At 4.45 am Paul sat bolt upright in bed.  Rain was coming through the roof of the hotel and through our ceiling and the bed was soaking wet.   There was no reply from reception so Sue went down and the security guard had to wake the receptionist who allocated us another room along the corridor.   We checked it was dry before moving all our stuff.   The receptionist was very apologetic and said it was a very old building.   Queen Victoria stayed here but doubt she had water coming through the ceiling. 

Last night at Anuradhapura our iPad died.  So when we arrived back in Kandy this afternoon,  we went to various electronic shops and to a repair shop, all of whom told us it's "very old" and if we wanted it repaired it would take a few days, which we didn't have.   The price of a new iPad here is astronomical so we opted to buy a Galaxy tablet.  Updating the website has been challenging but we're getting the hang of it.

On Tuesday at 11.45 am we boarded the train from Kandy to Ella, another hill country town, which would take 7 hours.  The train was very comfortable and we settled in for the journey armed with Marmite rolls and slices of cake. 

We arrived at our hotel in Tissamaharama from where we would go on safari in nearby Yala National Park.   However,  when we arrived and presented our booking confirmation from Agoda,  we were told they hadn't received the booking and didn't have any rooms available because they were expecting a large group.  We suspected they blew us off rather than lose a group booking.   So we had to look for another hotel which wasn't easy as it's high season here, but eventually found one which turned out to be better than the original one and located directly on the beach within spitting distance of the Park entrance.   Our room was lovely and overlooked the beach so we went to sleep to the sound of crashing waves.

Since our last post,  we have travelled further round the south coast,  first stopping at Mirissa,  a beach town,   We stayed at a hotel 10 minutes walk from the town and beach and were taken aback when we arrived to see that reception was up 2 steep staircases although we could see a "cable car" at the side.   Our luggage and us were loaded into the car which made a very slow ascent to reception.   However each time we went out and returned to the hotel we took the steps,  pausing for breath along the way.   The good news about being so high were the views from both the room, the restaurant and the rooftop pool,   Although the monkeys found it easy to swing from the trees to the balconies and were adept at trying the door handle to gain entry. 

We left Sri Lanka on 4th February and took a short 1 hour 10 minute flight across to Male,  the capital of the Maldives.  As our flight arrived late afternoon,  it was too late to get across to Bathala as the seaplanes don't fly after a certain time so we had booked a hotel for the night with a view to flying early next day.   We were contacted by Bathala to advise we were booked for the 8 am seaplane and needed to be back at the airport for 7.15 am next day.  It was 20 minutes by seaplane and we were dropped off on a pontoon resembling a large raft, from where we were picked up by boat for a 20 minute ride to the island. It was still early morning and we expected to be hanging about until afternoon check in.

We travelled down to Hua Hin by bus from Bangkok Airport and have been here a couple of days to catch up on laundry but more importantly to buy a suit for Paul which he'll need for our cruise next month,  but because of baggage restrictions on the Maldives seaplane he was unable to bring from home.   Although Hua Hin doesn't have much going for it (and we both agreed it is a bit of a sleazy beach town), there are two big shopping malls and Paul is now in possession of a black suit (the sales assistant even altered the trousers for length while we continued shopping).  We did visit the evening market last night and ate one of the only veggie options we could find- tofu and vegetable fried rice with pineapple. 

We've just finished 2 weeks volunteering and now back in Hua Hin for a few days. Our first week was at the rescue centre of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT) where there were around 60 to 70 volunteers, most of whom were in the 18 to 25 age range, from mainly European countries plus a few Thai people who were part of the veterinary team and a small number from the US. We were split into either wildlife volunteers or elephant volunteers. There were also more than 100 staff, mainly Thai. Caring for between 800 and 900 animals. 

We have been in Hong Kong for two days, staying in a 28th floor apartment on Hong Kong Island (see right).  It was a bit of a shock arriving into 20 degrees after the mid-thirties heat of Thailand.  Not much of a view from the apartment other than other high rise blocks.  It looks better at night. 

On Monday we checked out of our apartment in Hong Kong at 11 am and got a taxi to the cruise terminal expecting to sit around for three hours until the official embarkation time of 2 pm. But we were greeted by cruise staff who immediately tagged our bags and after completing a brief health questionnaire, we were able to check in and by 12.30 we were sitting in a lounge on the ship with a glass of champagne. The whole process was seamless. 

