We, us humble pair, are now in Hue (pronounced as in Whaaayyy!) just past the middle of the country. We're in a lovely little hotel - but Vietnam is dotted with lovely little hotels that put the west to shame (Comrade).

Over the last four days we've been in a place called Hoi An, just south of Danang (where the Marines landed in 1969, you remember don't you?) where all the tailors of Vietnam come to ply their trade - around 500 of them at the last count. And we've had a rare old time.

Yessir, it's been a very long time since we blogged - but there's a reason for that. We've only been doinglikeeverythingthereistodothathaseverbeencoolatanypointintimeever. You'll forgive us, I'm sure.

Thankfully as part of our package tour with Alexander Tours, Ross has volunteered to do a guest blog. I did not ask him what it should be about, only that he blog - so if he doesn't cover what we did (or anything to do with the holiday) then I shall prepare something to fill you in.

From Ipoh, we headed up into the Cameron Highlands for some relief from the heat and humidity. After a bus journey / courier service (the bus driver was picking up and dropping off packages for a small fee - I assume an undisclosed sideline) of no real event we checked into a lovely little guesthouse.

Selamat pagi! Sudah sekian lama saya berharap untuk berkenalan dengan anda. Tolong berikan saya dua Carlsberg?

Our initial few days in Malaysia have been fantastic - but I'm awfully glad that we are doing this at the end of our trip rather than the start. This is because we are quite proficient at the travelling aspect of things (getting bus tickets, accomodation, map reading, living out a rucksack, ignorning ticket touts etc) and can concentrate on...well, being human here.

I don't even know where to start.

We arrived in Singapore last night after a long day of travelling (2 hour flight, 4 hour stopover in Darwin, 4.5 hour flight) and were pleasantly surprised by what we discovered. Taking the 25 minute metro into the city cost us around £1.20 each and it was so clean and so well organised! The hostel we booked was clean and comfy with lovely lovely air conditioning but we didn't sleep well because Asia was outside and it was scary and we were afraid.

Hello readers,

If you are still reading this blog, you are probably either forced to by my threats of pain or that you are not technically capable of navigating to another page when you open the 'Interweb Tubes'. A limited few may even read this blog for enjoyment but I have heard places exist for the criminally insane and that electro-shock therapy is still available.

That aside, I feel a little under pressure at this time to come up with something that maintains your interest, especially after the last week where we've not really done much at all.

It used to be black as me fathers hat, now it's forty shades of green! We've just spent our final days in Sheila, our little caravanette. She was basically a car with a bed in the back, but over the 52 days we spent in her we've had such an awesome time in Australia – and we can't picture how we'd even come close to experiencing the range of things we did in Oz without spending a horrendous amount on tours and trips.

We're currently in the Hunter Valley – home of some of Australia's more famous brands. Lindermans, Tyrells, Rosemount, Tempest Two – stuff you'll find on shelves in Tesco or Sainsburys. Sadly, I've come down with a cold which means I'm totally useless for tasting wine; not being able to smell the wine takes away a great deal of it's flavour. Fiona is very kindly allowing me to drive her around the wineries and helping her make notes on what we've encountered. I've been tasting the port whenever I can though as it's pretty good at clearing the sinuses for a while.

Well I must start by totally agreeing with Stu's sentiments about the great barrier reef. The day from start to finish was amazing. I was so impressed with the reef. It was beautiful and interesting. Fantastic!!

When I was a small boy, I saw something on Television that made me want to go to the Great Barrier Reef. I began irritating my parents about it – can we go, can we can we can we please. My parents had replied in the negatory, probably because it was at the other side of the world thus making the expedition for the three of us prohibitively expensive. It was also probably as I tended to get an idea in my head and consider it the-most-important-thing-in-the-world-ever for between two weeks to a month, then drop it for something else.