Iguazu Falls

The happiest birds on earth have to be the ones that shower themselves in the water mist that spits from the Iguazu Falls. They just fly around having a blast like Australian kids running through a lawn sprinkler. It's hard to think that there would be a water shortage or any lack of natural resources in the world when you look at the abundance of water flowing from the 275 waterfalls of the Iguazu River. Spending a day here reminds us how small we really are. Nature has its way of putting us into place.

Lots of salt - but no tequila or lemon

As barren as the desert, as white as snow fields and as secluded as an island, the Bolivian Salt Flats are an awesome wonder. Over 10,000 square kilomteres of salt. That could make a lot of tequila shots. This is where you come for silly photos that take advantage of the endless horizon. Here is our silly photo. Tiny Lina in Dean’s hand. This is also where Lina took a photo of Sarah (from London) naked on a lollipop.

A day inside a Bolivian jail

Have you ever been offered a line of cocaine in prison? This photo was taken inside San Pedro Prison in La Paz, Bolivia. You put the cocaine on the mirror and snort it. So what were we doing inside this prison cell, you wonder. We bribed the inmates and the police to give us a tour. Don't worry, this is the thing to do in Bolivia's capital. We were treated like royal guests and even offered one gram of pure cocaine at the discounted price of 100 Bolivianos ($25AUD or $14USD). The Australian girl we were with got a bit scared when our "tour guide" left us inside a cell and closed the door. But everything was fine. We met the children and wives who live inside, walked past the hairdresser's, visited the pool room, tried some prison baked cake and had a chat to a cocaine addict who hadn't slept in a week (that's him yawning in the photo). If you can afford it, you get private bathroom and amenities. If you're poor, you live in miserable conditions with 3 or 4 other prisoners in the one cell and clean all day. Our inmate tour guide was paranoid about getting his throat slashed for some reason. If this blog post sounds a bit warped and random, you can only imagine what the actual experience was like. If we recall correctly, our first words when we left were, "That was f***ing weird".

Inca Trail to the Lost City

"Machu Picchu" sounds like a Pokemon character but it means "old peak" in Quechua. It's also known as the Lost City of the Incas and, from far away, could pass as an ancient miniature golf course. Like all stunning landscapes, it looks like a fake backdrop until you get there and know that it's actually real. After trekking 44 kilometres, up to a height of 4215 metres above sea level over 4 days, coming face-to-face with Machu Picchu was like finally meeting someone we had heard so much about before. Completing the Inca Trail and being rewarded with seeing this new Wonder of The World, is one more item now crossed off our list of things to do before we die. We were very lucky to share this experience with our great friends, Mel and Dan.

Living in the Amazon jungle

The jungle. The Amazon jungle. We lived in the Ecuadorian Amazon jungle for almost 4 weeks with the Indigenous Shuar community. No electricity, no running water, no beds, no cars. A wasp built two nests in our room. A dog slept directly under us beneath the floor boards. A swarm of 20-30 butterflies flew around our house and one sat on Dean’s forehead for 10 minutes. A huge prickly caterpillar was lying on Dean’s pillow one morning and stung him. Two tarantulas lived in our roof. We bathed, washed our clothes and dishes in the river. We taught English at the local primary school and donated resources. Dean learnt to make spears and hunt. Lina learnt to put in contact lenses without a mirror. We built bamboo walls with machetes, wore gum boots and became Solitaire experts. We ate frog, lizard, snail and other interesting animals. We learnt about hallucinogenic medicinal plants, shrunken heads (tsantsa) and Shuar culture. We fell alseep to rain on the tin roof, saw rainbows, played cards by candlelight and swept ants out of the house. We have had the most amazing experience, one that we could not have bought.

Never go hungry in the jungle

These massive maggot looking creepy-crawly things live in the jungle. We were spared from eating them raw, the way the locals do, and tried them grilled. It's impossible to go hungry in the jungle. There's always something to eat. Just go to a tree and pull out some frogs, dig a hole for lizards, search the river for snails or hunt deer, armadillo, rabbit. Dean was invited to eat monkey, an offer he graciously accepted. For vegetarian options, hand pick wild mushrooms, pineapples, fruits and other plants.

