I don't know what's scarier, the giant dragon-turtles or me with no makeup on and bad hair. I'm slowly getting used to the lack of vanity but it ain't easy.

Cyclops.

I quite like this imperfect, self-taken pic of Quent and I at Bottle Beach. Too perfect and they start to look scarily like the pics they put in the paper of missing backpackers. And to be honest I don't really like his left eye much anyway. The right one has always been my favourite.

Third gear lucky.

Was so excited about the big day we had planned today, yeeeah! Ned and Quentin were assigned the role of navigators and I took charge of the driving. After securing a Suzuki Carabin (spelling?) jeep for 800 baht (about $US 25) for the day, we took off through the busy streets of Chiang Mai, heading to the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre in Lampang (about 100km away).

20km in and the gearstick got stuck in third. Damn. Pulled into a handily placed garage and played with their dog (which took an intense liking to Ned's leg) for 20mins while the non English speaking Thai bloke fixed it. 100 baht(US$3) for the job, done on the spot... we were laughing! Had that been London and they would have told you it would take three days and you need to leave a 200 quid deposit.

Unfortunately the band-aid only held for another half hour and we were stuck in third yet again. Riding the clutch like a mofo and crossing fingers we never had to stop on a steep hill.

Got to the Elephant Conservation Centre though and things got rapidly better. It was completely awesome, I was made up with the whole place! We cruised around and fed the elephants, then Quent and I went on a ride on one including through the water, then we saw all the mahouds (handlers) wash them in the river, and then they showed us all the training they'd given them. Some of that was a bit circus-y, but I loved it when they played some massive chimes and then got two of the elephants to paint a picture each. One of them painted a whole lot of flowers, complete with petals and leaves and soil on the ground, it was ace (I am a sucker for that kind of thing). Totally loved it to bits. Will put up some pics next time I get my memory stick downloaded to CD.

Then back off to Chiang Mai in the grey machine, navigating rush hour traffic stuck in third gear. I looked like a complete learner driver, revving it up and juddering around corners and away from traffic lights, ha.

Tonight we're off to the night bazaar, and tomorrow we'll go to a couple of the temples around here, then head to Pai, which is about a four hour bus journey. But hey, we're getting good at this stuff now!

The Thai boxing was great last night, but will let Quent fill you in. It seems like sort of a man thing to do.

Good luck Momma Cam!!

I've been debating whether to put this up because my Mum is such a shy wee thing, but I am so proud of her I just have to.

Mum is running the New York marathon on Sunday, it's her first marathon, and she has been training her tiny ass off for it. This is the lady who climbed Mt Kilimanjaro a couple of years ago and made it to base camp of Everest a couple of years before that. Puts me to absolute shame.

Anyway Mum, all the very, very best - Quentin and I will be thinking of you on Sunday. Have a good trip to New York. xx

** Sheena - all the very best to you too my dear! Give it the full 110%. xx

Chiang Mai (and Chang beer).

So we got to Chiang Mai yesterday afternoon, after a 14 hour train ride, gah! Was supposed to be 12 but there was something wrong at about the 10hr mark which language barriers prevented us getting to the bottom of - but they got us all out and onto the side of the tracks for some reason.

Thankfully it didn't smell of wee this time, but for some reason the carriage we were booked in didn't have any racks for luggage, so I slept with the pack at the end of my bunk... which left me about 5" of room. I am no giant of a woman but could have done with 3 inches more [insert male genitalia joke here]. Had a good sleep though thanks to some lovely sleeping pills I picked up last time I was in New York, god bless America.

We've hooked up a couple of new buddies in the form of Matt the Canac and Ned the Aussie, so of course had to celebrate with a few Changs last night after strolling the Sunday night markets (so huge!), and most importantly so Quent and Ned could wash down any last remnants of the fried GRASSHOPPERS they ate, bleeeuuuurgh!

We're off to see a Muay Thai kickboxing match or two tonight, and tomorrow we are hiring a jeep and heading down to an elephant sanctuary. So more japes and hullabaloo there. Bye for now - have a good week all. xx



[photo taken from the Elephant Sanctuary site here: http://www.changthai.com/]

Quent and I have fallen into the pattern of getting pics with all giant figures we see, I know, I know, it's a bit sad. But so far there have just been too many to pass up: Freddy above, Shrek, a bowing Ronald McDonald, and the piece de resistance: a break-dancing starfish. Holler!

Loved this one of the seafaring dogs in Ko Tao.

Talk to the animals.

Quentin just can't help himself.

What's next...

