Its been a busy 2009 so far – here is a note of our ‘mini’ world tour! We had nearly 3 wonderful months from Jan to March 2009.
ed for a few weeks. It was great to see him and he invited us to a special lunch for Chinese New Year with his office colleagues. A great time! Very good to meet everyone. The lunch is called Lo Hei (click to see photos) and is meant to celebrate good luck for your money & finances. The ingredients of the meal all mean something with regard to this good fortune and are mixed in turn, each with an explanation for its inclusion. Then the guests all join together and toss the ingredients in the centre of the table in a big bowl, using their chopsticks, making a wish.
We also visited the Chinese New Year celebrations with James and had a great time visiting restaurants and places in Singapore. Many of these places still retain the atmosphere of the early 20th century, notably, the 'shop houses' 
which were a shop on the ground floor and a living accommodation for the merchant on the first floor.
Our pictures of Singapore are here:
Singapore with James at New Year 2009
Singapore - more places & scenes
From Singapore we made a very memorable trip to Hanoi and the nearby Ha Long Bay. Hanoi is a bustling city which still retains some of the charm of the steet chaos and shops from days gone by. Ha Long Bay is a World Heritage Site 
and consists of 773 limestone islands in a beautiful sea which sometimes was jade coloured and sometimes turquoise. We took a trip on a junk and stayed overnight on it. This is certainly a most beautiful place.
After leaving Hanoi we travelled to Cambodia and visited the temples of Angkor Wat.
This was a lifetime ambition of mine, having first read about them in the National Geographical Magazine when I was a boy in about 1960! These temples were all built over many square miles in the jungle in the period of about 850 AD to 1400 AD.
After this time they fell into disuse and gradually the jungle took over. They remained hidden until a French explorer in Henri Mouhot rediscovered & popularised them. These temples are fascinating and I can only suggest you go there and see them.
Here is a selection of our photos Cambodia
Our guide was also a fascinating person and I have written about him on this blog. He also took us to the floating village on the Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia. The lake which take a who day to navigate by fast power boat along it's length connects with the Mekong further down the country. It is an enormous lake and at one end there is there is this village, entirely floating on bamboo floats and other more modern platforms. These people live on the lake for their whole life; there are schools, community centres, shops, etc.
We returned to Singapore and then made a visit to the island of Lombok and had a very pleasant week at a super hotel on the beach at Senggigi. 
Our photos are here: Lombok. Whilst there I had a very interesting conversation with a young Russian businessman about politics in Russia - see my blog. Lombok is next door to Bali and sadly is somewhat run-down. It looks as though various developers have tried to start new businesses and restaurants in the villages along the coast but, for some reason, they have given up and the buildings are left empty and decaying. I guess they must have suffered economically after the 2002 Bali bombing.
The next leg of our journey took us to New Zealand where we spent nearly a month travelling through the country in a campervan! We really enjoyed travelling this way and nearly a month later we were still talking to each other! 
Shortly after arriving we met up with friends Bob & Val from the UK who were on there year long travels mostly camping!
New Zealand is a beautiful country with stunning 360 degree views and wonderful landscapes. It is hard to explain or capture it on camera. 
The air is so clear; you get the feeling of space and timelessness. The South Island is certainly the most beautiful. Whether you are next to one of the glacial, turquoise lakes near Mount Cook or in the Fiordland national park enjoying the incredible scenery of Milford Sound or travelling through the ancient cool temperate rainforests, you cannot help but be constantly amazed. At night the starry skies were really something to behold. For example, at our camp site at Milford Sound we were able to see the Milky Way stretching across the night sky in a band of twinkling stars from horizon to horizon. I have never seen the Milky Way like this and it just shows you how polluted our skies are here in Europe.
We didn’t manage to travel throughout the North and South Island completely and I should say that the North Island is beautiful too. One of the examples of this beauty is Hahei Beach on the west coast facing the Pacific. I swam every morning and afternoon in this crystal clear water. 
We could mention many places, but something we found quite fascinating was camping at Waikite with its own thermal pools set in a scenic valley where the steam running down beside us steamed with hot water! That is something you don’t get in England!
We have taken lots of photographs and some of these are on my Facebook. Here is a selection:Vic's NZ Photos.I have also put some on Panoramio so you can see the places we went to.
The food was excellent everywhere – we were eating their home grown avocados; buying grapes on the roadside and eating green lipped mussels so fresh they just melted in your mouth.
We certainly want to go back but it is a long way to go. Our month wasn’t long enough. We should have allowed three months so we could take in some of the wonderful walks and dwell longer at some of the beautiful places. 
Just before we left Auckland we met up with friends Richard & Aileen. They are from the UK but working in NZ - they love it!
We went on from Auckland to Sydney and visited Carol’s friends Duncan & Gail, staying at their lovely home. 
As we flew into Sydney we had beautiful clear skies and were able to take our first look at this splendid harbour with its many inlets, 
wooded hills and sandy beaches and right in the centre of this is the city itself, spreading out further to the south, away from the harbour. From the air we could clearly see the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Even from the air we could see the Sydney Harbour and Port Jackson busy with shipping and yachts. We spent five wonderful days there visiting beaches such as Coogee and Manly which have perfect sand and wild surf from the blue ocean. 
At a number of beaches there were both natural and man made sea water pools which makes this coastline the perfect place to enjoy the sea. Our friends had a yacht and we were lucky enough to spend the day sailing on sparkling blue sea. No wonder so many people have sailing boats here! 
Sydney is certainly a city to be visited. We enjoyed eating out, and strolling along the harbourside near the Opera House. What a perfect way to spend an evening!
Here is a selection of our photos: Sydney!
