Day 11 - Last full day

This time zone stuff is hard, despite everything being set to 'auto', half of our devices have different times. We got up anyway. 

Apparently when Mark booked the room he only purchased one breakfast, not quite sure how. We blagged

 two free ones anyway, it was a choice of a croissant or a ham sandwich, basically yesterday's left overs.

Before we could get on our way we had to get Mark a new rear tyre, so we visited the local KTM dealer who thought it best he got a new front tyre too, oh and the rear brake pads were shot too, best not mention that the front brakes are marginal. 

That's a fair bit of work so we decided to go to the cafe next door and grab a bite to eat. It was in a great location, a corner of a car park in an industrial estate. They didn't make up for it with service either, we had to order our food twice and then the waiter came over to ask what we wanted. 40 mins later Tim's food arrived, ten mins on Steve got his and it was another five mins for Mark's, despite ordering the same as Tim. In true Spanish tradition, there was enough food to feed eight people

Back at the garage and Mark's bike was ready, he didn't take the optional front brakes so it only cost a whopping 385 euros. New tyres mean slow speeds for a while so we took it easy for about 30 mins until we got bored and found some proper roads.

Best. Roads. Ever. Up and down mountains with some brilliant views to match for about 4 hours. Breathtaking.

On our way out of the mountains we came across a few cars which we passed. It's good to know that Audi drivers are cocks over here too, as Mark went to overtake the driver swerved to try and knock him off, and when Tim went past, the cock tried to accelerate so that he had nowhere to go and would plow into oncoming traffic. Neither of these tactics worked so we are all actually alive still.

Finally we were back in Santander but before boarding the ferry we decided to top up at McDonalds, although the woman there didn't understand a word we said so we considered ourselves lucky that we didn't just end up with a pile of straws and napkins.

It was then time to let go of Spain and board the boat home.

Sitting in the bar on the boat writing this now, I can tell you that the entertainment on the way home is as bad as that coming over, in fact watching the hen party try to walk to the bar and back without spilling their drinks is the most entertaining thing so far. The bet bit was when they dragged 'monkey boy' onto the dance floor to dance Gangham Style but he'd never herd it before so his dad had to show him how. It got worse when they were doing the twist and his dad fell over to a cheering applause from the audience.

Thanks for reading, there may be a small epilogue of things we forgot to post about that we've been keeping track of, otherwise see you next holiday.

Day 10 - Lack of rubber

For a change there was a decent breakfast included with this hotel, a buffet selection of cold meats, pastries and breads. After complaining about all the previously rubbish breakfasts, Mark rushed up to the buffet and came back with exactly the same as he'd had at every other place; a croissant and a bread roll.

We got out of town quite easily, but the back of Mark's bike was sliding around a bit as his tyres were quite bold. The roads were pretty good climbing to heights of 1600 meters. Several times there were dogs and cows in the road, we stopped for a photo but wisely moved a little further down the road as the cattle eyed us up.

After stopping for a photo Steve's bike wouldn't start so were a little stranded at the top of a mountain. A local woman went and got us some water in her car but it still didn't start. We decided to free wheel it 3.5km downhill to the nearest town and try again there. Half way down, the bike came to life and we were on our way.

We stopped for lunch at a hotel and had the set menu of the day, it was nice but huge and he kept bringing out more courses which we struggled to keep up with. When we're done we could barely fit back in our leathers!

Well on our way to Gijon we stopped for fuel and noticed that Mark's tyre was starting to get some small cuts in it as it wore away. It was only about 30km to go so we pushed on but kept a more gingerly pace.

Steve's glove was also falling apart, that'll teach him for buying cheap Alpinestars.

We made it in one piece, checked into the hotel and headed out for a look around town. There were plenty of bars around the main plaza but these were mega expensive so we found some cider bars off the beaten track and with our new found knowledge of how to drink cider, fitted right in.

We climbed up to the top of the hill overlooking the sea where the canons used to be and planned how we'd assault the city.

Tim wasn't feeling so great so headed home for an early night so Mark and Steve went for a couple of drinks.

They found a place called wine street which was pretty cool and Steve tasted the local wines which were cheaper than Marks beers, they were really good wines too.

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Day 9 - Barriers

We were due to leave Porto today and start a series of short hops back home. This however, meant breaking our bikes out of the car park. You see they wanted us to pay 75 euros per bike which we thought was a bit steep, especially as we only used up one spot.

The plan was to ride through the gap at the side of the barrier but as we were getting the bikes redy, two security guards covered the exits, they were on to it. We had to fall back to plan B. plan B involved waving our arms around, arguing and not understanding. Plan C it was then, we payed the hotel instead and got a discount.

We rode for a while before stopping at Mc Donald's and then found some properly good roads, fast sweepers where we got to explore the bikes a bit more. From McDs we beat the sat nav time by 20 mins and that included two stops!

We were now in Ponferrada, where we'd stop for one night. We were using a municipal car park again,  where we were again thwarted by the barriers, Steve had pressed the button and Tim had gone through, but we'd all moved forward so we were stuck as the barrier had closed behind Tim. Oops.

When we did get out, we made our way to the hotel reception and Steve got accosted by a struggler wino who was dressed up like a knight. We jousted our way into the hotel to find that the receptionist didn't speak English but he did speak German. So Steve spoke to him in German and tried not to mention the war.

Tim went ahead while we were checking in, and when Mark and Steve got to the room he was already stood in the corridor outside the room in his pants as he was too hot. As soon as the door opened he dashed in to destroy the toilet before he'd even seen his bed.

After we'd de-fumed the bathroom and showered we went to get some drinks and snacks for the room, it was Mark's happy day as there was a shop that sold a selection of giant giant strawberry cables. There isn't a photo of them as they didn't last that long.

