Our adventure is nearly over. Almost 12 months ago we packed, what seemed then to be the bare minimum but now feels excessive beyond belief, and set off to Argentina. When we arrive back in England we will have visited 14 countries and worked on 7 different volunteering projects. We have lived in hostels, hotels, huts, houses, tents, cars, monasteries, schools, orphanages, boats and caravans. We will have dealt with one bout of Gardia, one bout of vomitting on a bus, 3 months of diahera, a few suspected infestations of head lice and countless mosquito, bed bug and sand fly bites. We will have met many people who have shared their homes and lives with us and we would like to thank them all, especially:

Our Argentinian family, Bill, Liz, Christine and Mikey.
Our Peruvian Family Enrique, Pepe, Victor and Eybe.
Our New Zealand Mum and Dad Olive and Graeme and of course Karmin.
Jak and Lynne our Australian family who put up with us over Christmas and all the people from the QUT project who we sweated and swore with from 5am to 8pm for 6 weeks. 
Our beautiful little sisters from Yogaswami Hindu Girls Home in Sri Lanka who we lived with for an exhausting month and Thivaa and Sangeeta who let us recooperate at their house afterwards.

Anyone can travel and see the sights. For me, it's the people we have met who have made this trip special. Volunteering has allowed us to get off the beaten track and meet people and see things most 'travellers' never experience. Hopefully we have given a little bit back to the countries we have visited and I hope that one day we will meet our new friends again. I would like to mention a few of these people who we will never forget and have taught me to try to be more grateful for all the things I have.

Samu and Lucio- Argentina
At our first volunteering placement we met a little family that consisted of mum, dad and twin 3 year old boys, Samu and Lucio. The family was living in a tent through the Argentinean winter, at the foothills of the Andes. At night the temperature dropped to minus 4. They had no income and no home. The family washed in water from the stream. The little boys had to compete with stray cats and dogs at meal times, as their mum tried to feed them lentils from the pan.

Yanet- Peru
We volunteered at a school in Peru for two weeks. The children lived at the school during the week as their families could not afford to transport them to and from school every day. Yanet, the head teacher has her own house and family but lives at the school through the week. She does this as a volunteer to ensure that these 22 children from rural families get an education.

Aki Ra- Cambodia
As a child Aki Ra was recruited by the Khmer Rouge and forced to lay thousands of landmines that killed hundreds of people. Then, as a 12 year old, he was recruited by the Vietnamese army and made to shoot and kill many of his fellow Cambodians. As an adult, after the war, he has devoted his life to the disposal of landmines in Cambodia, first by defusing them himself by hand, then by training teams of local people, opening a museum to raise awareness of landmines and then by setting up and orphanage for children affected by mines. 

Olive- New Zealand
It's a good job this lady is retired. As well as taking in waifs and strays like us, Olive practically runs the National Party single handedly, is in the process of redecorating her house, solves family emergencies, eases racial tensions in the Mangere East area of Aukland, adopts asylum seekers and makes a lot of gluten free food, all whilst recovering from her second battle with breast cancer. A round of applause for our Kiwi mother!

Lynne, Jak and QUT students- Australia
Our Ozzie family who were so kind to us over Christmas have been so kind to many other homeless travellers before us. After surviving the terrible floods of last year and witnessing the death of neighbours and close friends, the community of Murphy's Creek is still in shock. Lynne and Jak spearheaded the project to rebuild the destroyed trail hut this Christmas which hopefully goes a little way to help rebuild the lives of the people who live in this area of Australia. I thought I'd take the opportunity to give a huge round of applause to all the students who gave up their holidays to hammer, dig and paint for hours that wouldn't be out of place in a workhouse to finish the job.....clap clap clap. X

Vino- Sri Lanka
19 year old vino lives at yoga swami girls home in batticaloa. She's lived there since she was 5, after her mother and father committed suicide in a house fire after a family argument. All three children escaped, and we're sent to different orphanages. Every morning she wakes up at 3am to study for her a'levels. She goes to school at 7am come home at 2pm, then goes to after school classes until 8pm. She has dinner and then revises until 11pm. She does this everyday. She's kind, gentle and quiet and wants to be a lawyer. Here's to vino! 

Kavitha and Devi- Sri Lanka
These two ladies run the Girls Home we stayed at. They live there constantly, with the girls. They never have a day off. This is not a Monday to Friday job for these ladies, it is their life. Davi plans to get married next year but instead of setting up home with her new husband, she plans to go home to make his dinner in the evening and then come back to the home to sleep on the floor with the youngest girls like she has been doing for ten years.

