http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Laurie-and-Viv/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Laurie and Viv en-us Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:12:34 +0000 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:12:34 +0000 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 d http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Goa/blog-250914.html 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 tieoff at each of the village stops the boat would make along the way. T http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Tamil-Nadu/Kodai/blog-247438.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Kerala/Kochi-/blog-245415.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Goa/Benaulim/blog-236093.html Thirtytwo 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 530am and we had a train to catch that left Hospet at 630. Creeping out into the predawn darkness we made a secret rendezvous with a sharetaxi driver from our friend Piru's village and prepared to leave town. We were trying to be surreptitious but our depa http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Goa/Benaulim/blog-229257.html 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 mo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Karnataka/Hampi/blog-225874.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Karnataka/Hampi/blog-222487.html 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 sam http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Maharashtra/Mumbai/blog-216773.html 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 hitech 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 t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/blog-206378.html 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 st http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Western-Australia/Fremantle/Penguin-Island/blog-202561.html When we awoke to our first morning in Australia it was to the almost forgotten sounds of indigenous birdsong wattlebirds Australian magpies and honeyeaters. Excitedly I pulled back the blind covering our window and looked outside. It didn't seem to matter that it was a chilly 5 degrees centigrade nor that it had rained during the night out there was Australia and we couldn't wait to beco http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Western-Australia/Perth/blog-199302.html The doors opened with a pneumatic hiss as the MRT train glided smoothly into the station at Orchard Road. The train and station area were antiseptically clean. Chrome and glass shone with hardly a sign of a fingerprint let alone any trace of graffiti but this was Singapore of course our 9th country and one of the cleanest in South East Asia. Hardly surprising since the act of leaving your 'ta http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Singapore/blog-195609.html Rest and recuperation. Most of our friends back home probably thought that our trip was one long holiday... what on Earth did we need a period of R R for Longterm travel however as anyone who has done it will know is not like taking a holiday. Without realising it the effects of heat and constant change of switching time zones and cultures so often of going without sleep and making d http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Pahang/Pulau-Tioman/blog-193965.html Sarawak. It was another one of those exotic sounding places that you almost felt compelled to visit simply for the name alone. We knew too that it would give us a perverse sense of satisfaction to be able to say that we had visited Sarawak and see the look of puzzlement cross peoplersquos faces. ldquoSarawakrdquo they would say ldquoWherersquos thatrdquoMost people have heard http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Sarawak/Bako-National-Park/blog-181906.html You had to love Indonesian hotels. Though they tried the Indonesians just couldn't seem to get it quite right. Shabby and frequently bed bugridden there were often times when we felt that someone ought to be paying us to stay in them not the other way around. And despite our best efforts to find something that would redeem our hotel in Bukit Lawang it was the bed bugs and smelly toilet that http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Sumatra/Lake-Toba/blog-174052.html I couldn't go any further a boy with a scimitar stood blocking my way. We were just below the eighth Tower of Heaven on China's Great Wall. Beyond I could see the Wall snaking its way over razoredged hilltops and disappearing into deep valleys only to reappear again on some distant peak. Scowling the boy said something in Chinese it was obviously a challenge. Viv was some way behind me. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/Great-Wall-of-China/blog-162263.html The rain fell like stair rods as we sheltered beneath a street awning in Bangkok waiting for it to stop. It rained most days now. People were saying that the rainy season was starting earlier and earlier each year. Was this a sign perhaps that the effects of climate change were beginning to affect weather patterns that could once have been predicted with a near perfect accuracy Change was not a http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Fujian/Xiamen/Gulangyu/blog-158610.html It was midMarch. Despite the fact that the hot season had begun heralding what was usually a slump in visitor numbers the Gecko Bar was full. Only one table remained so we grabbed it the five of us pulling up plastic chairs as we noisily staked our claim. Ordinarily whenever Viv and I were in Bangkok we headed for the Gecko Bar as soon as it became too hot to do anything else. Pulling up http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South-West-Thailand/Ko-Pha-Ngan/blog-146097.html It was 230 in the morning when Viv woke me. She was red hot and complaining that she had a terrible headache stomach cramps and aching joints. I think I need to see a doctor she whimpered. The fever had been building for the past two days but we had both been hoping that it was nothing serious and would pass given time. But instead it seemed to be getting worse and even paracetamol was hav http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Penang/George-Town/blog-175720.html Gunung Leuser National Park Just North of Bukit Lawang June 6th The walk uphill and through hot sticky jungle left us breathing hard sweat from even this small exertion popping out on our faces and running down our backs. We were on the big Indonesian island of Sumatra only a few degrees north of the equator and the heat was stifling. Smothering everything in a wet humid blanket it s http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Sumatra/Bukit-Lawang/blog-173214.html