Steve had planned this stop which meant that he'd done the research and found out where to go etc. Apparently there was nothing here, it was only a small town with a couple of bars. In reality the town was dominated by a massive castle and everywhere you looked there were bars heaving with tourists.

We chose a restaurant with 4 stars from Trip Advisor. We didn't have such a good experience though. Mark asked the waiter if they had wifi, he answered 'yes' and then walked off without giving us the password. We ordered our food but Steve's meal didn't arrive, so we asked the waiter who called us a lier and said that we hadn't ordered anything.

When we did get Steve's food, it was cold, we complained but the waiter just walked off. Tim got onto Trip Advisor, and lets just say that they no longer have 4 stars.

We stopped by a busy bar at the side of the castle, which emptied as soon as we had arrived, has no one told them that the crusades are over? We took over the bar anyway, Steve sorted the music out and Tim got the shots in.

Several drinks and shots later we'd turn the place into a karaoke bar which only ended when Steve kept playing Mumford and Sons. The bar keep was a good laughed and joined in with the shots, although he took offence when time asked him 'are you local?' As he though he'd said 'are you loco?'. The bar mans name was now Loco.

On the way back to the hotel Steve fell over, but he still made it back in one piece, all of those rank shots of Jays washing up liquid had took their toll. However, he did have a bed incident also, while mark and Tim were innocently fast asleep he somehow fell out...

Day 7 - Segway fun

It was an early start today as we had pre-booked a Segway city tour. We couldn't do this without breakfast though, so we tested out the freebie breakfast included in the hotel. It turns out that the restaurant is about as big as the bathroom and Tim had to dislocate his legs to get into his seat. It was so worth it though as we were given three dry bread rolls each.

After our feast we headed to the meet up place for the tour, it wasn't easy to find in fact we felt like we needed a tour o find the tour!

After a quick demo by our guide Tania we were soon testing out the laws of physics and charging around the city. The tour was really good and we saw all of the sights and were told lot s of its of history. Even Tim looked a bit interested despite constantly spinning in circles while our guide was talking to us. 

Marks eye seemed to explode at one point though so he couldn't see where he was going and it looked like he was crying at all of Tania's stories. The Segways were great fun and easy to use, we even had the obligatory race which was a dead heat between Tim and Steve.

The tour ended and Tania filled us in on some places to go and happened to mention that there was a World Touring Car Championship street race in Porto tomorrow, and to add to that, it's free to spectate.

After a quick refreshment Tim and Steve went on a port tasting trip where their guide had an accent that sounded like borat, then posh English, then cockney. A lot was learned about port, although Tim is now gutted that he has to throw away the bottle that he opened 5 years ago in his cupboard.

Siesta time beckoned which brought us to about 5pm, so we went out for a few beers and investigated a new part of town (read: different bars). We were right on the river which had some great views and Steve took about a million pictures of the bridge from every conceivable angle in every different light. Tim is concerned that he may try to build it out of mashed potato like the guy from Close Encounters.

After a few we went to a restaurant where our guide from earlier had recommended and got a sea view seat upstairs. Tim and Steve had a giant octopus tentacle each, the rest of it is still probably out there terrorising sea goers.

<check back for more pics later>

Day 6 - Failblog

Today most things went wrong, broke or just gave up.

Mark and Steve were suffering from a lack of sleep due to Tim's 'sleep noises'. While we were packing Tim decided to learn Portuguese, he'd heard of a new technique where you repeat each word 14 times and then it sticks. He'd chosen 3 phrases; 'thank you', 'I would like', and 'menu'. Part way through his repetitions he stopped to ask which was which again. 30 seconds later he'd forgotten all of them.

We went to the bikes to put the bags on and this is where the first failure occurred, Tim's key wouldn't go in his ignition, after much wiggling and shouting it started working and we were on our way to Portugal. However both Marks and Tim's radios had stopped working so we were all going to be without commas for the day.

The traffic lights leaving Vigo were mental, they randomly flash orange then just turn red, it's like the drivers are on a constant reaction test, not that any of them stop for the lights of course. This is when Mark discovered that his horn had stopped working.

It was an eight hour ride ahead which would be a test for us, it involved some quick roads, a ferry and some twisties. We were soon out of Vigo riding along a nice coastal road when we thought we'd stop for some brunch at a small seaside town.

We parked the bikes and ordered the menu, some OJ, and coffee. What we got instead was a diet coke and a bottle of wine. Steve quickly ordered some toast for us, but the waiter just brought him some. Just when we thought we'd mastered ordering in Spanish...

After breakie we jumped back on the bikes to find that Steve's BMW wouldn't start, so we spent 5 mins pushing and prodding everything and it suddenly burst into life. Mark's horn had started working again though, but his LCD screen had gone a different colour. The bikes were definitely not liking the heat.

We ragged it to the ferry port before anything else broke only to find that the ferry wasn't running until 5pm due to the water being too low, as it was about 1pm we didn't fancy waiting so we found an alternative route and went on our way.

We then entered the realm of awesome roads, starting in a narrow windy road up and around a mountain. Not a car in sight, in fact there was nothing for some time so we took the opportunity of stopping at the first cafe that we could.

The cafe was run by hill billies who made us quite welcome, probably because they hadn't seen a white person before and we were riding some kind of magical jet cycle. We had some ice creams and went on our way when Steve's bike failed to start again. We tried everything and nothing would work so we wheeled it into a cow shed to cool down with the help of the locals.  In the end we poured a gallon of water over it and it started, the locals saw this as taming a dragon.

