Thinking of titles is more difficult than you'd imagine!

Greetings from Bangkok.
This city is crazy. We arrived into the airport at 11pm Thaitime, which is approx. 4am NZ so we were suitably knackered. At the airport I'm pretty sure we got ripped off with our taxi but we were tired and it was bright pink and took us to our hotel. Our hotel was right in the centre of Chinatown, sadly we missed Chinese New Year by a few days otherwise I'm sure we'd have been right in the centre of the action. Our hotel was lovely, we had a massive room with a view over to a temple and air condition - heaven in a radiator type machine! We were horribly jet lagged and spent our first three days just lying around, not doing much. We popped over to Khao San Rd (the big tourist centre) and took a walk around Chinatown.

We've moved to a hostel nearer the Khao San Rd (near Soi Rambutri, for people that have been there,done that) and it's a nice little room but we've down graded to shared bathroom and a fan for a third of the price of the previous room. That's the great thing about Thailand, it's so much cheaper than NZ and Fiji so our bank accounts are smiling already!

So. Fiji.
It's everything you'd expect, and more. Just heavenly.
Well, once we got to our little island.

We landed in Nadi airprot and were met by a guy who we'd booked our island accommodatino with, we even got shell necklaces as a welcoming present! As we flew in we'd noticed along of brown water where you'd expect pretty blue sea, and it turns out there'd be horrible flooding and we couldn't get into Nadi, where our hostel was. Argh! So the driver who was supposed to be taking us to that hotel, took us instead to another hotel that was owned by the same people. Let's just say it wasn't the nicest place I've ever stayed in. It's saving grace was the fifty year old air conditioning unit that did provide cool air, but at a cost of a large clunking sound.

Next morning it was up early to catch the boat to our island. We hadn't thought about how long the boat would be, turns out it was five hours on open sea (sometimes passing by little islands) which was verrrry rough. Up and down, up and down. We both felt a little seasick and were oooh so glad to finally arrive at our destination.

By this point we needed relaxation, and we were disappointed. Our bure (traditional thatched hut) was literally beachfront and had a gorgeous breeze blowing through. We were greeted and had a lovely lunch.

Needless to say the next week passed by without much disturbance. Most of our time was split between sleeping, lying in a hammock reading, swimming in the sea and eating meals. One day we hired snorkels and went out to two different coral reefs. This was just amazing, neither of us had done anything like it before and the fish were so beautiful! So many different colours and shapes and sizes, even the coral had a blue hint to it and there were this massive bright blue starfish that looked like a bunch of blue sausages.

On our final night some kids from the local school came and sang some songs for us, it was a lovely way to finish our time in Fiji. Next morning we caught the boat back, five hours again but this time a whole lot less rough! We'd also booked a different hostel so we had no problems getting to it from the marina - there was even a free transfer bus.

Our flight to Thailand was pretty painless, we spent two hours in Australia - lots of fun! Ok, not really as we didn't leave the airport. The flight we were on was actually going home to London. Made us feel a bit homesick knowing these people would be back and we wouldn't. I find airports the worse places for home sickness - especially the arrivals hall. People finally getting to their destination and such. Then again, we get the excitement of being in a brand new place with much to explore, but it would be nice to be greeted by a familiar face.

So now in Thailand, with Asia ahead of us. Many things to see and do - if David can stand the heat!