Our first year wedding anniversary

How do you celebrate your first year wedding anniversary in the Amazon jungle? Well, we recommend the following. Walk one and a half hours to the bus stop and take a two hour bus ride into the nearest town. Buy food so you can cook up a storm in your house that has no electricity. Some examples of fine food: Nutella, Forrero Rocher chocolates, burritos, marshmallows, chips and the best $3 bottle of red wine available. The bus could break down on the way back so be prepared to walk a couple of hours in pitch black darkness, down a mountain and through muddy swamps. Any thoughts of the real possibility of being bitten by a snake in the middle of the jungle or that you are lost should be rejected immediately as they enter your mind. When you finally arrive at your house at 10:30pm, take a naked bath in the river before passing out in bed. Spend the next day alone with your spouse, have nutella pancakes for breakfast, tuna burritos for lunch, skip dinner for dessert, wine and toasted camp fire marshmallows. Be totally mesmerised about where you are and what you are doing and fully enjoy every moment.

Walk in someone else´s shoes

There’s a steep mountain we have to climb to get out of the jungle. Think of about 800 very deep step-ups or lunges you would do at the gym, but on hard rocks, through slippery mud, spider webs, past tree branches, sometimes after a night of heavy rain and in uncomfortable rubber boots. That’s part of the walk we had to do to catch the bus into the nearest town. We only did it three times and it was tough. It’s the same walk that three children have to do every day to get home from school and it takes them over 2 hours round trip. They are 8, 5 and 3 years old. One day after school, the 3 year old (who, by the way, has burns all over his legs from a gas explosion) cried and refused to walk home. Dean carried him for the whole 40 minute walk from the school to our house and he fell asleep in Dean’s arms. The children rested at our house while it rained. Then, they all walked up the mountain to get back home, including the little one. It’s the closest we got to walking in their shoes.

Thankyou Colombia

The country which supplies 80% of the world’s cocaine gave us the best welcome to South America. Cartagena on the Caribbean coast is historic and beautiful (this sunset photo was taken there). Medellin the home of the late drug lord, Pablo Escobar, has a public transport system that puts Sydney’s to shame. Bogota, the very trendy and cool capital has bars, restaurants and cafes that match those in any major world city. However, our wonderful 11 day trip was destined to be amazing after first visiting our World Vision sponsor child. Carmelo – a smart, happy, energetic and all round kid – really lit us up, inside and out. He has so little, yet is so positive and full of love. He had been praying for our visit and thanked God for answering his prayers. This brilliant 9 year old wants to be a lawyer fighting for workers’ rights one day. Well, if our $43 a month helps him to achieve this in some small way, we’re all for it. Next stop: the Ecuadorian Amazon jungle where we’ll be learning to hunt and kill our meals. Think “remote” for 4 weeks. If you don’t hear from us for a while, you’ll know why.

World trip, life journey

This is Dean's self-portrait, taken with a tripod, looking at the Panama City skyline from our hostel window. We're coming to the last quarter of our trip. At the moment, we're both very reflective of how 2008 has been and forward thinking about the year ahead. Travelling is well and truly a part of us now. We are travellers, curious world and life explorers, muddling our way through our journey on this planet and through life. Nothing quite teaches you life lessons like a 12 hour bumpy road trip, haggling with a desperate vendor, sharing a room with 5 other people or losing money to a scam. Nothing quite makes you feel sheer joy and beauty like reading a letter from your World Vision sponsor child describing his elation about your planned visit, having a meaningful conversation with someone in a language that you've been learning or finally arriving at a destination that had previously only been a dream.

Look up "paradise" in the dictionary

Pictures can speak a thousand words. So we won't say much. This is a photo taken in Bocas del Toro. It is a province in Panama made up of 9 islands in the Caribbean Sea (Atlantic Ocean side of the country). The reality TV show Survivor is filmed here, there's an airport on a baseball field, you can get 50 cent beers at Happy Hour and Dean saw 2 feet long lobsters while scuba diving. A travel buddy of ours took a photo of a crab smoking a cigarette here (Hi Rob!). Dean took this photo as storm clouds were setting in, the water was crystal clear and the sand was white. Simply, he thought it would make a pretty good photo. According to Lonely Planet, Bocas del Toro is trying to get into the dictionary definition of "paradise". That says it all.