Mad Jack- Cambodia
Jack is English. He visited Cambodia 6 years ago and never left. After witnessing the plight of working elephants in Cambodia he has spent that time raising money to buy land for a sanctuary. He now has a team of people working with him, including vets and volunteers. 6 elephants currently live at the sanctuary but dozens more benefit from Jack's outreach veterinary care. It takes on average 3 years to negotiate the sale of an elephant, many of which are suffering not only physically but emotionally from years of abuse. Jack has to save up for 2 years to buy a ticket to England to visit family. 

Debbie, jimmy, Thivaa, Sangeeta and Tom- Sri Lanka and England
Some people just get on with helping make people's lives better without fanfare or expectation of reward. These are some of them.  They are mostly related to Tom in someway or another and spend their free time helping (in the most direct way) countless numbers of children in Sri Lanka whose lives have been blighted by the loss of one or both parents. This is not just a one-off event, their help is on-going, meaningful and savvy. They ensure that the right support is made available, whether practical like buying a generator for an orphanage or emotional such as mobilising a group of grandma's in Britain to knit teddy bears for the children who live there. 

All in all we've met some pretty amazing people on our journey and done things that we never
thought possible. Most of all I'd like to thank Emma who has put up with my whining for a whole year, there's no one I would have rather shared this adventure with. Thanks you for looking after me! What a woman!

R x

Hi,
If you follow this link you'll be able to view our Kathmandu, Lumbini and Bandipur and Bardia photo albums. X

http://photobucket.com/albums/ff385/workerbee30

Nepal Blog

We are currently sitting in a jungle being eaten by Mosquitos, better than being eaten by a tiger but still quite uncomfortable! 

We arrived in Bardia National Park (south west Nepal) this morning after a 16 hour bus journey on a local bus complete with drunk men sleeping on the roof. To be honest the roof seemed preferable to our seats which by hour ten had become harder than the hardest thing ever recorded on a hard-o-meter. Our bottoms had become as leathery as a rhino's and have bruises that rival my worst rugby injuries. Nevertheless we arrived at 5am, and slept until 2pm. We then proceeded to eat our own body weight in carbohydrates including, rice and soup, chow mien, chips and momos. Emma, having recovered from a bout of food poisoning (this time, the cucumber, not the pineapple, is getting the blame) hadn't eaten for 3 days so was pretty hungry! Our room is a little shack made of bamboo and clay with running water, all be it cold, and mosquito nets to keep our old nemeses at bay. We're hoping to stay for a few days and do some jungle treks to spot the elusive Bengal tiger, along with maybe a rhino and elephant!

Our previous stop was Pokhara, the last destination west for most travellers to Nepal, and the start of many of the famous mountain trecks. Having decided we were a. Too skint and b. too scared to attempt any real walking we opted to do a few little jaunts on our own. Armed with our Lonely Planet guide we set off around the lake to try to find the world peace monument, a must see in Pokhara. After a few wrong turns and cross words we found the rickety bridge which crosses the river to the hill where the beginning of the trail up to the monument begins. By this time, both of us had had a sense of humour  bypass and the sign warning about the likelihood of being mugged, was too much to take, so we about turned and went back over the rickety bridge to seek the sanctuary of our luxurious, if a little overpriced, hotel room at the butterfly lodge. The irony of being mugged on the way to the world peace pagoda would have shattered our faith in human kind. The rest of our time in pokhara was spent whiling away our time haggling with shop owners and eating momos (a delicious snack, like steamed dumplings, filled with vegetables, rice, or cheese and spinach, and you get 12 for 50 pence). Like any responsible traveller, we tried to spread our money around by eating/shopping at different places. However (because we are very close to the indian border) we found an amazing punjabi restaurant that we went to twice, where we feasted on mushroom panzer, spinach aloo, garlic nan, curry, riatia, dhal and a huge bottle of Everest  beer! Perfect.

We like Nepal a lot, even though we have been unable to enjoy ANY mountain views, due to the smog which drifts across the country from India and gets stuck between the southern planes and the Himalayas. There are lots of different cultures here. Many Hindus, and Buddhists, lots of Chinese and Tibetan refugees and Indians of course. Hundreds of dedicated outdoor pursuit types come from all over the world to conquer mountains (who drag their infants along too) and there are hippies who never left after arriving in 1975. It's a really chilled out place, with delicious food and prices that make it easy to linger for longer . With the exception of Kathmandu, you can get a decent twin room for 450 rp, (£3) a meal would set you back 250rp (£2), and an excruciatingly painful 16 hour bus journey is a tenner. We don't seem to get hassled to buy things here as much as is some places either, which is a relief! Unfortunately, Nepal is one of the poorest countries we've visited and women are the poorest of them all. The Illiteracy rate amongst women is 70%, and it's still legal for a man to take a second wife if a women doesn't bear him a child within 10 years. Diabolically, over 100,000 Nepali girls have been 'sold' to brothels in India. Girls are considered a burden and if a family can afford to send only one child to school it will inevitably be the son. Despite this, we have seen many a happy family scene and lots of children, both boys and girls, making their way to school, so maybe, hopefully things are changing. 

