the match after. Luckily a guy bought our ticket for 5 times what we paid for it which was enough to kit us out in fake Deasil, Ralf Lauren, Fred Perry and Prada down the market. Armed with our new smart clothes we were ready to go for dinner with Francis the diplomat. We had met Francis and his friend " the entreprenour" in a bar where the Entreprenaur took over the canto pop band to sing opera while Francis and his mistress taught us to dance. He invited us for dinner. We ate in a vast house filled with ornate furniture, uniformed waiting staff and vast quantities of excellent food. our companions were people who were introduced variously as Mr Wu- very important boss, Mr Lu- big boss ect; all rather cool if slightly nerve wracking at time. They and everyone else in China seem to think I look like Vladimere Putin.

The best thing about China has got to be the food. we've tried everything from kebabs (sheeps oseophagus tastes like squid), firey hot noodles in street side stalls and markets, to small restaurant's where you point as someone elses food and hope (Pigs ear not so nice but generaly we've done fairly well). We went to a fancy pants reataurant in Beijing (Peking duck inPeking)and had roast duck- the chef came to the table and carved it for us giving us the meat and crackling before chopping the head in half and serving that to us as a delicacy- we couldn't. since Beijing we've grown rather fond of dumplings- it all rather put Ping Pong to shame.

Anyway as China would only give us a 30 day visa we have had to change our plans. So instead of swooping down the coast to Hong Kong we are getting the ferry to Japan on Tuesday and continuing our overland journey so that by the 25th of September we will have travelled overland from London to Tokyo. The next entry will be to say Koneechi wa or however you spell it. hopefully will be able to put some photo's up as Shanghhi is not blessed with amazing internet access.

New hair, new Roz

this is Roz with her brand spanking new haircut chosen from a Chinese magazine also in the shot is the prowd hairdresser (and also her son)

look look, Tourists!!!

The middle Kingham

Hello from China!!


We crossed the border 2 days ago through the Torugat pass; a 4000m pass that links Kyrgyzstan and China. It's amazing what a difference a day makes! The road from Kyrgyzstan was a rutted track that wound through the mountains and as you entered China the road slowly became paved then lane markings appeared followed by street lighting; all a bit of a culture shock.


We had a great time in Central Asia and moving onto China means finaly leaving the old USSR. its weird but other than our brief dip into Turkey every country we visited was once part of the homogenous whole and yet they were all so completely and utterly different.


We've done so much in the last few weeks its impossible to sum it all up but here are a few things:


To save cash we stayed in a cheap hotel in Bishkek. It had no shower so we visited the Russian baths - it was only inside once we'd been sent to the separate girls and boys bits that we discovered it was a naked free-for- all. Everyone kept staring at me, it took a while to realise that as the only Westerner there I was packing more body hair in my left armpit than most of the men put together which caused a lot of interest, I was also a bit of a novel colour. ..


We've eaten so much dairy in Kyrgistan, most of it within earshot of the cow/horse/camel/sheep/yak that produced it. The weirdest thing had to be cows milk fermented in sheeps lung till it becomes cheese. The lung is then sliced and eaten (we only discovered what it was afterwards) it was as revolting as it sounds, I escaped with a nibble but Roz was sitting next to a granny who encouraged her to keep going.



We went back to Uzbekistan to get our China Visa. It was really cool to see it again although we were held up slightly at the border while I filled in customs forms and every member of the border post queued up to have a mobile phone shot taken with Roz. I had also forgotten the odd fashion amounst Uzbek women of shaving off their eyebrows and drawing on a thick monobrow instead- it makes them all look a bit like bond villens.


Back in Kyrgyzstan we walked to a lake near the border and spent the night with some shephards. Their children were fascinated by our cameras and spent ages taking photos of each other till the batteries ran out. The parents were more interested in how Backpacks worked and wanted to try them on. They had a herd of Yaks and horses. Roz got to milk a Yak. I tried to milk a horse but it kept walking off as soon as I got the bucket under it much to the meriment of the locals (you milk a horse 5 times a day)



anyway all is cool here and the food is so much better- in Central Asia fatty meat is more expensive than lean meat and we had lots of meals in restaurantrs and peoples houses where the proprietor/ host would present us with a plate of fried fat and beam at us as we tried to stuff soem of it down for politenesses sake.



more email options here so should be able to put more photos etc up and get round to bringing the map up to date.

China Visa

just got it!!!!!

we thought we were going to have to give up but they were terribly nice at the embassy.

off to celebrate (a cockroach also just brazenly ran accross the keyboard)

I kissed a glacier for good luck

I had never seen a glacier up close before but this country is teaming with them. Where Khazakstan has lots of oil, Uzbekistan has many old places, Kyrgistan has water in abundance, scenicly aranged around the mountains as ice, lakes and rivers.

We've spent the last two weeks or so tramping. We've stayed with shephards in yurts (smells a bit like the inside of a sheep but is toasty warm), drank fermented horse milk (mildly alcoholic and an aquired taste), attempted to make a poo fire (thats what the locals burn to keep warm but telling a dry poo from a fresh one before you pick it up is a difficult skill to master) and just stared in awe at how beautiful this place is. We are currently back in Bishkek on a visa hunt and recovering.