Random randomness

The adjective "random", as defined by one dictionary, means "lacking a definite plan, purpose or pattern". In colloquial English, we use it to describe anything weird, spontaneous, pointless, nonsensical, unusual, unexpected, one-in-a-million. Something that makes you question if you're a pothead or makes you react with what-the??? While travelling, it seems a lot of random things happen - you witness random things, hear random stories and just generally are the subject of randomness. For example, during the last month in Central America: We met a Dutch guy who has all, but 40, Australian postage stamps between 1913 and 2007. Over dinner, Lina's Spanish teacher explained that the reason she is barred from teaching in the US, is due to a brief lapse in judgment when she flashed her breasts in a highschool classroom. We met a girl who was struck by lightning. We were walking with this Nicaraguan guy when all of a sudden, someone stabbed him. The stabbed Nicaraguan guy brushed off the violent attack as though he had been squirted with a water gun (ah, no biggie). Our Panama domestic flight took off from a baseball field. A couple had sex at our Costa Rican hostel. Maybe not so random except that they did it outside in everyone's full view and went for another round half an hour later. Random ape shit. The randomness of travelling.

Oceans apart

What a marvellous feeling: Having nothing to do, nowhere to be, no one to see except caring for sea turtles on the Guatemalan Pacific Coast. Lina has spent most of her time lying in hammocks, sleeping, eating and practising her Spanish with the locals. Dean has helped to build a new watch tower for the sea turtle conservation project. At night, we walk along the beach looking for newly laid sea turtle eggs to be buried in the hatchery. When they hatch, the volunteers send the baby turtles to the sea. Dean took this photo just before sunset and after a storm. He liked the sunset light coming through the storm clouds. Lina is looking out at the Pacific Ocean, where Parramatta is just over the other side. This photo, like all the others on this blog, has not been digitally altered.

Home on the lake

This is the old fella who lived next door to us in San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala. He is 90 years old, blind in one eye, has few teeth, spends his afternoons sitting outside his house and people kiss his hand to greet him. He is Mayan and speaks Tz'utujil, the indigenous language of the town. We will remember him for his trendy sunnies and cool pants. We've just finished another week of Spanish classes. Our school was positioned along Lago de Atitlan, a massive Guatemalan lake surrounded by volcanoes. Here, kids fly home-made kites, women carry things on their heads, people bathe and wash their clothes in the lake and freshly home-cooked tortillas are part of almost every meal.

Bienvenidos a Guatemala

What we love about travelling is that we can wake up in the morning not knowing what to do, then find ourselves that afternoon eating lava cooked marshmallows on an active Guatemalan volcano. We’ve been living with a Guatemalan family in a town called San Juan del Opispo. Our typical day this week went something like this. 6am: Get woken up by church bells, firecrackers, dogs fighting, drunken singing, cats walking on the tin roof or men announcing over loudspeaker that they’re selling stuff. 7am: Have a Guatemalan breakfast such as “desayuno del abuelo” consisting of frijoles, eggs, tortillas and little sausages called salchichas. 7:50am: Walk two minutes to school and say good morning to the locals we pass on our way. 8am: Immerse ourselves in 4 hours of private Spanish lessons. 1pm: Catch the local chicken bus to town after lunch. 1:30pm: Spend the afternoon exploring Antigua, one of the most beautiful cities in Central America. 5pm: Head back for our last home-cooked meal of the day. If you go to Antigua, check out the most impressive McDonalds restaurant in the world and don’t ask a Guatemalan guy holding a shot gun for a photo (Dean found that out the hard way).

Latin America, here we come

When we paid 20 cents to get from the airport to the hostel, we knew we would love Mexico City. This city has been perfect to rest, recover from gluttony and ease ourselves in to the Latin American adventure. We’ve seen the ancient man-made wonders of the Egyptian Pyramids, Great Wall of China, Colosseum and Angkor Wat. Now we can add the 2000 year old Teotihuacan Mexican Pyramids to the list. Once again, we are humbled by the greatness of those who lived before us and the conundrum of “How the hell did they do that???” frustrates us more than a David Copperfield trick. As well as the Pyramids, we will remember Mexico City for the blue roses, cobble-stoned streets, 1960s bright green VW taxis, 80 cent tacos, the bubble-gum tree, public affection displayed by lovers in warm embraces (and sometimes raunchy positions), and the guy who sold us the gummy bears. Next stop: Central America. We fly to Guatemala this morning where we take Spanish classes, live with a Guatemalan family and work with sea turtles on the coast.

Leaving Las Vegas and the Star-Spangled Banner

We've discovered a new type of hang-over which is more deadly and lethal than any alcohol related hang-over ever known to the non-US resident: the OBESITY EXCESS-EATING GLUTTONY hang-over. Ours was self-inflicted, done in the name of experiencing local culture. After too many burgers, all-you-can-eat buffets, high-fat high-carbohydrate high-calory foods later, today is our last day in the fattest country in the world. The US is about more than just fat people, guns, really bad TV shows and people who don't know what language we speak in Australia (yes, we did meet one such American). This nation is filled with natural wonders, a smidgeon of which we found in Arizona and Utah when visiting the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon and Navajo Tribal Park on Native American land. This is a photo of Antelope Canyon, which is a cave-like canyon on an Indian reservation. A country full of contradictions; its superficial ugliness compared with its great natural beauty, being one of those contradictions. The land of the free and the home of the brave...