More great roads followed, in fact, the best yet, fast flowing constant bends, it's a shame that we had the luggage on the bikes which meant we couldn't push that hard. More footage will be uploaded shortly.

We went through a very pretty national park and then went down the steepest hill ever, we took a wrong turn and as we were turning around Tim's leather jacket zip broke. The holiday had taken its toll on that suit, earlier he had ripped his trousers and now the top, at this rate he'll be riding home in his pants.

One last pit stop for a drink before pushing on to Porto. The temperature was about 32c which isn't fun in leathers. Another thing went wrong, while sat down Steve's knee slider fell off, the adhesive had melted in the sun, it was that hot.

Back on the road we had about 40km to go and we hit traffic, it was tough to filter properly as the roads were narrow and the Portuguese are not that bike friendly. This party of the journey nearly killed us, the bike temps were well over 100c which was soaking through to us and with the slow speeds we couldn't cool down. 

While filtering, Steve's bike cut out, luckily he cold make it to the side of the road and it started again fairly easily, but it really showed how tough a time the sports bikes were having.

Finally, finally, we got to Porto and found the hotel (it wasn't easy), we ditched the bags and Tim got directions for the secure parking, 'Take the first right, then the second right' is what he was told. Yea, that didn't work and we were pushed into a one way system and lost in the city with no sat nav. With luck and google maps we eventually found the hotel again. We then corrected the womans directions. To get to the parking you go right, then the second right, then up the wrong way of a triple lane one way street, then p a pavement, over a junction and you're there. I don't know how we went wrong the first time at all!

The hotel is pretty rubbish, it's down a small quiet alley next to some empty bars. Inside the rooms are tiny and you're only allowed two hangers each. The shower door is broken and the toilet roll dispenser is the other side to the toilet, so you need to plan ahead.

None of this mattered, all that did were cold showers. We actually had two rooms between the three of us. It was a unanimous agreement that Tim should have his own room as he likes to spread out. Also mark and Steve might actually get some sleep.

Beers were necessary, so we tried the bar next door who only sold beer in 20cl glasses, so about half a can of coke. Rubbish. After a few of those we moved on to a busy ar that sold proper pints. We also had some meals there which came to about £20, we're liking Porto after all.

The ride today had been 11 hours so we were tired and decided to go back to the hotel. This is where we found that our quiet little street had turned into Marde Gras and it was the centre of the cities entertainment. The bars had spewed out into the street and the music was pumping, so we thought it would be silly to go back to our rooms and settled on a night cap. 

Tim ordered what appeared to be paraffin in a glass, so much so that the fumes blinded you as you raised the glass to drink from it. Mark had a decent measure of Baileys and Steve had a glass of red.

Finally we hit the hay, the noise from outside bled into the rooms, but it was still quieter than Tim, plus it couldn't go on that long surely... it turns out that they turn the music off a little after 6am.

Day 5 - Betty Swallocks

We went without aircon last night to help with Steve's allergies which had the desired effect, however it also meant that the room was a sweat box, add to that last night's kebabs and you can imagine our joy to be moving on to another town.

Upon checking out the hotel tried to charge Steve twice, we think that this is Spain's plan to beat the recession. We also couldn't find out how to get out of the underground car park, we'd tried everything from banging the door to blasting our horns and revving our engines. It turned out that there was a button to press, damn them and their advanced technology.

Getting out of La Coruna would have been impossible without the sat nav, entire streets are double parked and the one way systems make no sense. But we were soon on our way to Vigo via Santiago.

The roads were pretty poor, those that didn't have road works were so bumpy that Steve thought he had a flat. There were also a million little towns which kept the speeds quite slow, luckily though it wasn't a long journey.

We stopped for brunch before we got to Santiago and ordered some food and drinks. Three courses of cakes arrived and all in all it was another expensive meal at 4 euros.

We decided to push on to Santiago where we'd stop for lunch, we'd probably be hungry by the time we got there. It turns out however though that Santiago was literally thirty seconds down the road.

We stopped anyway and took a look around. The city is amazing and the cathedral really was a sight with the entire altar being made of gold and silver, it's well worth a visit if your in town.

Back on the road it was another rubbish ride with heavy traffic and roadworks everywhere we went, we stopped at a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere for a late lunch and ordered the menu of the day. This comprised of a potato flan for starter, grilled potatoes for the main course and a tart for dessert. I think we only had the tart as he'd run out of potatoes. At the restaurant there was another Spanish biker on a Triumph Sprint, he wanted to know why none of us were on British bikes, so we told him they were crap.

As the temperatures soared above 30c we decided to just crack on and take the motorway to Vigo,  this was going well until a slight sat nav error took us to a toll road but it was worth it to speed up the journey. Vigo was difficult to navigate so the sat nav more than made up for its earlier error and got us to the hotel.

After pealing off our leathers and a quick shower we climbed up to one of the recommended sights. This involved walking up a very steep hill, climbing about a thousand steps and then climbing a grass verge. You should have seen the views though, although we couldn't because the crest was surrounded by trees. Tim wasn't put off though and asked if we wanted to waste any more time seeing shit monuments and ancient crap or should we go to the bar.

On the way to the bar, Steve forgot the green cross code and if it wasn't for Tim shouting at him, would now be a bonnet ornament on a lucky Fiat drivers car.

The first bar suffered from Spain's service problem where it took twenty mins to order a drink and twenty mins for it to turn up, oh and I mustn't forget that 'vodka and red bull' translates to 'water'. We moved on.

We stopped at an Irish bar next and watched the Spain vs Italy semi final which turned out to be a good game. Each time we ordered a drink it came with a free bowl of crisps too which kept us going. The Spanish were not really that bothered with the game though, however when they won there was a mild cheer before they all went home. Way to celebrate guys.

