Jools

The adage, ‘there is no place like home’ could not have been more apt than after almost a year and half overseas but what would be an even more apt expression for my return would be ‘there is no place like Africa!’ A long flight home, a brief stopover in Jo’burg to see some of my lovely family and it was once again back to ORT to catch my last flight, for a while, to the land of more family, food and lots and lots of R & R! My excitement was truly too much too contain. I landed in Maun just after lunch time on the 22nd of December just in time for Christmas and I was expecting to be picked up and ushered, by a random, onto a Cessna on rout to see mom ... read more

Since I can remember, my entire vision of Malaysia was built on a mind’s eye image of Melaka, oddly enough. As a result, my expectations of the city were revving on the red side of the expectations temperature gauge which is often a little dangerous but what could possibly be disappointing about a Colonially marked Muslim Indo-china symbiosis? After our 100th over night, just better than bearable bus ride, the bus station appear around 7am, marking our much anticipated arrival in Melaka. Admittedly the general mood of our pair was erring on the side of irritably exhausted and we still had to negotiate our way to the other side of the city so we did what sensibly exhausted travellers do and stopped for a coffee break before having to muster the energy to haggling with a ... read more

Because there are too many to lump with the other photos for Phnom Penh and Siem Reap here are picks from Angkor Wot :-)... read more

A quick fill up on a standard Vietnam backpackers free breakfast aka; bananas, baguettes and tea, and we headed for the tour company via the street backer (the giant choc chip peanut biscuits looked too irresistible not to be sampled) and joined a group of people all bound for a touristy day on the Mekong. While anything is possible on your own, tour companies have been clever and they offer tours at prices that are sometimes cheaper than what you would end up paying if you tried to replicate the trip on your own so you are almost left with no option but to sign up and since having already joined so many tours on our travels at is safe to say we were a little nervous about the touristy tit-bits that go hand in hand ... read more

For the first time on our trip Ken and I had called a couple of guesthouses to try and pre book our accommodation. Usually we just rock up at a spot and take it from there but our bus was due to arrive in Mui Ne at 1:30am so be though we best not take our chance and rather book a spot. Some five bumpy hours later we arrived in Mui Ne where we were hurriedly ushered off the bus before it made a speedy departure leaving us in its dust on the very dark, deserted street at the completely wrong end of Mui Ne. Not knowing where we were and not being able to decipher where we were in relation to where we had booked to stay we headed down a small dirt path heading ... read more