Hello from Cairns!

Well, got here this morning after a quite horrid flight. Cathay Pacific's cut back on the number of flights so are packing them in like sardines, AND their seats get smaller and narrower each time we fly AND the air hostesses are increasingly learning lots of passive-aggressive techniques and it's genuinely very NOT NICE. But we got here without incident and Big Brother's recent airline adventures teach us that we should be grateful for that alone!

AND then our hotel turns out to be quite unlike what it was in the brochure and we discover that they have several hotels with the same name in roughly the same area and lure you in with photos of their most up-market one and, once you're here, land you with considerably less than what you think you've paid for.

AND then the considerable lack of public transport and the expensiveness of taxis got all sorts of bothersome. HK's sublime public transport spoils us for the rest of the world, doesn't it!

AND then, can you believe it?, we're finding it surprisingly cold. Tropical North Queensland? Shock, huh! Guess it's because we're coming directly from HK's recent appalling heat. You'd think our bodies would be welcoming this reprieve but instead we're shivering. Most odd.

But, looking for a silver lining here, at least neither Keith nor I got stopped at Customs coming in this time. Remember how, our last holiday here, Keith got arrested for possessing a small quantity of ginseng? Very silly indeed but it meant we were really quite anxious this trip, and Keith even tossed his chewing gum convinced they'd call it "food" and he'd be accused of smuggling.

So that's us! Keith's now suggesting that we go have massages at the nightmarkets ... and that sounds exactly what the doctor ordered!

Hope you're having a great holiday too!