I have put some photos on here but the map is not working here so cant update it.

In other news by dint of hard work and continued effort my flip flop tan line is coming on a treat. I hope everyone else is being as productive as me back home.

Prettyness.

This is me and Roz looking quite prowd of ourselves. It was quite chilly but half an hour fighting yor way up a scree slope is warming!

A straw for the lady

 We have now been in Kazakhstan, a country where kidnapping is still a form of courtship, for just over 2 weeks and its been a very weird experiance.

We went trekking in the mountains after we'd both recovered from the squits where we were interviewed for TV talking about ecotourism in Kazakhstan. Roz talked about the ecology of Kazakhstan and I talked about how to better advertise tourism in Kazakhstan to the outside world. We managed to maximise our screen time by saying exactly what the interviewer wanted to hear; Waxing lyrical about how wonderful a country Kazakhstan is ect. My comment about 'Borat' hit the cutting room floor though. We whatched the resulting program (with our interviews translated into Kazakh)  two days ago in Almaty which was cool. (Roz has discovered how to do photos and put one on her blog- see the link to the right).

Following the mountains we left on an expedition to visit the Aral sea- it took about 2 days to get there. Hardly anyone speaks anything but Russian here but luckily everytime things become really frustrating a helpful english speaker miraculously appears or someone calls someone on their mobiles who can help translate. So, through the kindness of strangers, We were taken to soemones house for lunch, discovered a bus station and the right bus and at the other end stayed in a pilgrims rest place in Turkistan (where theres a mausoleam- the slightly lazy muslims here have worked out 3 trips to here is equivalent to one to Mecca and you dont have to take the plane).

Someone then helped us bribe our way onto a train where we spent 12 hours playing cards and talking to the most of the carrage through the 2 guys who spoke broken English. Our answers where then relayed through the carrage around the piles of contraband and luaggage to the other passengers promoting much debate.

In Aralsk we stayed in the home of Gulmira a local teacher that a nice Russian ecotourism person had called for us. We ended up sleeping in her garden and she got two of her friends to drive us (in their 4X4 lada) out to whats left of the sea (remember the Aral sea- GCSE geography?). Enroute we saw camels picking at the scrubby desert around the rusting carcuses of ships. Lunch was in someones house in a tiny village (camel meat and potatoes followed by camels milk). Our photos of home where passed around reverently and all the local men popped round to see the foreigners.

This was followed by swimming. Our little lada raced accross salt flats and bounced enthusiasticly across dunes to the sea shore and our guides stripped off and raced to the water (gold teath flashing in the sun), waded out and splashed about. We followed rather more gingerly, but it was the first time we'd had a good soak since Tiblisi and rather welcome.

On the 30 hour train Journey to Almaty I met a guy called Jon who spoke great English and tried to sell me oil (they have lots in Kazakhstan) at the equivalent of $100 a barrel but I declined as we already have too much luggage as it is.

Almaty is like Europe, at least to our eyes, they have western shops, western restaurants and western prices. It also has greenery (after the dessert its amzing how much you miss greenery). When you order a couple of beers the one for Roz always comes with a straw. We are just typing this out before skipping to the border and the high mountains of Kyrgistan.

 hope everyone is good at home- I owe lots of people emails, internet is not so hot here so will try in Bishkek.

Kazakhstan

Hi

we've now crossed to Kazakhstan and are living it up in Shymkent. Tashkent was a cool city althuogh a world away from the rest of Uzbekistan; full of wide boulevards, people who looked like expats, police and blond/bottle blond russian girls in spray on clothing who may or may not have been prostitutes. The police were slightly more vigilant here and stopped you everytime you used the metro to check your papers were in order (given we used the same 3 or 4 stops the whole time they were just stopping us to say hello by the end).

We spent a load of time in the Bazaar mainly perusing the aftershave stalls- I'm trying to find a souveneer sized bottle of "pure Cigar", "Mafia don" or "cash" (available in doller or Euro versions) but as yet have only found them available in large vats.

Unfortunately we both made our selves ill for the first time so have been largely lieing low. However Tashkent is a good place to recover as we found an italian restaurant that surved up Pasta and pizza dishes that were a fair approximation of what you can find at home (with real cheese!!!).

We limped acoross the border yesterday and Kazakhstan feels really different, much richer and slightly cooler. Hopefully will be fully better and we can head off to the mountains tomorrow. have updated the map so you can follow electronicly in our footsteps. 

Tom

been through the desert on a donkey with no name

sorry for the rather lax efforts here. We are currently in Uzbekistan having motored through Turkmenistan- internet is rather sketchy so we have been blissfully unaware of the world, hope everyone is ok.

we got our money's worth on the boat to Turkmenistan as we got stuck on it for 2 days and ended up having to beg for food along with the rest of the passengers as our supplies; 2 snickers bars got eaten at the port

Turkmenistan was a weird weird place thanks to the ex president who called himself Turkmenbashi (Father of the Turkmen) and plastered the country with his slogans, the most popular being "people,nation, me".

