Caroline and David Jones
This is the diary of our long awaited, and ill prepared for trip around thwe world. Essentially it takes in South and Central America, North East Asia, South East Asia, India and Pakistan. One year off from work, one year to ourselves, one year to get around the world!!Carrie and Dave Jones
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Travel Blog Posts
February 4th 2007
We started this in Mumbai... Well folks - this is the last one!! We've got 2 days to go and to be honest we can't wait to get home and see you all again. India has got a rather raw deal at the end of this trip. We had planned to stay for at least 6 weeks but other places were soooo exciting we spent much more time than we had expected there. So we've spent three weeks trying to get to grips with small areas of this massive country. We started in Amritsar - a hit! Here the Sikhs did a fantastic job of looking after us. We stayed in the Golden Temple, the Sikh's holiest sight. They housed us and fed us free of charge as well as allowing us to observe their acts ... read more
November 18th 2006
We warn you now we have loved Pakistan and that can be seen by the forthcoming verbosity! Since you last heard from us we've covered some ground. From Osh we took the 24 hour bus journey back over the Irkestam pass to China with the same one-eyed driver who had somehow managed to get us there. This journey was uneventful except for the fact that the driver unloaded our bags at the border and left them there. This incurred a 4 hour trip and $50 taxi fare back to the border the next day to collect them. We spent a couple more days in Kashgar trying to extract a police report out of the reluctant officers and wandering around the old town. We spent an evening with Kashgar's local drunk - former musician Mohammed. He introduced ... read more
October 13th 2006
We have spent the last 3 weeks loving Kyrgyzstan. We are now back in Osh, where we wrote the last blog, after a trip covering some of the most beautiful spots in this country. Osh is the southern capital and is heavily influenced by the large Uzbek population who live here. Ramadan has been an interesting time to be here, with the Mosques busy and people observing the fasting. Kyrgyzstan attracts a small but growing number of travellers, and we soon hooked up with a few like-minded people to explore. Our first stop was the appropriately named Arslanbob (see below). This small Uzbek village in the heart of the Fergana Valley, was 3 eventful bus journeys away from Osh, passing through Jalalabad, and Bazaar Korgan. One of the bus conductors regailed us with stories of his ... read more
September 23rd 2006
Well despite it seeming like an age ago we will start where the last one left off. We did indeed go to see our newly emmigrated friend Wendy in Rayong, Thailand. We had a great time enjoying her luxurious pad, bath, TV, Kitchen, Air-con, Swimming Pool etc. We met up with her new colleagues and got involved in a lot of the introductory events and banter - so much so that I think some people thought that we were actually going to be teaching at the school, and may even now be wondering where we are and why we are not attending staff meetings!!! Everyone seemed great and we liked the lifestyle but soon had to pack up our bags and hit the road again (Jack). We could not face the windy overland journey back to ... read more
August 25th 2006
From the hustle and bustle of Bangkok we travelled east by VIP bus (a double decker coach with air-con and lurid interior decor complete with flashing lights and pelmets) to the Cambodian border on Thai high quality highways. At the border things changed in many ways. We suddenly hit signs of abject poverty, children and amputees begging and a noticeable deterioration of the road system - i.e. there wasn't one. We spent 7 hours on a bus being bumped around covering the mere 150km journey to Siam Reap. Rumour has it that a Thai airline is paying off the Cambodian government to keep this road in a poor state so the tourists with any money are inclined to fly.... We travelled through landscape which was soon to become very familiar to us: lush green paddy fields ... read more
Technical disaster strikes and the rains arrive.
Published: July 21st 2006Asia » Thailand » Central Thailand » Bangkok
July 21st 2006
As normal we should excuse ourselves for not having blogged for ages. Sorry! We are now in Bangkok, Thailand suffering in a muggy heat that is comparable to what is going on in the UK at the moment. We finally managed to drag ourselves away from Mongolia, and headed down through the Gobi desert, through Inner Mongolia (China) and into Shanxi and indeed Shaanxi Provinces. We stopped in the fairly industrial city of Datong, which though nothing special itself has 2 of China's most impressive tourist site within easy distance. First we went to visit the Hanging Monastery - this monastery was built on the side of a sheer cliff hanging precariously 100m up above a river. The reason for the building it in such an unlikely place was that previously the river regularly flooded, however ... read more
June 26th 2006
This might be a long one... Shanghai turned out to be a lot of fun. The moderness of it all was totally at odds with Yunnan before it and Beijing afterwards. The skylines were the main attraction, particularly at night. Although watching the boats on the bund was also a compelling. From Shanghai we took a very comfortable train overnight to Beijing. Carrie immediately felt at home and transported us swifly to the youth hostel where we based ourselves for a week while we waited for our Mongolian visas. Beijing was very interesting and provided lots of good touristy and non tourist activities. We visited the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and the Hutongs (Old style family compound housing). However, I think the slightly obscure highlight for both of us was parading past throught the mausoleum ... read more
May 28th 2006
Right, we have forced ourselves to get up to date, so having gobbled down another bowl of rice - here we go with our latest exploits.... Firstly: Taiwan This was a slightly random destination determined by Trailfinders. We arrived puzzling how we had lost Saturday and how exactly the date line thing worked. As we had no guide book for Taiwan we had to figure it out ourselves. Taipei (Capital city if you believe Taiwan is an independent country) is a large modern city, very clean, very well organised with lots of people. We adjusted to Asia and the jetlag by taking it easy in our slightly weird hostel. We did some of the big monuments - the Chinese know how to do big! We explored the Night markets and marvelled at Snake Alley (snake to ... read more
April 28th 2006
Sorry Guys, this one got delayed by the fact that, despite it being the technology capital of the world, Hong Kong has no internet cafe!! Anyway here it is and we will write up our exploits in Asia so far in the next day or so. Also photos to follow. Ole, ole!! Mexico has been fantastic for many reasons.... We spent nearly two weeks there and could have stayed for a year... (as with everywhere else). We went first to the Yucatan peninsula and stayed in a hut on the beautiful white beach of Tulum. We swam in aquamarine seas, stretched out on the sands, visited Mayan ruins and not much else.... We recovered from the stresses and strains of travelling in C America in a culture that was more easily accessible. We tried to get ... read more
April 18th 2006
Hello! We've had a very busy few weeks travelling up through Central America. Our last efforts were from Costa Rica and since then we have travelled up through Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and we're currently in Mejico, country number 13 - phew!! Nicaragua: We headed straight for Granada, rather than Managua (the capital for all you pub quizzers and v dubious). Granada is a very nice colonial town on the shores of Lake Nicaragua. From there we visited Isla Ometepe in the middle of the lake. Now you woudn't think a boat ride across a lake would be that bad - but this one was something else... I deteriorated into silence and Dave feared for his life as the waves rolled over the front of the 2 storey boat... The island was lovely and the locals ... read more
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