We are going up to Chiang Mai overnight tomorrow night (another sleeper train, cross fingers it doesn't smell)... will be there for a week, then back to Bangkok to pick up our Vietnamese visas (we put them in today) and off to 'nam on the 6th November. Should be all good. Hopefully the rain stops up in the north of Thailand though.

Haad Rin - Koh Tao (Haad Sae Ri) - Bangkok

Yo yo, back again in Bangkok, where the internet is four times cheaper than down in the islands, where they can pretty much charge what they want. We are having no luck uploading pics at this cafe but will try from a different one tomorrow.

Not loooads to report really, we wanted to mad chill the first two weeks of the trip and that's exactly what we did. After Bottle Beach we spent four nights in Haad Rin - too many really as it's pretty much the Newquay of Thailand, but we had a couple of really heavy days' rain and didn't want to go to Koh Tao til the rain had gone. Then we went to Haad Sae Ri on the island of Koh Tao for three nights, which wasn't nearly enough - I would highly recommend Koh Tao, it was incredible.

Some mashed-up memorable bits:

- finally going brown
- 8 hour power cut which resulted in us showering by mosquito candle light
- Faux 7 Eleven
- buckets on the beach (just the one night!)
- eating loads of crepes (they are cheap)
- trance guy in shop really deliberating over which pyschedelic top to buy, giving it the UV light test in the end and choosing both (I think)
- EVERYONE having tattoos (bar Gran and Gramps here)
- watching Miami Vice (the film) with really bad English subtitles ("Where'dya wanna go" = "I like a girl")
- Quent getting a massage, and being the very first customer of a brand new shop
- Animals and insects: a dog every 2 metres; my first centipede; a cockroach in our room (cue Nic squealing when it jumped out of my bag); mozzies; flies; geckos; a rat or two (but not in our room thank god)
- trying not to pat really cute puppies and kittens in fear of getting sick
- "Mr J"'s shop on Koh Tao, complete with hand made condoms (hmmm)
- gorgeous swimming pool: Quent doing bombs
- lowering our literary standards from decent books to crime fiction page turners (the good books are way more expensive)
- dreaming that Karen M's dad was Chris Tarrant
- dreaming that I went to get a job at McDonald's when I went back to NZ (arrrgh!)
- loving our old skool mobiles with torches
- Quent nearly getting sconed on the head by a falling fruit as we dined on the beach by gas lamp
- having to move my last injection of the day to 9pm rather than 10pm cos we are often asleep by then! (Jared, Sheena, Belinda, Gaz: don't pretend you don't miss the 10pm alarm)
- "the sliding cup"
- getting the boat with legless Thai dudes falling over with sharp bits of aluminium in their hands (ace, thanks guys)
- "Country Road" sang in Thai amidst other country faves while we waited for the train
- getting on the train and nearly gagging from the urine smell, me diving into my bag to dab perfume all over my sleeper bed to create an alternative scent
- getting off in Bangkok at 5.30am completely dazed and confused

Congratulations Warrick + Sara!

Another wedding of 06 - the lovely NZ Warrick and Sara tied the knot in Rarotonga on the weekend. Congratulations you two - send me some pics!

Hiatus.

The internet here is super pricey so we'll be back again in a week when we get back to Bangkok.

Q + N
x

Hitting the Bottle.

Just when you thought we may have disappeared off into the sunset, here we are back again! We had a fairly convoluted trip down to the islands from Bangkok then headed for Bottle Beach (thanks for the recommendation, Col + Beth, Dave + Louisa). This involved getting a sleeper train from Bangkok, setting our alarm for 3.30am in anticipation of our 3.44am arrival (and not wanting to sleep through the station a la a drunken night on the tube), realising that the train was going slowly and waiting patiently for it to arrive around 6am, getting a van to Chumporn port, a 2.5 hour boat journey (ahhh, wonderful sitting on the top deck, our white bodies blinding fellow travellers as the sun bounced off), then we chilled at Koh Tao for a few hours, got a one hour boat to Koh Phanang, a truck to the northern port of Ao Chalok Lam, and a longboat to Bottle Beach, aka Haad Khuat.

