Canada, USA and The End

As I'm sure you're all aware, we have arrived back in England, and our travels are over. Our last weeks were spent in Canada and the USA. They were amazing.

A few weeks ago, coming home was something to look forward to. Then the days started dwindling. From shooting Slenderman in Carlisle, walking down Times Square in New York, encountering the "interesting" locals in San Fran to having some of the best days of the entire trip in Vegas... it changed. It's probably the same with a two-week holiday in Magaluf. By the time you realise your flight home is the next day, you can think of nothing worse than going home.

Then you actually get home.

Hope you enjoy the last few pictures of what we got up to.

And thank you for reading.

Parties and Passion in South America

Our South American leg of the trip kicked off in Argentina. Buenos Aires is a very cool city, and flying in from Australia, we experienced jetlag for the first time in our lives! Not being able to function correctly for 48 hours isn't exactly a fun experience though. Hence our first few days here were spent catching up on sleep, though we did take time to check out the colourful houses in Boca, and take part in a little street tango.

Definitely not set up...

After Buenos Aires we got a bus to Rosario, which was a great time in itself - taking a bus in South America (save for Bolivia) is like flying business class. Just incredibly good. In Rosario, we took a real tango lesson. Now when I say 'real', I mean 'real'. It wasn't a tourist style "pay lot's of money and dance awfully with a load of tourists". It was a "Hi-this-is-a-weekly-lesson-for-locals-and-we've-just-come-along-too". Hence, there were some very good dancers there. Fortunately, we managed to just about get the hang of it (tango is tough), and didn't embarrass ourselves too much. We saved that for the day after, when we rented a pedal boat (hey, it was only £1.50..) and proceeded to crash it several times before getting yelled at for going in the out-of-bounds area. Oops.

This is what travelling the world is all about

Next up was Iguazu Falls. The volume of water is impossible to comprehend. Just stunning.

And this is only about a third of the curtain

Following the falls, we headed off to Rio de Janeiro. I think we both rank Rio as the best city we've been to on the trip. Beautiful weather, beautiful girls, friendly locals, amazing night life, amazing day life, amazing things to see, plus the whole "Dude, Rio's dangerous man, you're gonna get robbed or something or stabbed, it's well bad", seems to be a load of nonsense. Yes, there are dangerous parts of Rio you probably shouldn't go walking through at night, but the same thing is true of London, Manchester or any city in the world.

The Favela; not as dangerous as in COD

The highlight of Rio's nightlife are the street parties. Every Friday and Saturday turns into a mini-carnival with people drinking and dancing in the streets. The atmosphere is simply fantastic. However, having such a good night can have consequences... After waking up in a rather drunk state, and rushing to catch a bus the following morning, something was bound to go wrong. And after getting off the bus at the Brazilian/Bolivian border thirty hours later, a discovery was made; Myles left his laptop in the hostel in Rio! So we ended up staying a little longer than planned in Corumba as we waited for the Brazilian Royal Mail to pop the laptop over.

The most brilliant city

Upon entering Bolivia we started on the most horrible of journeys. A night train to Santa Cruz (we didn't know trains could be so bouncy), followed by a night bus to Sucre (without a road), followed by a (long) day bus (which didn't have a toilet on board, nor did it make toilet stops...) where we eventually arrived in Uyuni. Uyuni is home to the world's largest salt flats, and despite being incredibly impressive, is more known for the awesome photo opportunities!

Oh, the japes we have

Following another night bus (they're incredibly tiring by the way) - we arrived in La Paz - the highest capital in the world. At 12,000ft above sea-level, walking around is slightly more tiring than back home. Even more tiring is biking down the world's most dangerous road. Yunkas Road - you may have seen it on Top Gear - is an incredibly thrilling bike down through incredible scenery, though it is risky. A couple of fellow riders crashed in emphatic fashion while Dave rode into a bush after flying round a corner too fast.