After leaving Taiwan we had 2 sea days before arriving into Incheon (Seoul). The temperature dropped significantly; about 15 degrees the first day and down to single figures yesterday. 

After a relaxing sea day yesterday we were out on the dock by 8.30 this morning and boarding our bus for the morning excursion. It's been cold in South Korea and it was around 7 degrees this morning. After a short drive we arrived at the Oryukdo Skywalk where we had to don soft overshoes to walk on the glass overhang for views of the sea and around. There are 6 small islands visible and on a clear day it's possible to see across to Japan, but it wasn't quite clear enough today. We ventured up to an even higher viewpoint with banks of daffodils and looked down towards the Skywalk. 

This morning we docked in Fukuoka, having left Busan at 10 pm last night. The captain (Captain Limoncello - that's what it sounds like) warned last night that there were predicted 4 metre high waves overnight but we both slept soundly without noticing).

We docked in the port of Hiroshima early this morning and were on our tour bus by 8.45 am. It was a short drive to the ferry terminal where we boarded the ferry for a ten minute crossing to Miyajima Island.

We've been docked in Osaka Port for two days where the weather has improved dramatically.

Shimizu was our last cruise ship destination and we had a warm sunny day. Our excursion wasn't the best because we kept losing our elderly tour guide, plus we had some guests who weren't the fastest when it came to walking. 

Today was disembarkation in Tokyo. We'd been given the choice of times to disembark and provided with coloured luggage tags and we were called to the gangway by colour and the whole process was seamless. We were in no rush as our domestic flight back to Osaka wasn't until 2 pm.

We're currently in Kyoto where we are staying for four days. On our first day, having been sitting around at the airport and then on a bus journey from Osaka Airport, we felt the need to stretch our legs so we walked to the Imperial Palace which took about 40 minutes. The grounds were extensive and due to the warmer weather, the cherry trees were in blossom. We spent a couple of hours ambling around the grounds and then visited the Palace complex itself.  

On Saturday we visited Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine. To get there we had to take the subway and a train; there are several railway lines but they're all separate so you need to buy separate tickets. We were a bit confused trying to work out how to use the ticket machine; an elderly Japanese man leant across and showed us what do; it was much easier after he pointed out the English button. 

We left Kyoto on Monday evening. As there was no easy way to get to Kawaguchiko by train, we opted for an overnight bus which left Kyoto Station at 11.30 pm. It was very cold waiting at the bus stop but fortunately the bus was very warm and we managed to get some sleep. Some being the operative word. The interior of the bus had black-out curtains and imagine our surprise when we drew them back at 8.40 am in Kawaguchiko to discover 3 to 4 inches of snow and more coming down. The sky was dark with heavy grey clouds. The reason we chose to stay a couple of days here was the close proximity to Mt Fuji. But our hopes of seeing it were now dashed.

We left Kawaguchiko in the rain. Again. And got a bus to Tokyo Station which took around two and a half hours, and then a short taxi ride to our hotel. We should mention here the size of hotel rooms in Japan which are tiny. Having researched the size of various hotel rooms, we booked a twin room in Tokyo which is definitely bigger apart from there being not 2 but 3 large single beds tight against one another with barely any floor space to move around (you have to do a crab impression and walk sideways between the end of the beds and the wall, every time bumping into the large wall-mounted TV).

We flew from Tokyo into Hanoi, Vietnam, a 5 hour 30 minute flight and arrived at 8.30 pm local time (10 pm Tokyo time). Immigration was swift but we had to wait over an hour for our luggage to come through. We were getting a little anxious as we being picked up outside the airport to transfer us to our overnight bus up to the mountain town of Sapa. Fortunately our luggage arrived and we were outside by 10 pm. The overnight bus is what they call a cabin bus (see photos) which would have been comfortable on a straight flat road, but not so much on a bumpy winding road up into the mountains. We both managed to sleep a little and arrived in Sapa at 5.30 am. A minivan dropped us at our hotel (see photo) where the solitary member of staff checked us in and we got a few hours sleep before breakfast.