MikeBee
Michael Bradford & Tracy Lincoln Joined: August 21st 2008
Logged in: March 26th 2011
Logged in: March 26th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
Long tail boats at Maya Beach on Koh Phi Phi
Thailand was our last stop before settling down in Australia and marked the end of our travels. After a late night flight from Delhi to Bangkok, that was more like an unruly school trip than an international flight, we spent some time recovering by our hotel pool. Then we left the city by train for our first Island, Koh Tao. The crossing was very rough and a few of our fellow passengers were projectile vomiting before the ferry had left the dock side. By staring at the horizon during the entire journey, Tracy and I made it ashore without losing our breakfast and by the time we had found somewhere to stay the rain stopped and the sun came out. The next few days were spent walking from one secluded, sandy bay to another. Stopping to ... read more
The quiet streets of Bandipur
Between Nepal's trekking capital, Pokhara, and it's actual capital, Kathmandu, sits the small town of Bandipur. With it's winding, slate paved streets that wrap around a high ridge and cheery people who greeted us with smiles and “Namaste”, Bandipur was the most welcoming and relaxing place we had been to so far. We filled our days with long hikes over hills and through fields, always ending at a spectacular view point for sunset. The bad weather from Pokhara was lifting but the mountain vistas were still haunted by cloud. Once the sun had set the towns lack of electricity meant that windows and doorways were full of dancing candlelight and the small shrines were ringed with flickering oil lamps. To end our time in Bandipur we had a thrilling ride down to the highway to catch ... read more
Golden Buddha in Lambini
Our crossing from India to Nepal came at the end of a gruelling twelve hour bus journey and the start of the most important days in Nepal's Dasain festival. Whist we filled in our imergration forms the cheery Nepalese officials (a marked contrast from the surly Indian ones) explain the festival and advised that the country was almost at a stand still was everyone visited family. There would be no buses for a few days and all shops and banks would be shut. Rather than spend days in a grubby border town waiting for a bus, we throw some money at the problem and took a taxi to the nearby town of Lumbini, the birth place of Buddha. Although everything was closed and the streets deserted and pitch black, we managed to find a candle lit ... read more
Our first meal in India, Masala Dossa
Having “agreed” to return to India on our way to Australia, we arrived in Delhi and spent a couple of days looking about. I'm not sure if it was my low expectations of Dehli or the fact that we know what to expect but we found the place to be much easier and less daunting than we believed it would be. After two days in the humid heat of Delhi we headed for the cooler air in the hills of Shimla. Our train journey out of Delhi was a joy, until we reached Kalka where we should have transferred to the narrow gauge 'toy train' to Shimla but realized we had not booked our onward reservation. We pushed and shoved our way to the reservation window at Kalka railway station, got a reservation form, filled it ... read more
Che Guevara mural
Arriving in Sucre, Bolivia's administrative capital, was a breath of fresh air. Mainly because it was only 2750 meters above sea level. We were no longer getting out of breath after walking up a flight of stairs due to lack of oxygen. The Sucre's main plaza was a pleasant tree lined square ringed with bars and cafes which provided the perfect spots to watch the world go by from the sunny balconies over looking the streets. Just out of town was a cement factory that had discover a massive fossilized mud bed whist digging for raw materials. This mud bed contained the tracks of over a hundred different dinosaurs, ranging from small chicken like creatures to massive 'saurus monsters. The tracks were so clear you could see herds of dinosaurs walking in lines like modern day ... read more
All dressed up and ready to go down the silver mine
Potosi is a lovely town in Bolivia which sits at the base of a hill containing huge silver reserves. This silver has been mined for hundreds of years and has meant the town has many pretty churches and plazas built by it's wealthy, and lucky, residents. To better understand what these miners go through to extract the silver from the hill we went out to mines. After putting on our protective clothing we dropped in at a market to buy the miners presents of dynamite, soft drinks and bags of coca leaves. Then we made our way up the hill to the mine entrance. At the start of the mine the roof was high enough to walk standing up but it wasn't long before we were crouching down to avoid banging our heads on the rock ... read more
The slat flats of Bolivia
We arrived in Uyuni from La Paz after getting no sleep on an overnight bus and went straight out on a three day tour of the area and it's salt flats. The first stop was was a train “graveyard” where lots of old trains were left to rust. Because the climate is so dry the trains had been sitting there for seventy years and will undoubtedly be there for another seventy at least. Then we drove out of town to the salt flats. They were amazing. All you could see from the bottom of your feet to the horizon was brilliant white salt. As it had dried it had formed hexagonal patterns on the ground and was as hard as concert. In the salt, which was three to seven meters thick, were rocky islands covered in ... read more
Blovian female wrestler jumping off the ropes
I was apprehensive about La Paz because of all the terrible stories of kidnapping I had heard but I'm please to say Tracy and I had a great time. Undoubtedly because we were stay right in the centre of the city so never got to see the harsher side of life, but I'm quite happy about that. La Paz has many restaurants severing food from all around the world and having been living on beans, rice and meat for a while we lapped up the different cuisines on offer. So much so that when a British Indian restaurant offered up the challenge of eating the worlds most dangerous vindaloo and getting a free T-shirt I jumped at the chance. The curry was made from thirty of South America's hottest chills, including the seeds, and was awful. ... read more
View from a lookout over the jungles tree canapy
Rurrenabaque is the jumping off point for adventures into Bolivia's portion of the Amazon jungle and wetlands. We decided to start with a three day trip into the jungle, so packed lots of insect repellent and climbed aboard a boat as it sped up river. On the way to our jungle camp we stopped off at a sugar cane planation and collect freshly picked oranges off the tree. Once at our camp we begin our jungle training with bow and spear practice, before heading out on a trail for a three hour hike. Although it was early afternoon the tree canopy prevented much of the sunlight getting through and we seemed to be walking in perpetual dusk. Once the sun had set, and after dinner, we went out again to see what the jungle and river ... read more
Lady sewing on Uros reed island
After recovering from the Inca trail in Cusco, we boarded a bus to Puno on the shores of Lake Titikaka. The journey through small villages and farms was lovely but as soon as we entered Puno the loveliness vanished. While not unpleasant, the town was similar to port towns throughout the world in being grimly and industrial. Waking up early the next morning we took a tour out to some of the Uros reed islands around Puno where small communities still live. Despite the fact that these islands seemed only to exist for us tourists it was still interesting to get a glimpse into how people evaded the advancing Inca's by building their own islands. The islands themselves, buildings on them and the boats they sailed were all made of reeds. Although the occasional corrugated iron ... read more
