After a nice long 9.5 hours in flight, we finally made it back to Brisbane alive. It was a delight meeting Tammy and Elli at the arrival gates. Elli was excited to see us and almost got bowled over by another persons suitcase while running towards us. We're so happy to be home and with Elli again - the joy is indescribable. Being the helpful little girl she is, she helped pull my suitcase all the way to the car!

So we arrive home and notice that our yard has been mowed and all the weeds that lined our path are now gone! Looking in the fridge we notice a whole heap of food (including BACON!!!) and alcohol and a note from Ed welcoming us back home. Turns out he did the yard (I initially suspected my Mum or Dad), and we survived an inspection from the real estate that we didn't know about before we left! So big THANK YOU to Ed!

Not sure much else to say, but I'm straight back into work unfortunately. We want to have a BBQ at our place sometime soon, probably for Elli's birthday. If anyone wants to come around and have a look at any of our 2600 photos we got printed, feel free :) We also have an hour of video footage but most of that is probably shit.

In summary, we had an awesome time! A big "thank you" to:

• my Uncle Brian (aka Skippy) for giving us lots of detailed information on what to do and how to do it
• Ed & Andrea for housesitting and giving us travel advice
• my Mum and Dad, Nee's Mum and Dad, and my Nana for looking after Elli while we were gone!
• Lonely Planet Guide - without you we would be stew
• Royal Brunei Airlines - for giving us lots of nice food and not crashing the plane
• and finally Nee - my beautiful wife - without you I wouldn't have had such a fun and sometimes irritating travel partner :)

Also, I wanted to record the many different modes of transport we took in our two weeks - I'm pretty sure I have listed all here.

1. aeroplane
2. taxi
3. private car
4. tuk-tuk (Bangkok-style)
5. tuk-tuk (Phuket-style)
6. elephant
7. speedboat
8. longtail boat
9. tourist boat (in Bangkok, almost like a slow ugly CityCat!)
10. travel train
11. subway train
12. local city bus
13. long distance bus (coach)
14. sawngthaew (a larger version of Phuket-style tuk-tuk)
15. scooter
16. kayak
17. walking (and occasionally running)
18. elevator, escalator and travellator
19. swimming/snorkelling (ok, I'm really scraping the barrel now)

The cheapest (apart from walking of course) would definitely have to be (government) bus, followed closely by the travel train and metered taxis. The tuk-tuks can be cheap (mostly in Chiang Mai), but being a tourist they often try to overcharge you. The metered taxis in Bangkok are the bomb since they are dirt cheap and air-conditioned! The tuk-tuks in Bangkok are not worth the trouble (scammers and overchargers, not to mention the hazardous pollution!).

Well that ends my Thailand blog entries - now I'll probably go back to my regular 2 or 4 posts a month. Hopefully I can get some photos up on the net (or even better, by camera and cds will be returned!!) to show some of our good times.

For the record, I didn't buy much while we were over there, only getting myself two shirts and a key-ring. I didn't even get a massage after all of that! Maybe one day we will go back and do some of the things we missed out on this time.