Riders have fallen off the edge and died here in the past

Onwards from Bolivia, our next destination was Peru, though due to time constraints, we sadly only had time to hit Machu Picchu. Though it was certainly worth it. We took part in a 4-day jungle trek up to the Incan Ruins though some stunning mountains. Football matches against locals (we only lost because we weren't accustomed to the altitude), a dodgy papier-mache cable-car and one-foot wide paths were the order of the day on the way, and after travelling nearly 50 km over the four days, we finally arrived at Machu Picchu - it was well worth it.

The family

And onto our final week in South America which has been spent in Colombia. Again, supposedly dangerous, but in reality, not really much worse than anywhere else in the world, we spent a relaxing few days along the beaches in Santa Marta on the coast of the Caribbean, enjoyed the last cheap markets we'll see for a good while, and simply enjoyed our last few days in the continent.

We didn't even do any cocaine in Colombia - we're awful tourists

South America has been amazing. With just a little over two weeks till we're home, let's see how North America can do.

PO-TA-TOES... boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew

New Zealand was our last stop before we headed to the other side of the international date line, and in a word, it was amazing.

Penguins!

We arrived in Christchurch to pretty much abject devastation. Despite it being a year and a half since the Earthquakes hit the city, the entire city centre was still closed off, and from what you could see, quite the mess. There was essentially little to see and do in Christchurch (though we can offer it was freezing cold), and hence we soon moved on to Queenstown.

Also, Dave got 7-balled

Queenstown is up there with some of the best places we've been on the trip so far. It's a pretty small town, but filled with youngsters, incredible mountains, and an endless list of things to do. The burgers are amazing, the cookies are amazing, it feels like it's Christmas everyday, and we met some awesome people there - the time we spent there was fantastic.

Bull

Cookie Muncher

Snowboard

Carlos

Just further on from Queenstown, we hit the incredible sights of Milford Sound and Franz Josef Glacier. Milford Sound is a vast and epic fjord, which while impressive, admittedly paled in comparison to the fjords we saw in Norway. Franz Josef on the other hand was unlike anything we'd seen previously. The glacier was simply massive. It's difficult to project just how large it is. Due to the dangers involved, there are warnings about climbing on the glacier yourself, but obviously we ignored them and plundered on to the glacier anyway. This was all fun and games until Myles was going up a slightly steep bit of ice, and ended up sliding all the way down and landing painfully on Dave below. There's probably a lesson there, but if there is, we didn't learn it.

It's not hard to guess what happened next...

Elsewhere in New Zealand, a lot of the fun we've been having has simply been living in the country day-to-day. Wellington is a cool city and while we tried hunting out some Lord of the Rings filming locations there, we ultimately got lost and failed.

Good scenery to be fair

In Rotorua (which by the way is the foulest smelling place in the world due to sulphur exploding out of the ground - smells like rotten eggs) we risked life and limb on a luge track, and believe us when we say the photos truly don't do justice to just how fast you end up going down.

Just like Mario Kart

And we kept bumping into a couple of potato farmers along the way, and even had a game of bingo with them which Dave managed to win.

Leprechauns! ..to be sure, to be sure

And we're now just about to board a flight to South America. Time to get some extra insurance…

Road Trippin' in Australia

Is there anything better than a road trip? The answer of course is yes, and there are many things better. But is anything better than the first twenty minutes of a road-trip? That's tough. After several nights of being (ridiculously generously) hosted by Dave's cousins in Cairns, we hopped into a campervan, and set off down the East coast of Australia.

Eyes on the road? nah...

As I said, the first twenty minutes are glorious. Amazing sunshine, blasting tunes out of the radio, an immense feeling of freedom. But then as night grows nearer, and you head further south, the rain, the cold, the lack of radio through the country, and the stopping every half an hour to fill up turns things slightly sour. However the sourness is only that - slight. Driving in a campervan for 2,500+ kilometres down Australia was awesome, though we're not complaining about sleeping back in beds.

