Chinley and buying our new home.

Hi Everyone,
For our first real week in England we stayed with Mum's girlfriend from Massey. Fiona and Nigel looked after us and helped us get started. We spent about five days in their small house but we kids slept in a tent out in the field so we had a bit more space. We had heaps of fun while Mum and Fiona went in search of our new home, we watched TV and took flossie the dog on walks around the the countryside. Fiona has been converting us to Vegetarian with here no meat polcy and great dinners. One night we went to the local Indian Cafe which was delicious and the Adults have enjoyed the odd pint at the pub or bottle of wine before bed. One day Mum found a suitable campervan and the next day Dad and William picked it up from Gary at Heart of England motorhomes in Rugby it all happened very quick but the campers perfect and with make travelling easy especially beacause the roads are so narrow and it would be impossible to tour round like this in our big old American rig. Thank you Gary for all your help, it was pleasurable and easy and the perfect for us.

The Nieuwys

Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia to Chinley, England

Hi Guys,

We arrived buy bus to the big city of KL (Kuala Lumpar) and then took a 'sky-train' to China town also known as the backpacker district. A man can up to us and led us to a "flash" little guesthouse which had everything we didn't need but it made it very comfortable. In the evening we went out and had dinner at a chinese buffet/food court. We then we shopping at all the street stalls selling cheap clothes and other junk including counterfeit rolex watches, bags and shoes. We tried some different foods and bought jandals and undies.

Next morning we got up early and waited in line for tickets to the Petronas Twin Towers (once the tallest towers in the world-452metres). The went 41 stories (half-way up the towers) to a sky-bridge between the towers and saw wonderful views of KL. Today was Mum's birthday but we didn't do anything special.

In the afternoon we flew to Bintulu, Malaysia. We took a Bus to Miri and arrived a midnight. Some drunk Taxi drivers wanted to charge us double for a ride so we started walking 5km into town, luckily some nice locals gave us a ride and we found a place to stay.

The day afer we took a bus to the Brunei/Malay border and entered Brunei, we took five or more buses to Berakas-where the Fuller/Walkers live. That night we caught up with our friends and had Lasanga and Cheese-which we had all been craving! (Thank you Claire)

The next day Dad spent all day doing washing-which he might as well have put in the rubbish they were that disgusting. We went swimming and watched Marc and Max play football in the evening. We also had fun walking in the forest and going Ten-pin Bowling while Mum and Dad repacked our bags for Europe.

On Sunday night we flew to London, stopping in Dubai to refuel. We got to Heathrow Int. Airport at 6am (it felt like lunch time) we took the 'tube' to central London, then a train to Chinley, Derbyshire (near Manchester) where we are staying with Mum's friend Fiona, partner Nigel and her dog/daughter 'Flossy'.

We have been enjoying Fiona's vegetarian cooking and are having 'Number threes' tonight. Yesterday we walked to a historic canal and had a picnic. We are staying here while Mum's on the hunt for a motorhome and we are loving the cooler climate of England.

The Nieuwys

Taman Negera National Park

After our ferry back from Phi Phi Island we travelled down to Malaysia via Buses and Trains-alot of them at night, one of the trains had lots of armed officers on it because of recent bombings. All we ate was Condensed Milk and Bread. We arrived at Jerantut at 3:00 in the morning and finally got some sleep! The next day we took the bus through the Palm tree plantations to Kuala Tahan - the town across the river from the National Park.

We had a great time in Taman Negera National Park. In the morning we took the boat across the river to the park after a Iced Nescafe, Milos and pancakes for breakfast. Yum! (We also had fresh fruit juice with added MSG. Yuck! )We had to buy a permit to enter the national park. We walked through the rainforest to the canopy walk. It was a big walk in the tree tops. It was very exciting. On the way to thee view point we saw a snake. It was red and small but still gave Thomas quite the fright. While we walked through the jungle we saw alot of wild life including monster ants, pheasants, boars or wild pigs, a bat and lots of butterflies. The pheasants were very common and stunning. Some had blue faces and very long tails. There were lots of blood-sucking leeches which sucked onto Mum and Johanna's feet. On the way back we got lost and had to retrace our steps, which left some of us in tears... We took the boat back over the river had some food and caught a bus to Jeradong which nearly hit a dead cow and got a popped tyre. We drove at snail speed for about ten minutes and then got on another bus. It was a fantastic and tiring day in the rainforest of Taman Negera National Park.

Phi Phi Island

Hello Everyone,

We left Ao Nang and after a corrupt bus ride (which we got off and walked the last 3km) and a ferry trip across the Andaman sea-we arrived at an idyllic island-Ko Phi Phi.

We are staying at Tropical Garden bungalows and we have a pool! Yesterday we had an awesome time on a snorkelling and sightseeing trip. A launch cruised around three islands stopping off at incredible bays and lagoons-where we snorkelled and swam .The water was crystal clear and really warm. Bamboo island was our favourite, we saw ‘Nemo’ in an anemone and moray eels. The glowing fluoro colours of the coral and tropical fish were amazing. We dived down into the coral and came so close to the colourful fish and other creatures .We never saw any sharks at Shark Point but enjoyed jumping off the higher levels of the boat into the water. It was an amazing day out and we want to go again.

Phi Phi is very small and it's nice walking everywhere and  have seen lots of the damage the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami did to this island. Last night we checked out the fire dancing and parties on the beach after dinner. It looked like lots of fun and a little dangerous. People were skipping and doing the limbo with the rope on fire, so we didn’t think it was safe to join in. We saw people smoking something through pipes at ‘The Stones Bar’ and it wasn’t tobacco!  Mum and Dad may venture to the Apache bar tonight where they give out free ‘buckets’ of coke, red bull and lots of whiskey!

The Nieuwys