Dyer

Jay and Alex



Back in Canada and settling back into our daily routine after a month in India. It felt so good to get out on the road again. Next up is a short stint in Cuba over Christmas with the family.

The hard part will be to decide where to go next summer ...




Travel Blog Posts


Rajasthan - Jaipur & Jodhpur

Published: October 29th 2011Asia » India » Rajasthan » Jodhpur
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Jay and Alex
August 11th 2011

We got into Jaipur in the early afternoon off the Rajasthani Express from Delhi and found our way to one of the hotels that was recommended in the Lonely Planet. They were full so we started phoning around and discovered that pretty much everything was booked up. What happened to traveling India in the off season? We did eventually find a nice place that would have been absolute luxury if the internet, TV and air conditioning worked reliably. There really isn't much to see in Jaipur, it is primarily a travel hub and administrative centre for Rajasthan. I'm sure there was some cool palace or temple that we missed but regardless we were happy to move further into the desert and on to Jodhpur. The train to Jodhpur was another interesting experience. The trip was only ... read more



Shimla

Published: October 28th 2011Asia » India » Himachal Pradesh » Shimla
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Jay and Alex
August 5th 2011

We got on the bus early for another long, winding journey through the hills and thought we might be in for a pretty comfortable ride as the bus was only half full leaving Manali. Of course we should have known that we'd be picking up people along the way until we were crammed to capacity. We had reserved 2 of the front row passenger seats but it turns out that the driver's compartment in front of us held another 20 people anyway. This was unfortunate for us as there were a few kids up front that were having troubles stomaching the endless swithbacks and bumpy roads. We had to keep our window closed the whole time to protect us from projectile curry puke! We finally arrived in Shimla early in the evening. There was a mob ... read more



Manali

Published: August 12th 2011Asia » India » Himachal Pradesh » Manali
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Jay and Alex
August 3rd 2011

We slept in the morning after our big road trip for a much needed rest. After dragging ourselves out of bed we headed down to a local cafe where we found breakfast and a great cup of french-press coffee. Good coffee has been hard to find in India. Actually, good coffee has been hard to find throughout our world travels, I guess we're just coffee snobs. After breakfast, we took a walk through the forest between Old Manali and Manali. This is significant because it is the first real strech of forest that we've seen in awhile. In the park we found the usual cows and goats but one thing that we weren't expecting was monkeys! These brown curious george looking things are the good monkeys in India (not the evil grey ones that harass you ... read more



Leh-Manali Road

Published: August 12th 2011Asia » India » Jammu & Kashmir » Ladakh » Leh
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Jay and Alex
August 1st 2011

The Leh-Manali road is the only overland route in to Leh from the south and is only open during the summer months thanks to the nasty Himalayan winter. Most sane people do the 20 hour trip over 2 days with a nice stopover in a village along the way. We decided to buy our bus tickets the day before we wanted to leave and found the bus companies were sold out so we had to book into an 11 passenger mini-bus that left at 12:30am that night and did the whole stretch in one go. We prepared for the trip as best we could with crackers, cookies and plenty of music and met the bus at midnight. There was plenty of leg room and we had the premium spot right behind the driver with a full ... read more



Leh

Published: August 12th 2011Asia » India » Jammu & Kashmir » Ladakh » Leh
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Jay and Alex
July 30th 2011

We arrived in Leh after a comfortable one hour flight from Delhi. Leh is in the Kashmir region in the far north of India and we had heard that it was a place you can't miss this time of year. Well, it certainly didn't disappoint. The city lies at an elevation of 3700m in the Ladakh Range of the Himalaya Mountains and the high elevation desert scenery is absolutely beautiful. It's a popular spot in July and August as the weather can be tricky the rest of the year. Many people come to Leh for trekking but as we are not really set up for this type of travel this time, we decided that we would mostly take it easy while we were here. It's a good thing we didn't have any big plans because we ... read more



Agra - For a day.

Published: August 8th 2011Asia » India » Uttar Pradesh » Agra
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Jay and Alex
July 26th 2011

We had booked a return trip from Delhi to Agra so we could take a peek at the Taj Mahal. A few people had said that other than the Taj, there isn't much else in Agra to see or do except get harassed by touts. So we decided against staying overnight. Our booking had us on the sleeper class for the four hour ride down and the A/C Chair class on the two and a half hour express back. This was our first Indian train experience and we wanted to get the full flavour. However, when we saw what 'full flavour' looked like in second class on some of the commuter trains, with people jammed in and hanging off the cars like monkeys, we were glad to have chosen sleeper class. The sleeper class has assigned ... read more



Delhi

Published: August 7th 2011Asia » India » National Capital Territory » Delhi
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Jay and Alex
July 26th 2011

We got into Delhi around 2am local time glad to have arranged a taxi via our hotel for the trip from Indira Ghandi International. We grabbed our bags (so happy to see them!) and found the fellow holding a sign with Alex's name on it. Strangely enough we were surprised to find no seatbelts in the rickety van... Seatbelts have been invented right? Since it was now about three in the morning for our drive to the Hotel in the Pahargang district, the ride wasn't as eventful as we thought it would be. The next day we slept in a bit. Partly from jet lag and partly because we had just been traveling for 30 hours. When we did get out of our hotel the Main Bazaar was in full swing. It was overwhelming. The traffic, ... read more



Getting to India and Beijing

Published: July 25th 2011Asia » China » Beijing
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Jay and Alex
July 22nd 2011

Finally on the road again. Left home at 5:00pm Thursday night for a late night flight out of Vancouver. Flight was uneventful, Air China does a good job (although leg room was tight before I was finally able to shove my body in the right spot). We arrived in Beijing at 5:30am wired after a few hours rest on the plane. We cleared customs, checked one of our carry-on backpacks into left luggage and set out on the Airport Express to the city. Subway system is great. Easy to follow instructions in English and only costs 2 yuen (29 cents) although there's no room to be shy when jostling onto the train at rush hour. Our first destination was Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. The first thing you notice is the white-orangish morning fog that ... read more



Blue Moutains

Published: June 28th 2009Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Katoomba
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Jay and Alex
June 4th 2009

We made a last minute decision to do the Blue Mountains first instead of heading straight to Sydney and it turned out to be amazing! We didn't realize we would have to take a cable ferry to get accross a river along the way and as we pulled up we were worried because we didn't have much cash on us. I was particularly pleased when we discovered it was free. We stopped for a picnic lunch just after the ferry and saw some maple trees. They really stood out because there aren't really many trees that change colour around here. We didn't get into Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains, until about 4:30 thanks to slow roads initially and then nasty traffic as we got close enough to Sydney to battle with commuters. We found the caravan ... read more



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Jay and Alex
June 2nd 2009

Big driving day as we had to make it to the Hunter Valley. We followed the Pacific Highway all the way from Nambucca Heads to Maitland, the biggest city near the valley. We found a caravan site in Cessnock, nicely situated amidst the 150 wineries in the Hunter. We got to bed early so we could start the free wine fiesta early the next day. Janis must not like wine much because she decided to die again the next morning. It must have been the cold weather, because we were super careful not to leave anything on that could have drained the battery. The fellow who normally helped out folks with weak batteries was gone until 1:00 so we had to wait for him to return before the free fiesta could begin. We finally got started ... read more






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