Laurie and Viv Birch
TimelineLaurie and Viv
OCT 2006: Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six... Why did Major Tom step outside his space capsule? We may never know the answer to that question but in that same spirit of discovery - and perhaps insanity, we stepped outside the confines of our everyday lives; sold our possessions, rented out the house and gave up the security of comfortable jobs in exchange for the unknown. "Countdown commencing, engines on..."
Follow our adventures - and misadventures - as we embark upon a journey through the countries of North and South East Asia - from China and the upper reaches of the Mekong in Laos to the equatorial islands of Indonesia. Click here "Beginnings" to view the first entry, or scroll down to see the most recent article.
OCT 2007: Saying a reluctant goodbye to S. E. Asia was tough but the adventure continues. Having decided to extend our original 12 months, we tied up a few loose ends on the home front and headed for India. Stay tuned for more news of our experiences from 'Planet India', a place quite unlike any other visited so far.
MARCH 2008 Journey's End. The adventure concludes in India with a final look at the Backwaters of Kerala and a brief sojourn among the hill stations of the Western Ghats.
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About Us
Our home and hearts are very definitely in Cornwall and it is to there that we will always return. If asked to describe ourselves, we would probably say that we were mature in years but young at heart and would confess to having an incurable curiousity about the world. The desire to see it while we still can and share its wonders with others has almost become a passion.
We have funded trips with all kinds of ventures and usually end up doing something to augment a long journey. In the past this has included; fruit picking, teaching at an international school, volunteering, cleaning rooms in hostels and writing articles for magazines. It's never likely to make us wealthy but happy hearts are often their own reward.
We have two grown up children and two grand daughters in Cornwall - all of whom, make us extremely proud.
Travel Blog Posts
March 4th 2008
Where does a trip like ours really end? Was it the moment that you boarded that last flight? Or the moment of touchdown back home when you felt the first drops of cold rain on your face? At the start of this trip I wrote, "All journeys have a beginning and an end. Ours began in Cornwall." For us, the journey would end in India, looking out over the Arabian Sea from the top of a coastal sand dune. A cool breeze, sunshine and fine blown sand; the last cherished memories of a trip spanning 18 months and 12 countries. Although we had spent more time in India than anywhere else, it was not because it had been our favourite country; the long visa entitlement and relatively cheap living expenses had more to do with that. ... read more
February 21st 2008
It was not hard to pick out the ferry from the knot of boats moored at the quayside. It was a battered old tub with peeling paintwork; its hull scarred and gouged from one too many dockside collisions. The passenger deck was roofed with wood and corrugated iron, while astern; a mess of ropes lay ready for the boat boys to tie-off at each of the village stops the boat would make along the way. The Indian boat pilot sat at the wheel combing his hair. When he was satisfied with the result, he returned the comb to a shirt pocket and began flipping the throttle as if he was eager to leave. Each time he did so, a black gout of diesel smoke belched from the pipe above the passenger deck: Indian public transport at ... read more
February 13th 2008
With Christmas and New Year finally out of the way, we drew up plans to visit Kerala and Tamil Nadu. After so long a respite from 'life on the road', you might have thought that we would be ready to move on but we were strangely reluctant to do so. We had become comfortable in Goa. We knew the ropes and had gathered a small circle of friends. But eventually, after delaying as long as we could, we set off in mid January - boarding a train that was to take us 500 miles further south and put us on a collision course with the sort of "India Experience" that Goa had shielded us from. The psychological onslaught begins on the train. Train journeys in India seem to encapsulate life in the country - in microcosm. ... read more
January 8th 2008
The fact that Goa was different from just about any other state in India was obvious from the moment you crossed the border. Gone were the ubiquitous shrines and temples devoted to a bewildering pantheon of Indian deities. In their place were whitewashed Christian churches that reared enigmatically above the palm trees. Crucifixes swung from the rear view mirrors of buses and taxis while their sunstrips proclaimed that "Jesus is our Saviour" or invoked the auspices of a favourite saint. The people were different too. Goans were a gentle race whose proud heritage was reflected in their names; D'souza, Fernandes, Rodrigues and Emmanuel - a legacy of more than 350 years of Portuguese rule. The Portuguese explorer, Vasco de Gama was one of the first Europeans to survey the Goan coastline in 1489 when the state's ... read more