We too decided to head home and get an early start tomorrow to beat the traffic and heat, let's see how that works out!

Day 3 - Too much of a good thing

Today was our first day of waking up on foreign soil, so Tim went for a stroll, took some photos and got completely lost.

When he returned at lunchtime we hit the roads for several hours of mega roads twisting around the mountains and across a couple of dams.

As we'd skipped breakie we stopped for something to eat in a little cafe in the mountains. As we pulled up, Steve was surrounded by flies, there must have been something familiar to them about his bike. 

We ended up just having a packet of crisps each as that's the only thing that we could make the guy understand, he even had to go back to his house to get us the cokes we'd ordered. 

Back on the road we had more fantastic riding, so much so that we were knackered and just wanted to get there. 

We stopped at Lugo for a late lunch, the weather was just right with not a cloud in the sky and we managed to get our food ordered correctly, the language barriers are coming down. 

We then took the fast roads to La Coruna which would be our destination for the next couple of days. We found the hotel easily thanks to the satnav , another good hotel but we're all sharing a room so there was the obligatory fight for the best bed, coat hangers and towels. 

We unpacked and Steve got his famous flip flops out which fell apart after literally 3 seconds, he's now down to one pair of trainers before he has to wear his biker boots everywhere. 

We decided that it was time for beers so we found a nice plaza in the sun and ordered some cool ones. Twenty mins later we were still waiting so Steve went and complained & the guy brought us over three pints of froth. The second round wasn't much better which led us to believe that this bar is part of the drink awareness program as there is no chance of getting drink here. 

We moved on and after finding a few bars that would serve us, we ordered some food. Having no idea what anything was so with the help of a non English speaking waiter we ordered several huge starters and a massive plate of meat between us. Maybe we had a bit too much as there is now a cow shortage in north Spain. 

We staggered back to the hotel and collapsed for the night , we could have a good lie in tomorrow as we weren't on the bikes. 

Day 2 - Again

Apologies for the late second entry, due to some technology fails the post is somewhere in an alternate Internet in another dimension. So the rewrite is going to miss some details, but we'll wrestle with our memories and see what we have...

Against all odds we survived the night, Mark wasn't sick, Steve didn't fall off the top bunk and Tim didn't gas us all after eating curry, beans and several pints of Guiness. It was a close call though and we feel we've used one of our nine lives already.

At breakfast we had an eight euro allowance each as part of our ferry deal, so we calculated the maximum we could get for that even if it wasn't what we wanted. While scoffing we noticed Bob Carolgees from Spit the Dog fame and Mark managed to get a stealth photo.

It was soon time to depart, Steve met someone in the dock that he knew from Bromsgrove, small world. After a quick fuel stop (how cheap?) we found some fun roads and headed into the hills.

The roads were superb with a real mix of narrow windy roads and some faster flowing ones. Of course we kept to the speed limit the whole time, safety first ;)

After a couple if hours we stopped in a picturesque town for some noms. We found a nice bar which turned out to be slightly racist in that the women had to sit outside whilst the men sat inside playing cards in their cheques shirts. 

The waiter had never seen a foreigner before and we had no clue what we wee ordering but it turned out ok in the end.

We hit the road again and once more ounce some cracking roads before reaching our destination of Langreo at about 7pm.

Beers and food called so we hit the town to find some good bars. The first bar we went to was actually a wine bar but served some amazing beer. They also gave us some free eggs to go with our drinks which we found a little odd so we left for pastures new.

The next bar was very odd, it was a cider bar, but if you think cider over here is like a Magners with ice or a can if Strongbow then you'll be massively mistaken.

What you're meant to do is order one bottle between three of you, put your glass in a little stand that looks like R2D2 and then hold the bottle above your head pouring cider into your glass. You only pour about an inch though which you have to down immediately and then throw the slops against the bar. Very strange. Tim got told off for not throwing his drink away an Steve got a yellow card for pouring at shoulder height and not head height.

At the same bar we decided to order some food so with the help of sign language and Google translate we ordered some beef between the three of us. What turned up was a plate of raw ox meat but before we could lookup the Spanish for WTF, the waiter brought us a little gas cooker over and left us to cook our own food.

We decided that this town was very strange and started walking home when we came across Tim's home from home; King Kebab. Unsure of whether we'd have to kill the cow ourselves we didn't indulge and headed back for sleep instead.

Day 4 - Beach

A well deserved lie in today and our first day off the bikes. We strolled to a cafe for breakfast and all ordered by pointing at pictures, one day the menus aren't going to have pictures of what we want and we're going to be in real trouble. Steve's order somehow got lost still but he eventually got some toast, however his butter that he ordered by saying 'butter' and pointing at Tim's butter was actually jam when it arrived. Good enough. 

Our meal was interrupted by some workmen who wanted to remove the outside roof while we were sat under it, it's okay though as one said to the other 'watch out inglis' and then proceeded to batter the bars holding the thing up with a hammer and still. Time to move on.

We went to the beach armed with a Frisbee and a bouncy ball. Mark's first throw of the Frisbee caught the wind and hit a woman sunbathing who tried to throw it back but it went in the opposite direction and hit another sunbather. Our domination of the beach had begun.

The bouncy ball was good fun, bouncing it off the waves at each other. It turns out that Mark's throws are about as accurate as Saddam Hussain's Scud missiles. A quick pitstop back at the hotel to get changed and we were back out to shop for some flip flops and go for a walk.

Just like every other time, we'd decided to shop when everywhere was closed for siestas so that didn't go so well so off we went to see the famous monument. The streets here are very narrow and all look the same but we found it quite easily, it's basically a tower built on a hill by the sea. Climbing to the top gave some stunning views which we celebrated by eating ice cream.

