We arrived into Bali early after our flight from Makassar to spend the day in the town of Kuta where we strolled along the busy high street filled with souvenir shops, ate our weight in frozen yoghurt (no regrets) and wandered up and down the beach filled with trainee surfers. That night we returned to […]
Mt. Ijen: Huge Bite Read More »
Unique.Colourful.Brutal. Just a warning that amongst the images of coffins and skulls this blog will contain images of mass animal slaughter which you might want to skip. We landed into Makassar on the southern most tip of one of Sulawesis spiral arms and after pottering around for a day, hopped onto the surprisingly comfortable overnight
Sulawesi: Red feet Read More »
Bloody.Hard.Work As we hadn’t done any real physical exertion for a while and after the deep disappointment of not being able to climb mount Kinabalu we set our sights on climbing the volcanic summit of Mount Rinjani rising up 3700m from the turquoise waters on the island of Lombok. To set ourselves a challenge
Rinjani & Gili: Non essentials Read More »
First impressions of Bali were good. As we made our way out of the beautiful airport past the intense security checks we were greeted by a friendly man who would take us to our pre-booked guesthouse in Ubud, central Bali. Ubud had been recommended to us by a few people and it’s where we chose
Bali: Different Dishes Read More »
We’d made the decision to explore only the East of Borneo after leaving Brunei. This is mainly because we had the goal of climbing Mt Kinabalu, the highest peak in South East Asia. Also the cheapest flight out of Borneo was from Kota Kinabalu airport! Little did we know that nobody is allowed to climb
Malaysian Borneo: Hidden From View Read More »
Ghostly.Spotless.Prohibited We knew absolutely nothing about Brunei before catching our smooth flight into the capital and only city of note, Bandar Seri Bagawan or simply Bandar. We arrived to find a tidy clean little airport and took a taxi ride towards the centre of possibly the quietest capital city I have ever visited. Everything is
Brunei Darussalam: Old notes Read More »
After a nice few days in beautiful Melaka we over nighted in the rather less beautiful port of Mersing in order to catch the ferry to the island of Pulau Tioman. The ferry TVs were screening a ‘final destination’ while boarding and as we watched the decapitations, impalements and sun bed infernos unfold I couldn’t
Pulau Tioman: Breakfast on the tree Read More »
We left the Cameron Highlands on the very bendy road to the country’s capital of Kuala Lumpur. Our time in the city was split into two halves with the first three days being just me and Chris getting our bearings with the city and then we were joined by my mum (hello mum!) who flew
Kuala Lumpur: All Directions Read More »
On arrival into Melaka we were pleased to find the hotel we had pre-booked was an old Chinese workshop with all its original features, tastefully converted into a lovely base for us for three days. With Chris still in Kuala Lumpur preparing to go to the football it was left to me to guide Mum
Melaka: Across The Streets Read More »
Terraced.Damp.Chokkha We arrived safely on the mainland after an uneventful ferry journey and were whisked off by a taxi who’s drivers bizarre music taste flicked between hard hitting techno and Nsync. We had hoped to make the journey up into the highlands in one day but arrived at our transit stop of Ipoh a
Cameron Highlands: Little lands Read More »
Fresh.Lofty.Tempting Our arrival into Malaysia from Thailand completed the trio of border crossings- over land, air and sea! We’re getting so good at it we actually left Thailand with not a single Thai baht in our pockets, the lovely lady at the port letting us off for being 1 baht short for our plates of
Langkawi: Eery illusion Read More »
On the boat journey from Phi Phi to Ko Lanta we got talking to a local man who told us about his family’s guesthouse on the island. We agreed to check it out and were impressed with the spacious bungalows and swimming pool, he also gave us a good discount so that was us sold.
Ko Lanta: Colours Emerging Read More »
It was a rainy journey from Krabi to Phuket on an old rickety bus. We’d initially been loaded onto a minivan with our bags dumped on the roof without any rain cover so we hastily got off the van and told the driver we wouldn’t be travelling with him. The old rickety bus would do,
Phuket & Phi Phi: With the Spices Read More »
Soaring.Culinary.Damp We flew into a rather grey Krabi and the umbrella we’d hauled back from Myanmar was called into immediate action. Rainfall is becoming less novel for us as time goes on, at one point we had gone five or six months without a single drop but as the seasons change the inevitable deluges have
Krabi: Salt water blues Read More »
Before we go to a new destination we have a quick look online and in our guidebook for accommodation locations and options. This gives us an idea of where to ask around at when we arrive. It was Chris’ turn to do this task before we left to Bagan so it was all in his
Bagan: Balcony Views Read More »
Every now and then whilst travelling it’s blatantly obvious that we are getting hugely overcharged for things in comparison to what a local would pay. We generally spot it straight away and barter the price down if we’re unsure what it should be exactly but in some instances we know it’s a flat rate, everyone
Pyin Oo Lwin: Peacock Pattern Read More »
It says a lot about Mandalay that we left feeling positive about the place given our arrival into the city. 4:30am and we were all questioning why the journey (including the enforced half hour stop at a government food park in the middle of the night) was long enough to warrant being made overnight. We
Mandalay: Melting pot Read More »
I think I often place too much emphasis on the journey and not on the destination when describing our travels but from our point of view the journey has to be as important as the destination or I would have got tired of this travelling malarky 6 months ago. The journey from Yangon (Rangoon) to
Nyaung Shwe: Alternative transport Read More »
Frenetic.Condensed.Revered. Travelling from Kyaiktiyo to Yangon provided us with our first taster of the Myanmar train service. It was a little delayed but we got big comfy seats with lots of leg room, the only problem is it was very hot and very slow. However this did give us the opportunity to gaze at the
Yangon: Borrowed longyi Read More »
Chaotic.Exciting.Golden Our initial plan was to enter Myanmar (or Burma, whichever) via the Thai-Mae Sai/ Burmese-Tachilek border crossing located close to Chiang Rai as this would have been most convenient for us after travelling North in Thailand. However after being told that the border is currently shut we did some research and found that whilst
Kyaiktiyo: Ready to Roll Read More »