Emily

16 May

Emily now a certified deep sea diver!! She passed the written test with 100% which is quite rare as there is a lot of science and maths tables you have to work out for diving depths. Emily describes her experience learning to dive:

5 February 2004

A few days later and Emily's still in Nepal but moved on to Pokhora in the Annerpurna region of Nepal. These are a few photos from a trek she went on today. Tomorrow she's paragliding and then doing a 6 hour horse trek in the jungle!

13 March 2004

Emily's in Bombay in India but is due to leave tonight for Thailand and Cambodia. She's heard lots of horror stories about about this region so she's a bit aprehensive. We'll keep our fingers crossed until she reports again.

Emily started attending Junior Church when she was 3 years old. Over twenty years later she still.takes an active role at Junior Church - taking part in all our services, concerts and productions. This year she's left her job teaching in a local primary school and gone on a round the world tour - follow her progress here . . .

28 April

Emily's now in Bangkok. She's been doing work with Cambodian orphans and they dressed up in traditional costumes and put on a little show. Most of their parents had been murdered by Pol Pott in the late 1970's. When Emily gets home she hopes to do a lot of fund-raising for the orphange where she worked. As for tonight - she's going out on the tiles to see the Lady Boyz in action and will take close notes for Steve Moss! Lots of photographs from her time in Cambodia:

12 May

Emily's totally partied out after her very lazy week in Ko Pangan. She's now moved onto Ko tao to do her PADI diving course. It will take her 5 days of theory work, using all of the equipment and then diving to qualify. She's got a beautiful apartment right on the beach with huge glass french windows and a fantastic view from the bed.

27 May

Emily arrives in Sydney and it's COLD - 18 degrees celcius!

Some pictures from Emily in Australia - the first three are from Blue Mountain where Emily visited Fetherdale Wildlife Sanctuary. The location of the fourth picture is obvious . . ! !

I have never done anything so amazing in my life. It all completely goes against the grain - from jumping into the deep sea with a 10kg tank of oxygen on your back and hoping that you float to breathing 18 metres underwater through a tiny pipe that you know is your only life line. I seriously paniced when I first had to breath through regulator. I was so scared. The instructor being a macho ozi hunk just pulled me under even though I was gripping onto him for my very last breath of air. Just like with my sky dive, I thought I was going to die. Another difficulty is equalizing the air spaces in your body so they can adjust to the pressure of the water around you. These air spaces are your ears, sinuses and mask. It really hurts your ears and if you don't equalize quickly, your ear drums will rupture. Again, being 18ft down with a ruptured ear drum is not good- especially if it bleeds (sharks).

But once you've sorted all of that out its incredible. The only sound is the bubbles of your air tank, so its really relaxing focussing on your breathing. You have to keep it slow and long to prolong the air in your tank and also to keep your buoyoncy. I started to panic from a fish and forgot my breathing. I was taking in air so quick and short that I was rising really fast. Paul had to grab my leg quickly and pull me down. If I would have carried on - either my lungs would have blown up or got nitrogen poisoning as well as burst ear drums!

We also got attacked by a nesting trigger fish. They are very teritorial, 1 metre in length, with huge front fangs. One held onto my friends fins (flippers) and they now have holes in them from the bite!

Anyways, there are so many dive sites around here (hot dive spot in the world) that I am going to stay here for a bit longer. Tomorrow, I am diving in a sharks nesting ground. Don't know how I will cope being my first dive on my own since qualifying.

20 August

Emily writes: Well, its been a great few months of fun and frolics in Australia but immigration are finally kicking me out on the 24th of August So roll on NZ for a bit more of Action Emmy! Am staying in Cairnes at the mo in a really posh new backpackers resort called Guilligans. We have ceramic crockery, swipe card keys and one pound meals! There's no beach here but a gorgeous man made lagoon with waterfountains, wooden decking and lots of sexy life guards.

Unfortunately there were deceivingly beautiful empty beaches as far as the eye could see.... we decided to do some naked sunbathing only to be bitten to death by bloody sand flies! My glorious tan now has chicken pox. Grrrrr.