On the way back to town a girl approached us and offered us some free beer as part of a promotion of a new brand. After stopping to think about this for 0.2 nano seconds we succumbed to the offer and necked some. It tasted pretty good until we realised that it was alco free, and then we all agreed that it tasted rubbish and we'd never speak of it again.

We stopped for a snack in Burger King, we were only going to have a light bite but Steve had the XXL Burger which is a double burger with extra bacon and cheese that resembled a sandwich that Scooby Doo would be proud of.

We moved on to the Marina and had a couple of beers while people watching. We've discover that there is no one aged between 25 and 50 here, they must be forced to leave until they're old enough to return.

Tim went back to the room for a kip while Mark and Steve went shopping. We soon found a flip flop shop but Mark was dismayed that it took Steve longer to choose a pair of flip flops than it did for him to choose a car! At least the flip flop saga is over now and Steve's stress levels can return to normal.

When we got back to the room Tim also had some good news, he'd finished the Candy Crush level that he'd been stuck on for weeks, the mood in the camp was good. Mark however had burnt his neck, so much so that when he walks past Japanese people they get flashbacks to Hiroshima.

We didn't go out until about 9:00 and decided that we'd have a Vodbull for a livener. Half a bottle of Absolute vodka later and we were definitely livened! Some strong beers and vodka cokes later and it was time for a kebab.

We'd passed a kebab place a little while back but with these similar looking streets and our vodka fuelled state we spent about 30mins retracing our steps before we found another one instead. It was a strange kebab shop, when we walked in there were three old fellas drinking red wine at the counter and there was a good selection of spirits to hand too. Tim has taken notes for King Kebabs surgestion box when he gets home. The kebab was pretty good, and surprisingly our first of the trip.

Here we go again...

It's time for another road trip again, over the next 12 days, Mark (Teapot), Steve (Daisy) and Tim (Skiddy) will ride to Plymouth, get a ferry to Spain and then make our way to Portugal and back again.

The first part of the journey is always the boring bit and also the only time we're allowed to use the motorway. We managed to avoid the rain on the journey south although it was extremely windy which nearly flipped a caravan in front of us.

We had to stop several hundred times for loo breaks before our first proper stop for a coffee at some motorway services. We debated having some food but none of us were hungry, so Tim just had a snack; a massive burger with some chips :)

Luggage was a big problem last year, Tim's kept falling off and Steve's bungees broke 2 miles into the journey, this time though it was Mark's that gave a little bit of grief, his Lego modular Kriega luggage coming a little bit loose just as we got to the ferry. Saying that, Steve's BMW luggage has started to rub the paintwork already so we may have to find a paint shop somewhere in Spain...

Another lesson learned from last year was the purchase of a sat nav, although this did cause some confusion as the signposts pointed one way and the sat nav another. Steve jumped a couple of red lights while staring at the screen but we eventually made it to the ferry alive.

Whilst in the queue for the ferry there were a bunch of bearded BMW riders and Mark and Tim had to restrain Steve from rocking up to them to chat about waterproof braces or something. Tim did some successful queue jumping to get us onto the ferry quicker before deafening the entire boat with his baffleless exhaust. It's wouldn't be the last time that Tim's rumbling caused distress...

We dashed to the cabin, standard rules applied, whoever got their bags on the bed first got to claim it, so after a scuffle in the corridor, Mark got the bed, Tim got the sofa and Steve was left with the shower. It did actually take us a few mins to find Steve's bed as it was hidden in the ceiling. Once pulled down it proved that Steve's bed would be an interesting sleep, with no guard rail, a slight angle to the floor and the ship rocking like it was, we'd have to bungee him in otherwise he'd be waking up on the floor!

It was time to explore the boat and we soon found the shop, this is where we discovered that Steve hadn't actually packed anything and needed to buy trunks, flip flops, underpants etc. in fact that's not true, he did pack some broken flip flops on the off chance that we rode past a flip flop repair shop. There were some odd things in the shop such as Irish shot glasses and a potato sack, this did make us question if we were on the right boat, it turns out that we're on a French ferry taking us from England to Spain which sells Irish produce.

By now it was about time for a beer, so we had a few and got a prime seat front of house for the entertainment. The duet came out and let rip with their best singing voices so we relocated to some new prime seats which was the opposite side of the ship! Lets just say that we won't be watching these two on the X Factor this year, although the woman's dresses would make a cracking test card.

The entertainment didn't improve, there was a Sarah Jessica Parker clone who also looked like a horse and a guy who thought he was Derren Brown by asking you your name and then guessing it.

Mark felt a little sea sick, so we went back to the room for a lie down which turned into a two hour kip before he went back to the bar for last orders.

At about 2am we went back to the room where Tim proceeded with his 21 fart salute and stank out the room gassing mark and Steve to sleep. Next stop Spain...providing we make it through the night.

Heading home part 1

Today we were to start our journey home. We're planning to get as far as Carlisle today, so at least we'd be back in Blighty by nightfall.
We finally got to have breakfast in the pub, and a mighty fine breakfast it was, which included sliced sausage which was square and came with unlimited toast. Om nom nom.

We then decided to go souvenir shopping so went to the gift shop. It turns out that the gift shop doesn't sell gifts and they sent us to the knitting shop which did. Scotland is strange.

