Oaxaca City

We took a short city break from the beach life in Puerto to visit the local state city and some surrounding sites. It’s a really nice town but very high up in the mountains so also pretty cold. We hadn’t realised Mexico had so many mountains so we’d dumped almost all of our warm clothes after Siberia. That meant we had to share one cardigan and a pair of jeans between us in Oaxaca.

Monte Alban is the big local attraction – impressive ancient ruins with amazing mountain top views. Iain had read about Mesoamerica’s Mayan culture in a book and wasn’t too impressed that this place was created by some unheard of civilisation called the Zapotecs.

More non-Mayan stuff, this time from the Mixtecs – whoever they are.

 

Ali n Ed have become even more ‘arty’.

Food Pic #26. Posh starters, including cones of manchego cheese. Part of the poshest meal we’ll have for the whole trip thanks to big Sis splashing out.

This cactus gets turned into Mescal – the superior alternative to Tequila.

This cactus doesn’t get turned into booze but it does look a bit like a thingy.

Mexican Christmas and New Year

We went to visit Ali and Ed in Puerto Escondido, Mexico and were joined by Willie for two weeks and Fee and Chris for three. That meant we got to have a long, proper (if you only count childless siblings) family Christmas and it was brilliant.

Food Pic #24. Christmas Dinner. We had the works – turkey, roast potatoes, paper hats and a moustache for Sarah.

New years eve started with a deep sea fishing trip, where we were joined by hundreds of dolphins swimming around the boat, jumping and spinning. We thought the dolphins would distract us from the important business of catching fish but fortunately there were so many that we soon got bored of them and forgot they were there.

Sarah was very pleased with her fishing belt.

We caught lots of yellow fin tuna that didn’t look that big until you got Ali to hold them up.

New years eve evening was a little more traditional – we got drunk.

  Food Pic #25. Service station tacos. Will didn’t let being asleep in the middle of an 18 hour bus trip stop him from eating.

Most of the time was spent at the beach trying to surf and get sun burnt but we didn’t get the camera out till sunset.

Melbourne

  We couldn’t really be bothered with visiting Australia or New Zealand on our way round the world as we’d heard they were rubbish. But we had to stop off in Melbourne for a days to visit a few friends who have moved there. (There’s no one worth visiting in New Zealand).

We met up with Aaron on the first day before he kindly went on Holiday and let us use his house for the whole 10 days we were there. And his car, his DVDs, his booze and a few other things he doesn’t know about.

We were looked after by Coz, who took us on a trip down the Great Ocean Road. We stayed in his friends holiday house, that had the most amazing sea views from every room.

We also got to meet mini Coz – Gabriel – as well. Neither Iain or Gabriel seemed to know what to make of each other though and were more interested in feeling the wind in their faces.

   We went out to the leafy suburbs to see Mark and Sam for the first time in about 3 years and met Eva for the first time. Iain managed to provide an excuse for Mark and Coz to go out for a ‘few beers’ in town, a rare treat for Dads but all too common for a travelling bum.

We’d arrived in Australia just in time to share a Belgian beer or two with Martin at his leaving do.  You certainly need a few drinks if you’re leaving Melbourne after a few years to go back to Carlisle.

We also met up with Marie (without her travelling companion, Gabriella), our Swedish friend from the Mongolian yurt trip.

Food pic #23: Proper home cooked breakfast from Sam.

Iain visiting his favourite Melbourne site from his last visit. The impressively bog-eyed Steve Davis mural.

  Sea views on the great Ocean road that are almost as good as the ones from our flat in Brighton.

We hang out with prams these days.

Singapore

  We had one night in Singapore en route to Australia. Enough time for Iain to try his favourite dish – Singapore style noodles.

This man cooked them.

     Whilst  Sarah enjoyed a Singapore Sling of course.

Sadly we weren’t staying here.

   A fat bird.

   Our second Christmas tree.

  Iain making the important decision of which dumplings to order. Sadly we weren’t allowed to take photos in the restaurant. Sarge told us about this place, it was wonderful thank you.

Koh Raya

  After a few raucous nights in Phuket we needed a bit of isolation so we took a treacherous speed boat ride to Raya Island. We had wanted to try some Malaysian islands but found out it was rainy season so then thought about Koh Tao but it was rainy season there as well. If only we’d listened to Allan before we left we would have known all this and saved ourselves a lot of planning time. I blame Iain.

  A nice hand painted map of the island showed lots of good snorkelling spots. We didn’t find Nemo though.

Map symbol for snorkelling spot.

  Iain hitches a ride on the local transport.

  Food pic #22 - “Fish of three tastes”

  Home looked nice but it was right in front of a stinking canal. You could get a room at the non-smelly resort for up £1600 a night but they wouldn’t give us a discount.

  A frog we upset by waking  up. He was hiding in some flippers.

We had this bay to ourselves for a day – complete with abandoned reggae bar:

   It wasn’t really a happy morning for Iain because Sarah had been moaning again.

The speed boat looks like a pleasant way to travel but all I could think about whilst clinging on for dear life was Donald Campbell and whether the big bumps could rupture my spleen. I could hardly walk in Singapore because my back ached so much. Still it was pretty exciting.

  Sarah had to wear this mask as her goggles are no more, sob.

Phuket

Sarah is looking so happy because we got to Phuket and managed to swap the usual grotty backpacker places for this 4* hotel.

 

This was the reason for coming to Phuket, Paul that is and not the bucket.

There was a fire competition at the local beach so we got our fix of people setting various things alight and trying to outdo each other with the different ways they could twirl them about.

This guy lost votes when he set fire to the audience.

This was the winner with his Michael Jackson themed routine that included wearing white underpants over his black jeans – no one could remember Jackson ever doing that but somehow it worked. 

  Feeling festive, this was the first Christmas tree we saw this year.

We visited the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project. This chap is called Sam and he can’t sing (due to maltreatment) so he can’t find a mate. Even Sarah shed a tear on hearing this.

After leaching on to Paul’s holiday, with wife Amanda and friends providing an instant group of drinking buddies, we stayed a few extra days for fear of returning to nights on our own running out of things to stay to each other.

  Food Pic #21. Carrot served as embellishment to bright green Mojito.