The M&M Nut Trail!!!

So, a private speedboat ride, a ferry and a flight and we were back in Bangkok where we decided to overnight at the airport hotel again, as we didn't have much time for a trip into Bangkok proper. Maybe next time.

We both made use of the gym, trying to take our minds off of the fact that our 4 month trip was coming to an end (and the reality that work was not far away!). It was going to be a seemingly long trip back, until Qantas again came to our rescue with another free upgrade, this time to Premium Economy!

And so, 8.5 hours later we landed in Sydney, there were no queues at immigration (which is a first) and then we stepped outside and.........."it's Baltic!"

We noticed a few things that have happened over here whilst we've been away - a change in Prime Minister, some interesting decisions at the cricket, etc. - but the worst seems to be that someone switched off the heating! ;-) It's a stark contrast from the weather we've had over the last few months......we'd better get on a book our next trip.

Hope to catch-up with all of you guys in Sydney soon.

M&M

Our final leg home was done in comfort, thanks to Qantas upgrading us to Business Class from London to Bangkok (finally something to show for all of that flying!). Unfortunately as life is a roller-coaster, you go up, then you go down, but then you go up again. We had the taste of flight delay with Qantas, arriving into Bangkok 1.5hours late, giving us only 25mins to run across BKK airport, go through immigration, collect our bags and find the check in counter for Air Asia to Krabi. Nope we didn't make it. However, we didn't loose out on a night on Phi Phi Island (we just overnighted at the airport rather than Krabi town). Early the next day we fly to Krabi and caught the next Ferry to Tonsai Bay, Ko Phi Phi Don. Thailand was hot and humid and the day we arrived it was overcast and ready for a pour down.

From the pier we were taken by private speedboat to Phi Phi Island Village Spa & Resort where we were greeted by the most friendliest people. Our trip was part of a belated honeymoon for us both and when checking into our room we were upgraded (again) to one of the Hillside Villas, which was a 2 storey villa with its own pool and two bathrooms, deck area and your breakfast is served every day at your villa. Basically we hardly left our little sanctuary of bliss.

Photos of the Villa

Photos of the Resort


Enjoying some drinks

When we did venture out of our little sanctuary, it was for several treatments at the Wana Spa (the treatments and staff are amazing), and also on an island tour at Phi Phi Le Island visiting Maya Beach where The Beach was filmed, snorkelling and canooing at Loh Samah Bay and having lunch at Loh-Moo-Dee Bay, which is back at Phi Phi Don island.

Maya Beach

Loh Samah Bay & Lagoon




Lagoon

Loh-Moo-Dee Bay


snorkelling at Loh-Moo-Dee Bay

Matt also went diving off of Bida Nok and Phi Phi Le and later in the week we had a private chef to cook a BBQ dinner at our villa.

BBQ dinner at the Villa

Lamb

After an amazing 7 nights of chilling out, sadly we had to pack up and say bye for now to Phi Phi Island and head home to Sydney.

Mon

After visiting friends and family we were back to touring, with our next stop being Rome. We caught the train from the airport and then needed to catch the Metro to our accommodation. It was hot (back to the sort of temps we had in the US) and walked with our backpacks and a wheelie bag (which was bought specifically in the US for all of my shoes) for about 2kms to the Metro ticket booth, we then went down, then up some stairs, turned left heading back towards the way we came from on the airport train, down again onto another platform and then down some more. By the time we caught the train we could have walked to our accommodation! We later found out that when tunnelling for new train lines, workers would come across Roman ruins therefore having to redirect the new train line, hence why the stations aren't laid out that well.

We stayed at the lovely Tolentino Suites, which was located a short distance from most tourist sites and where we were one of many tourists visiting Rome.

First stop was the Trevi Fountain. I wasn't really sure what to expect (other than seeing a fountain) but as massive and beautiful as it is, its located just around the corner from everyday living of cafes, restaurants and shops. We then headed toward Column of Marcus Aurelius, a beautiful column with detailed carvings. For the remainder of our first day we strolled towards the Tiber river and back towards our accommodation passing the Spanish Steps.

Trevi Fountain

Column of Marcus Aurelius

Tiber River with St Peter's Basilica in the distance

Spanish Steps at Night

Sunday we headed to the Colosseum and to the tourists delight the streets were closed so we could roam freely without the hassle of competing with the Italian drivers! The Colosseum was amazing and nearby was The Forum which was the ancient business area of Rome.

