Have been in Mexico for three weeks now, so about time I updated the blog. After San Diego, got the tram down to the border and literally just walked through - not a single border official checking anything (though going the other way is probably the most policed border in the world). Decided to spend a night in Tijuana (one night too many I'd say). Luckily I was there on a Monday, very tacky town, and full of pharmacies selling cheap prescription medicines to Americans crossing the border. I think that's what you'd call a market solution to a dysfunctional health [View Full Entry]

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On the way to the Grand Canyon, had to stop off in New Mexico (to prevent a really long bus ride from being a ridiculously long one). Still took 18 hours to go from San Antonio to Albuquerque via El Paso. We were boarded by US customs not far from the border after El Paso, checking the work permits for the Mexicans on board (i.e. everyone but me), they seemed bemused by my passport and visas. Albuquerque is a strange town. Built right on Route 66, there´s three parts to it - downtown with almost nothing of interest, Old Town a [View Full Entry]

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So, finally getting the blog going again (was far too lazy over Christmas to add the Africa entries - may get it done in April when i get back!). The second leg of the Rodyssey is a quick trip around North and Central America - not as extensive or probably exciting as last year, but ticks quite a lot of places I´ve always wanted to see. Flew out on Januray 17th to Austin, Texas via Chicago. First hint that the US weather wouldn´t be quite as I expected it was when I was grounded in Chicago for the night due to [View Full Entry]

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I don't know why I bother, it's not even as if I like the beach, but my plans for some chilled out time at a luxury tropical beach came unstuck again. Kind of. Went from Trivandrum to Varkala on Saturday and booked into a fantastic bamboo hut for three nights (ended up staying for four). Varkala is a lovely spot, located on a cliff top overlooking the Arabian Sea. Was a very relaxing few days - fantastic food (locally caught fish) and nothing to do but relax and unwind. Weather was ok but it always got cloudy in the afternoon so [View Full Entry]

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Have left northern India behind and flown to Kerala today - staying the night in Trivandrum and heading to Varkala and hopefully a nice beach hut tomorrow. Shockingly enough as soon as I got anywhere near a beach it started raining! Hopefully sometime over the next few days it will clear up.... The last week of volunteering in Himachal was so much fun - had a couple of parties (our leaving do and a rooftop party at Silver camp) where the crazy Indian beer worked its magic again. The leaving party was great, all the staff joined in for some bizarre [View Full Entry]

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It's been a long break in blog entries, but I haven't had much time to update recently - been very busy in Himachal and internet in the camp is agonisingly slow. Arrived in Delhi on September 10th after spending a week in Kuching, KL and Singapore - didn't do much for this week as I was a bit tired of the whole tourist thing, so chilled out in Kuching, escaped the heat of KL by spending most of it in SE Asia's largest shopping mall for some new clothes and books and spent the day in Singapore at the zoo (very [View Full Entry]

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Have just returned from a week spent deep in the Borneo rainforest, yrt another amazingly cool experience. Another one of the places (after Prague, Lake Baikal, Mongolia and Wolong) where I could have stayed much longer. We flew to Kucking in Sarawak, Borneo almost two weeks ago and spent a few days here - very sweet town and the hostel, Singgahsana Lodge, is by far the best I've stayed in. We visited the Semangoah Orangutan rehabilitation centre where the orangs live in the semi-wild and can be viewed when feeding and the Matang Wildlife Centre where they work on the rehabilitation [View Full Entry]

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Today is the 100th day of my trip, almost half way through the first leg, so just a brief blog entry. We're spending the weekend in on Langkawi Island (north west Malaysia near Thailand), at a gorgeous tropical beach. Now I haven't had a lot of success with beaches so far - it rained when I finally got to Nha Trang in Vietnam and last week we went to Penang to find the beach and water were pretty awful and dirty (so just stayed by the pool in the Holiday Inn). Arrived last night to torrential rain, but luckily this morning [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in KL, Malaysia on Sunday on a flight from HCMC. Stayed in the capital one night and met the volunteers and coordinates of the orangutan program. First two weeks I'll be at the zoo in Taiping (4hrs north of KL) with three others. Andy, Cayleigh and Amy (all from UK) and our two coordinators, Nas and Aida. Started work on Tuesday - it's a fantastic zoo with a huge variety of animals. There's 4 orangutans here: Hassan, a 27 year old male who's very lazy and lethargic, Heaven, Hassan's woman, who's very fat, Puden, another female who doesn't get on [View Full Entry]

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Just spent a couple of days in Ho Chi Minh / Saigon (again, not enough time). Luckily it's been very cool and overcast here. First day just spent wandering the city - it's even madder than Hanoi and the traffic is ten times worse. Went to see the War Remnants Museum which made for grim viewing and hung around the Backpackers Quarter which was pretty cool. Next day went on a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels - a renovated part of the Old VC tunnels around Saigon. Really cool experience - it was raining heavily which made for a very [View Full Entry]

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