We have two weeks left of our great adventure. It's hard to believe its been almost a year since we began. It has been the best experience imaginable and we are both so glad we had the opportunity to do it. We are planning to visit Lumbini, the birth place of Buddha and then to Kathmandu ready to catch our 3 flights which will eventually take us to heathrow (Delhi, Mumbai, London).  HOME SOON! 

Love Roo and Emmalington Brown-pants xxx

On our last legs

We left the orphanage and were surprised by our reactions. Just to get sentimental and serious for a moment, we were both in tears (despite what Roo might claim). It's hard to explain why, because leaving was in many ways a bit of a relief, not get bitten on your nether regions every time you 'used the plumbing' (not that there was much in the way of plumbing!) and whilst I love curry as much as the next football hooligan after 11 pints, I was dreaming of something else for breakfast, or lunch or dinner for that matter. So, as I say, we were rather surprised to be overcome with tears as we said our goodbyes. 

It's the children, you see, they get to you. Of course you want to strangle them sometimes, but when it comes to it, you care about them and worry for their futures and yep, you miss them. Maybe this is what being a parent is a bit like. Roo (bless her) had her patience tested to the limit, as she was woken every morning with a slap to the face, and a pinch of the nose whilst being presented with milk tea (the milk was still warm from the cow). To be fair to the little thing, it was usually around 6am, which the girls considered an extreme lie in. They were fascinated by Roo, she was a bit more mysterious and different than me. A blonde giant in a world of short dark haired children. She could literally pick two or three children up at a time. We promised to go back, correction I promised to go back, but Roo will come. It will be great to see them again and to stay in touch and follow how they're doing. They're a real inspiration and lots of young people in britain would, I'm sure, think the same way.

We visited another 4 orphanages with Debbie (tom's sister) her husband jimmy and two people we thought were thivaa's parents (after a confused conversation) who it transpired were not. I met thivaa's mum a few days later. Anyway, the other orphanages took our breathe away too. One in particular seemed quite a special place. The plaque on the wall declared it a home for the 'mentally retarded'. Language which of course seems very outdated to our ears. It was run by a couple of catholic nuns and had 75 children living there. All but 9 of them had some sort of disability or another. The children were taught by a special education teacher and the nuns, with the assistance of the 9 children who also attended main stream school. It seemed  a happy place with some really exceptional kids there. There were some terribly distressed children though, including a little girl who was blind, deaf and unable to speak.  She  had recently had a cochlear ear implant, but the intrusion in to her otherwise dark silent world had proved too distressing and she wasn't able to keep the earpiece on. There were other kids there, who wanted to be doctors, teachers, and nuns, testament to the work that the nuns do. Pretty remarkable stuff. 

One thing we we're asked to,do that filled us with dread, was to talk to the girls about family planning. Through our broken English, we had thought that one of the older girls had been studying sex education at college, but she had actually said secondary education. Back to square one.  There was certainly no shortage of bananas at the home  but the thought of trying to explain why we wanted condoms was too much to bear. Instead we waited, and in time it became clear that the main method of contraception in the girls home was the threat of being beaten with a big stick if  you should so much as  glance at a boy! Our problem solved, their problem just beginning! We did have a chat, using our dictionaries about the subject of families and none of the girls wanted children. Perhaps it's something to do with having 32 sisters that puts you off a bit. 

We finally arrived back in Colombo laidened down with  at least 3 tonnes of going away sweets, made by Kavita and Devi, for the journey and for our families back in England. It was a long journey and rained the entire time. We were very relieved to arrive at thivaa's house and meet his lovely wife and her sisters husband brother (who also lived there, at least we think that's who Raj was). Thivaa is the nicest bloke you could wish to meet and he can eat a plate of food faster than anyone we've ever seen! He spends all his free time helping at the various orphanages in Sri Lanka and india and really means what he says. His wife was so kind to us too and presented us with two saris to take back home. She even gave us a lesson on how to put them on. They also managed to sort out a flight to Nepal and back to Mumbai for us too. We are very indebted to them and hope that they do make it to England where we can repay it a little. 