The Colosseum

The Forum (Ancient Rome)

National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II on Capital Hill

After The Forum we had a coffee and ice-cream near the Pantheon and then strolled the lovely cobbled stone streets towards the Piazza Navona. During our flight to Rome, we had a local sat next to us who suggested a few eateries in the Trastevere area of Rome, so we crossed the Tiber via Isola, a small island in the middle of the river and strolled around the lovely area of Trastevere.

A strong espresso

Pantheon

Piazza Navona

Crossing the Tiber

Flutterbys

Matt having local brew at Chaka Cafe in Trastevere

Another full day of walking and today a visit to Vatican City to redeem ourselves of all our sins. The Vatican is a city state within Rome and, understandably is one of the busiest tourist spots! However, we patiently waited in line and were finally allowed to climb to the top of the Basilica, which offers fabulous views of Rome, as you can see below.

Castel Sant' Angelo

St Peters Basilica


Swiss Guards

Dome of the Basilica


Top of the Basilica, looking down at St Peters Square

We then moved on and went to the Vatican Museum, the tour for which includes some fantastic collections of art and valuables and also includes a visit to the Sistine Chapel.

After the Vatican we found ourselves a popular ice cream shop, so we decided to pop in.

For our last day in Rome we visited Piazza del Popolo, also taking in the views over the Piazza from the Pincio. We then headed back to the Spanish Steps to view during the day.

Our final stop for the day was just near our accommodation, the Tritone Fountain at Piazza Barberini.

We are now on our final leg home, heading to Thailand for some sunshine.

Mon

We flew overnight from Boston to the UK, landing at Heathrow around 9:30am. This gave us enough time to transfer terminals and do some duty free shopping before boarding our flight to Manchester. From here, we had our first cancellation on our world tour so far! The train we were due to take to Sheffield was cancelled, which resulted in us having to rush around catching two other services, instead of having the nice, laid back direct service that we had booked. Anyway, everything was quickly forgotten when we arrived into Sheffield and my Mum and Dad were there to meet us!

Now, we changed our plans for the UK a few times due to various reasons, and, in order to fit everything in, we had to head off the following morning - it was great to quickly see Mum and Dad the first night we arrived, and was also quite handy as we needed to do some more washing! Thanks Mum.

We took a train down to Leicester to spend the weekend with Lucy and Gary. We had a blast, catching up on old times and enjoying a few beers whilst sitting out in the lovely Leicester sunshine. We followed this up with a buffet curry - it had been a few months since we had last had a curry, so we were hanging for one! The following day we went to Lucy's parents place, where they made us feel very welcome and we had a lovely Sunday lunch, before settling down to watch the World Cup final.

Back of Lucy's parents house

Brian, Lucys Dad

After Leicester, we headed back to Rotherham to spend some time with my family. We went on a day trip to the Great Yorkshire Show in Harrogate, which was all ferris wheels, tractor and horse carriage sales stands, country life clothing outlets, some great food outlets and, some a whole heap of farm animals (some of them huge, as you can see in the pics). My brother Steve and I also managed to play a couple of games of golf (I still can't beat him, but got a little closer).

Yorkshire Show


Amanda


Day of Golf

On the Thursday Monique headed up to York to catch-up with Jackie, our former next door neighbour in Kirribilli. Monique's performance of taking photos was very poor (none in fact), but had a great time with Jackie who introduced Mon to a new way of eating Chinese: which consisted of standing, bent over your kitchen counter and rapidly scooping spoonfuls of Chinese into your mouth!

As is usually the case when we are back in Rotherham, we headed out for a night with Steve and his girlfriend Amanda. We went on a pub crawl down an old student hangout area of mine in Sheffield, and ended up in The Leadmill nightclub. Was very disappointing to find that they no longer give you a free Chupa Chup on your way in. Apparently this has something to do with Health & Safety (I can only imagine where the lollipop stick ended up). Clarkson would have a field day; another example of the high-vis vest crowd overstepping the bounds of reasonableness....

Anyway, the club itself wasn't very busy as most of the students had left the city: which provided plenty of room for Steve and I to throw some shapes (yes, it runs in the family). Not content at kick-out time, Steve took us all for a curry (which I almost fell asleep into) before we all headed home in a taxi, just as it was getting light. Beard.