Dean's BIG 30

Message from Dean: Happy birthday to me. Today I turn 30. I'm in the City of Sin, Las Vegas with friends and family. I feel very privileged that a group of 15 people have come over from Australia and London to celebrate my birthday. Tonight, we're watching The Tournament of Kings dinner show at Excalibur Hotel. After that, who knows. Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. This photo was taken on 5 August 2008 at Monument Valley, Utah when I was 29 years and 363 days old. It's the last photo of me in my 20s.... Look out for the 30 year old photos to come.

American couch potatoes tune in

"Hi, I'm Randy from Knockersville, Tennessee. I love working at HOOTERS!" The Best Damn Hooters Competition searches for the Hottest Hooter Girl. This is just one of the highly educational and poignant shows we have seen on free-to-air American TV. The bouncer on Jerry Spinger has his own talk show. There's another show where suspected cheating husbands and boyfriends undertake a lie detector test. The Jerry Springer Show has reached new standards. They have employed a double amputee with half a torso to crawl on stage behind the guests. The only Vietnamese person we had seen on Australian TV is Anh Do, the comedian. Now we've finally discovered a TV genre which Vietnamese people dominate: ESPN Sports Professional Gambling. When these highly relevant shows break for commercials, you can be further informed by ads for things such as itchy vagina cream, re-usable catheters, erectile dysfunction medication and personal injury lawyers who ride motorbikes. Literally.

Sin City Airport

We were going to write about how beautiful San Francisco is, but it will have to take a back-seat to this. Have you been to Las Vegas airport??? As soon as we got off the plane, and walked into the airport lounge, there were slot machines everywhere!! Seriously! Neon flashing lifts, ad posters with a large-breasted blonde woman holding a machine gun, billboards for male stripper shows, old women blinged up with cheap jewellery, leopard skin neck cushions, groups of single under-aged college guys, people going through mid-life crises and others playing the pokies. For all the Catholics, you’ll feel like going to confession just by checking in. No wonder it’s called Sin City. And this is just the airport. Oh my god…

Houston, we have a problem

Dean is holding two guns. One is a 12 gauge shot gun and the other is a .357 colt handgun. They were both loaded. With bullets. The photo was taken at the home of the guns' owner in Houston, Texas. They were legally bought and are legally owned. We went to a camping/outdoor shop which had a huge range of guns for sale, including the ones in this photo. We enquired about buying a gun and were told that we would be eligible if we have lived in the US for at least 90 days. When Lina asked how long it would take a US citizen to go through the process of buying a gun, the sales assistant replied, "Ten minutes". We've talked to Americans who firmly believe in their right to own a gun and to shoot someone in order to protect themselves and their families. We probably wouldn't get past Australian Customs with one of these, not that we would want to.

Weekend get-away over the border

One thing about Australia, is that you can't just get in your car and go to another country for the weekend. We're staying with Lina's uncle in Orange County, California (yes, the "OC") and went to Mexico for a couple of days. For Australians, it is very cool to cross an international border by road. This is a photo of Hotel Calafia on Rosarito Beach, Mexico. Its claim to fame is that The Titanic was filmed on its premises. Despite being trapped on the worst tour ever (we went to 3 out of the 6 places on the itinerary, we got lost in the Tijuana slums, we received strange stares from locals at our big inconspicuous van, we were pulled over by police and our tour guide had the most annoying habit of saying "hah" at the end of every fifth word); it was an interesting weekend get-away. The highlights were eating real Mexican tacos in a taco bar, drinking cheap Coronas, Lina testing her rusty Spanish and having breakfast at this hotel overlooking the beauty of the Pacific Ocean. We're looking forward to Mexico City next month.

