4 month recap

We've been traveling for a little over 4 months now so we are officially half way through our trip. I thought I'd do a little re-cap for anyone who is interested

* We have visited 13 countries so far (17 if you count the airports like Ewen does) and we still have 5 more countries to hit (and 2 to return to).

* So far we have taken 8,904 photos split between 163 folders on our computer totaling 21.8 gigabytes... if we keep up this rate we will have over 17,000 photos by the time we get home!

* We have purchased more souviners than i can count and have packed them into 12 boxes and 1 tube and so far all boxes, apart from two, have arrived safely in Australia. I think the two missing are from Vietnam and Cambodia so i apologise in advance if someone misses out on their present, you can blame the respective postal services.

* We are both sick of all of our clothes and are hanging out for winter so we can ditch all of our summer stuff and start afresh (i know this won't happen but we can dream)

* My absolute favourite place we have traveled so far: Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland. Paris is a very close second but i am completely in love with Lauterbrunnen. Waking up and looking out the window i could see three waterfalls, various cliff faces and a snow covered mountain. What can beat that in the morning!! And that's just what i could see out of my window, it was nothing compared with what you could see walking around outside. I definitely recommend a trip to Lauterbrunnen to everybody! You will love it i guarantee it! Just remember to pack warm clothes, we kind of let the team down on that respect and resorted to wearing the same jumpers and pants (me wearing leggings under my pants too) for several days in a row.

* Hostels slept in: So far we have stayed in approximately 57 hostels all in varying degrees of standards.

* Top 5 foods on our trip so far:

•  Stuffed peppers (capsicums) in Turkey. They were stuffed with this delicious red rice.

• Gelati in Italy usually goes without saying i suppose but I'm mentioning it because if Ewen would let me i would eat nothing but gelati when I'm in Italy. Top three flavours are cherry, strawberry & green apple.

• Rosti in Switzerland (in particular in Lauterbrunnen) this is a grated potato dish served with a variety of extras. we always had ours with bacon, cheese, onion & a fried egg. best meals ever! out of 5 nights in Lauterbrunnen we both had rosti four nights of our stay.

• Freshly squeezed orange juice in Turkey, technically not a food i suppose but it was delicious and dirt cheap and always fresh. the cheapest we found was only 1 Lira each for the most delicious ice cold orange juice of your life

• Cao Lou, this is a pork noodle dish in Vietnam. It was my food of choice when we were in Hoi An.

* Most disappointing food, kebabs in Turkey. The best kebab i have ever had is still at the Turkish Kitchen in Bendigo. Kebabs in Turkey were dry, flavourless and most had chips in them...

* Initially we took some pretty useless things on this trip which we have slowly got rid of as the trip has progressed. I took a couple of dresses which were never worn, if a dress cant be washed with everything else you own and thrown in the dryer afterwards  it is useless when backpacking. also for the first two months i carried around two pairs of leggings & a 2 long sleeved tops none of which was ever worn, so i ditched one of each (although I'm regretting that after our recent 7 days in Switzerland). Sandals were a nice idea, and i bought some really pretty ones with me but i have only worn them 2 or 3 times. you pretty much live in thongs & runners. Makeup, i only carried this around for about 3 weeks before sending it all home. It was far too hot in Vietnam and Cambodia and now i just don't see the point in wearing it while traveling. travel nick nacks like a fold up hairbrush (mine broke in our first week here and for about a month afterwords i was using just the rubber brush part) and a fold up toothbrush, impossible to clean, toothpaste seemed to seep out of its pores when i wasn't looking and next time i would open it it would have dried up toothpaste all over it again.

* Best stuff we packed, definitely the laptop. Comes in handy for booking accommodation, looking up places we are headed to next, watching movies when bored or tired, keeping in touch with everyone back home and storing all of our photos. definitely a must have for us! also good shoes, after about 2 and a half months i sent back my trendy sketchers and invested in some (expensive) practical shoes for walking around in and since have not had any blisters. was definitely worth the expense to get some good quality shoes as you spent pretty much all day everyday on your feet. Stuff sacks, we each have 4 of these. I use one for underwear, one for tops, one for pants and one for dirty washing. this makes it really easy to find what I'm looking for, especially when in dorm rooms and trying not to make too much noise. They are also basically sound proof, much better than storing your stuff in plastic bags. Our silk sleeping sacks, these are great for when its a little chilly or when the sheets look a bit gross OR like us you are too cheap to pay for them at hostels that don't provide them free of charge. there is dozens of other great things we have with us but i wont bore you with those (oh actually a first aid kit with panadol and cold and flu medicine AND a gastro kit is a must have).