I'm sure The Proclaimers had a song about that didn't they? But seriously, this is a mega post in the blogosphere! Indeed who'd have thought that on that December day in Puerto Madryn in Argentina in 2007, Ant and I would be starting the blog that has been going strongly since, with this, the 500th post. In those days Ant and I had to write it "live" whilst online on a small windows computer, no iPads or apps then! And finding wifi was an art in itself, how times change! But we started as we meant to go on with a glass of why in hand... It all started with gill35.blogspot.com
It's seen a few contributors, me, Ant, David and of course the Dyl's notable contribution of the posts from our trip to Chamonix.
It's seen visitors from the UK come to join us, Derek in Argentina and Carole and Anna Marie in Thailand and Deryn in Thailand and Goa.
Out of the seventy odd countries I have ever visited so far, 38 countries/territories feature in the blog, some as re visits and some on numerous occasions. They are:
Thailand
Laos
Burma/Myanmar
Cambodia
Vietnam
Brunei
Malaysia - mainland
Malaysia - Sabah and Sarawak
Hong Kong
Bali
Australia
New Zealand
New Caledonia
Cook Islands
Fiji
India
Sri Lanka
Philippines
USA
Mexico
Guatemala
Belize
France
Switzerland
Antarctica (Ant on his own, too cold and adventurous for me!)
Argentina
Brazil - just a fleeting visit
Paraguay - just a fleeting visit
Grenada
Martinique
Antigua
Bequia
Mustique
Guadeloupe
Dominica
St Kitts and Nevis
St Lucia
Turkey
We've travelled in all kinds of ways, some more comfortable, some more exciting than others!
Jet planes
Propellor planes
Elastic band job planes
Ferry boat
Sampan
Rowing boat
Long tail boat
Dugout
Junk
Speedboat
Catamaran
South seas boat
Hotel launch
Lancha
Slow cargo river boat
Converted rice barge
Ice breaker (Ant only!)
Classic yachts
Ordinary Yachts (Ant)
Canoe (Ant and David only...)
Train - day and sleeper
Bamboo rail train
Funicular railway
Bus
Coach
Minibus
Bemo
Tuk tuk
Songthaew
Jeepney
Taxi
Hire car
Limo
Motor bike
Push bike
Mountain bike
Road train
Pickup truck
Horses (Ant)
Surrey with a fringe on the top (Gill)
Pony and trap
Horse and carriage like Katie Price's wedding one
Shank's pony
I have tried to think what is my highlight but discover that that is impossible. So many things standout for so many different reasons. Here are a few with a link to go to that post if you want to read it.
The first ever post of the blog from Puerto Madryn on our Argentinian adventure
Kev always said that one day he'd tango in Buenos Aires, he never got that chance, but Ant and I did it for him, took our lessons and off we went!
Most magical places, there were so many but these are my top ones - the Estancia in Argentina, Mai Chau, a Shangri la of a green valley in North Vietnam and our stay on a sampan travelling the Mekong in South Vietnam, we liked that one so much we went back and did it again with David!
The saddest post in a black comedy sort of a way, the Sputum Express. We were on the overnight train in Vietnam going north sharing our 4 berth compartment with a very old, very ill man and his daughter.
Silliest post when we were ultra uber flashpacking at the Nam Hai near Hoi An in Vietnam. Our personal butler "wrote our blog post" for us as she did everything else...
The coldest we've been in apart from Ant in Antarctica that is....
The real coldest one, Ant's Antarctica adventure
Perhaps the maddest place we went to. How Ant persuaded me to spend any time at an ashram is beyond me (and we stayed two out of the three planned days). This is Amma'a place in Southern India, the divine hugging mother....
My strangest overnight - on a cargo boat on the Mekong in the freezing cold...
Another mad idea.... Once we saw Graham Norton and Dolly Parton doing the old "Islands in the Stream" duo whilst floating along in a rubber ring at Dollywood Splash County at her theme park in Pigeon Forge and decided we wanted to do it too. We did...... We also did Elvis at Graceland, Kennedy in Dallas, JR and Sue Ellen at Southfork in Dallas and of course cut our own disc in Nashville....
The cleverest series of posts, as written by the Dyl... This is just the daddy Ant birthday one but he also wrote all the posts either side. What a c lever boy!
The post that encapsulates the enduring thread of this blog - alcohol or indeed the lack of it in Brunei!
Perhaps the weirdest place visited, Nay Pyi Daw the new capital of Burma/Myanmar. So glad we went when we did. This mad city had only been open to foreigners for 8 days when we got here.
http://gill35.blogspot.com/2012/01/general-madness-9-10-january-2012.html.
http://gill35.blogspot.com/2012/01/general-madness-9-10-january-2012.html.
Perhaps slightly the scariest post, when I was evacuated to the hills overnight during a Tsunami alert in Ao Nang, Thailand
Ant's mountain climbing adventures, Adam's Peak in Sri Lanka and Mount Kinabalu in Sabah
Ok, I didn't do Kinabalu and only made it up 3/4 of Adam's peak, but I did manage the hills in Sapa!
We've flashpacked along the way too. Notably the Nam Hai in Vietnam, the Tea Trails in Sri Lanka, suites in the Intercontinental in Saigon, the Estancia in Argentina, the Conrad in Hong Kong, but we have balanced that with places at the other end of the scale. The worst had to be the Achinka Holiday Inn in Sri Lanka where Ant had to stay the night before climbing Adam's Peak. The cockroach infested Queen's hotel in Kandy comes pretty close. The Long Villa in in Kep with ants in the coffee. The hotel in Mumbai that felt like a public lavatory. The Dugout Motel in Koh Kong, Cambodia that was nothing but a "knocking shop". The horrible and freezing La Gite del Sol in San Christobel de la Casas in Mexico.
We've had so many laughs but a few really stick in the memory. David, still not used to our slight backpacker pretensions, desperate for a semi decent hotel at Ngapali beach in Myanmar. Even Ant and I had turned down the first flea pit so we asked to be taken to the best hotel in town. As we approached, David was hanging out of the taxi window, his fingers in a Churchillian V shouting in desperation "two rooms, two rooms!" When finally shown two very nice rooms, David did just have one more question to the hotel person who didn't speak much English as we surveyed the rather large rodent traps in the comer.... "big mouse, little mouse, big mouse, little mouse?"
Another was Ant and I in a freezing cold replica of a Scottish Hunting lodge in Ooty, the Glyngarth Villa, in the hill station in Southern India. We were happily knocking back the pre prandial duty free gin in the living room trying to keep warm. We were the only people staying in this place but the staff still decided we needed some entertainment and had booked a man with an electric keyboard to play for us. He started, he was so bad, then he started singing the usual Frank Sinatra type lounge music with a very strong Indian accent, that was even worse. We really shouldn't have looked at each other... Just the two of us, two gin and tonics down and unfortunately the giggles started. And we couldn't stop. Really bad manners but we did give him a huge tip to try and compensate...
And then there was the time, just after we had discovered Candy Crush, sitting round the pool in Mui Ne, Vietnam, when Ant shouts in the loudest, most excited voice ever at some problem in the game "oh no Gill, you've just lost your cherry!". We did get some rather old fashioned looks from the other people....
And my favourite photo of all - all three human blog contributors, just missing the non human one, the Dyl!
So the first 500 posts have been amazing, am now looking forward to the next 500....