And so we are in Nepal and enjoying our last few weeks of this big adventure. Nepal is as you might expect, hilly. The people are lovely and enjoy the sport of bartering with tourists but not to the extreme. We stayed in a pretty dire place in Kathmandu for a few days and were shocked by the cold (20 degrees c) Then we headed to bandipur a quaint little place in the foothills of the Annapurna range. The place we chose was a bit like bit Shakespeare's house in Stratford, all woody and moth-eaten. I liked it's quaintness, Roo wasn't sure, but at £2.50 per room, you can't really complain. We are now in the most luxury we've been in since we left home, in Pokhara. It's expensive at £10 per night, ,but we were rather desperate for a warm shower after 2 months of colds ones. From here we are planning to trek a little, venture to the world peace memorial and check out some Tibetan refugee villages. Our thoughts however are mainly about home and the people we've missed and the people we've met whilst travelling. 

We'll see you very soon.....eeeeek

Love Emma (and Roobarb)

Sri Lanka photos

http://photobucket.com/albums/ff385/workerbee30/Sri Lanka

A blog we wrote in the orphanage!

Sri Lanka is a very beautiful country. We discovered this as we whizzed past it in a hired minivan. 

We arrived in Colombo from Vietnam, ready for our month of volunteering at Yogaswami Hindu Girls Home in Baticaloa, on the East coast of the country. We were met by Thivaa and his work collegue who had the van ready and waiting to drive us the 8 hours to our destination. Tired, hot and smelly we were chaufered from coconut stall to coconut stall, to various food outlets and cash points until we arrived at the home. And there we have stayed ever since.

We are the only white people ever to have visited Sri Lanka, or so it seems when we occasionally make a break for it to buy water from the local shop. People literally get out of their cars, off their tractors, tuk tuks or bicycles to stare at us. Mad people gravitate towards us and children either laugh hysterically or breakdown in tears at the mere sight of my face. The children at the home, after two weeks still haven't got bored of touching my hair and playing their favourite game, 'stop the blood flow from Roo and Emma's hands' (they like to see the pink colour drain away and then rush back- hours of fun!) They constantly touch our faces, stroke our arms and legs and examine our hands closely. More than once I have awoken to the sight of dozens of little faces watching me sleep. Emma, blessed with dark hair, brown eyes and stunted growth, blends in and lucky for her doesn't get treated so much like an alien invader.

A Sri Lankan custom seems to be to force food on visitors until they vomit.  Luckily we both like rice and curry, as this is the staple diet of all Sri Lankans, 3 times a day, everyday, but sometimes they order in food from elsewhere. For breakfast we have experienced raw onion and whole green chillis with rice, what seems to be crumble topping-dry and uncooked,  thick pancakes made without eggs, curried chick peas, sour rice pudding and a banana sandwich. Kamala, the 'cooking mother,' is a fifty odd year old lady with arms like a WWF wrestler and a penchant for having her photo taken! On average she cooks 12 kilos of rice and 4 different curries everyday on wood fires. She scrapes 6 coconuts, chops 50 chillies, 10 beet roots, 15 carrots and 20 onions, feeding 33 children, 4 staff, us and some waifs and strays who wander in. 

Embarrassingly we are treated like royalty. No matter how much we protest, or how green we look from over eating, our pleas for less food fall on deaf ears. We have taken to hiding leftover food in the kitchen for the children, who have obviously been told not to take food off us. We're all too scared of Kavita, the warden, to do this in public. Everyone here is amazed that we know how sweep and chop vegetables, apparently white people have servants to do these things for them! The fact that we have eaten rice and curry before, let alone cooked it, was just too much for them to take. We still aren't allowed to wash our own plates, put up our own mosquito nets, clean the floor, carry our own chair or cook anything- including make a cup of tea. 

The children here are all lovely. They work their little socks off (if they wore any) and get up at 4am to do prayers. They go to school at 7am, return at 2pm, have lunch then go to after school classes. They have 1 hour in the afternoon to play and then it's prayers, more study, dinner and revision. For us, this timetable is impossible and despite our best efforts we can't get up until at least 7am! That doesn't mean that we sleep however, as the lights are on, people are talking and the warden is shouting from 4am! There is no sense of personal space here, children wake each other up with a slap to the face. However,  If one child is given four peanuts, she'll give three away. She will break her chocolate biscuit in half without being asked if there aren't enough to go around. What a difference to kids in England.

 The children here age between 6 and 19 and live here because they either have no parents or their parents cannot afford to look after them. The stories of some of the children are appalling; fathers and brothers killed in war, mothers forced to go abroad to find work, some children have siblings with them in the home and some children have no one at all, except each other. Remarkably they are, for the most part, very happy, chatty, confident kids with a real keenness to learn. They are healthy, safe and in a place where they are encouraged to learn and achieve. They all want to come to live in England for a better life but are children in England with their play stations happier than these kids? Here, doing handstands against the wall, putting on a silly voice and making a farting noise has them rolling on the floor in fits of hysterics. A trip to the beach is so exciting, collecting shells can last for 3 hours and Chopping vegetables is done with enthusiasm. 

