JoBrown - Jo Brown and Trevor Dyson

This is the blog detailing the highs and lows of Trev and Jo's year long trip around the world. We visited 21 countries, took 8 flights (not including one trip in a light aircraft flown by a teenager), countless boats, travelled on more busses than I care to remember, slept in over 200 guest houses, wore the same set of clothes (without changing them) in three coutries, climbed one active volcano, drank many Tiger beers, ate much rice/noodles, rode motorbikes/horses/bicycles, climbed up Macchu Pichu, stayed where Celebrity Love island was filmed.....

It was a blast, but now we are home and read this blog just for fun. Sad. We know.

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Joined on: October 14th 2006
Last Login: August 29th 2008

Blog Entries: 59
Photos: 276

TB Code: [blogger=24617]
Status: BLOGGER

Blogs & Travel Journals

by JoBrown, order by Date newest first.

By JoBrown
May 27th 2008

Motorbike madness Asia » Vietnam

Bike trip
This didn't bode well for day one

For some reason unbeknown to me, I agreed to do a six day motorbike tour of the Vietnamese countryside with Trev. I do not know how this happened, but it turned out to be one of the best experiences of our trip to date. It was of course kept 'top secret' until after the event, so that we could report back home with all limbs intact. Our tour around Dalat by motorbike was a dry run, just so I could get used to being on a motorbike without being in a blind panic at every corner/roundabout. We booked it with OffRoad [View Full Entry]

By JoBrown
May 24th 2008

Halong Bay Asia » Vietnam » Red River Delta » Halong Bay

Halong Bay
Catching some rays

Vietnam is home to Halong Bay, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. It is a couple of hours away from Hanoi, and is a stretch of coastline with over 200 limestone karst islands. It is a stunning place, and we spent two days cruising around the islands on a traditional Chinese Junk. Some of the tours sell in Hanoi for a little as 30 USD, but those trips are usually accompanied by rats on board, so we splashed out on a more salubrious boat and got the VIP treatment (and no furry friends). The first day we stopped off at [View Full Entry]

By JoBrown
May 15th 2008

Nha Trang-Hoi An-Hue-Hanoi Asia » Vietnam » South Central Coast » Nha Trang

Nha Trang
Sleeper bus

We arrived in Nha Trang anticipating our last bit of Asia's sunshine and a nice beach, to be greeted by Asia's torrential rain storms. I think we were just a little unlucky with the weather, but it certainly put a dampner on our last beach trip. After a month on Thailand's beaches, we probably shouldn't complain. When we arrived a local guy followed us into the hotel and started chatting in Vietnamese to the owner. We stood there a bit bemused that this guy follwed us in then seemed to be talking about us to the owner. He looked a bit [View Full Entry]

By JoBrown
May 11th 2008

Dalat, on two wheels Asia » Vietnam » Central Highlands » Da Lat

Dalat
easy riders

Dalat is a small town in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, the important word in this sentence is high, high as in cold and wet and mountainous. Travelling around SE Asia does not condition you well for cold and rain, in fact being cold was a feeling we had forgotten, this said we enjoyed Dalat immensley. As we got close the palm trees of the low lands gave way to connifirs, the road became twisty and the clouds were suddenly below us instead of above. The town itself looked like an Austrian Ski resort (minus the snow) the buildings were very [View Full Entry]

By JoBrown
May 8th 2008

Good morning Vietnam (obviously) Asia » Vietnam » Southeast » Ho Chi Minh City

HCMC
roads in Vietnam, busy

Next step along the way was the border crossing into Vietnam. We took a coach from Phnom Pehn (pausing only to purchase more photocopied books from the street kids) and were pleasantly suprised at the uneventfulness of the journey. The border crossing was one of the easiest so far and as soon as we entered Vietnam the relative prosperity of the countries were apparent. Ho Chi Minh City (AKA Saigon or HCMC) was cleaner and more modern than anything seen in Cambodia and had obvious French influences, that said buildings were of an odd constrution, all very thin but tall and [View Full Entry]

By JoBrown
May 3rd 2008

Irrawaddy dolphins Asia » Cambodia » East » Kratié

Krati market
would you buy your dinner here

After a brief stop back in Phnom Penh (most journeys in Cambodia have to be done via the capital) we were on the road again headed to the town of Kratie on the Mekong river. Our purpose, to search out dolphins. All though by this far into the trip we have seen more than our fair share of marine dolphins, these are different. Found only in the Mekong river these small and exceedingly rare river dolphins (approx 86 left in the wild) are well worth the 14 hour round trip by bus. We arrived in Krati late in the afternoon to [View Full Entry]

By JoBrown
April 19th 2008

bad beaches and exotic island Asia

secret island

After the harrowing history of the capital we decided to see a lighter side of Cambodia and hit the beach. We headed to Sihanoukville, just about the only seaside resort in Cambodia and the one place to dive. The bus ride was fairly uneventful (though we never got the piece of cake we were promised). We were, however, entertained with the sight of our coach being loaded with mopeds. On the doubledecker the bottom deck was reserved for two wheeled cargo! Our initial impression was that apart from being a bit ex-pat dominated S'ville was not dissimilar to Thai beach resorts, [View Full Entry]

By JoBrown
April 17th 2008

Cambodia's dark past- Phnom Penh Asia » Cambodia » South » Phnom Penh

S-21
a normal school

We had a hellish bus journey to get to Phnom Penh so were really pleased to have arrived after sweating on a crampt bus for 5 hours. Initially it was a big disappointment- we walked out of one guest house in disgust at the state of the rooms that they actually expected us to pay to stay in, and the next one wasn't much better as it was full of drunk/stoned people making a nuisance of themselves. We found a better place eventually, and got a TV and air con for 10 USD so we were happy. We arrived knowing very [View Full Entry]

By JoBrown
April 15th 2008

Angkor Wat Asia » Cambodia » North » Angkor

Angkor Wat
the famous three towers

A trip to Cambodia would not be complete without a visit to the ancient temples of Angkor. We decided (perhaps foolishly) that the best way to visit the site would be on bicycles and set of on the 7km ride to get to the ruins from the town of Siem Reap. The temples are scattered over a large area but our first stop had to be at Angkor Wat itself, by far the most famous, this temple is huge and impressive, built between the 9th and 11th centuary much of it still remains intact (though some of the statues were beheaded [View Full Entry]

By JoBrown
April 12th 2008

Bangkok-Siem Reap pilgramage Asia » Cambodia » North » Siem Reap

poipet
rhymes with toilet

We had heard some good stories about crossing the border between Thailand and Cambodia, and our experience lived up to the expectations. Our mission was to do it in under 10 hours, and not to be the victim of any scams, of which there were many to look out for. We set off from Khao San Road in Bangkok at 4.30 AM, voluntarily I might add, so as to get a few hours head start on the hoardes of backpackers on the tourist busses and Thais coming for the casinos on the Cambodian side that would hold us up at the [View Full Entry]

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