Not too much to be said of the following five days on this glorious, idyllic beach, but a list of the bits that stick out in my mind:

- Thai versions of "Zombie" and "Ladylumps"
- Fugees and Nas to excess
- power going off for about 4 hours a day
- cold showers
- awesome bungalow: Right. On. The. Beach - yeeeah!
- only one shop which sold soap, mars bars, sunscreen and little else
- four restaurants to choose from
- reading, reading, reading - Q and I got through four novels each
- no mobile signal
- attempts at going from white to brown (had to take it slowly, and still have a way to go)
- day trippers coming in every other day, including the Snoop Dogg boat, come on!
- the best hits of 1990: MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, House of Pain, loving that!
- Russian girls posing at the waters' edge like they were in Sports Illustrated
- aloof Israeli lesbians in the next bungalow
- reading by torchlight
- trying to cross the stream in the pitch black, across a shaky bridge
- bit of a tummy upset on my behalf
- Nic getting the giggles at dinner
- delliiiiicious squid on the last night

So now we have moved to Haad Rin on the South East coast of the island. Yes, this is the home of the ghastly Full Moon party (if you've never heard Quentin and I bleat on about how much we hate trance/ravers, you definitely will in future). We've made sure we have turned up safely in between either the full or half moon parties just to be safe. We'll stick around here for a couple of days no doubt, so will take advantage of a couple of the more touristy things, like day trips which take you to the waterfalls, can't wait. We may even get brave enough to hire motorbikes, but I'm wary of walking away with a "Koh Phanang tattoo" (i.e scars from falling off the bike).

We're at this cafe researching visas and the different legs of the ensuing weeks, so no time to upload photos today, but stick around and I'll show you some of Quent in his Speeds (just kidding).

Love to all! Thanks for all the emails. xxx

We're bringing sweaty back.

So... Bangkok. We've done a lot of sleeping... first day we got in late and got to our great (for 13 quid a night) hotel, popped out for some dinner and a drink, then came back and conked out.

Yesterday we had a bloody good look around. Short summary: went to the Grand Palace (huge, amaaazing), down to the MBK Plaza (great lunch), had a look around Siam Square (posh), got the sky train (ace! and very sparsely populated, we think it's a bit expensive for the average Bangkoker), went to the main train station to buy tickets for our next leg, walked back to the hotel, went out for dinner, met our first friend (ahhhhh. A Thai singer named Ricky who was busting out some Pink Floyd and Rolling Stones numbers, I'll try to upload the photo at a later date)... bed. We were completely knackered after having walked everywhere (about 12km in the heat we reckon).

Next leg is down to the islands, yaaaaay! Can't wait to get a tan and just chill out. Think we'll head to Ko Phangnan first and maybe go to the quieter side of the island.

We made it (just).

Allo all, from our third day in Bangkok. We actually only just made the flight from Heathrow. Anyone who knows us well knows we are super anal with punctuality, hence we left Peckham with 4.5 hours til the flight. However we weren't banking on the journey there taking two hours, squashed up against all of London's other commuters (it was one of the most packed tube journeys I've ever had, awful). And we also weren't counting on this bomb scare at Heathrow.

The short story is: we made it to the gate with two minutes before they filed us onto the flight. The longer one entails us hopping from foot to foot for over two hours in the departure queue with no idea if we would actually make the flight, no announcements from the officials as to whether flights would be delayed on account of this (they weren't), and a pack of whining oldies behind us. After the bag x-rays we started running with our shoes in our hands to the departure gate, and thankfully it was a close one.

A close one indeed.
(I thought this sort of scenario was what we were expecting in Asia, not London!)

Good day to be leaving.

The weather out there today looks like this:



... although before we go getting too smart, apparently there are currently thunder storms in Bangkok, so hopefully that makes those of you we are leaving behind feel a little less jealous.

Vyvvyn oh Vyvvy.

Here's a pic of the cat we've been cat-sitting for the last two weeks. She has vomited on the carpet, pooed on the carpet, thrown soil from one of the pot plants all over the carpet, scratched my prized Mandarina Duck suitcase, bitten Quentin's toes in the night, and woken us up between 6 and 6.45 every morning. But she is so beautiful we are still swooning over her, even with all her naughty behaviour.

Bye Vyvvy, we'll miss you (but only during the hours of 10am to midnight).

Our lovely friends.

We've had a swell couple of last days, catching up with a wide variety of buddies.

Yesterday we went to the Rye Hotel for lunch with Dave + Louisa, Rob, Megan + Richard, Leigh + Leighton and Anne Marie + Nick. Superb.

And tonight, we had a really lovely farewell dinner with Andrew, Lizzie, Nicki, Sam + Kelly, Sacha + Tony, and Beth + Colin. Amazing food, and so good of them all to venture out on a Monday night to see us off.

So now we are just left with the final pack up tomorrow, a quick drink with Daryl + Nathan as they come in from Gatwick and we head out to Heathrow, then our flight out at 9.30pm tomorrow (Tuesday) night. Can't believe we are actually leaving. Maybe it will sink in once we're on the plane!

Party all the time.

