Sign In
Niall and Dee McCarthy
Having both finished our jobs at the London Stock Exchange and JP Morgan in July, we plan to spend some time back in Ireland bothering our familes in August. Then in September our adventure starts in the Middle East on a trip from Istanbul to Cairo, then on to Nairobi for voluntary work with the Jamii Bora Microfinance Institute (http://www.jamiibora.org). From there we hope to travel to South Africa via Victoria Falls. Then a flight to India for a few months before travelling through China and some of South East Asia before a flight home. Phew - all of that in 12 months....NiallandDee
So to keep up-to-date on latest news on a need-to-know basis please click the "Subscribe" button below.
Thanks all, Niall and Dee
Travel Blog Posts
August 15th 2010
And so we entered Cambodia on a slow boat up the Mekong. For us veterans of over a dozen land border crossings and all the confusion that goes with them, doing one by boat was a refreshing experience. And, on a slightly geeky note, the Vietnamese exit stamp on our passports has a (tiny) boat symbol, while our entry stamp has a little car (we came by land from China). For those of you out there with a Vietnamese stamp, have a look. For the rest of you, well I warned you it was geeky. Phnom Penh So onto Phnom Penh, where a visit to S21 and the killing fields was arranged. Cambodia is the second country on our tour with history of a recent genocide. While the impact on the people of such a loss ... read more
August 10th 2010
Good Morning Vietnam! What a great country. We crossed in from China and Vietnam became country number 17 on the world tour. And also a huge welcome to Fiona - Dee’s little sister (clearly she doesn’t like being referred to as such) - who joined us for the start of the Vietnamese leg in Hanoi and will be with us for the rest of our journey through South East Asia. Dee was ever so slightly excited about the prospect of her arrival. Well, it was well time that we both had a little new conversation to entertain us… not that we get tired of talking to each other all of the time! Hectic Hanoi Vietnam is buzzing, and Hanoi is the start of it. Mopeds, it’s all about the mopeds. Every narrow little street in Hanoi ... read more
July 11th 2010
So last time we were in contact we were just getting on a last minute flight out of India to Hong Kong. And what a contrast! Back to the west with a bang. In Dee’s words: “There is sooooooooooo much Shopping!!!!”. That pretty much sums up Hong Kong. Shopping and the smallest hotel rooms in the world. We had a great few days there; enjoying the cooler weather (still 30C mind you), scaling the peak and managed to arrange our visa for China before jumping on one of the best trains in the world to get us all the way to Beijing. Leaving Hong Kong, we knew we in for a treat, and what a treat it was. There is definitely truth in the term Chinese Medicine.. and we can confirm that just having visited. Beautiful ... read more
June 7th 2010
So from Jo’berg, and the familiarity of Africa, we landed into the stifling heat of unfamiliar Mumbai. There are a few things to highlight about India before we start: The People There are lots of people everywhere and always. The idea of personal space does not exist in the same way that it does in the west. I guess there are too many people to allow it to. You are constantly in a crowd of people, like when everyone spills out of Croke Park at the final whistle and heads for home. And as westerners we have that expectation that just up ahead the crowd will thin out and we’ll be able have our own sense of space again. But no, this is India, and we travelled from the very south to the very north and ... read more
May 6th 2010
And so onto Cape Town, what a city. It is really stunning. A beautiful setting, wrapped on all sides by mountains and coast line, dominated by Table Mountain, eclectic shops and boutiques, delicious restaurants and funky bars, local red wines, and energetic chatty cape-tonian taxi drivers who cannot help but point out all the local tourist sites. It is just a buzzing vibrant city, and the perfect place for the two weary travelers to chill for a few days, enjoy a few lattes and glasses of pinotage and remind themselves that, whilst they are maintaining an excellent charade as penniless chilled out backpackers complete with an unshaven beard and tiny wardrobe, they are actually impatient Londoners who prefer a glass of Moet to a warm beer. And the Moet was about to flow!! Finally, A Little ... read more
April 18th 2010
Welcome to Zambia According to our essential Lonely Planet Southern Africa guide if you go to Zambia and have 3 days go to Vic Falls; if you have 1 week go to Vic Falls and if you have 1 month go to Vic Falls! So, rather understandably, most of our Zambian time was spent enjoying Vic Falls. There was a bit of a wierd day in Lusaka, Zambia's capital first though. The predominantly Irish overland tour group (oh and no offense to our quarter Spanish representation but clearly Stef has been truly adopted by now), decided to stay in the “new hotel with friendly staff” which actually opened six years ago with a less than pleasant receptionist, then tried to book the Lusaka to Livingstone first class sleeper train and were ever so slightly perturbed to ... read more
April 6th 2010
Not been in touch for a while, very sorry about that. Unfortunately, our long term travel companion - you all know him; he reminds us to call home once a week, shows us the best photos in Africa taken by us and brings us the latest films/Gavin & Stacey series’ which we watched thoroughly in Tanzania - our poor little Dell laptop (a.k.a. Dell Boy) caught a sub-Saharan tropical virus and died just after we crossed into Zambia. To cure the problem we have visited numerous witch doctors in Zambia, Namibia and now South Africa and have just managed to bring him back to life; and although disappointed he has missed two amazing countries he has personally promised to hang in there to see us through until the bitter end (in fact he is currently keeping ... read more
February 28th 2010
Alright all, what’s occurring? Now I won’t lie to you but we are doing great and continuing our big trip across the African continent. The stark realisation that the biggest trip of all awaited us to get across Tanzania - as it is surprisingly bigger than we originally thought - was a bit of a shock to the system for us…. Having spent four weeks travelling across Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda we suddenly realised how far we had actually NOT travelled around Lake Victoria and that it was going to be a big ask to try and get across Tanzania in two weeks with a five day safari in the middle! The Odyssey Begins… So it is cheeky, but at most border crossings, we jokingly suggest to the immigration official that, as we are Irish citizens, ... read more
February 18th 2010
So to start this update, let me quote our favourite book of the moment - The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski - “Our subject is Rwanda. It is a small country, so small that in certain maps of Africa it is marked with only a dot. You must use the accompanying explanatory notes to discover that this dot indicates Rwanda.” It is fair to say that Rwanda is a very tiny country, less than half the size of Ireland, and when you look at it on a map it is very hard to understand how it ended up being a separate country at all, and not part of one its much larger neighbours: Uganda, Tanzania or Congo. The answer is immediately apparent after you cross the border from Uganda. In Dee’s words “Rwanda seems ... read more
January 30th 2010
What a country. We have been blown away by the hospitality and friendliness of Ugandans. We left Kenya at the border in Malaba, leaving behind us the throng of touts and agents trying to sell soft drinks, biscuits, water, foreign exchange, taxi rides and everything else that goes with a typical border crossing / bus station in Kenya and arrived into Uganda. Silence. Hello? Nobody. Where do we get the bus from? We had to ask someone! Where are the several dozen people surrounding us trying to sell us anything and everything? Welcome to Uganda. Being someone who enjoys symmetry, equilibrium and balance, our visit to Uganda is perfectly timed sitting on the equator, perfectly in the middle of Africa and almost exactly half way through our year long trip. It makes me smile. Sipi Falls ... read more
Tot: 0.172s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 13; qc: 78; dbt: 0.0527s; 1; s:apollo w:www (50.28.60.10); sld: 2; ; mem: 6.6mb
© 2013 TravelBlog.org & Bloggers