The next day I went with Steve and Dad to see my footy team (Sheffield Wednesday) play in a pre-season friendly. This was against Grimsby, so, regardless of how the result turned out, we'd at least be able to took into some nice fish and chips for lunch. And so it was - Wednesday lost. Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come this season. We also went out for a lovely dinner with all of the family that evening and then the following day Steve and Amanda put on a great BBQ for us at their house.

Cousins Clare and Kelly

Sorry girls I had to put this photo in because of Wes necking his beer in the background. Well done!

Dane, Clare, Ben and Holly

Super Seth and Mum Gemma

Matt and Wes (Seth's Dad)

Peter and Margaret (Dad and Mum)

Matt and Steve

Amanda and Lisa

Dad keeping warm

After one final curry with Wes and Gemma, our time up North was pretty much over and so caught the train to London to catch-up with friends. We decided to stay at a small hotel (Henley House Hotel) in Earl's Court, as this was not far from town, and was on the tube lines to Wimbledon and also to Heathrow for when we left.

We managed to catch-up with Nicky (and new bub Matthew) who we'd not see in ages, as well as Mandy and daughter Ellie. Yes, we've been catching-up with people who have young kids and we've been asked heaps of times whilst on this trip what our own plans are. And we'll keep you guessing!

Baby Matthew with Mon and Matt, Mon and Nicky

I also caught up with some of the guys I used to work with in London, whilst Mon spend some more time with Lucy, and then we met up with my uni mates - good to see you all!

Tom and Ewen

Matt Kilcast

Cockburn (Rick Astley)

Dayster, Dave, Scott and Nick

The gang

Dayster, looks like one of the boys kept an eye on you!

Jase, you can't hide, you are bigger than the HP bottle!

Before we knew it, our time in London was over and we had an early Saturday morning start, heading to Heathrow for a flight to Rome.

Matt

And so we found ourselves having to get up early, with a bit of a sore head after the fireworks party, heading back to Penn Station for a train to Boston. This is definitely the prettier of the two train trips we did on the east coast, the train passing right by some of New England's nice beach/vacation spots.

We arrived at our hotel, The Boston Park Plaza and Towers, to find that we had been given a room upgrade! This was great, as it came with access to a lounge for drinks and nibbles, free breakfast and also free internet access on our floor of the hotel.

Neither of us had been to Boston before, but we'd heard so much about it (particularly from Allie - more on that in a second). So, we headed out to explore the city on foot, taking it easy (the heatwave was still over the NE of the US, and it was still around 95F even this far north) and strolling through the Public Garden (the main park in the middle of Boston) and getting our bearings.

Little league baseball

We also followed The Freedom Trail, which is a walking tour that takes you through some of the historic parts of the city, including part of the waterfront. It's also on here that you pass one of the oldest pubs in the US (The Bell In Hand Tavern), where we went for a drink and found the service to be shocking - wait staff were so rude - and also the oldest restaurant in the US (The Union Oyster House), where we found the service AND food to be shocking also!

However, we did eat in some other restaurants whilst we were there that were absolutely fantastic, including Smith & Wollensky's - they have a few branches throughout the US; if you ever get chance, try their Mac'n'Cheese - it's fantastic!

Mon couldn't resist the cuteness of the baby British Bulldog

Smith & Wollensky's, Matts steak with Mac'n'Cheese

Riverside

Unfortunately whilst we were in Boston the Red Sox baseball team were playing away, so we didn't get to see them live. Goes without saying though that the games were on the TVs in the bars - the city is baseball mad.

OK, so, before we left Sydney, Allie gave me a list of her top ten things to do whilst in Boston. Most of these we covered, including the one that appeared on the list 3 times: having chips and curry sauce at The Solas Irish bar at The Lenox hotel. Now, I don't usually put curry sauce on my chips (more of a mushy peas man), but I have to say, they were very tasty! (I did only have the one portion though, not 3 - sorry Allie).

The other thing we did whilst we were in Boston was shopping! Yes, it was our final place in the US and one final chance to pick-up some bargain-priced (for Sydneysiders anyway) clothes. Shopping here is great - there are two main shopping malls that are linked together and have all of the stores you will want, plus the state tax is lower than the likes of New York.

Boston is such a great city: really easy to get around as it's not that big; clean; friendly people. However, on reflection, I don't think the curry sauce is quite good enough to make Boston my new favourite US city.

And that's it for our time in the USA - off to the UK next!

Matt