http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Dal-and-Ab/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Dal and Ab en-us Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:44:27 +0000 Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:44:27 +0000 Adventuring with Chris and Aisha The East Cape of New Zealand isn't your normal tourist destination. It's remote sparsely populated and mountainous in the interior. It's known as a bit of a backwater lost in time. But the road around it hugs the rugged coast providing spectacular views and much of the land is owned by Maori so the culture is much more apparent here. And for New Zealand there http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/East-Coast/blog-160875.html D After our amazing and extrordinary adventures we were very happy to arrive at what I guess we can now call home. And if I'm honest the adventures have only really just begun. Well for me at least. Abbie's done some of this stuff before but a lot of it's new for me. And as so many of you have expressed an interest in hearing how we're settling in and what living in NZ is like I've deci http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/blog-122567.html Port Botany where the convicts landed and we escapedA Either therersquos something about catching container ships thatrsquos inherently tricky or we're just not very good at it. Cathy my aunt had kindly offered to take us out to Port Botany where we were meeting up with the Hansa Rendsburg the ship taking us from Sydney to Tauranga. When the port agent Brad had given us our joining i http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/blog-111441.html Panic in PerthWe left you with a bit of a cliff hanger at the end of the last blog. We wanted you to experience a small fraction of the adrenalin read stress we felt at the moment we started to think that we might not be able to get to Sydney in time to catch our ship to New Zealand. You'll remember that we got to Perth around 9am on the morning of the 6th. The Indian Pacific was due to leav http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Western-Australia/Perth/blog-111393.html Port Klang Kuala Lumpur booking and joining instructionsA First things first. And that is the 'why'. Why on earth did we decide to take a container ship from Malaysia to Perth when we could have flown a lot more cheaply and arrived in a fraction of the time. We blame you lot. All of those people who read our original plan which included a couple of short flights and issued us with a c http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/blog-109475.html It feels like a country in transition but from what and to whatIt's been hard to make sense of Malaysia. Thailand Cambodia Vietnam and China all have distinct personalities but not so Malaysia. Perhaps it's the multiethnic nature of the place where people of Indian Chinese and Malay heritage all mix in what seems about equal numbers. Maybe it's the fact that it's a Muslim country but wit http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/blog-105986.html We got marriedOn Friday the 17th of November we got married on Railay West Beach in south Thailand. Just the two of us a local pastor conducting the ceremony three staff from our hotel acting as witnesses and the remaining sunbathing heros still left on the beach after another glorious day in paradise.The lead up...A This might be a bit of a surprise to those of you who know us. So perhaps http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South-West-Thailand/Railay/blog-104520.html Six days with real meaningA I've always liked to think of myself as the adventurous worldly sophisticated cousin in the Reynolds mob of 19 cousins my dad is one of seven. But then I catch up with my cousin Ang who is only a year older than me and I realise that she outdoes me completely. Ang is pretty amazing really. She moved to Japan when she was in her early twenties and lived there http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/blog-102550.html There's not much money hereDespite the fact that we've been through some very poor places we felt the poverty most keenly in Cambodia. Tuk tuk drivers who wanted our business would plead that they needed it to feed their families small children asked for money for food disabled and limbless people asked for money and everywhere there were small children selling things like books drinks brac http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/blog-97782.html Vietnam Same Same but differentWe arrived in Vietnam a few days after Typhoon Xangsane hit the central part of the country and caused massive damage and a number of deaths. We didn't know what to expect. Would the country be in a state of chaos Would there be huge outbreaks of diseases from dirty water Would we be able to get through the country to Cambodia And if we couldn't how would w http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/blog-95762.html ChinaChina was a huge culture shock for both of us. Coming from the quiet empty spaces and huge blue skies of Mongolia the crowds noise and pollution of China really struck us. And it wasn't just that. China is so different. Everywhere we went what was normal here was so different to what is normal at home. So please forgive us for what will be a long read but we really wanted to write ab http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-90552.html Ulaanbaatar capital of MongoliaArriving in Ulaanbaatar during a snow fall wasn't the most auspicious of starts. However the wonderful Mongolian people made our welcome about as warm as we could ask for. After the reserve of the Russians the wide smiles and charm of the Mongolians was a nice change. And so many of them spoke English. We felt extremely spoiled.We only spent one day in Ulaanb http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Mongolia/blog-89195.html Train Number 6 the trader train Moscow to IrkutskWe left the safe haven of Logan's apartment full of nervous excitement with bags full of provisions a big bottle of vodka and not too much idea what we'd let ourselves in for. For the statto's what we did know was thisWe would be covering 5185 kms on the train from Moscow to Irkutsk capital of Siberia.The entire journey would take 75 hou http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/blog-89186.html From Russia with love... We won't pretend we weren't pretty freaked out about coming to Russia. The guide book has all sorts of horror stories about tourists being extorted by corrupt policemen or by corrupt customs officials for failing to properly register visas or failing to get the right customs forms. We spent a couple of hours translating the immigration forms from our Russian English di http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/blog-85139.html Poland Our time in Poland turned out to be pretty emotionally charged. Daren turned 33 we got engaged and we visited Auschwitz. On their own each of those events is a pretty big deal but combined well it's enough to leave a very strong impression. Also following our time in Germany where we started learning more about World War II Communism and the Cold War Poland was one huge history http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Poland/blog-84347.html Cesky Krumlov D I don't know how many times it's possible to descibe places as twee cute or fairytale but Cesky Krumlov CK in the Czech Republic ranks up there with the most twee cute and fairytale in Europe. With our requirement for small towns overrulling the need to visit cities and following the recommendations of fellow travellers we descended on CK after a mammoth train journey fr http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/blog-83158.html D Whoever said travelling was easy was just trying to sell guide books in fact he probably owns the Lonely Planet publishing empire. At the two month stage I think we're both suffering travel fatigue. Italy underlined this for us. We've since visited Croatia and Slovenia and deliberately slowed down and chilled out... Croatia Dubrovnik and impossible islands So after an overnight ferry f http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-80532.html A I apologise now to those of you who love Italy as this is not likely to be the most complimentary blog. And mostly that isn't Italy's fault. I've been here before and came away with such fond memories. I think it's more to do with how we are at the moment. The best way to describe us is fatigued and irritable. We've been travelling now for almost eight weeks and we have seen plenty of http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-78066.html Granada home to the incredible Alhambra Granada itself is lovely and I think we would have stayed longer if we hadn't suddenly realised that we've got a visa imposed deadline for getting into and out of Russia and we haven't managed to make it out of Spain yet. We did find enough time for more tapas thanks Gal and for Dal to get a haircut though.The Alhambra was a fitting finale to the w http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/blog-77501.html Morocco has definitely been the most challenging place weve visited so far. Not the least being the extreme temperatures during our time in Marrakech we were told that it was anything between 42 and 46. Even the locals were complaining.But its also very different from what were used to. Morocco is a Muslim country so as guests we were being constantly mindful of behaving respectfully http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Morocco/blog-75912.html