Hello - just emma. There are more than one or two characters here that deserve a mention and we wish we could bore you more with tales of them all,  but we can't let you go without mentioning Usher. She is the most intense 6 year old we have ever met. She looks about 4 and wears dresses at least three times her size. She is however hilarious and despite being the baby of the gang, she holds her own against them all. Her sole purpose in life is to get roo and I to count to 10 in Tamil. We exasperate her with our ineptitude and she pulls a face mixed with despair, constipation, constenation and disbelief which has to be seen to be believed. Then there is 17 year old Yali, who, at almost 5.3  towers over the rest of the children here. She is also the class clown and can always be relied upon for silly face or ridiculous noise at moments of stress (usually involving shouting wardens). She's also devoted to Roo and has spent too many hours laying at her feet  in floods of tears at our imminent departure... in 3 weeks time.  A lot of the girls look a bit like boys here, except for their dresses. One little 11 year old, Kamalese, is a whizz at sport and follows Roo around with a ball, in the hope of a quick game of footie, after Roo  taught her how to kick properly. Individual attention from adults is understandably hard to come by in an orphanage of 33 girls and 3 adults, so we have spent our time trying to povide a little bit  of 1:1 time where we can, but it all seems a bit meagre. 

Anyway I'm sure we will go on more about this rather special place, but thats all for now! 

Vietnam photos

http://photobucket.com/albums/ff385/workerbee30/Vietnam

Good morning Vietnam....

Firstly I apologise for the very obvious title...I couldn't help myself! Secondly I apologise for not blogging for a while. In our defence it has been pretty difficult to find internet access fast enough to check our emails, let alone write a blog!

We're in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City to be precise, or Saigon if you're as old as M! We've been here for 5 days and leave tomorrow for Sri Lanka with an overnight stop in Kualalumpa (another sleepless night under an escalator in an international departure hall). Unfortunately we were introduced to the city of Saigon by two young men who attempted a drive by bag snatch on Emma, who valiantly clung on for dear life. Thankfully everyone in Vietnam is around 5ft tall and 7 stone, even M feels beefy in comparissom. After a nice couple of months of blending into the background in NZ and Oz, I'm back to looking like a giant blond freak! Thankfully nothing was stolen, and despite our first impressions, Vietnamese people are very friendly and the country is beautiful! More on that later though.

I've got to write something about Cambodia. Cute little Cambodia! We spent 3 weeks in Cambodia. Firstly in the Capital Phom Penn where we visited Aki Ra's Landmine Museum. What a fantastic bloke, he was recruited by the Khemer Rouge as a child and ordered to lay thousands of land mines until the Vietnamese invaded and he was recruited by them to lay some more. He has spent all of his adult life clearing landmines in Cambodia, training local people to defuse them, setting up a museum and an orphanage for children who have lost limbs or parents through land mines. You can learn more about him and his charity here:
http://www.cambodialandminemuseum.org/history
We donated some of the money that friends donated at our leaving party to this charity so thank you everyone who contributed! Xxxx

We also visited Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor Wat. Of course, it was breathtaking. Built in 1113 it is the largest religious site in the world, first Hindu and then Buddhist. We woke at 5am to get to the temples for sunrise and witnessed the sun come up over the largest lake in the Angkor complex, the God's swimming pool! We then spent a day exploring some of the lesser known temples, the Bayon and Angkor Thom before the main attraction Angkor Wat itself. Unfortunately, just like some of the other fantastic sites we've visited on our travels (Macchu Pichu, the Great Barrier Reef) Angkor Wat has become a bit like Disney Land for tourists. We had to negotiate hordes of 'package tourists' with guides with giant umbrellas and squeaky microphones, people trying to sell knock off sunglasses and poor little children pushing dodge postcards. I'm not a fan of people particularly...so this was a bit of a shame.

It didn't distract from the magic of the place though, particularly Angkor Thom where trees grow out of the sandstone, looking like their giant roots have kicked over the walls in frustration! Fantastic. My favourite temple however was the tiny little one, next to where we saw the sun rise. I can't even remember its name. But we explored it alone, at about 6am, before the souvineer stands had been set up, and as the sun moved across the sandstone walls, turning them blood red, it felt like we had discovered our own little Angkorian temple!

I don't want to go on and on about Cambodia, but I love it! Unfortunately, however we visited Sihanoukville for a couple of days on the recommendation of a few friends. The only good thing about this visit was that I completed my PADI for half the cost as in the UK even though the visibility was approximatey 10 cms. There is nothing good about this place, it's a tacky, filthy, faded, wannabe Thailand. If you like your beaches packed with litter and deckchairs and spending time with lager louts or pervy old men looking for a Cambodian wife then Sihanoukville is the place for you. We don't, so we left sharpish.

