Then it was off to the house where the wedding would take place, an old mansion owned by Jorge’s family. There was much cleaning and running around going on so I sat a watched.

The next day it was time for the wedding, the ceremony was in some weird foreign language but sounded lovely and the groom seemed to get quite emotional about it.

Oh and the Spanish won the other thing, not entirely sure what the rules were but it seemed to be some kind of mass brawl.

Rosko recommends: A long and happy marriage for Jorge and Marta.

Food of the stay: There is so much to choose from, the constant plates of nibbles at the wedding were all fantastic, I just wish I had kept the menu so I could find them again.

Met a guy called Valentijn who isn’t Spanish (in fact he’s Flemish) either but we had an entertaining day looking for a ‘traditional tapas bar’. Valentijn insisted on asking around and finally enlisted the help of a local, who, it just so happened, turned out to be an English bloke called Howell. He took us to a number of bars and we spent an enjoyable evening drinking beer and eating tapas/racione.

Next we wandered around the city and ended up, on my insistence, at the Casa de Campo. Then finally we went to the Museum Reina Sofia to check out that painting, you know the really famous one (no not the Mona Lisa by Da Vinci or Van Gogh’s Sunflowers), Guernica by Picasso – at least this one is a decent size, not like the Mona Lisa. Now I’m not a big fan of modern art or impressionism so I was expecting the museum to stuffed full of childlike drawings to fantastical creatures with three eyes, and it didn’t disappoint. That said there was some decent stuff as well, usually by Salvador Dali or Picasso.

Rosko recommends: Well there are lots of old buildings, great bars and all sorts; but what you really have to see is THAT painting.

Food of the stay: Squid sandwiches are what you eat in Madrid, it’s unusual to get good seafood so far from the sea.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that England won, I’m sure that the whole of England was convinced that we could win the world cup after that performance. I wasn’t though, and was shouted down by someone who claimed to be football coach, apparently Slovenia are a good team.

I didn’t do very much here as trying to do anything during the world cup turned out to be far too expensive. Mostly what I did was wander around the beach and watch the games at the pub or in the Hostel.
The next game turned out to be South Korea v Uruguay, the stadium was unbelievably empty for a first knockout round game and people couldn’t give away tickets out the front. It’s a shame because it turned out to be a pretty good game.

On the Monday I jumped into a car with a couple of other people staying at the hostel and we went off to Jeffreys Bay, more beach and a bit of surfing and suddenly it was too late to get back to Port Elizabeth so I spent the night there and got a shared taxi back in the morning (the car was heading further down the coast).

Rosko recommends: Port Elizabeth is a beautiful place, with great beaches. Just go when the prices are more reasonable.

Food of the stay: Mostly pretty average, I did find a lovely little cafe called Tiffany’s that did a great breakfast.

The stadium itself was pretty cool, but hadn’t been finished in time for the world cup; something we all realised when it started to rain and huge parts of the stadium got soaked.

Argentina had already qualified so it wasn’t the exciting game I had hoped for. Still Messi was playing so it wasn’t a complete loss either and I got the chance to see Maradona swanning around the place like he owned it.

After the game the bus took us back to the airport where I had 6 hours to kill before my flight to Port Elizabeth. It gave me plenty of time to pick up a ticket for the England game against Slovenia that day.

Public transport in South Africa is even worse than in Australia so I was really fortunate to meet Memorie who would drive to a mall before she went to work and pick me up after work. She also introduced me to her friends who took me to watch the South Africa v Uruguay game at Sun City casino. On the weekend I went on a guided tour of Soweto which was very interesting even if Soweto now bears very little resemblance to how it was, the museum gives you an excellent background on the uprising. Afterwards Memorie and I went to Zoo Lake to eat at Moyo’s which was a completely different experience.

The other thing I discovered is that it was really easy to get tickets to the matches, the day I arrived I was offered tickets to the England v Algeria game, I couldn’t go but I decided to pick up a ticket to England v Slovenia the day after the game between Argentina and Greece.

Rosko recommends: Go eat a Moyo’s, the one at Zoo Lake is great but apparently there is a better one at Melrose Arch. They have a cappella singers wandering around the tables.

Food of the stay: There is way too much fast food in South Africa,the only really African thing I tried was pap, although I did get some biltong as well which was good.

I arrived in time to have a quick rest and watch England’s first game of the world cup against the USA. I was directed down the road to little India where there were a number of good bars showing the game. I couldn’t find the one I wanted to find so ended up further down the road where I ran into Steve, an English guy who lives in Singapore, the bar we were in had stopped serving alcohol (it was midnight there), so he invited me back to his place to watch the game with a couple of tins.

The next few days were a mixture of watching games and wandering the streets, there are some lovely markets but Singapore isn’t cheap and especially not cheap for beer. So I was splashing out a bit when I went with Heidi and an English couple I from the Hostel to Raffles for a Singapore sling. After that, Heidi dragged us to the Holland House where we watched the Dutch play Denmark.

Then finally it was time for my flight to South Africa.

Rosko recommends: Raffles for a Singapore sling in the Long Bar (well you have to don’t you)

Food of the stay: There is excellent Indian cuisine in the little India, and Singapore is the kind of place you can get anything you want.

After arriving in Chau Doc we were taken through the market to the main street where our Hotels were and then pretty much left to fend for ourselves. Chau Doc, while not being on the usual tourist trail, still gets plenty of visitors partly due to the area around it being rich in local culture and recent history. The food is also surprisingly good.

So the next day I rented a motorbike and headed out to Sam mountain to take in the views and the sunset. After returning I had time enough to eat before I went to catch the night bus to Ho Chi Min City.

To my surprise the minibus that turned up wasn’t taking me to the bus station, it was taking me all the way to Phnom Penh. The winding, uneven roads and regular stops meant that my chances of sleeping were nil. Once I got to Ho Chi Min City, I picked up a taxi to the airport to catch my flight to Singapore.

Rosko Recommends: There is so much that is good about this area, although there is plenty of tourism Chau Doc doesn’t have the constant badgering that other parts of Vietnam suffer from.

Food of the Stay: For the life of me I can’t remember the name of the restaurant but it is an unassuming place that you could easily miss but it is considered one of the best restaurants in southern Vietnam (and it lives up to the reputation).

The next morning I took the boat to Battambang, which is an incredible experience. The boat itself isn’t very comfortable, but you have to remember that it is also the local transport for the local river villagers, so we glided through many floating villages and were joined by most of our journey by a couple of monks. The boat broke down a couple of times but the driver managed to get it going again while the locals kept us from getting tangled in the reeds. At over 7 hours the whole trip takes a long time though.

Battambang itself is a large fishing town with an enormous market and plenty of French colonial architecture once I had spent a bit of time wandering around the town I hired a motorbike and headed up to the top of the hill for evening views of the rice paddies and to watch the sun set. After that, it was back into town for dinner and the night bus to Phnom Penh.

We arrived in Phnom Penh at around 5.30 in the morning and I sat down to wait for the booking office to open for my next boat trip. This time down the Mekong river to …, the first part of which is through

Cambodia cruising uncomfortably down the middle of the Mekong where we can see practically nothing.

Rosko recommends: The boat trip from Siem Reap to Battambang is amazing but very, very long.
Food of the stay: Dog is definitely an acquired taste