Hooray for Hollywood

After getting over the feeling that we were going to get mugged and or shot at any moment, we really warmed to Los Angeles. We stayed in a Hollywood hostel whose claim to fame is that a Swedish backpacker guest hooked up with Paris Hilton. From the subway station to the hostel, we walked on stars with celebrities' names inside them, passed stripper shops for all your exotic dancing needs and mannequins with over-sized breasts. This photo, taken at the famous outdoor gym "Muscle Beach", explains why Venice Beach seemed like a steroid version of Baywatch. After two hours driving around Beverly Hills and Bel Air, on the laziest paparazzi-wannabe tour hunting for celebrities, the most famous LA resident we spotted was Jennifer Anniston's dog. We walked down Rodeo Drive with all the other tourists who can’t afford to buy anything, watched the LA Dodgers get smashed by the Atlanta Braves and stood in Matt Damon’s shoes (well, his footprints anyway). And after four days, apparently we inhaled the equivalent of 8 packets of cigarettes each from the pollution. Now that’s a nice welcome to the United States.

We love Nippon

Today, after 3 amazing months, we leave Japan. Visiting Japan must be on everyone's list of things to do before you die. Here are our DOs and DON'Ts for this beautiful country: 1. When spotting a geisha in Kyoto, you may get a feeling of being star struck but DON'T stick your head through the tea house to get a look because you may get yelled at; 2. DON'T think you are a singing superstar even after 12 hours of karaoke; 3. Just because some of the Japanese girls in Tokyo can get away with it, DON'T wear hot pants, platform high heels and have big blonde dyed hair; 4. DON'T accept lifts from Japan's worst driver; 5. DO blow a month's travel budget in your first three nights at a 5-star Ginza hotel; 6. DO have a sashimi breakfast at the Tsukiji fish market after all night partying in Tokyo; 7. DO spend a night in a Manga Cafe and have all you can eat ice cream and chocolate milk; 8. DO try the lamb chops at Gonpachi restaurant; 9. DO go on stage at a rock concert in Roppongi, rip your shirt off and have a sore neck for three days from head-banging; 10. DO sleep on a bench in Yoyogi Park even though you may appear homeless after a few consecutive days. We love Japan.

Weird Japan

This is a dog salon in Tokyo. It is also a dog cafe which sells gourmet dog food. Japan has lived up to its reputation for being weird and fascinating. Dean met a girl at a bar who drew a bloody scar on her breast. We found a naked doll in a Kyoto restaurant with a lot of pubic hair. Dean freaked out when the toilet seat lifted up automatically as he walked in. At the baseball games, the Japanese only cheered when their team was batting and politely remained quiet when it was the other side's turn. We've seen dogs in prams, guys with permed hair, women contorting their legs and feet to walk pigeon-toed because they think it looks cute, a guy sleeping with his head rested against a parking meter, deers bowing to get fed, a girl walking away from her handbag and wallet at a train station to have a cigarette (and her belongings were still there when she returned) and we've had a woman apologise to us for the toilet seat being cold. Weird. We love it.

We are family...

After 6 months of backpacking and volunteering, we are now doing the tourist route with family. Lina's brother, John, his girlfriend Christine, and Lina's sister, Lisa, have arrived in Japan. This weekend, we're meeting up with Lina's sister, Kim. It's nice to act like tourists for a while and be with family. Without them, we would forget that we really are just tourists. They make us get off our lazy arses to see things that we wouldn't otherwise see. Well, to be fair, Lina has the lazy arse, not Dean. This is a shot of us in Osaka doing the Japanese sticker photo "purikura" thing. Can't wait to see Lina's dad, Dean's parents and Lina's American relatives next month in the big 'ol US of A.

From small things come great creations

Today is our last day on the farm. In 7 weeks, we have felt biodynamic soil through our hands, smelt growing leaves on tomato plants, rode on the back of a truck full of red and orange lady bugs, witnessed fire flies illuminate the field at night like Christmas fairy lights, heard the sound of rain falling on a greenhouse roof, eaten organic vegetables pulled out of the ground just minutes before and drank tea from freshly picked chamomile flowers. Farming is rewarding because the results are so tangible. You can see, feel, eat, smell and sell the fruits of your labour. The final product is the result of one tiny little seed as unremarkable as a speck. And just as vegetables come from a tiny seed, people are born from a microscopic fertilised egg, great things are the creations of a brainwave called a thought and big journeys begin with one step. This unimaginable trip for us was once just a dream that became an imaginable idea.

