Melacca

We're in Melacca in Malaysia now after a couple of nights in Singapore. Singapore is the most expensive place in the world - your money just vanishes. I've had one of the worst colds I've had in years. I have not been so snotty and bunged up in my head for a long time. It sounds like loads of other teachers have had the same - it's typical we all come down with it in our holidays!

Melacca is very pretty. We did the walking tour round the old city today. It is all decorated for the Chinese New Year celebrations this weekend just gone. It's now the year of the ox! We've found some nice little cafes on the canal and have been resting up - reading our books and sleping (me a lot of sleeping!). Our hotel is lovely and comfortable. Over the next few days we plan to go to the beach nearby, go on a canal boat and do some more walking. I will try to take some more pictures but I stupidly forgot to pack my chrager so am not sure how long my camera will last.

Housey House

Please excuse the horrible photo but I've had a cold all weekend and look quite crap - but Gem you did want a picture. Here are some photos of our place. We just bought a new rug for the lounge and it feels really cosy. We moved the old one into the kitchen and I think it looks great. It feels less cluttered now.



This is the quilt we chose. I saw it ages ago and it was in the sale. The only thing is it's dry-clean only so it might just have to be for looking only! Gareth seems to like it too (as much as he can like house stuff) - he chose the colour.


These are our lovely lamps from the same shop, Mosaique. We have 2 sets hanging either side of our curtains. I could buy everything in this place.
Back to school tomorrow. I'm so not ready to finish my weekend but I really can't moan as we only have one week then half term. After that it's a bit of a long stint - 8 weeks. So we will try and relax and enjoy our Singapore and Malaysia holiday.

Back Home

Me on New Year's Eve

We're back in Ho Chi Minh after flying in this morning. I am really sad that it's the end of my holiday but pleased to be home.

This is a photo of our crazy bathroom in Siem Reap. They really tried hard on extravagance but just ended up totally overdoing it. We had 2 showers and a urinal?On the beach in Sihanoukville on New Year's Eve

I very sadly spent the arrival of the new year fast asleep after a really delicious but super rich meal. We had scallops, caviar, prawns, mussels, lobster sauce and steak yummmmmmy! My mouth is watering just thinking of it. But it made me really sleepy - we took a couple of beers back to our room but both zonked too early. Garethwoke up to the fireworks but he said I was snoring my head off and left me asleep. I don't really mind as I think new year celebrations are usually a bit overated. Here are a few snaps of new year's eve.

The pictures below are of me trying really hard to take a photo of Gareth who was winding me up by being silly and not opening his eyes. You can see my frustration, with he rolling eyes, when he tries to take one of me and prats about again.

More temples!

The quiet American

If you've read the book or seen the film you'll understand from the picture above why we felt like we were right there during this lunch!

Christmas Day

We had a fun Christmas Eve haing a few drinks in town. We started Christmas day traditionally by eating cadbury's for breakfast - yum! After that we went to the temple where they filmed Tomb Raider. It was amazing to see how the trees have grow into and around the temple walls. I forgot to write about the big lizard on my head yesterday. As we were driving along in the tuk-tuk it felt like someone had thrown a tennis ball at the back of my head. I put my hand up to feel - thinking that it was a leaf and an enormous lizard was clinging on to my hair. In my panic it flew off on to the road - so I hope he was ok! We're going out for dinner tonight and are planning to pig out on junk and watch Christmas films this afternoon.

Amazing, amazing temples

We arrived in Siem Reap yesterday. We went to one of the most amazing sights in the world today. Ankor Wat is an enormous complex of temples each designed by a different king in a different era trying to out do one another. They are therefore very different and eme more and more extravgent. This evening we had a lovely Christmas Eve in Siem Reap. We paid a dollar a drink - at home it would have been at least 3 tims that so we were able to hae twice as much. Only joking mum! We hav to be up early tomorrow to go temple watching again! Tomorrow we go to the place where Tomb Raider was filmed.