We started our journey south off of Skye which was pretty uneventful and we were soon onto mainland Scotland. We stopped several times for photos and got stuck behind a slow moving Nissan Micra. As we were stuck behind them, we decided to pull in and take more photos, but it turns out that they had the same idea too. It was now a race, which car could stop, take a photo and leave first. Martin dived out of our car, charged across the road and down the bank on the other side to get the best angle. Alonso in the car in front opted for a car side photo which was quicker but not so good. This meant martin had to cover twice the ground and was scrambling over the roadside bank. Mark and Stuart could feel the tension, and disaster nearly struck as the Golf's stop start technology cut the engine. Martin dashed back to the car having to go the long way back around to the passenger side meaning it was neck and neck as Alonso hopped back into the Nissan. Under instruction from team boss Stuart, Mark fired up the engine and threw it into gear, we were going to make it. Disaster struck again, the stupid auto handbrake wouldn't disengage! Mark had no choice but to go, we'd have to deal with the consequences later. The throttle was buried, both cars lurched forward, stones flying up behind and front wheels fighting for grip. By the end of the lay by we were in the lead, we'd done it, Alonso would have to settle for second! Screw you Alonso.

With victory well behind us we later stopped for lunch. We decided to avoid the lovely picnic stops, the ones that are sheltered, have toilets, benches and litter bins. Instead we sat on a cold wall running through Glencoe as an icy blast froze our hands and horizontal snow battered our faces. Needless to say the second half of our lunch was ate in the car.

We soon warmed up again and were racking up the miles. Upon approaching Glasgow, Martin double checked the fuel usage stats to determine how much fuel we needed to get in order to return the car on empty.  At which point he commented that by coincidence we would be empty only 20 miles short of Carlisle. "Mission Accepted" declared mark,  dropping the speed to double digits for the first time and entering fuel conservation mode.  This confused the car computer somewhat as it adjusted to this strange behaviour.  Headlights turned off,  heating denied to the passenger's,  the new ultra conservative mode was soon showing dividends. Carlisle was reached with 20 miles of fuel still aboard,  job done.  Or was it.!
Appatently the mission was to the hotel.  So be it. We cruised into town at rush hour and struggled our way around the one way system which Google Maps refused to recognise. We found the hotel just as the computer said that we had 0 miles left. But it wasn't so easy, getting to the hotel car park meant another lap around the one way loop, but Stuart had found a shortcut. Mark followed instructions to turn right although most of Carlisle blasted their horns at this and waved their hands in the air like they just didn't care. On reflection it was a no-right-turn but no animals or kids were hurt and we didn't get arrested so we figured that the locals just like a bit of drama.

We had a couple of subdued beers on the evening and hit a few games of pool, for some reason they use 4 white balls here. To finish the night off we watched Jack the Giant Slayer, we all thought it was okay, but as usual, picked it apart as some bits were unrealistic, who'd have thought.

Isle of Skye TT

We said yesterday that we'd let you know how the northern light photographs went. Well it didn't go so well, we didn't see anything, but we did find some of the fires from earlier still going, so went in hunt of those and then went back to the pub to collapse, it had been a long day!

When we got up, we'd missed breakfast again, this was fine, although it would probably be good, it would be a bunch of money for something we didn't need as we were still full from the massive meals the night before. We instead found a nice bakery and Mark found a new invention, a bacon and black pudding wrap, the scottish sure do do good food. Cederic (still not wanting us to call him Stuart on the blog) had some gorgeous sausage rolls while Martin just stocked up for later.

We were soon on our way to see some otters, we'd failed to see seals yesterday so that was on the cards too. This involved lots of rallying across the Isle again which was good fun and the sheep soon learned to jump out of the way.

We arrived at a loch where there were otters to be found, there was a pier which the otters play on, but they're fairly timid so we parked a little bit away and started sneaking down, just to be overtaken by a car that drove onto the pier and scared them all off. The people (lets call them Americans) then wondered why they couldn't see any otters anywhere. There were however lots of seals around so Martin and Cederic went off to take some pictures of these while Mark partook in the sport of caber tossing (which then scared off the seals too).

Back in the car we rallied on to another part of the island and found a tourist trap at the lighthouse. It was a fairly steep climb down and Mark fell over but saved dislocating his knee by knackering his wrist instead, all was fine later though. The lighthouse was pretty pathetic up close, all smashed up and dilapidated so we stopped for lunch which was nearly stolen by someone's crazy dog.

Onwards again via another castle, some more locks and then we came across an eagle, it's still under debate about what sort of eagle it is but it made Martin happy. Leaving the castle we also saw a Scottish man with bagpipes, we thought these would be more common, and were surprised that it had taken us three days to see one.

Returning to the pub, the woman behind the bar informed us that our breakfasts were included and was quite concerned why we hadn't had one yet. Needless to say, tomorrow is going to be a good day for eating, although Mark is a little concerned at how mad Tim will be that he's let some free stuff go by for two days.

We went out for food, we all had steak (our first of the holiday, can you believe it?), this made some of the locals scowl as we were at the #1 rated seafood restaurant on the island and none of us had any seafood. It was a cracking steak though, maybe they should change their speciality.

On the night we watched Scotland lose at sport again while Martin drank the bar dry (literally) of Jack Daniels.

Skye on fire

Today we decided to go and see some seals at the beach. This would involve an hours drive, and a two hour walk over a small hill so we decided to make up a packed lunch and get on our way.

The journey there was pretty uneventful, the roads around Skye are excellent so Mark could 'make progress' quite easily. We did see what we think must have been a Scottish bus, it was a  pickup truck with a bench on the back, although no one was on board so he could have just been taking his seat for a ride.

We arrived at the turn to the road that would take us down to the closest point to the seals which would leave us with a two mile walk. However, after going through the gate, it soon became obvious that the Golf wouldn't survive the road so we ditched the car and decided to walk instead. This would add 2.5 miles each way to our walk which wouldn't normally be a problem, but the hill that made up those miles certainly would give a challenge!