How many ways can you eat toast

This is a photo of the long country kitchen table we eat at 3 times a day. The shot was taken at breakfast. Lina had just finished a cup of tea and Dean was waiting for the bell on the toaster oven to tell him that his grilled mince and cheese on toast was ready. One of the workers eats her toast with jam and cheese. Sometimes she puts the cheese on the jam and sometimes she eats it half cheese half jam. Every single morning, the farmer squashes his thick toast with his fingers to make it thin, spreads jam on it with a spoon, then dunks it into his coffee. One time, another farmer squeezed a round layer of mayonnaise from a bottle onto his toast as though it were whipped cream on a scone. Another worker dabs a blob of butter just on one corner and the farmer's son eats his with a block of chocolate. All these creative methods of toast eating makes Lina's plain old margarine on toast a bit boring. Take your time at breakfast and these are the fascinating observations one can make. It's much more fun than gobbling something down and running out the door to get to work.

If we could talk to the animals

After a month, we're getting to know the animals pretty well. There are 2 dogs, 5 cats, 15 rabbits, 3 cows and a turtle. Chobi is a dog that doesn't work. She just follows us around and gets upset when we speak English. She also has a boyfriend from the onsen (Japanese hot bath) down the road who comes around after 10pm. The calf in the photo is Lape. She lives with with her mother, Kanako, and grandmother, Luna. Kanako doesn't like eating day-old grass so we have to cut the grass every single day to feed them otherwise Kanako gets cranky. We thought Kuli, aged 19 years, was the oldest dog in the world. But the oldest dog was a 29 year old Australian blue heeler so that makes Kuli a youngster. The cats spoon each other and the rabbits have multiplied from 2 to 15. Now the girl rabbits are separated from the boy rabbits. Doctor Dean DoLittle moos to the cows and meows to the cats. The farm would not be the same without the animals. We can't wait to work with sea turtles in Guatemala and the poached animals in Ecuador.

Lina's 30th Birthday

Message from Lina: Whatever you want to call it - "Dirty Thirty", "The Big 3-0", "The New Twenty" - I have entered my fourth decade of life. Today, I am 30. I need to be congratulated for making it this far, and in mostly one piece ("Congratulations Lina!"). I blinked my eyes and somehow, those years called my twenties, are gone. What a totally crazy decade. Despite all my mistakes and thinking I knew everything when I pretty much knew nothing, I have a memory bank the size of an iPod storage space full of stupid and funny stories. I have no regrets and that's the way I will live my 30s. What better way to start the first year of this decade and marriage, by travelling the world with my husband and making my dreams come true. This is a photo of me at Kumamoto Castle where we spent my birthday. To everyone who has shared my 20s with me, thankyou. Cheers to more mistakes, more funny stories, more magic to be created and more Moet & Chandon. Happy Birthday to me.

Country life

Life on the farm is simple and happy. We laugh everyday, get to know people over extended meal times at the long wooden kitchen table, eat ice cream for afternoon tea and Lina sleeps under a tree at lunch. As we work, the farmers whistle, we think about life, the women chat in Japanese, the frogs croak, the dog that doesn't like English follows us around and we play our small role in creating organic vegetables for people to eat. This is a photo of some pots and things in the yard with a greenhouse in the background. It was taken at about 5pm after we harvested vegetables to be sold the next day. The kitchen utensils and other objects in this shot are typical of the things lying around the farm that represent simplicity and comfort living. We love the orange sky because it means the day has nearly come to an end, we feel a strong sense of accomplishment for another day's work and dinner is just a couple of hours away. Everything here is so easy and makes perfect sense.

City slickers hit the farm

We're on a farm in South Japan. A real farm with rabbits, a tractor, pick forks, hay and greenhouses. There's a 19 year old dog, a Christmas tree, a volcano, two cats that spoon each other, a dog that doesn't like us speaking English, cob webs on glass jars in the kitchen and a brown snake that bit one of the farmers 5 ago (actually, we don't know if the snake is still here). We eat around a big country kitchen table 3 times a day, pull out weeds, feed the cows, sow seeds, harvest crops and pack organic vegetables for sale. This is just perfect for us city-slickers for the next couple of months.

Nice Japanese girls

With a population of about 30 million, Tokyo is full of sub-cultures. You can see the sub-groups on the weekend at Harajuku and Yoyogi Park. The young gothics dress up like the girls in this photo. They have a freaky issue with damaged body parts. A lot of them wear bandages across their noses like the girl second to the left. We saw some with eye patches and one girl who painted an injured, bloody eye on herself. If you're a keen people watcher, Harajuku to you would be like a candy store to a kid.

Cherry snowflakes in season

We're in Japan during the one week (or week and a half) of the year when the cherry blossoms bloom. Blowing in the wind, the petals fall from the trees like pink snow flakes and form a snow bed of cherry flowers. We're in Nikko, a town just a couple of hours north of Tokyo. In two days, we walked for a total of 10 hours exploring the brightly painted shrines and woodlands. The Lonely Planet guide says this town can get extremely crowded, but we found spots where we felt like we were the only people in existence. Just the feeling we were looking for when getting away from the big smoke of Tokyo for a couple of days.

