Having said goodbye to Cassie and Dave, we headed north to Rio de Janiero. Despite having visited before, being only six hours away (our perception of time has certainly altered this year) we couldn’t resist the temptation of returning to one of our favourite cities in the world. Especially as it would provide the perfect antidote to Sao Paulo, which will go down as one of our least favourite. After a hectic few weeks, we opted to take a little time out and enjoy travelling without moving. It being off-season, we were lucky enough to be able to rent a fantastic [View Full Entry]

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Our flight from Sydney to Buenos Aires was notable for two reasons. Firstly, as we checked in we found out that we had been upgraded to Premium Economy, which the attendant informed us had saved us around $3500. For anyone thinking about spending the additional $3500 on such a flight, don’t bother. However, seeing as we weren’t paying, we appreciated the slightly larger seats, marginally more legroom and somewhere to plug in our laptop. The second notable aspect of the flight was that due to crossing the international date line we landed at exactly the same time as we to [View Full Entry]

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More times than we care to remember in the past few months, one or both of us have uttered the words, “I can’t wait for Australia”. Be it while having our bones jarred on Ethiopian buses, banging our heads against the brick walls of embassies, trying to stomach Uzbek cuisine, or attempting to communicate in China. Don’t get us wrong, we’ve had the time of our lives and we knew exactly what we were letting ourselves in for. However, there have been numerous occasions when we have craved something just that little bit normal. Hence, in our darkest moments, Aus [View Full Entry]

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After 14 countries, 7 time zones, 124 taxis, 74 minibuses, 61 buses, 32 cars, 28 metros, 11 boats, 10 trains, 9 motorbikes, 5 ferries, 4 rickshaws, 4 dugout canoes, 1 truck, 1 cable car, 1 funicular, 1 horse, 1 donkey cart and frustratingly 1 plane (not to mention 37 visits to embassies), we have made it from Nairobi to Hong Kong. Well it’s certainly been quite a journey and we couldn’t think of a better place to end it than the fantastic city of Hong Kong. Despite being busy, Hong Kong is an incredibly civilised place and perhaps more than any [View Full Entry]

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Our journey into China took us on a 24 hour bus from Almaty to Urumqi. Upon boarding the Chinese owned bus, we were greeted by quite a surprise. The bus contained no seats, only beds. Once the initial shock had worn off we realised that in a country where distances are long and people are short, it makes perfect sense. Fortunately, we are sufficiently diminutive to be comfortable and managed to pass the journey by sleeping and gazing out of the window at the passing mountain scenery. In Urumqi we took a couple of days to acclimatise to being in China, [View Full Entry]

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We are ashamed to say that prior to visiting, the sum total of our knowledge of Kazakhstan was based on having seen Borat. This being an especially poor showing given that it is the seventh largest country in the world. We always had a suspicion that Borat wasn’t a documentary, but we didn’t fully appreciate how inaccurate a picture of the country it painted. Admittedly we saw only small percentage of the country, but it appeared to be an extremely westernised place. Having made the frustrating, but necessary, detour from Tashkent in order to get to a border cro [View Full Entry]

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As we entered Uzbekistan, we received the most thorough search we are ever likely to, with everything being removed from our bags and inspected. However, unlike at most borders, the guards weren’t looking for anything in the way of contraband, but instead any indications that we were journalists. This being due to a unilateral ban on journalism, a measure essentially imposed in an attempt to reduce coverage of human rights violations. A cheery thought to start a visit to any country. Once in Uzbekistan it was immediately apparent that they have only a fraction of the wealth of neig [View Full Entry]

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Prior to researching our visit to the “Stans”, we saw this part of world as little more than a homogenous mass sandwiched between Russia and China. In general one of the highlights of this trip has been watching places change from a name on a map, to a plan, to living breathing experiences and finally memories; this has especially been the case while travelling through a region about which we previously knew so little. Turkmenistan has been dubbed, by those in the know, as the North Korea of Central Asia. The extent to which this analogy applies is debatable and we [View Full Entry]

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As many of you will know, our original plan had us heading from Syria into Turkey. Our intent was to then travel north to Moscow, in order to get some serious miles under our belt by taking the Trans-Siberian Railway to Mongolia. Unfortunately, failure to obtain Russian visas rendered this impossible. Therefore we needed an alternative plan. After a fair amount of research and deliberation we settled on doing what few people do and turning right when we get to Turkey. Our new route would take us through Iran and the “Stans” into China. On the positive side this would tak [View Full Entry]

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Leaving our hotel in Amman bound for the Syrian border, we were prepared for, at the very least, a protracted crossing. We were aware that there was every chance we would face the inconvenience and ignominy of having to return a few hours later. Our fears were exacerbated when we found that British and American citizens without visas, were not allowed to board buses to Syria. Fortunately, we met an American couple in our hotel who were in the same boat as us and shared a taxi with them, bound tentatively for Damascus. Much to our surprise, Syrian immigration was a [View Full Entry]

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