Where we climbed today

It was a gentle slope up and we made good time, and after a few stops for photographs, we got to the place where we should have been able to park. Unfortunately the rest of the way was unpaved and the hill we had to climb over was quite mountainous and varied between a 30 and 45 degree climb. We pushed on over this for some time before realising that it had taken us much longer than expected so we stopped for lunch before deciding it was best we turned back before we ran out of daylight. Sammy the seal and friends would have to wait for another day.

Just before we broke for lunch, we noticed some other hitchhikers following us, they were about to cross the river we'd just waded through and we thought nothing of this as we sat and scoffed our sarnies. We never did see them again which posed us with the question of whether to call mountain rescue or if they ever existed at all. We decided that our minds must have been playing tricks on us.

Just then a fighter jet weaver between the mountains and banked just above our heads before heading off to sea, Mark was very pleased that he'd come out with two photographers that always had their cameras to hand, what a good photo that would make. Unfortunately neither had their cameras to hand so you'll just have to take our word for it that it actually happened.

On the way back we were starting to get tired, and we took our time, it was a good job as Stuar...I mean Cederic accidentally slipped down a four foot hole and splashed mud all over himself. However any one who knows Cederic knows that he did this gracefully and without cursing at all ever.

Skye on fire

In the car on the way back, as we got close to the town we were staying in (the largest town on the island), we noticed a rather large fire in the distance. We stopped for petrol at this point, and I'm not saying that petrol here is expensive, but the person filling up next to us spent £408 on diesel! We asked the woman who worked there if the fire was normal. Apparently it's called a Falesh, and it's where there is a controlled burn of the heather to allow the grass underneath to grow for the animals. It's quite normal and common at this time of the year... however this one had got out of hand, it had already jumped a river and the fire brigade had been called.

Fire truck enroute to the farm while some tourist did
inappropriate things to the sandwich board in
the background

There was no choice in our minds, we had to go and investigate the fire, so we headed in the rough direction and soon the sky was red, we couldn't see the hills for smoke and we were on a single track road that lead to a farm. We stopped and took some pics before heading back to town and watching from a distance. As we got to town a fire engine went past us and ended up at the same very farm we were just at, it turns out that we'd beat them there. The fire was pretty impressive, but we decided to get changed and get something to eat in town, priorities.

We found this nice restaurant called The Dining Room. We ordered our starters and Cederic asked the waitress about the fire. She sheepishly said "My dad had nothing to do with it!" and ran off. I think we may have touched a nerve! The food there however was nice, but for some reason they were now a staff member down so we had to wait a little while between courses. We didn't notice however as the same Scottish track kept skipping and was on a 20 second loop so time sort of blended into a Groundhog Day style experience.

Back at the room, we rested a little bit before heading out for some night photography (this didn't involve hanging around nightclubs, but rather of the northern lights). It's not meant to be a great night for it, the smoke from the fire won't have helped and it's a full moon, so the sky is fairly bright but we had to give it a go. We'll let you know how it went next time.

Sky(e) Go

First night holiday rules dictate that we all go out and extremely drunk, we failed at this however as our eyes were bigger than our bellies and we had a massive meal which made us all stuffed and Cederic (aka Stuart) was barely awake at the table, although this may have to do with him being up until 5am the previous night.

We had a few drinks and then got a taxi back. Luckily Cederic speaks Scottish as neither Mark or Martin had a clue what the taxi driver was on about, we think he may have been drunk. We had a night cap back at the hotel which comprised of some single malt.

An early(ish) start the next day as we wanted to catch the Grand Prix, but it wasn't a good start. Firstly there wasn't any hot water in the shower, so we all smell now (I know, I know, we all normally smell any way - haha). But the biggest problem was that when we got to the pub for breakfast, the F1 wasn't on BBC - not a problem, Sky Go will sort us out via the Wifi, or it would if the stupid Wifi hasn't stupidly blocked the stupid F1. We attempted to get our own back on the restaurant by eating too much breakfast from the buffet, we showed them!

We checked out and went to Stirling Castle, which was quite impressive but the locals wanted to charge £15 each for us to have a look around so we just skirted around the outside and Martin took some pictures up a mans kilt. It was then time to go to a sweet shop that we found, between us we spent over £20 on sweets, Mark was very happy that they had a good selection of giant strawberry cables.

Stirling was soon behind us and we headed along the scenic route to the Isle of Skye, Cederic had planned the route and it was very pretty. Due to the lack of snow on the roads, we took some options to provide us with even better views but this did mean that we came across a little snow. It turns out that it was quite a lot of snow and after about 4 miles of going up a hill, the car got stuck several times (once in a ditch and another time in snow that nearly went above the wheels). Mark and Cederic both had fold up shovels, justifying their purchase which was mocked by many at the time.

All in all it took about an hour to dig the car out and to get to the summit, front wheel drive diesel Golf's aren't designed for mountain climbing and we're quite sure that the clutch was on it's last legs. To put it in context the road we went up was good enough to sledge down and we were the only people to attempt going up it.

Coming down the mountain was a little easier, although there was a close call when a deer jumped out in front of the car about 10 meters in front before bounding down the hill showing us how it's done. When we got to the bottom we found several herds of deer at the road side who were probably mocking us the whole time.

We then briefly visited a Dam which looked like it should be part of a James Bond set, and we stopped here for a late lunch and got some energy back.

The next part of the journey involved fast empty single lane roads around the mountains, everyone was a winner here, Cederic and Martin both got to take lots of photos, and Mark got to drive fast. We stopped several times for photos involving an old castle, an eight foot icicle and some horses dressed as highland cattle.