Needing space from the crowds we headed north to Kratie, famous for visiting the Irrawaddy Dolphins. They are the sweetest looking things with tiny little noses. There's said to be less than 100 left in the Mekong and are suffering great numbers of deaths of their calves due to the awful state of the water. Very sad.

Enjoying our break from the hordes, but saddened by the plight of our dolphin friends, we decided to visit Sen Monorom in the very East of the country. This journey was an interesting one. We are now used to being crushed into minibuses, having to share our seats with two other people and their chickens, but some tourists aren't. Some tourists are unaware that life is difficult in countries other than their own, that people don't have enough money to pay for delux VIP buses, and that people have to share. Not enough touists want to visit Sen Monorom for it to be worth putting on a tourist bus, so people travel local style- we like it this way. Others don't. Especially Russians. One particular Russian lady was so incensed that she had to travel like a local that she shouted hysterically at the driver, who looked like he was about to cry, and then climbed over everyone in the bus,including an elderly blind man, to sit in the front seat and refuse to move. Dispite our suggestions that in fact the back seats were the best seats and that the driver was being kind in giving us the most comfortable places to sit, she would not be moved. She even took control of the radio! Seething with anger, we bit our tongues knowing that she would get what she deserved. And she did. Sitting at the back means that you don't have people climbing in and out over you all the time. The front seat next to the driver is usually reserved for little old ladies who can fit two or maybe three on a seat. You also get the benefit of the air con at the back. Happily for us, and the Cambodian lady who got to sit in the 'tourist seat', our Russian friend was forced to share she seat with two other people, one of whom fell asleep on her shoulder. Her horrified looks back to her boyfriend only made the journey for me much more enjoyable. Emma says I must try to be more Buddhist.

Anyway, we visited an elephant sanctuary in Sen Monorom run by a crazy but brilliant English guy called Jack. Its one of the most inspiring things I've seen on our travels and really shows what one person can do if they believe in something. Jack has a team of people who help him to rescue

mistreated working elephants in Cambodia. He buys or rents them from families and brings them to live on a piece of land he rents from farmers. He has built a brilliant visitor centre where visitors can stay in the jungle, he employs local people to be mahouts (elephant handlers) and is doing

important education work in the community. If you visit Cambodia you should spend some time with mad Jack at the elephant valley project! It is beautiful.

We travelled from Sen Monorom to the Vietnamese border, first by bus and then a terrifying moped ride (experiencing massive backpack issues), walked into Vietnam, payed for an extortionate taxi to the nearest town and then another crowded, terrifying bus ride in a vehicle that couldn't go over 40 kph and played twinkle twinkle little star when it reversed. Weird, but South East Asia is a bit weird. Our time in Vietnam has been spent mostly resting in anticipation of an exhausting time in Sri Lanka, but we have managed to see some sites, the amazing system of tunnels used by the Viet Cong and some of the Mekong Delta, but all in all we have spent a lazy time in 'Nam! It's unlikely that there will be Internet at the girls home in Sri Lanka but we will try to keep in touch as often as possible. Sorry for the rambling, awfulness of this post, it's 2.00am, and I'm keeping Emma from her beauty sleep so I'll stop my manic typing!
Love,
Roo
X

Cambodia photos

Hello
I can't seem to make this link work....not sure why.
You might have to copy and paste this into your navigation bar.
Sorry

http://photobucket.com/albums/ff385/workerbee30/Cambodia

What we noticed during these months of travelling is that roo and I have a useful habit of coinciding our arrival in places with a significant happening of one sort or another. Thankfully these have not been of the natural disaster act of god type (thus far!), with the exception  of the volcano just behind the Andes. 

We arrived in Peru during the 100 year anniversary of the (re) discovery of Macchu  picchu and arrived in Santiago just as students started rioting.  We arrived in towoomba just at the right moment to meet the lovely students from qut and lynne and jak to help rebuild the most glamorous looking shed you'll ever see and we arrived in Singapore the day before Chinese new year.  Not forgetting the coincidence of the rugby world cup in New Zealand (although I have a sneaking suspicion that roo planned that bit, unlike the rest of our trip which has been largely left to chance!)

To arrive in Singapore on the day of Chinese new year to some might seem lucky, to us it marked the beginning of the closing down of most of south east Asia for a week. We also have a habit of arriving at a place and falling asleep and missing the most mind blowing unmissable event in the history of the world according to those who where there, so determined not to 'miss out' we ventured into singapore's modern beyond belief high techness and caught the mrt (think London underground without the dirt, smell and inefficiency - so nothing like the London underground) to the centre of singapores china town.  It was drizzling which is a sign of prosperity along with the red decorations and the dragon which happens to be this years sign of the zodiac, good news as we are now as poor as church mice.  

