Christmas Wishes from Sydney

Well, we’ve made it to Sydney and it’s Christmas! Although we’re not too sure – shouldn’t it be cold and raining? We’ve made ourselves comfortable at Caireen and Darryl’s house (big thanks to them) and are looking forward to preparing and devouring a ginormous smorgasbord on the 25^th.

Over Christmas and New Year we’ll be chilling out and preparing for the next phase of travel: campervanning it around New Zealand. Now that we’re in one place for longer than a nano-second, hopefully we’ll be catching up with you too!

By the way, here’s wishing you a very Merry Christmas and prosperous 2008!

We’ve had a fantastic couple of months, seeing and doing amazing things. We even came up with this list of tips to help others:

- Always check what the exchange rate is before you arrive in a new country and buy a packet of cigarettes for far too much money.
- Don’t take it personally if you’re a UK size 10 but a XXXL wherever you’re trying to buy clothes.
- Be wary of Russian policemen. Especially ones hanging around in plain-clothes near the Kremlin.
- Always trust Fatih on restaurant recommendations. But be prepared to dress smart.
- If you want to buy a watch or a Mont Blanc pen for 50 pence, go to Shanghai. If you’re after a cheap suit, go to Thailand. If you want any of the above but with a decent level of quality, though, go elsewhere.
- Take more pants and socks than you think you should need. Or be prepared to spend large amounts of time getting laundry done.
- Give up on any ideas of drinking wine in Russia, China, Mongolia, Thailand and Malaysia. Learn to like beer instead.
- Free upgrades are great. Take them whenever you can.
- Haggling is fun, but try to keep a sense of proportion. When you’re arguing for half an hour over 20 pence, you’ve gone too far.
- The Lonely Planet is your friend. Except when it’s wrong.

There’s plenty more tips that we came up with on our way round, but we forgot them all. Needless to say, they were really funny.