Bedtime

Our first stop off down the coast was Airlie Beach, gateway to the Whitsundays. We didn't even go to the Whitsundays so instead have a picture of Rolf Harris:

The Australian Chuckle Brother

As some may know, Australia is expensive. Really expensive. You can get by just about. We survived on $1 value bread, and $3 plastic cheese slices. mmm… Delicious! As a consequence, wages are high. Want to stand by road works on the highway and flip a 'Stop' and 'Go' sign at cars? Have $40 per hour, with double on Sundays! Do YOU think you could sweep up in the mines? Well have $120,000 per year then! It's ridiculous. In fact, Australia is so expensive that Dave had to cut Myles' hair for him as barbers cost too much.

Also the haircut was done in a rainy carpark

As a treat, we splashed out and booked a tour to Fraser Island. Fraser Island is simply immense and the three days we spent there rank among the best of the trip. Often with stuff like this, it's the people you meet who make it either a good trip or a bad trip, and this was the case here.

Our brilliant TEAM B

Despite having several dodgy drivers in our team (one girl hit a tree and she wasn't even close to the worst), powering through the beaches and forests in a massive 4x4 was fantastic. Dingos were plentiful, we saw a whale (but it was beached and died a few days later ;_; ), and even met a couple guys who went to Wilmslow High School. Small world.

DINGO

The closing week or so in Australia was sadly punctured slightly from the weather. 'Torrential rain' is an understatement. Still, we managed to spend a fun morning with Adam Stewart (bosslord) who showed us some wallabies just hopping down some posh residential roads...

boing, boing, boing

We even outshone Kelly Slater on our surfboards in Byron Bay…

And we then met up with Mike Kingdon (check out his awesome blog HERE) in Sydney. Sadly we only had time for one night out in Sydney with Mike, but we will be going back next month. For those who haven't been to Sydney, check out Kings Cross - walking down the streets is a competition to see if you see more prostitutes or more homeless people.

We saw the Opera House but sadly not Harold Bishop!

And that just about wraps up Australia. Coming from Asia we were slightly unprepared for the sheer cost of everything, and as a consequence, McDonalds $2 double cheeseburgers probably saw too much action. Also we probably shouldn't have come in the winter since the rain and cold were pretty lame. Despite that though, Australia rocked, the road trip rocked, this song rocks, and if you read all the way to the end, you rock.

Hello Japan, Goodbye Budget

We'd been in Japan for just two minutes before we found our first motorised toilet, and the fun didn't stop there. Japan/Tokyo had always been a place we wanted to go to, but we just weren't sure the budget could stretch for it. In the end, we decided to throw out the budget, and go, and we're glad we did - it really is a country like no other.

erm... yeh...

There are few places as exciting for shopping as Tokyo. Harajuku is home to the kids English hipsters try to imitate. The difference being that the Japanese can actually pull it off. You can buy some truly bizarre items of clothing, oddly for pretty decent prices. The whole area is filled to the brim of youngsters with incredible taste in fashion - something common throughout the whole of Tokyo - even the ugly kids. The whole thing is topped off by cosplayers dressed to the nines, for no other reason than it being a Sunday.

Here's a screenshot from the upcoming Final Fantasy game

The other great shopping area in Tokyo is Akihabara - which we're guessing is the translation for 'nerdtown'. Packed to the brim with computer games, gadgets, and cartoon porn, it was difficult to know when to stop buying things. How many shops in England have 200+ original GameBoy games in stock? Even when you don't need them, and know you won't play them more than once, it's bizarrely tempting to empty your wallet on them. The area was topped off with arcades. You know when you think you're good at computer games? Go to Japan and you won't still think that. We were watching stuff like this.

This is a chair made of NES games - you want?

We did manage to take in some traditional Japanese experiences along the way such as seeing the Imperial Palace, and eating sushi. But the highlight was a visit to a Japanese onsen (hot springs). Never having been to a hot springs before, you don't expect 40°C to be that hot, but after fifteen minutes, you're hopping towards the 20°C pool, this time much colder than you expect. And then you're soon hopping between the two. Despite sitting in a bath with a load of old and naked Japanese men, the whole experience was fantastic.

The billboards are a little different to in England

It's difficult to put our experience in Tokyo into words. It was a shame we didn't get to see more of the country, but at the same time, to spend 8 days in Tokyo was incredible. It really is a country like no other, and definitely one everyone needs to experience for themselves. Following Japan, we had a couple of brief days in Kuala Lumpur (where we hooked up with Jessica Meola), and Singapore, which although expensive, was a pretty cool city. We tried to meander our way up to the top of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, though were sadly stopped at the 55th floor. Lovely building though.