He turned the capital into a vision of white marble, resplendant with fountains and golden staues of himself. the centre piece was the 70 meter "arch of neutrality" topped with a gold statue of the president in a busienss suit and a flowing suoperman style cape. the statue rotated so it was always facing the sun.

after a few days of pottering we headed up north, camping in the dessert next to a burning gas crater formed when some soviet oil prospectors stopped for a cigarette. The resulting explosion left a 10 metre deep, 30 m across pit that has been burning for 30 years.

Uzbekistan is more conventional in it's attractions although just as hot; summer has come early and its already 30 degrees at 9 am. We're in the silk road proper now loads of gently crumbling dessert towns resplendant with blue tiled mosques. They have a fairly relaxed attitude to Islam here though, taking elements from zoastronism, buddism and mixing it up with liberal quantities of alcohol.

Given they refuses to revalue the currency in the face of rampant inflation the highest value bank note in circulation is worth less than 30p and changing money means bringing along a carrier bag. Even paying for dinner becomes a bit of a palava and with the huge wad of notes that you have to carry around in your pocket it looks as if you're very pleased to see everyone.

Roz and I also seem to rank as popular attrations as at most of the sights we have had to pose for photos with huge families of Uzbeks. we're learning to scowl as photos are a serious business here and my jazz hands don't go down too well.

Just got back from a few days in the sticks where we went donkey trekking. we wern't that good as Roz's one kept running off with her and my geriatric one just wanted to eat things. Anyway off to get our evening kebab and beer. we cant put photos on here as the only internet is dial up- will endevour to do so in Kazakstan

got it!!!

after 3 days of trying they finally let us have a boat ticket out of here!!

next stop Turkmenistan...

A lada for all seasons

Am typing this from Baku where petrol is cheaper than water. Everything here is oil, there are puddles of it in the country side, loads of platforms off the coast and even the sea smells slightly of it. And everyone drives stupid big cars- there's even a 4*4 Lada!

Have spent the last few weeks in Georgia which is currently down as the friendlyest country in the world in my book- we've been wined and dined by random strangers and drunk homemade wine by the bucketload. They have a tradition of hugely elabourate toasts (although not with beer- you only toast your enemy with beer beacause the head of the church said so)- the best was from the artisitic director of Tiblisi Theatre who looked a bit like Ian Makellan and invited us to drink his wine; he offered up a toast to "England and Georgia not the best of friends but we both have Shakespere; as you like it, romeo and Juliet and the Tempest" not sure the Bard made it from Stratford to Tiblisi or wrote any of his works in Georgian but he defiantely had an impact here.

We spent a few days by the black sea; lovely and laid back with Cows wandering aimlessly on the roads and beaches before heading up into the mountains where we had a rather hairy ride through the passes and spent a few days throughing snowballs and toboganning around on our backsides.

Crossing to Baku we've definately left Christianity behind although they have a nicely relaxed interpretation of islam here; lots of cannodling in the streets and a surfet of bars. We're are currently trying to get a ferry ticket to Turkmenistan- they really dont want to sell us one!

anyway there are loads of Lada's here every where (threading through the sheep on the roads in Georgia and amoung the Landcruisers in Baku) have to go, next update from the stans!

capper, Kaper, Kappy... bugger it- the middle of Turkey!

well I'm pretty hopeless at this so far! it just seems like such a hassel to leave the sun and look at a screen.

After a marathon sprint accross Europe we've finally crossed into Turkey. On the way we've seen dancing horses, got drunk in bars hıdden in ruined buildings, been caving and stayed ın a hostel that offers free beer (always magicaly full despite being in Romania)

We spent a few days in İstanbul whatching Australians commemorate Gallıpoli the traditional way by getting roaring drunk, stripping naked and pissing in the street. I also had a turkish bath whıch was a strange experiance, a bit like being beat up but a good way to exfoliate.

Anyway we're spending rather longer in internet cafe's than I'd like as China has thrown us a bit of a curve ball and changed its visa rules so we cant get in. We've decided to be bloody minded and just have a go but have had to be creative and come up with alternative plans- Bıshkek airport not really being a hub for anywhere has meant exploring the underbelly of the worlds airline industry for ways out.

We're just about to leave Goreme in Central Turkey which is a weird place that was featured in a Starwars film- not sure which one though. Anyway we went hot air balloning this morning at sunrise which was increadible and the landscape looks like another world. We had a slightly hairy landing which involved crossing a motorway at a height of 2m. Cars changed lanes to avoid us and honked and waved as we slowly careered accross the road.

hope everyone is good at home, There's loads to see in Turkey but as its still within Easyjet range we're going to move on to Georgia and come back for the beaches on another trip

over and out

first post

not sure what your meant to write in the first post but here goes

have quit my job, sold/thrown out half of what I own and stored the rest with the folks, I have a fistful of visa's, a bag full of guidebooks and a train tickets as far as Viena. The plan is to fly out of Hong Kong to Auz on my birthday towards the end of September and then back to the UK with 2 months to explore southern India. Should be fun

First post

So, Tom is on the move.

He's leaving AMV BBDO & off around the world, specifically through everything-stan and China.

Have a great time Tom and let us know what's going on.

This is your travel blog.

Over to you...