We followed the hordes of merry makers and arrived where it was all at. There were a smattering of western looking people knocking around too and as there were some security railings cord ending off the road we thought we had better get a good pitch and duly staked our claim at the very front. As one hour became two, we began to notice that the only people standing at the railings were in fact the western looking types, whilst everyone else had taken to sitting in more comfortable locations like the pavement or cafes. Two hours became three and literally nothing happened, even the stage that was set up a 20 meters away never really sparked into life. After four hours of sitting in the middle of the road, the heavens truly opened and torrential rain poured onto our heads, the chap next to us sheltering under an umbrella helpfully suggested we go and buy one (or we could share?) so off I trotted to find a shop at 11.45 pm on Chinese new year splashing through puddles the size of swimming pools and dogging raindrops the size of bullets. Surprisingly there was no one selling umbrellas but I found some cardboard and improvised! When I got back to where roo had been saving our spot, she was nowhere to be seen, I asked the dry man if he'd seen her and he said that he had suggested she go and stand under the shelter of the shops awnings (or maybe we could share your umbrella, it is quite large?) I searched for her whilst holding the cardboard over my head, much the amusement of the locals. I spotted poor little roo (which is quite easy in Singapore as she stands out somewhat) looking like a drowned rat. we dashed back to the railings as midnight approached with renewed hope that something, anything might happen to make this worthwhile. We counted down in a language which we made up to join in with everyone else and then nearly had a heart attack as about a million firecrackers were left off 10ft away, promptly followed by an apparently spectacular fireworks display, the appreciation of which was marred only by the sky scrapper completely obscuring our view. And that was that, 4 hours of hopeful waiting followed by 1 minute of loud banging, there's a joke in there somewhere! Brilliant, to some that might have been worth the wait, but not me. But hey we were in Singapore and that in it's self is quite something. 

New photos of Australia!

Great Barrier reef photos - http://s1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff385/workerbee30/Australia/Great%20Barrier%20Reef/

Roo's birthday photos - http://s1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff385/workerbee30/Australia/Roos%20birthday/

The finished building and opening day photos - http://s1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff385/workerbee30/Australia/Grand%20opening%20of%20the%20Real%20Studios%20QUT%20Project/

Terrence the....

Hello everyone!

We are leaving Australia in a couple of days. We are sad to go and leave our fantastic new friends but we must head onto Cambodia and Vietnam for another adventure!

We witnessed the opening of Lynnes new building which was a brilliant day. For those who don't know, we have spent most of our time in Oz helping a bunch of students rebuild a flood destroyed shed which was used as a halfway point for people walking the Bicentenial national trail. Lynne is really passionate ablut the trail that runs the length of the East side of Oz, so it has been lovely to help build her a lovely new place. (We are now experts at stone walling so if anyone needs a wall building when we get home, we're your women! ) Lynne has been so kind to us during our stay, as has her son Jak. We have been made to feel part of the family. We will truely miss them both, as well as Killer, the chickens and other wildlife that live in and around her farm! Our new Ausie freinds have promised to come and visit if they ever come to the UK so maybe we will see them again!

The finished building

We took a week off from building over my birthday and travelled up to Cairns in a campervan. We found a relocation service called 'Standby Cars' which allows travellers to drive vans to another location for free, we just paid for our petrol! We managed to get one to Cairns and one back, which turned out to be much cheaper than flying as we didnt pay anything for our accomodation (it was just like being back in Olive in NZ!). It took 2.5 days to drive there from Brisbane so we only managed to get one full day in Cairns but that was enough to explore the Great Barrier Reef!

The only reason we came to Oz was becasue I wanted to dive the GBR! We paid for a day's snorkling trip and an introductory scuba dive. I had scuba'd before in Fiji but it was Emma's first time and she was TERRIFIED! Our first snorking spot was beautiful and we were the first group to put on our tanks and masks and brave the crystal clear water. Our insrtuctor held Emmas hand the entire time but she did it, despite her irrational fear of crabs, fish, sharks, snakes and other sea based creatures. I think she even enjoyed herself a little bit! I need to convince her to do her PADI in Cambodia. We didnt see anything big, just a lot of fish. We had some lunch and the boat took us to our second snorkling spot. We had been in the water for about 10 minutes when Emma spotted a little Green Turtle! I was beyond excited and followed him around for ages, trying to take some photos on the underwater camera we had hired for the day. I managed to get some, having to dive down pretty deep, until my ears felt like bursting, but it was so worth it. He was beautiful! It was worth a 7 day round trip, driving for 14 hours most days just to see him, it was the best birthday ever!

