As soon as you step of the aircraft after landing in Darwin, it just hits you. The temperature is around 36 c here and with the humidity there’s a much more tropical feel than the cooler spring we left behind in Perth. Darwin is located in the Northern Territories (NT) and lies right on the North coast, enclosed by the Arafura Sea above and by thousands upon thousands of square miles of outback nothingness below; although NT covers 20% of this massive continent, it is home to only 1% (about 200,000) of the total population of Australia. You get a [View Full Entry]

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Sunday (6th Oct) saw us drive 300km or so south from Perth down to the Margaret River area. To help us find our way, we stopped at a service station to buy a map but it turned out to be a pointless exercise. A map of WA is pretty much made up of 99% of vast outback nothingness and 1% civilisation. (I hadn’t realised that of the 2 million people who live in WA, 1.5m are in Perth with the rest spread very, very thinly across the rest of this massive state). I am over simplifying a bit (but not much) [View Full Entry]

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A 6am start on Sunday to Singapore Airport after about three hours sleep wasn’t ideal but at least United won! A 5 hour flight into Perth passed quickly; Qantas is a great airline and the in flight entertainment has hundreds of films TV shows and albums and you can pause and restart at leisure. The first thing we noticed on landing in Perth was that the temperature was much cooler than India and the Far East - around 22 degrees. It’s a bit sickening to think that this is spring here and the locals think it’s cold. I was desperate for [View Full Entry]

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We encountered our first airport delay at Kyoto due to some last minute maintenance on the plane. Luckily, it was only about two hours and being in the lounges where you have free access to food, drink, wi fi internet etc is a great advantage. It also allowed me to catch up with this blog - it doesn’t write itself, you know!! We’d worked out that the best way to get to the airport was the express train; it’s really well organised as your ticket tells you not only the departure time, platform etc but also where to stand on the [View Full Entry]

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We departed Osaka on Sunday 23rd Sep and caught the Express train to Kyoto. The train service here is superb and really cheap - it cost 400 yen (about £1.70) each for a journey which took over an hour. This way of travelling gives a great view into how people live in Japan as you pass through towns and villages and what the countryside \ housing is like etc. The carriages were really busy as it was (another) public holiday and being the gentleman that I am, I gave up my seat so an elderly Japanese couple could sit down [View Full Entry]

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It’s uncanny how soon you can detect that you’re going to really like a place; with Japan it happened in the Arrivals Hall at Osaka Airport and I’m not sure it can happen any more quickly than that. Departing Beijing had proved a bit of a nightmare earlier in the day. The taxi to the airport had to grind its way out of the city to get on the Airport Express Highway, which then turned out to be even slower than the city traffic. It was effectively a 25k traffic jam all the way there and then absolute chaos when trying [View Full Entry]

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I know what you’re thinking - he can’t continue to keep coming up with these hilarious and innovative song related titles for each blog entry; well, I can’t guarantee it but -great news - I’ll try and, as if that isn’t enough excitement, I’m also going to endeavour to add a video clip or two. Calm down!! The flight from Hong Kong to Beijing was great fun. We’d made the most of the Cathay Pacific Club Lounge where they have a superb Noodle Bar serving delicious and spicy food and you just help yourself to drinks. Another good thing about this [View Full Entry]

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An early start (up at 3.40 am) on Tuesday 11th Sept to get the 7.00am flight from Delhi to Hong Kong and oh, what a contrast between the two places. We had a superb time across the North of India and some unforgettable experiences. It was great to arrive in HK though and it feels like a completely different century over here. We’ve been here twice before (the last time seven years ago) and I’d forgotten just what an incredible place it is. Pardon me if this is stating the obvious but Hong Kong is made up of the island itself [View Full Entry]

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Saturday 8th Sept saw us have a leisurely morning in the Jas Vilas, Jaipur before being picked up at midday by Gurginda. A three hour drive across country and we arrived at our penultimate destination in India - the Neemrana Fort Palace in Neemrana village. This is an incredible place to stay; the fort was built in 1464 and had fallen into disrepair over the centuries. It was privately acquired in 1986 and carefully restored to its original state whilst converting it in to a superb hotel at the same time. It has 45 suites, every one unique. Some are in [View Full Entry]

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It was now time for us to visit the third part of India’s Golden Triangle, Jaipur (Delhi and Agra make up the other two points). We’ve pretty much had the same driver all the time we’ve been cities (he stays in guest houses to wait for us as it’s too far for him to go home between legs) and he’s called Gujinder Singh - I only tell you this as it nearly works with my joke about the Indian karaoke singer - Gerupta Singh. (Yep, still using the old material even over here!!). As we drove east out of Agra, [View Full Entry]

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