The end

Well all good things must come to an end and the same is true of our travels. We're back in Blighty now reveling in the chance to sit on a real sofa, grab milk from a real fridge and talk to people without having to revert to sign language. But what can we say about the last four months? How do you condense the experience of a lifetime into a few hundred words for you, our tireless and attractive readers, to soak up? All we can do is offer you these final words...

Beth
It has certainly been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Literally beathtaking. There were many many times when I felt like the luckiest person alive, to be in the most beautiful and fascinating places and indulge in four whole months with my lovely Ben.
My highlights were Sa Pa where we met and laughed with the locals in the hills enveloped by the most awe-inspiring scenery; our 3 days with our 'Easy Riders', where we were guided around the real Vietnam off the beaten track; the Great Wall and its exhilarating walk; and Halong Bay. You can't beat sharing an emormous chinese junk with a couple of mates and eight staff, surroundeded by the magical & mysterious scenery (read: cloudy) and do kyaking for the first time. We were able to eat the tastiest and most interesting and outlandish food in the world (Japan takes the biscuit with the mini squid in dumplings and octopus tentacle. Yum.)
And after the adventure when we're back at home, back to the grind, commuting, rush hours and willing the sun to shine, it feels like a dream. But I will always now have those amazing experiences, fabulous memories, a great relationship and a couple of holiday snaps thrown in.

Ben
It's been a blast, it really really has. I've had the most exquisite time wandering through South East & East Asia, meeting interesting and fascinating folk, experiencing lots of simply divine food and finally seeing, in the flesh as it were, some of the planet's truly beautiful sites. I've learnt a lot about the World and the odd little people who inhabit it, I've learnt more about myself and the way I cope (or don't cope as the case may be) with life's little eventualities and I've fallen in love with Beth all over again. This trip has given me so much and cost me so little in the grand scheme of things. Just four short months is all I had to pay for the memories I've picked up. And yet it doesn't matter how much I've got from all this there is still one undeniable truth. I still don't like bloody tofu.