25 August

Emily has arrived in Auckland, New Zealand. She's researching her options for travelling - hiring a camper van, kiwi bus or stray bus (which goes more off the beaten track). We're looking forward to hearing about her plans soon . . .

I'm still travelling with the Manchester loons- Caz, Nancy and Vicky and we've bumped into heaps of friends as we've made our way up the coast. We've just returned from Cape tribulation (where barrier reef meets the rainforest) where we got to look at lots of dangerous plants, oversized trees, mating tree snakes and frogs. Best of all we went on a croc cruise and were so close to huge salties.

Stinking and starving we arrived in Vietnam, where on the menu you could have frog, goat, dog pig or veg. My veg was a plate of boiled Pak choi. Am now in Hanoi tho, with internet, shops and itallian restaurants and am sooooooool happy! Am doing an over night boat trip, a home stay and of course visiting the war tunnels. Hope to do a dive along the way too. So, I'm fine now. Glad to be out of Laos.

Eventually we got to the only bridge to Vietnam and........ it was closed for 2 weeks for repairs. With no food and wet tents, the witch had got her revenge! All of the truckers in Laos were also there, drunk and shitting every where. You could not squat behind anything and had an audience of perverts watching whilst you stepped in truck drivers poo! Didn't sleep all nite, due to truckers, trying to skip the cues and nearly bashing into local houses etc! We eventually walked over the bridge and got tuck tucks to the boarder today!

In the morning we then discovered that the 40 tonne truck had sunk. We dug, put down caterpillar trax etc. but it would not shift. After 5 hours, we flagged down a village tractor who churned up the road to pull us out. Consequently, we completely destroyed the bhuddist grouns too. Then, the witch cut our fuel tank - every 2 yards it conked out. There are no spare parts for trucks in Laos. Our driver had to cut the fuel tank, fill up a 5 litre oil container with petrol, syphen out the fuel and hold the temporary tank on the ROOF of the truck! All of the villagers waved and laughed, like the circus had come to town!

Anyway, the heavens opens and as in forest gump, all through the night it rained and rained and rained. In the middle of nowhere with no hospitals around, constant sheet lightening and thunder that sounded like bombs going off. Did not feel safe in a metal poled tent with fork lightening too. I was soooo scared, and then the rain started coming through the tent. Stayed awake all night, with the constant strobe lighting of the storm. I thought i was going to die

Finally crossed the border into Lao and started to climb a remote national park mountainous area. Unfortunately the camp site didn't happen so we had to stop after 5 hours of driving on a nettled, thistled, uneven ground with a hand made 'Blair witch' project totem pole on it. Thought it was a bit weird and didn't want to stop there. Turns out it was an ancient Bhuddist Ritual site...

I sailed the Whitsuns with an amazing group of people on board and ex racing maxi yaught. i did another dive there, but was slightly disappointed by the reef. Looked like a coral grave yard and there weren't half as many fish as in Thailand. I guess i'm feel lucky now that at least i got to see all of that in Koh Tao.

30 September

Emily goes caving! The picture shows Emily in Waitomo Caves. She says it was really scarey with several absails in the into the pitch darkness of creepy caves. The only light was from glow worms which actually turned out to be maggots and the stuff that was glowing was their poo! There was also rock climbing and crawling through tiny holes with freezing water up to her face. Sounds really frightening!

3 October

New Zealand's highest bungy jump - falling 143 meters at 200 mph in 8 seconds - and our Emily did it! Have a look at the pictures on the right! Later the same day Emily spent the afternoon in a deer park where they filmed the battle part of The Two Towers. She saw bore, yaks, bisen and ostriches.

20 October

Goodbye NZ! Emily is off to Fuji and we won't be hearing from her for a while because internet connections or pretty sparse, especially on the more remote islands. She expects to make contact when she arrives in the United States in November.

19 December 2004

Emily arrives back home in Bladon safe and sound in time for Christmas (after stopping off in Germany on her way back). She's been travelling around the world for almost a year. Welcome home Emily!