It's all over, The Big Trip has finally come to an end and I'm now back in sunny Scotland, brass monkeys. Here's some snaps from the last six weeks.... [View Full Entry]

---

---

Mzungu is the Swahili word for "white person" which East African urchins joyfully shout whenever they catch sight of a western traveller, hence I've felt like a minor celebrity ever since setting foot in the "Pearl of Africa", Winston Churchill's moniker for Uganda. Uganda is just how I'd invisaged 'Africa' since childhood: lush green vegetation everywhere, brown roads that disintegrate into quagmires after torrential downpours, people carrying a multitude of goods on their heads (no hands) and big toothy grins on the locals' faces. Ugandans and Rwandans are perhaps the friendliest peop [View Full Entry]

---

---

Sod's Law: You spend two painfully boring weeks in smelly Delhi applying for visas for the Stans......and then poor Jom gets sick in our first port of call - Tashkent, Uzbekistan - and we have to fly home to sunny Scotland within a week of leaving India! The vagaries of travel in exotic climes eh? Still, when your heart is only beating a paltry 38 times a minute and the local Doc is adamant you fly home asap to see a cardiologist, you tend to follow orders.....looking on the bright side, Tashkent is home to possibly the best Syrian restaurant east [View Full Entry]

---

---

So, after two weeks of R & R in Glasgow and London it was time to get back to the 'real world' of global travel and become reacquainted with smelly Delhi. I was last here nearly 10 years ago, but very little has changed in Pahar Ganj - the de facto traveller ghetto - although the begging lepers have moved to another colony (something to do with police and big sticks me thinks) and there are slightly more services for tourists. The main bazaar is still a total shambles with cows wandering in and out of the traffic chaos whilst [View Full Entry]

---

---

Ten days in the Hong of the Kong is enough to send you doolally. We took care of some administrative tasks on arrival i.e. I had to apply for a new passport - set us back a cool 150 notes - as the current one was all out of blank pages to accommodate those big-sticky-visas that every country we're visiting wants to give you. Recently, I'd been specifically requesting that immigration officials do NOT stamp one of the few remaining blank pages.....which is of course what they proceded to do regardless, total nincompoops of the highest order. We stayed in [View Full Entry]

---

---

Western Australia (WA) was an itch that we just had to scratch - I'd spent some time in Perth back in 1999 and we'd both stayed in Darwin during our trip to Ozland ten years ago - but we'd never 'joined the dots'....so it was time to pop back to the antipodes for the roadtrip of a lifetime. Unfortunately this means we've had to jetison Japan from the Big Trip - a tough decision - but it was just tooo expensive to get there, whilst you can now catch a cheap flight to Australia from Singapore, so it was time [View Full Entry]

---

---

Borneo - the third largest island in the world - was all about the wildlife and the diving....so we'll let the pics do most of the talking.... Orang Utans ("man of the forest" in Malay) are only found in Malaysian and Indonesian rainforests and are famous for their long arms and reddish-brown hair and for being dead brainy - they were recently 'proven' to be the most intelligent of all the primates, including chimps. Some of the more refined among you may also recognise them from the classic movies Every Which Way But Loose and the sequel, Any Which Way [View Full Entry]

---

---

The Philippines certainly packs a punch when it comes to natural wonders: spectacular beaches, beautiful mountains, awesome volcanos, stunning lakes, superb diving and colourful aquatic life - d'you see that whale shark to your right?? - so we didn't need much arm-twisting to persuade us to linger for over five weeks (our longest stay in any country so far) and sample the local delights.... The Philippines is a vast archipelago (7,107 islands) probably most famous (to us) for it's girlie bars, political corruption and Filipino nurses who prop up the NHS. Over 90% of the population are Chri [View Full Entry]

---

---

Burma still wears its traditional longyi - a sheet of cloth sewn into a cylindrical shape and worn around the waist running to the feet - even as its neighbours abandon their sari and sarong for diesel jeans and miniskirts. Refreshingly, its holy men are revered more than Becks or Bono and you can't buy a McDs, use a moby or check your email without growing a beard.....but where else can you get to see cats being cajoled to jump through hoops by buddhist monks?? Superb! Supposedly, they had too much free time on their hands.... I suppose we should deal [View Full Entry]

---

---

Here's a selection of bonus snaps courtesy of Jac, enjoy..... [View Full Entry]

---

---