Carrie-Anne

Finding Caz

Well…I’m finally doing it….look out world here I come! Or ‘here WE come I should say’. Myself and the lovely Miss Verity Horgan are ‘packing up our troubles in our old kit bag’ and heading off around the world (why can’t I say that without thinking of a cartoon dog in a hot air balloon??).

An epic ‘once in a lifetime’ trip. Except I don’t like to think of it in those terms….I’m hoping this will be the beginning of a new life-long addiction and fully intend to catch the travel bug…the only thing I’m not immunising myself against!

For those that don’t know me (I’ve been reading the blogs of strangers in preparation for this trip so I can imagine some poor random may read mine!) I’m 29 years old (ssshhhh..) and I’ve wanted to do this since I was 18 and lots of people were doing the gap year thing. But….I went to Uni, graduated, got lost, went to Drama School, fell in love, graduated, acted/waitressed/temped, fell for a city called Bristol, fell apart (or, in my Grandads’ kind and loving words, ‘got dumped’!), fell on my feet and…fell into this trip.

Ok..so maybe ‘fell into this trip’ is a slight exaggeration but it does kinda feel that way. I thought I’d grown up (yeah right!) and out of these nomadic desires but one minute me and V are tentatively making plans based on ‘if I don’t get this job, that job, a boyfriend, a boyfriend back, a house, a dog, this, that, the other…(you get the picture!)…and the next we’re in STA handing over wads of cash, grinning and screaming like 7 year olds at a Hannah Montana concert.

So..on the 22nd of October, as the leaves start falling and the days are getting shorter and colder, we board a plane to follow the sun….1st stop Hong Kong. We spend a few days there and then our route is……Bangkok (2 months Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos), out of Singapore to Cairns (6 weeks overland to Melbourne), out of Melbourne to Auckland (6 weeks including Fiji), out of Auckland into Santiago (5 weeks Brazil, Bolivia, Peru), then out of Lima back to London! So a mammoth journey for a 6 month trip but we’ve recently decided to get ourselves Oz working holiday visas so we can extend if we’re just having too amazing a time to come back or we wanna pause for breath!

So there you have it family, friends and randoms…feel free to subscribe or just log on now and then to read about our exploits….just remember if you know me, or be warned if you don’t…I’m the girl that has entire conversations with your answer-machine…..put the kettle on….you may be here a while! Xxx




Travel Blog Posts


Beautiful, beautiful Laos...

Published: February 21st 2010Asia » Laos
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Finding Caz
January 13th 2010

The first thing I want to say, if you hadn't quite caught on from my blog title, is Laos is absobloominlutely beautiful! Before we went I'd heard talk of this wondrous place where you can get wrecked and go tubing, jumping into the river and off zip wires etc. Having now been I find it so frustrating that this is all people talk about because the landscape is amongst the most exquisite I've ever seen. The only other thing you ever really hear fellow travellers talk about is the 2 day slow boat that the majority of people take to get there. We too chose this option. Firstly you don't spend 10 hours a day on the boat as many people would tell you. It's more like 6 and it's not entirely unpleasant. Ok, so your ... read more



Slices of Pai

Published: December 20th 2009Asia » Thailand » North-West Thailand » Pai
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Finding Caz
December 16th 2009

Nestled in the mountains of North West Thailand is an adorable little town called Pai. The first thing to day about our favourite place yet is that it is definately best to get the local bus from the Arcade bus station. We decided to do this to save money and sweated our arses off walking half an hour in the midday sun, with our backpacks, to the bus station. It was the most gorgeous bus journey! The bus had fans and it was cool enough in the mountains that they weren't needed anyway so an air conditioned minibus really isn't necessary. Plus they have all the windows and the doors open anyway! The views are just spectacular! Lots of winding mountain roads and stunning blue sky, all of which you'd miss out on were you to ... read more



Trekking in Chang Mai

Published: December 20th 2009Asia » Thailand » North-West Thailand » Chiang Mai
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Finding Caz
November 11th 2009