£300 per night was sadly just too much for us

And that, is sadly that for Asia. We've had over seven months of awesomeness here, but we've just left for Australia. Let's hope it's as fantastic as Asia was.

Full Moon Party? We don't remember...

A little over two weeks ago, we'd just finished being teachers in Vietnam, and we were back on the road again for the first time in six months. And we had good friend from home Will Thompson join us for a short while.

Angkorrrrr WAT

We rode West for Siem Reap, to see Angkor Wat and the other temples in Cambodia. Upon arriving in Cambodia, one thing was unmistakable. Khmers (locals) are the nicest people in the world. It's strange to make such an instant judgement of such a vast collective of people, but we all agreed. There was just something about them. The visit to the temples of Angkor was nice enough - Angkor Wat looked incredible, though some idiots were doing scaffolding work to it and chucked green sheets all over it. Later, Dave was told he wasn't allowed in the middle of it because he was wearing a vest, and this was a great insult to their non-vest wearing forefathers.

Idiot boy left outside for wearing a vest

After just a few days in Cambodia we left though - it was a nice place, just lacking a little OOOMF! This ooomf would be found in Thailand, and indeed in Bangkok. We'd already been to Bangkok so we knew what to expect, but every night out in Bangkok is always a little different. This time around, at 7am after a night, Myles was robbed by a couple of ladyboys. Then he robbed them of more money than they stole off him. Myles 1, Ladyboys 0.

This was a nice ladyboy who gave Myles a lift home one morning

Our next destination was Koh Phangan, host of the infamous Full Moon Party. Before we went, we really didn't know what to expect. 50% of the reputation seemed to be "best party ever", "amazing" etc., while the other half held views of "full of nobheads", and describing it as the place for Brett Broski.

Worst pyramid shape ever

Now admittedly, the beach was full of jacked-up/roided-up/muscled-up guys (read: jocks) and hot-ass/boobed-up/blonde girls (read: bimbos), and the sheer level in hotness in everyone there was crazy (so why were we there lolzomgrofl!?). But don't judge a book by its cover etc. - everyone there was simply there to have a good time, and there was a great communal party atmosphere. We had a pool party a couple nights before Full Moon night as a warm-up, which was great (save for us forgetting to take our watches off before jumping in the pool), before the night of the Full Moon Party arrived.

MOON

Our memories from that night are few and far between, but it was excellent, simple as - check the pics. It's easy to judge it before you try it, but give it a go one day, you may love it.

Dave STLL has a neon Batman symbol on his back, 8 days later

Following a couple days of R&R in Koh Samui, which included the AWESOME football golf, we were off to Kuala Lumpur, where we learned it's a twenty-four hour bus ride. So we chose to fly. Normally this would be cool, but we were flying with Firefly, the most budget of budget airlines. The plane consisted of a couple of propellers, held together with polystyrene and Pritt Stick (you can see where this is going). Around halfway into the flight was some turbulence. Now we're no strangers to turbulence, we've had our fair share of flights already through this trip. But this was some SERIOUS turbulence. Or perhaps a 1mph wind that just felt horrific because of the cardboard plane we were sitting in. Either way, we're already thinking we're about to die, when the plane NOSE-DIVES 15 miles, before levelling out. This might be slightly embellished, but the point is; that flight was bad.

Not good

Kuala Lumpur was nice enough too, though the adverts that cry "Malaysia, truly Asia", were slightly inaccurate. Obviously KL is one of the larger cities in Asia, but it's still far too Westernised to be considered 'truly Asia'. It's a great city though - the twin towers look incredible, we had to make our own beds at the hostel, and we even found a giant sofa!

AND a monkey stole Dave's water - it was amazing

And that, is pretty much that for the past couple weeks. We've been flying around for the last few days and yesterday was no different. We've just flown into Tokyo for - fingers crossed - one of the best weeks of the trip.