Welcome to Japan!!

We only flew 4 hours from Hanoi to Tokyo but we feel like we're in a totally different world. Where are the men urinating on the street? Where are the dead rats? Why isn't anyone offering Dean drugs? Why isn't anyone trying to sell us crap we don't want or need? Why aren't people pushing us over to get on a public bus? Simple answer: We're in Japan now where cleanliness is a virtue, impeccable presentation is a moral standard and politeness is probably taught to the Japanese in utero. Everything here is over-packaged in the name of aesthetics, our cleaner THANKED US for letting him clean our hotel room and the airport bus baggage handlers lined up and bowed to us as the bus departed!! We had gotten used to Vietnamese directness, pragmatics and "snooze or lose" mentality of daily survival. We're not sure how Vietnam and Japan can even be in the same continent when we feel like we've entered a parallel universe.

My Vietnam

WOW - What a chapter!!! Today is our last day in Vietnam after living here for nearly 3 months. So many more memories, tears, experiences and human connections added to our lives. The highlights: Watching two blind people support each other across 12 lanes of hectic Saigon traffic; A H'Mong hill tribe girl offering a buffalo in return for Lina marrying her brother; A child drawing a goatee on himself with black texta to be like Dean; Dean being told he has a son in Hanoi; Eating pho bo to cure our hangovers; Lina improving her Vietnamese language skills to a confident and advanced level; Meeting our World Vision sponsor child; Dean appearing in a Vietnamese newspaper article for the work he did re-building homes; and not least: all the volunteer work we've done (to name a few!). It has all been amazing.

World Vision visit

We flew from Hanoi to Vietnam's 4th biggest city, Danang. From there, we drove for 3 hours to a town called Tra Bong to visit our Vietnamese World Vision sponsor child. He looks exactly as he does in the World Vision photo and we recognised him straight away. It was great to meet him, his brother and mum. This is a photo of a preschool/kindergarten that was built in April 2007 and funded by World Vision. You can see that the front yard is still under construction. It's being made into a playground. You can just imagine how cute all the children were. They were so gorgeous! Two of them did solo singing performances and the whole class recited a poem about traffic lights for us. On her knees, Lina went around to greet all 33 of them and shook their tiny little hands. We can't wait to meet two of our World Vision kids in South America later this year.

Fishing to survive

Some of the children we teach live on the Red River in Hanoi. Dean helped to re-build some of the families' homes as they need replacing every 3-4 years. The villagers have recently drained the water from the river with a pump. They do this to catch the fish and sell them. This is a photo of villagers pulling in a fishing net.

How long is Ha Long?

If you're ever in North Vietnam, your trip won't be complete if you don't visit Ha Long Bay. It is one of the world's natural wonders, with over a thousand limestone formations and we don't know how many islands. If you go to the cave, look out for the big red penis. We went here for a weekend trip away from the hustle and bustle of Hanoi. After sleeping on the floor for over a month, the highlight of Lina's trip was snuggling up in a bed, with a fluffy warm blanket, on board the junk boat cabin. Ahhhh, bed and blanket. The things we miss.

Vietnam traffic and scooters

Dean took this photo when he was on the back of a scooter. The traffic in this shot is pretty quiet for Hanoi. Compulsory helmets have only been required by law in the last few months. Being such a new concept, a lot of Vietnamese people wear helmets that don't fit or are otherwise inappropriate. That's because they don't wear them for safety reasons; they wear them so they don't get fined. As in this photo, it's not unusual to see children without helmets. Most of the time, traffic is totally hectic and the way to cross the road is to literally walk in front of oncoming vehicles - scooters, cars, buses and trucks. In Saigon, we've seen the elderly, the blind and disabled walk across streets with 5-6 lanes of traffic. Crazy? Or ordered chaos?

Community on the Hanoi Red River

This is the home of two girls we teach. They live in a small community on the Hanoi Red River. The families do not have any property rights to the land, so they have built houses on the water. The homes need replacing every 3-4 years due to the poor quality building materials. Before we entered the home, the Vietnamese worker politely asked whether the house would collapse with all four of us in there. When the mother said it would be okay, we walked along the small plank of wood connecting the house to the land. Inside, we sat in the only room of the house, in which both parents and the two sisters sleep. The toilet is a hole in the floor and human waste is disposed of in the river. The house is about 4 metres by 2.5 metres, the size of a typcial Australian bathroom. The mother spoke to the worker about her housing and financial difficulties and they discussed how our organisation could assist with repairs to her home.