Ok...so the story continues but it's incredibly backdated so you'll have to bear with me in terms of what I can draw out of my travel addled brain! We headed to Chang Mai on an overnight bus, it's suprising how quickly you can get used to these. We both actually managed to sleep this time so we checked into our hotel and booked ourselves onto the 'Flight of The Gibbon' for the same afternoon such was our early morning vigour. Flight of The Gibbon consists of 10 ziplines, 2 abseils and 2 rope bridges and despite being pretty expensive for a backpackers budget I would definately recommend it. Our guide, Ken, really ought to be doing stand-up comedy rather than leading zip-lining groups. He was hilarious and he and the other guide to great pleasure in ... read more



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Finding Caz
November 8th 2009

Now...every traveller is supposed to have at least one nightmare journey story. I'm not sure if this counts as once I got past the incredibly strong conviction that I was going to meet my end in the seas off Koh Phangan, it was actually quite the adrenalin rush. But anyway... As I think I mentioned last time we had been stranded on Koh Phangan for an extra night due to bad weather conditions. As it turns out there was good reason the boats weren't running that day. Choppy is not even an adequate enough description for the boat ride we endured to reach Koh Tao the following day. I had to continually remind myself that they had in fact cancelled the previous days boats in order to convince myself that they were in control of the ... read more



Stranded in KOh Phangan...

Published: November 4th 2009Asia » Thailand
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Finding Caz
November 4th 2009

Currently we are stranded on Koh Phangan. Admittedly there are worse places to be stranded than a beautiful Thai island but we had been looking forward to escaping the madness that is this tourist-centred party island and heading to the, hopefully, more chilled out Koh Tao to swim with the pretty fisheys! The plan was to get the ferry over to Koh Tao this morning to check in for our PADI course, a thought I had been psyching myself up for as, much as I'm looking forward to it I'm also a little apprehensive as I'm not exactly a mermaid in the water. SO having packed up our bags and gone to check out we're told no ferries are running due to the massive downpour we had last night. Had this not been so disappointing I ... read more



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Finding Caz
October 31st 2009

So we landed in Bangkok having had a good time in Hong Kong but glad to be starting the next leg of our journey. We knew to head to the Kao San Road to get a hostel so we hopped on the bus from the airport happy to be among other travellers and on arrival at Kao San Road stalked two guys to a hostel, since they'd already booked at a decent price and we didn't really want the hassle of scouting around and the inevitable pushiness we'd heard about. This turned out to be a damn good plan as the Hostel was a gem...a mere 400 THB a night with coffee and toast in the morning (if you made it out of bed in time). We went out that first night and sampled our first ... read more



The marmite of cities...

Published: October 30th 2009Asia » Hong Kong
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Finding Caz
October 28th 2009

So here we are..the trip has begun and already it feels as though we've been away for so much longer than the week that it has been and Hong Kong already seems a distant memory. Hong Kong, we decided, is like marmite...you either love it or you hate it or sometimes both in equal measure. To be fair we didn't get of to the best start...us and Hong Kong. We arrived happily at the spotless airport (people in Hong Kong are OCDish about germs!) only to discover that although we had arrived safely and with our nerves intact thanks to a combination of alcohol, calms and a fairly uneventful flight, the same could not be said for Verity's bag which was still in London. We then got on the shuttle to Kowloon not realising how massive ... read more



The things they don't tell you...

Published: August 24th 2009Europe
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Finding Caz
August 24th 2009

Ok....so I'm stuck in my boring temp job counting the days until take off or, at least, the days until I finish here and I thought I'd get blogging....who says you have to wait until the travels begin? So, here I sit, pencil behind ear, glasses on the end of my nose, steaming cup coffee in front of me, intense and thoughtful expression on my face, ready to tell you the things that somehow, somewhy, no-one tells you when you say 'woodihoo I'm going travelling!'...... 1.) You will need that many vaccinations that you consider running away with the circus where eager young children will beg their parents to take them to see 'The Amazing Human Pin Cushion!' And there are decisions to be made......do I simply go for the obligatory jabs the doctor gives? Hep ... read more






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