Daniel Hughes
I'm a second year psychology student at the University of Leicester, UK. In 2003 I went on a Coral Cay marine conservation expedition to the Perhentian Isalnds, Malaysia. After the expedition finished I travelled up to Thailand and Laos and caught both the travel bug and thank to James (a fellow diver) a passion for photography. Both have stayed with me and in 2004 I spent a month in Cambodia and Vietnam with my friends Hazel and Ash (another man with a good eye for a photo). This year (2005) it's Indonesia for 2 months with Elaine (my girlfriend). Watch this space...Dan thetravelman
Travel Blog Posts
August 10th 2005
From Lovina we headed south to Gunung Batur (Mt. Batur) and Lake Batur. The view of the mountain and the lake as we edged down the impossibly steep roads on the back of motorbikes was breathtaking. Before we arrived we had vague notions of a climb of Mount Batur and a more a well-formed conviction that would take a boat ride across the lake. Our Lonely Planet had pre-warned us about the persistant, often aggressive hawkers and touts. Right on cue, not ten minutes after our arrival as we sat in a restaurant*, they arrived. It's not what you want is it? To find yourself forced to battle your in-built English politeness and tell someone to sod off with a mouth full of nasi-goreng? Anyway we were there and the view was lovely and that was ... read more
July 31st 2005
Chronodementia: 'a lack of ability to judge, estimate, tell or understand time'. I've just made it up but I feel Elaine and I may have it. We really have lost all sense of time. Which is fine until we need to get on a metal-bird for Kuala Lumpur ('visa-hop'*). A good example of our new illness is Yogyakarta: we only meant to stay for a few nights - we stayed a week! In fairness we were ill (you don't need details... trust me) and the swimming pool tricked us. It made us lie next to it and not do a lot. That's our story and we're sticking to it. We have did however manage to see the Prambanan Hindu temple and the Ramayana ballet. Around the temple there were people trying to sell little wooden whistles. ... read more
July 15th 2005
We went to Jakarta... it was rubbish. That's possibly a little unfair; like all big SE Asian cities it was hot and crowded and smelly and fast and really just a bit too much when you've been on a plane for million hours and don't quite know what day it is. We stayed in Jarkarta for two nights and then, on the advice of a Welsh school teacher (why not!?), jumped on the train to Bogor. Bogor's main attraction (apart from not being Jakarta) is it's botanical gardens. They're very pleasant and thanks to Bogor's altitude that bit cooler than the capital. We spent a couple of days in the town with a visit to the gardens just about our most strenuous activity. Indonesia doesn't have very many Western tourists about at the moment. Whatever the ... read more
July 8th 2005
It's hot. And sticky. It's also very sunny, and very cheap and the start of our big adventure! Getting to the airport was a bit hairy: we didn't pre-book our National Express tickets and had to go on stand-by to get on the coach. Luckily (!) some poor sod missed his coach so on we hopped. But in the hurry we didn't realise the girl behind the counter had sold us tickets to Heathrow, not Gatwick. We had to pay extra at Heathrow and all was fine. Our flight was loooong. We had a change in Dubai and stopped in Bangkok to let people off. When we got to Jakarta airport there was a power cut. We were plunged into pretty much absolute darkness. In true boy scout style I whipped out my torch (that Elaine ... read more
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