Working with kids in Hanoi

We've started our volunteer placement in Hanoi, Vietnam teaching English to a group of children from some of the most disadvantaged parts of this city. The children in the photo all look about 10-12 years old, but they are actually all between 12-16. Small physical stature is just one of the many effects of undernutrition. One of the children in this photo works from 10pm - 7am and comes to our class without having slept. Another child doesn't always come to class because she has to collect rubbish for which she earns about 70 Australian cents a day. The children come to our school for reasons such as not being able to afford schooling or not being able to enrol into mainstream school due to not having identifying information. Some of the children's births have not been registered or their families are illegal immigrants from rural areas. The work has been challenging and the kids are pretty cool. We have five more weeks here.

Tet celebrations

We spent the Vietnamese Lunar New Year's Day (Tet)in Saigon and tagged along with Lina's uncle to a family feast. All the men and women helped prepare the New Year's lunch, which included eel, wild boar, curry and Vietnamese pizza (you'll have to ask us what that is if you don't know). In typical Vietnamese fashion, these two elderly women quietly watched from a distance as the men (and Lina) ate and drank. One of the women lives in the house where we had the party.

Vietnamese Tet

We were lucky to spend Vietnamese New Year (Tet) in Saigon with Lina's uncle and his family. If you have been to Saigon, you would know the hustle, bustle and organised chaos of the city. Imagine the city usually, but on caffeine. That is the atmosphere of Saigon preparing for Tet. The South Vietnamese Tet flower is called hoa mai (in the North, the Tet flower is pink and called hoa dao). This photo of a hoa mai tree, bearing a "Happy New Year" banner in lucky red, was taken at the Saigon Tet flower market.

Cambodia's recent past

We knew nearly nothing about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia between 1975-1979 until we arrived in the nation's capital, Phnom Penh. We learnt about the genocide of nearly 2 million people and the forced labor camps. Visiting Phnom Penh has been the most depressing part of our trip so far which included a visit to Tuol Sleng ("S-21") Prison. At S-21, people were arrested for fictitious treason offences, tortured and forced to admit to crimes they didn't commit. This is a photo taken by Dean of one of the many prison cells. You can see an ammunition crate toilet, a dinner plate and the chain that was used to hold down a prisoner's legs. We were there for two hours. Lina refused to actually enter the prison cells and waited for Dean in the courtyard the whole time. After this, we visited what is now known as "The Killing Fields", where prisoners were executed. We had to finish the day with a few drinks.

Angkor, Cambodia

Angkor is an ancient Camobidan city, with temples and other buildings over 1000 years old. We spent three days in Angkor, mystified by the temples and especially by Angkor Wat, the most well-known and well-preserved of them all. We watched the sun rise and set against Angkor's backdrop. There is something very special about watching the sunset fall away behind such history, then watching it rise to greet the world again the next morning. This is a photo of the sunset.

Luang Prabang by Night

People work at all times of the night in South East Asia (well, at least until the 11:30pm kurfew in Laos anyway) to make a dollar or two. There's nothing like walking through a night market, like in Luang Prabang, to challenge your senses and expand your view of the world, living and life. Gotta love it. Seriously, gotta love it.

The Mekong Charm, Laos

The highlight in Laos was the two day trip down the Mekong River by slow boat. The Mekong, which meanders through South East Asia, was a pleasant and scenic surprise. Two days of singing, drinking, chatting whilst watching Laotian river life was humbling. It's a part of the world that is so quiet, yet provides so much to its people, and goes about it in its own little way.

Bye Bye Bangkok

In the last two weeks, we have travelled by plane, van, coach, ferry, tuk tuk, boat, car, motorbike, train, bus, foot, metro train, taxi, scooter to get to our destinations. We have travelled for hours and hours at a time, to get around this tiny part of the world. Our holiday was over in the first week; we are now living life as travellers and it is a life worth living. We are thriving on the learning, exploring and discovering of it all. Bye Bye Bangkok.

New Year's Eve, Koh Phangan, Thailand

Hello all, well we have finally arrived in Thailand, and our first stop is Koh Phangan, for the full moon New years beach party. Estimated over 30,000 people attend this beach party. have a look at the photos below, had a great couple of days here, chilled out at our bungalows and sank a few chang's beer.