There was one other stop where we had to say goodbye to one of Cederic's ornaments. Before we left we took his balsa wood ship that he'd built and had spent most of the journey finding a fitting loche to sail it on. We decided upon the imaginatively named Loch Lochy and to make sure it had a good maiden voyage, we set it on fire and then threw rocks at it. It died.

Some hours later we arrived at our hotel on the Isle of Skye, it turns out that it's actually a pub which we now have keys to, things could get messy. The chef is good though, we all ordered the steak pie and when one was put on the table, it was so large that we thought we were all sharing it, but it turns out we had one each. We're not convinced that the steak wasn't actually  Shetland Pony but it was bloody gorgeous!

Scotland!

It's vacation time again, Mark, Martin and Stuart (now known as Cederic as he didn't want us to use his real name) are off to Scotland, more specifically, the Isle of Skye. The end goal is to see the northern lights which is a bit of a gamble, but you have to try these things.

We picked up the hire car last night, we'd booked a Focus and so they gave us a Golf. Mark's only requirement was that it had a real handbrake and not a stupid automatic one, to which the guy at the car rental place confirmed that it was a proper handbrake. The car was fine, the boot space is going to be tight but it had a nice stereo and was practically new, although it took Mark a little while to get it going as he couldn't figure out how to turn off the stupid automatic handbrake thing.

We then went out for a nice curry with Keith and returned to Cederic's house to watch England destroy San Marino. We clearly hadn't thought through the concept of having a curry the night before all sitting in the confines of a car the next day for 8 hours.

An fairly casual start thr next day began by watching the F1 qualifying before looking out of the window to see 3 inches of snow. This could be an interesting journey as the weather people were predicting 15 inches of snow along our way. Still, we didn't panic and went for breakie.

We then tested our tetris skills by getting our luggage into the space. We stocked up on essential items like water, chocolate and a sledge.

The first leg of the journey wasn't too bad, the roads were mostly clear although there was repeated warnings saying "snow plow slow down". So we dashed off in search of this speeding snow plow to help get it to reduce it's speed.

After about 4 hours we reached Hadrian's Wall, although it turned to just be Adrian's concrete wall, so we pushed on to find the real wall. Once there we paid an extortionate fee to look at a wall that is no longer there. They did have some good slopes for the sledge though, it seems the Romans didn't expect an assault by sledge.

After invading England we headed out and soon found ourselves following a police car. However, the 'pol' was missing from their 'police' sign, so it just read 'ice'. It turns out that you're not to flag them down in such circumstances and ask for two 99s and a Tiptop.

Before we left the home land and entered the uncivilised lands of Scotland we stopped for some afternoon tea. Here we lapped up the last of the English traditions by eating lots of cake.

Soon we were in Scotland who clearly were still reeling from their defeat against Wales and every other nation ever in every sport ever. We arrived in Stirling where we were to spend the night. First night holiday rules apply, so we're about to go out and get stupidly drunk. Ironically thus is the one thing the Scottish may beat us at.

Vietnam - Epilogue

Today is our last day. We woke up on the train heading back to Saigon after a decentish sleep all things considered. They really didn't build these beds with Europeans in mind.

Once in Saigon, normallity resumed; the constant sound of motorcycle horns, the hot sticky weather and the constant pestering of street vendors. If there was a competition for who'd said "No thank you" the most, then we'd have won it this holiday.

Back at the hotel and the staff said that they'd missed us, apparently they'd forgotten we were away and got a little worried yesterday. It was good to see their smiling faces though :)

Today's mission is to get some legroom seats for the flight home, it's slightly longer than on the way out at a hefty 13 hours, and neither of us fancy that in economy.

We asked the hotel to call them up, but the airline said that we needed to visit the office, so we had a quick trip over there. After lots of keyboard tapping we were told that we couldn't reserve anything. We could buy another ticket for $850 though - I don't think so. So they just put a note against our names with our request and that we were tall and we'll try again at the airport.

One of the goals for this holiday that Sam gave us was to eat Pho. It's everywhere, and how Tim has avoided it this long is a miracle in itself. Sam informed us that it's pronouced "fur" so Tim ordered it and after repeating himself 3 times the woman corrected him that it's called Pho, I guess the clue is in the name. Anyway the Pho/Fur was good.

We've been trying to buy some keepsakes, but the city is oddly un-touristy. Sure you can buy sunglasses and a key ring, but that's about it. Oh unless you want a t-shirt with some cheesy phrase written on it. I think the Saigon tourist board need to get abroad more and tap into the market :)

We're just winding away the hours now, our flight isn't until midnight, and we're pretty much packed, so we're just finding things to do to pass the time.

Mark went for another massage, Tim couldn't face it as his ribs were still aching from his CIA operation.

We felt like an Indian for our last meal, Tim had seen a place called Ba Ba's which was also recommended, however, we couldn't find it again so went to some dodgy Indian instead where the woman had to borrow the menu to copy out our orders. The food was nice enough though.

We made it to the airport with all four wheels still on the taxi this time and managed to get good legroom seats again. Considering it was a 13½ hour flight, it wasn't too bad and we both managed to get some sleep. The same can't be said for our luggage though which apparently is still sat on the runway in Saigon as the crew forgot to put any of the planes cases on board!

Tim immediately checked the small print of his insurance for what compensation can be had, and got straight onto the internet to find his rights :)

Well that's it for this holiday, we had a great time and I hope you enjoyed reading. For those that we met on our travels and are reading this, thanks for making it special. Thanks for reading, see you next time.

Mark & Tim

Saying our goodbyes to the great staff at the hotel

Saying our goodbyes to the great staff at the hotel

Saying our goodbyes to the great staff at the hotel