Youthful.Cultured.Creative We returned back to planet earth after an incredible week or so spent amongst towering volcanoes, ashen grey plains, lunar craters and bubbling lakes of Easter Java. With a week left on our visa and still with Sumatra to see our time in the great cities of West Java was limited to just a […]
Yogyakarta: Shaping and hammering 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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Transient.Varied.Stunning. With five days left on our visa I managed to convince Sarah to get back on a bike for another tour, albeit on a rented bike this time and in no ways a rival to our Vietnamese adventure. The main draws of the Thakhek Loop is the opportunity to drive through yet more stunning
Thakhek Loop: Building blocks Read More »
Steamy.Un-relenting.Thrilling We convinced the cooks to start early so we could dine on the glorious Sapa breakfast buffet one last time before catching the painfully early bus to the town of Dien Bien Phu, heading in the direction of Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Laos to its mates. Our early morning suffering was shared with Iida,
Luang Namtha: Offers of opium Read More »
Fast.Eerie.Foggy. We made it from Phong Nha to Ha Long Bay on the back of the Honda Win with only a few little hiccups along the way. Hiccups such as a puncture, then a ripped tyre. Running out of petrol (yes that did happen again.) The bike keeling over off its stand and damaging an
Ha Long Bay: Paddling abilities Read More »
Mysterious.Magical.Majestic The journey North from Hoi An was the first of many on the back of our trusty Honda Win, complete with all black paint job and red star decal (because me and Sarah where just not happy until we could share our new-found love of communism with the world, it’s already attracted many approving
Phong Nha: Hot chocolate & whiskey Read More »
We left Dalat bunged with a cold but full of optimism for our next destination Hoi An, a place we have yet to hear a bad review about. We broke the journey up a little by stopping at the entirely Russian dominated Nha Trang, a beach resort city that was nice for the night we
Hoi An: Freedom to roam Read More »
I’ll be honest, when it’s my turn to write the blogs (it’s usually two at a time) I tend to fall a little behind, it’s difficult to find the time to write a short essay every week when there’s sights to be seen, people to meet and beers to be drunk. This post should really
Sen Monorom: Illusion of green Read More »
Congested.Dizzying.Sobering We headed to Phnom Penh for the second time since arriving here in Cambodia, except this time we where to spend some time in the capital before deciding if we have enough time to venture East before our visa expires. After an eventful bus journey from Kampot where the coach tyre directly underneath us
Phnom Penh: Leaving sunlight behind Read More »
Lazy.Tropical.Isolated. Our time in Sihanoukville was spilt into two sections, the first being on the mainland and the second on an island about an hour off the coast. When in Koh Kong we pre-booked a place to stay in Sihanoukville called ‘backpacker heaven’, which turned out to be one of the best places we’ve stayed
Sihanoukville: Above the sea Read More »
Tropical.Watery.Un-touched. Granted, Koh Kong might at first sound like another rural destination that you’ve never heard of but you may or may not find it more recognisable as the home of the Cardamom mountains. To be honest we knew very little except that we miss the mountains and we both like cardamom. Especially in steaming
Koh Kong: The right mixture Read More »
Our trip to Ayuthayya was intended to be a stop over somewhere halfway between Bangkok and Cambodia, to avoid having to get up at a respectable time for the bus journey to the border, it was indeed a fascinating place but things did not quite go to plan with regards to geography, more of that
Ayuthayya: Fibreglass monks Read More »
Apologies if you are getting bored of reading about Bangkok, even I must admit that it is growing tedious writing about the same place. Things that were new and exciting have become commonplace for us now on our third visit to the city after almost a month spent here. With all that said it in
Bangkok Pt. III: Silicon chaos Read More »