We drove back to Brisbane and got a lift back to Murphy's Creek the day before the grand opening, where we worked until 3am to finish the painting on the building . We are glad we came back to see it in all its glory, it really is beautiful and we helped to build it! It took 2 months of working from 5am till 10pm in blistering heat. The students designed it, all the materials were donated and I hope it goes some way to help rebuild the community of Murphy's Creek after the deverstation and misery of the last year.

Anyway, we have immensley enjoyed our Ozzie adventure and even though we didn't visit all the tourist hotspots, we had a unique experience and hopefully left the place a bit better than we found it!

We'll update you on our Cambodian whereabouts asap,
love,
Roo and M
xxxxx

Hi,
here is the link to all of our Australian photo albums. Look to the left hand side of the screen and you'll see the options.

x

http://s1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff385/workerbee30/Australia/

Hello everyone,

I'm sorry that it's taken so long, yet again to update you on our whereabouts! We are still in Australia, in a little village called Murphy's creek close to Toowoomba, about 2 hours drive south west of Brisbane. We left our original placement (Barney's bubble) for a number of reasons but mostly we weren't learning much about building, which is the only reason we went there. After a few panicked days of trying to find another volunteering project we stumbled on Lynne's place where a bunch of students from Queensland University of Technology are rebuilding a cabin that was washed away in the January floods last year. The original building stood meters from the creek at the bottom of Lynne's garden. It marks the halfway point of the bicentennial trail, a walk from the top of the west coast of Oz to the bottom which takes 12 months one way! People walk it, ride horses and sometimes cycle it. Lynne has provided hundreds of people a place to recuperate and rest their horses and weary bones. Unfortunately on the same day as Lynne's house was washed away, her neighbour's was also destroyed, killing a little girl and her father. The water was recorded travelling 200km/h on that day, 28 people in total were killed in the area, 3 are still missing. If we look across the creek from the new cabin we can see the concrete foundations which is all that is left of the little family's home. It is very sad. 

The half-finished new cabin
The group of students, working in the project are all studying architecture and have given up their summer holidays to help complete the project before the anniversary of the floods on January the 10th. We all work from sun up to sun down in 30c heat, 14 hours a day. Em and I have no idea what we're doing so get given the 'easy' jobs which generally involve lifting rocks, shoveling sand and moving bricks, although we have become masters of rock walling (you can see our efforts in some if the photos!) It is absolutely knackering but everyone is so kind and friendly, especially our Australian adoptive mother Lynne and her son Jak who cook us delicious meals, force feed us cake and cups of tea...its just like being at home! 

We had a break from building over Christmas and spent it with Lynne and her family. The day was beautifully hot. We spent it playing tennis, eating prawns, mango, smoked salmon, chocolate and drinking champagne. Lynne and Jak run a chilli chocolate company and make a variety of different products, so most of our meals involve chilli in some form- chocolate, jam, chutney, sauce! It's a good job I'm used to my dad's hot cooking! 

African Drummer at Woodford

During our time with the students we had discovered about Woodford Folk Festival. The festival lasts a week and cost $600 per person! Lynne, who is about 21 at heart, had bought her ticket months ago! We have no money, but fortunately managed to get accepted as 2 of the 2000 volunteers who work at the festival! We were given the very prestigious role of Garbologists (litter pickers!) and had to work at 6am every morning, cleaning up after the night before! IT WAS AMAZING! We camped with Lynne who set up a miniature version of her house complete with door mat, kettle, kitchen cupboards, coffee table and fridge! We worked every morning but got to spend the day watching bands we had never heard of, buying hippy clothes and eating vegan food! The weather was gorgeous and we met some lovely people who were on our Garbology team- Nate and Dee from Ireland and Julie and Anja from Germany. Unlike festivals at home there was no obnoxious drunkenness, no fighting and there was hardly any litter for us to pick up! We got thanked by most people who saw us working, we got free water, cheap food and free gifts as well as our tickets paid for! We discovered some new music- Xavier Rudd, Goyter, Frank Yamma, Tom Thum, Benjalu....all Australian and all awesome! We spent new years eve there, listening to some incredibly loud African drumming that Emma liked. We saw Buddhist Monks complete a sand Mandala, Indian performers, Japanese interpretive dancers, Aboriginal performances and Emma danced at a Ceili for the first time instead of having to play in the band! All in all we had a brilliant time!

We are now back at Lynnes ready to continue with the building work. We are planning our next stop in Oz as we only have a few weeks left here. Our rough idea is to go North to Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reef and then head on back to Sydney to catch our flight to Singapore which is booked for the 15th Jan. We'll keep you all updated on our plans and hopefully post some photos of the finished cabin.

Miss you all,

Love Roo and M

x