SameSoul

As we mentioned in the last post, our last days in Australia were spent in the South and Victoria. Port Campbell was a really small village with a nice beach and lots of motels and restaurants. It’s clearly designed for tourists who come to visit the nearby 12 Apostles park. The day we visited the 12 Apostles (impressive rock formations which seem to emerge from the sea, close to the coast) was cloudy but we enjoyed a nice walk, not just in the Apostles site, but in a spot called Loch Ard Gorge. A famous ship was wrecked not far from here around 1878. Apparently there were only 2 survivors: a young crew member and an Irish girl. The young man rescued the lady and they became famous (so much so, that people at the time ... read more

Hello everybody!! Welcome to the last days of our trip. Right now I am very much looking forward to coming back home, seeing everyone, enjoying M’s home cooking, wearing new clothes and celebrating Christmas. I guess when one’s been away this long, towards the end, one feels a terrible nostalgia. There is only so much one can do and see before starting to feel too far way and missing one’s own life. I guess the tip I would give all travellers is to travel for a limited amount of time, in order to focus on things, appreciate every new country and city and not take things for granted. Notwithstanding the fact that we are extremely grateful that we’ve had the chance to see all these places and to share them with you! So, our last days ... read more

Hello dear homosapiens. Well, we’re now in Cairns, located on the north-east coast of Australia. Contrary to the dry desert of Uluru/Ayers Rock, Cairns is situated in a tropical area. The tropical forest, just a 2 hour drive from the city, is a protected UNESCO site. Australia boasts 19 such sites and unlike other countries in Europe, most of these are of a natural kind (in Europe they are of a cultural kind). In the area they have two, the tropical rain forest of Daintree and the Great Barrier Reef! Yesterday I visited the outer section of the Great Barrier Reef and did several dives in a place known as Flynn’s Reef. B didn’t join me on this occasion as she had conveniently hurt her little toe after bashing it into my suitcase. Of course I ... read more

Hello from the Northern Territory’s Red Centre!! What a magical place this is! The Red Centre is, as its name suggests, the centre of Australia; a HUGE area comprising several national parks, conservation reserves, mounts and lakes (most ‘usually dry’). You can drive for kilometres (we just drove 450 kms) and see nothing at all but what the Australians call the ‘Outback’, an endless savannah similar to the African desert in its vastness and plainness. We travelled quite a long way to spend 2 days at the World Heritage-listed National Park which houses the famous rock formations: ‘Uluru’ (Ayers Rock) and ‘Kata Tjuta’ (The Olgas). What we felt when we came face to face to Kata Tjuta, on our first day, is something that could have easily been a scene out of ‘Close encounters of the ... read more

Arrived in Sydney at 6 am in the morning on 15th and celebrated the fact we’ve been travelling for 2 months now by suffering from terrible jet-lag all day long (I would have literally sold my suitcase in exchange for a bed!!!). Went for a walk to check out the area where we stayed, called Surry Hills. It is pretty nice but.... Jesus! Such prices!! Buying food here, internet, renting a car, anything, is FAR more expensive then the UK. Thankfully we’re staying in a sort of apartment so we can cook our food as if we were at home. This part of Sydney reminds me vaguely of NY’s Brooklyn; with its fashionable and vintage small shops, picturesque little restaurants and convenient stores, it definitely has an air of suburb with a unique style and undeniable ... read more

We made a 2 day stop in Bangkok before heading to Australia. I was expecting chaos and disorder following the floods, but I can’t see anything of the sort! To be honest, we were in Silom which is a central area, and I guess this part has been especially protected. One thing is for sure; Thai people are working hard to keep things up and running: restaurants are open, night markets are full of people (not many foreigners I admit) and the night we go out for dinner, and almost nothing reminds us of the terrible situation the country has been facing. I say almost, because most buildings in the area display signs of the catastrophe: rows of sand bags piled on the base of facades, are an attempt to protect businesses and houses from the ... read more

Hi everyone, we’re now entering the final phase of our trip in Thailand before starting on our big adventure of Oz. These last few days have been very interesting, as we’ve been invited by my old friend Tim, owner of the dive centre Davy Jones Locker (DJL) on Koh Tao, to help in preparation for his new dive school on the island of Koh Lipe, based on the western side of Thailand in the Andaman Sea. What makes this so interesting is that Koh Lipe is an island which is developing and is currently in its infancy, much like what Koh Tao was 10-15 years ago. This means there is an opportunity to establish oneself successfully early on, using all the experience and resources from Koh Tao to quickly set up and run a diving business, ... read more

Hello everyone! So... here is our last post about our experience at the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand. If you’ve read the last post, you already know the elephant routine we have been doing: feeding and cleaning 3 times a day, watering the animals and a special project mid-morning. Special projects are also related to the animals’ needs. For example, one day we planted pineapple trees (which will hopefully give pineapples in a year’s time), another day bananas were needed and another day, which was THE HARDEST, there was Harvest. Harvest means loading a very big truck with banana trees. The Mahouts, Thai employees, come with us to cut the trees, in a farm about 20 minutes away from the foundation. They cut and we drag and load the trees onto the truck. The harvest I witnessed ... read more

Hello everybody and welcome to Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand!! WFFT was founded in 2001 by a Dutch gentleman in love with mistreated or disabled animals. So this year it’s the foundation’s 10th anniversary! Our first day here is strange, a bit like having jet-lag. We wake up at 6:00 am as elephants (the animals we’ll be taking care of) are fed at that time. We’re pretty tired as our first night here was a bit of a nightmare: the foundation houses not only elephants but MANY other animals in need of help. There are bears, monkeys, apes, crocodiles, tigers, otters, wild boars, exotic birds, eagles, turtles, rabbits, dogs and others. We love dogs but we don’t love their ‘barking & howling concert’ on our first night here. Jesus! That was serious noise! The next morning, Tommy ... read more

Hello everyone! Sorry it’s taken some days to write, but internet connection hasn’t been great. From Beijing we caught a plane to Bangkok, then another to Koh Samui and finally the boat to Koh Tao (Koh means ‘island’and Tao means ‘Turtle’, so we are in the Turtle Island now!!). In Beijing, at the airport, I read an article about Bill Gates’ The Giving Pledge, I’m sure you’ve heard about it. Apparently, Mr Gates and Warren Buffett (one of the richest men alive) travelled to China to talk about their project, which consists of super-rich people leaving almost all of their fortune to the Gates Foundation as a way to help human kind in some unselfish way. I guess they were trying to sign up some Chinese millionaires, but people went ballistic. In the newspaper, it said ... read more