Great party Friday night! Thanks so much to everyone who came along, for the lovely cards and gifts, and our wonderful DJs: Florian, Joe, Anthony and Sam. And to Ross and Pinar who came all the way down from Newcastle to see us off. Had such a great time with you all, and it was truly sad to say goodbye, although it still feels a bit surreal, as if I'm going to be turning up for work again on Monday, or that I'm going on a two week holiday and will then return. (Of course I always have parties with 150 people to celebrate a two week holiday).

Also, a really big thanks to Diddy and Gabi, who flew in from Prague to see us off. Sadly, flight delays and London Transport let them down on Friday night, but they more than made up for it last night. I am truly thankful that you made such a huge effort.

So we have a couple more lunches, shipping guys coming to pick up our very bloated suitcase tomorrow, hopefully a nice walk along the river, then take off on Tuesday evening. Gosh, I wonder when it will feel real!

Auf wiedersehen Hi-ReS!

Well, I've been joyously counting down the days til there is no more work, but am feeling dead sad about it today. Have had the time of my life working for Hi-ReS! Bye guys - you've been inspirational and amazing. xx

Book ends.

It was quite emotional for me today, as I felt a real sense of completing a circle, or closing the book ends. I went and had lunch with mine and Scotty's good friend David (pictured, with his brand new son, Samuel). We went to the same restaurant I met him and Scotty at on my second day in London, on May 18th, 2000. He has been so good to me over the years. Big shout outs to you and your new family, David. xx

A beer in the hand.

Quentin managed to amass a really deep cut to his hand last night when we were out celebrating the end of my Lost show for Channel 4 radio. He gallantly dived to save a pint glass which had been knocked off the bar, and managed to catch it - but not before it had already broken into some nasty sharp shards. Big thanks to Rob from Music 4 who ran to the studio and back before most of us had even turned around, and strode in with the first aid kit. A healthy dose of bandaging and tape and Quentin was back on form again.

An injury was actually bound to happen at some point in this last week in London/our first week on holiday - I was almost expecting it. Quentin courts injury like Romeo does Juliet: and this seems to escalate on holiday. Need I mention the "ankle tap incident" of 2005 (Penang, me), or the fainting in the shower debacle later that year (Zurich, Quentin)...

On another note though, it has been pointed out to me that I have my first official fan - yeah! Check this out. Ahhh, the adulation!!

Don't know much about history.

I am going to miss living in such a history-rich town.

Interesting article here about the "battle of Cable Street", 60 years ago.... Cable Street being Quentin's street at the time when I started going out with him - good old Shadwell. Here is a pic of him and Leighton at the infamous "silver house" just around the corner. That's about as much history as Quentin got involved in - putting "the Dude" on the map in East London. All he needs is a white russian, and a missing rug.

Tanks + troops depart Bangkok.

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Tanks and troops that toppled a civilian government nearly two weeks ago were off the streets of the Thai capital Monday following the announcement of a new interim prime minister to lead the country for one year.

CNN article here.

Four days of work to go.

Yeeehhhaaaaaaa!

Touched by a bum.

Whenever you choose to sit on the street-side of a restaurant in London, you put yourself out there for contact with the more residentially challenged members of the London community. More often than not they are in such a bad way, you can't understand what they are saying, and find yourself leaning protectively over your bag/your food for fear of stealing/soiling.

Tonight, however, Sacha and I were sitting outside a restaurant in Angel, and were approached by the sweetest homeless person I have ever encountered in my time here. He happened to walk up just as I was injecting my insulin, and after stopping in mid sentence to gather his composure (with a small nod and the words "ahh, insulin"), he proceeded to make me a flower out of one of the pieces of wire he was hauling around, while giving a story of the spiritual origins of the shapes he was making. And he was truly humbled with the £2 I gave him. Ahhhh, bless! (Maybe I'm just a sucker)

The only other story I have about homeless people being charming in London also took place in Angel. I was walking out of Sainsbury's with a 12-roll bag of loo paper and some groceries. He asked me for money: I said no. Then, as I turned the corner, I heard him shouting after me: "At least give me some of yer bog roll then!". I chuckled to myself and kept on walking.

Dad/Scotty, can you remember that guy who came up to us in Angel in 2000 with the guitar? I remember he said something really funny, which became our catch-phrase for a while but I can't remember what it was. Answers in the comments box, first to get it gets a chocolate fish.

Don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of bad encounters with homeless people in London - like the man who was "relieving his kidney problem" in our garden at 6am and the man who shouted at me outside Costcutter when I had the audacity to buy him a chocolate bar. But those stories are for another time.