FIRST NEWS FROM THE EXPEDITION (extracted from Rebecca Lang's Facebook page)

Rebecca and Mike have landed! And she "appears to be the only white chick in Padang, judging from my instant fan club...the kids are gorgeous and the people are very friendly. The weather is stinking hot (natch) and I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever had noodles for breakfast. Padang is lively but not quite what I expected....

Lots of rubbish everywhere, very smelly, the beach is mostly rocks and the shore is almost completely taken up with old fishing canoes and fish drying racks, so very fragrant. Our room has a handy outside light shining in, so at night time it's like orbiting the sun (and just as hot!). Thank goodness for the air con.I think Mike is still in shock.

We catch up with the crew tomorrow morning, so today we're just wandering around taking in the sights and smells about those smells...there's rubbish everywhere! No bins as far as the eye can see. Oh, and did I mention the manky-looking cat (poor thing) with the interesting looking skin disease sleeping on the common room sofa outside our room? I refrained from patting him, poor little thing. There's no fat cats around here!

And you really don't want to hear about the loo that only has a hose and no paper. Needless to say we've cracked open the camping loo roll early".