December 21st 2007
Thirty-two days after our arrival in Hampi, we said our goodbyes and crept out of town in the early hours of a December morning. It was 5:30am and we had a train to catch that left Hospet at 6:30. Creeping out into the pre-dawn darkness, we made a secret rendezvous with a share-taxi driver from our friend Piru's village and prepared to leave town. We were trying to be surreptitious but our departure did not go unnoticed and there was one final encounter with the 'Rickshaw Mafia' before we finally got away. The bus to Hospet cost 10 Rupees but outside normal operating hours (the buses didn't start running until 6:30 in the morning), you were at the mercy of the Rickshaw Mafia who would often charge outrageously inflated prices. There was one other option and ... read more
November 28th 2007
After five days in Hampi Bazaar, we packed up our bags and moved across to the village of Virupapurgadi on the other side of the Tungabhadra River. The river was almost low enough to wade across in places and huge rounded boulders stood like stranded hippos in midstream. Many of these boulders had intricate carvings decorating their flanks that were only visible in the dry season. During the monsoon, in August and September, the Tungabhadra became a raging monster when most of these rocks and their carvings were submerged under 15 feet of water. Up until this point, we had spent our days scrambling over rocky hillsides and exploring secret temples littered with fallen columns. We delighted in each new discovery, almost falling to our knees in awe when we came across a cave temple with ... read more
November 10th 2007
Gunfire rattled up and down the darkened streets. From our vantage point up on the rooftop, we could hear the sharp retort of - what sounded like - a gun somewhere down below, to be followed seconds later by rapid retaliatory fire from an automatic - further up the street. Periodic shouting broke out in the smoke filled streets and alleyways of the town while overhead, a starshell exploded with a deafening "BANG" that thudded through our chests with heart-stopping violence. We were in the small Karnatakan town of Hampi in south-central India. Had you been brought blindfolded to the rooftop of our hotel without any prior knowledge of what was going on, you could be forgiven for thinking that you had ended up in the middle of a war zone. Fortunately, you would be wrong ... read more
November 4th 2007
There can't be anywhere else quite like India. It becomes apparent, almost as soon as you arrive, that this country of around 1.25 billion people marches to a very different drum to that of the rest of the world. It is a place of extremes and massive contradictions where the sheer diversity of human experience and emotion may overwhelm, delight, shock or suffocate you - sometimes, all in the same moment. Nothing seems to work quite the way you expect and the cultural divide is so great that - upon arrival - you can feel as if you have somehow, been transported to a different planet. Experiencing this cultural difference is one of the main reasons we travel and it is because India is so different, that we keep coming back. A journey through the sub-continent ... read more
September 28th 2007
The wonderful thing about S E Asia is the variety of landscapes and experiences to be had there. You can mingle with remote hill tribes, be bowled over by hi-tech mega cities, climb an active volcano, explore the ruins of a 'lost city', trek through virgin rainforests or simply kick back on an idyllic beach. In the course of a year, we had done most of these things - and more. Moving on from the region would be hard for we had come to know it quite intimately. This wasn't the end however. We were still 5-months away from returning home. In the interim, there was still one last challenge - India. Following our return from Australia, there was time to say "Goodbye" to S E Asia as we made our way slowly back to Bangkok. ... read more
Beneath a Southern Sky
Published: September 28th 2007Oceania » Australia » Western Australia » Fremantle » Penguin Island
September 16th 2007
TransPerth trains had a very helpful habit of telling you where you were and where you were going. "The next station stop," the lightly accented voice would announce over the PA system, "Is Kuranda." It made city navigation so much easier. And, should you chance to fall asleep and miss your stop, the PA system would be on hand to inform you - most helpfully - that you had in fact missed your stop. On this particular day however, missing our stop was unlikely to be a problem since we were taking the train to the end of the line at Fremantle. After a busy few days catching up with the family, we had decided to broaden our horizons, visit some old friends south of Perth and try to see a little bit of the south ... read more
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