Alboppo

My next day in Tokyo started with a trip on the metro to the Shibuya are of the city. I had previously looked at the map of the metro and determined it was much like a bowl of multicoloured spaghetti and chickened out of doing it by myself so I was happy to be going on the metro with Michie so I could try and understand it. We took the short walk from the hotel to the nearest metro station and set off for Shibuya. We arrived after around 15 minutes and I had a much clearer understanding of how to find my way around the metro station! When you exit the station there is a statue of a dog - Hachikō - I had never heard of this dog, but, he is quite famous in ... read more

We left the hotel and drove to the coast to catch a boat to Gili Air, the journey took a couple of hours and the roads were really winding. We grabbed our belongings and boarded the boat. The sea was quite calm so it made for a nice crossing and it didn’t take long. We were advised that if the tide was low, the boat would have to drop us a fair distance away so we’d get a horse and cart for the last bit of our journey to the hotel. Luckily, the tide was high enough for the boat to take us directly to the hotel. we were a little early, so the rooms weren’t ready for us to check in so we sat in the bar and ordered early lunch. The rest of the ... read more

I flew into Bali from Kuala Lumpur on what was a very turbulent flight. I got a bit braver than normal on the approach to Bali Denpasar airport and took some photos out of the window - very unusual for me to do that, but I did get some cracking photos of the mountains poking through the heavy cloud. We circled a few times before we were able to land and then on the approach to the runway, I actually started to wonder where it was! For quite some time it looked like we were going to land in the sea!! Needless to say, we didn’t. I went down the steps from the plane and was greeted by the most amazing sunset. Beautiful pink and orange skies. I was out of the airport and in to ... read more

For those of you who were keeping a track of my adventures prior to me going to Sepilok, I apologise for the silence for the last 2 months. I spent May and June volunteering at Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre and whilst completing the volunteer programme at Sepilok we were asked not to blog due to confidentiality. If anyone is interested in my time spent working with the orangutans I’d be happy to answer any questions if you contact me directly. I’ve had so many photo opportunities, I literally have thousands of photos - there are a select few posted here, but rest assured I have many more to bore you with should you want to see them! In summary, I can confirm I had the best time of my life whilst working with the orangutans, experiences ... read more

We set off in the morning for a walk into the local town to see the Tibetan way of life and to also make our way to the monastery. Walking through the town it was so quiet, with very few people around. Kandol talked us through the types of buildings on the road into the village. In traditional Tibetan houses the ground floor is for animals and the families live on the first floor. Walking through the streets, we saw a number of houses with tiny doors that even I would need to duck to get through! it was explained to us that the houses were built this way to keep the zombies out and they can’t get that low down to get in the house! We walked down a cobbled hill with a view of ... read more