Sophie and Dale
Back in 2008 we took 21 months off work, rented out the house, found a foster home for Stuart (cat!) and ventured out to the big wide world. We saw as many places as we could fit in in the time we were on the road and returned home in February 2010 after a truly life changing and eye opening journey.Sophie and Dale
Our adventure lasted... 615 days!
Since then we've fallen into the routine of life back in the UK but have always planned to get back out there as soon as we could. It's taken a bit longer than we'd hoped but we did squeeze in getting married and a few holidays to fill the days so we can't complain.
In January 2013 we'll be back out in the big wide Asian world and cannot wait! We look foward to sharing all the fun and excitement with you very soon... Sophie & Dale
Until our next adventure
Yes please we'll take these things back home...
- Food from Argentina (steak!), Thailand (hot & sour soup & green curry), Indonesia (gado-gado & ikan goreng) and Vietnam (hot pot)
- Hammocks - super comfy for any time of day
- Bemos, ojeks, minibuses - great transport, they are super cheap (if you get the right price), take you anywhere and you don't have to wait for the right one
- The weather - from SE Asia... sun sun and more sun
- Warungs, hawker stands, market stalls - super cheap and super yummy food any time of the day.. H&S regulations would not approve!
- Fresh Fruit & Fruit Shakes - Tesco's you have a lot to live up to! Rambutans, custard apples, mangosteens, chirimoya and dragonfruit are all our favourites
- Beaches from Indonesia & Thailand & solitude of NZ
- Indigenous & tribal handicrafts & clothing
- Bartering - sometimes we love it
- Amazing flaura & fauna - orangutans, whales, dolphins, komodo dragons, matra rays, turtles, gekkos, walking trees, bougainvillea, penguins all our favouries
- Stepping our your hut onto the beach
- Markets - where you can buy anything & everything from soap to swimming fish and watermelon to washing up bowls
- Make do and mend - roadside stalls to fix your shoes, glasses, watch, bag... Sophie is now on her 4th bag zip and Dale has had 2 screws replaced in his sunglasses
- Sarongs - multipurpose garment that even men can wear!
- Flip flops (Thongs!) - and being able to wear them day in day out
- Asian driving - we love the 'he who is biggest wins' attitude.. it's scary sometimes but in a funny way seems to work!
- Argentinian buses - they just don't get better than that!
No thanks we'll leave these things out here...
- Food from Bolivia & Laos - indistinguishable meat is not ok!
- Asian Queuing - we were in line for a reason not for the fun of it!
- Handwashing - we will love our washing machine with hot water when we get back!
- Cold showers in cold countries - Bolivia wins this hands down.. if you want it hot then you get electrocuted the choice is yours!
- Transport drivers - the devil's children made to make your life a misery
- 9+ hour bus rides - with chickens under your seat, sick swilling on the floor, flying round bends at 100mph 1000m up a cliff face with the driver smoking, texting and spitting out cocoa leaves simultanously while terrible tinny music blares out full blast!
- Excess body things - spitting, long nails on men, long mole hairs and nose cleaning with no tissue IS NOT OK!
- Littering - out windows or on the floor to the sea, river, road or jungle every time
- Open sewers - and getting a mouthful of the fumes as you pass
- Hole in the floor toilets - leading to the railway tracks, river or sea, especially when people are doing their washing further downstream
- Bartering - most of the time we hate it
- Hawkers - especially in Vietnam when you are trying to enjoy dinner
- Sandflies & Mosquitos - no explanation needed!
- Short term mentality - why fix it properly when you can do a botch job!
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain
Travel Blog Posts
February 21st 2011
We haven't been on here for a while now, we had intended to do a best of blog but that didn't come to fruition in the end partly through denial that the journey had ended and partly through being too busy. We couldn't however let it pass without documenting one of the most momentous events of both our lives... our marriage & honeymoon so this blog will give the full run down on the week which was truly one of the best we've ever experienced. It's a bit strange writing this from the relative comfort of our lounge back in Northampton. Far away from those days spent in noisy internet cafes with a million children running around us playing COD or other equally high volume games, whether this will make this blog better or worse will ... read more
February 9th 2010
We were looking forward to going back to Bangkok as it is one of our favorite citites, certainly our favourite in Asia anyway. It has everything you could want in a city.. fabulous shopping, cheap & tasty food, good and cheap (sometimes free!) public transport and loads to see and do. As is now typical of our time here Sophie had organised for us to come here for one thing and one thing only.. to shop.. Dale was delighted as always! We spent our days wanding the city, looking round the shopping centres and went on a silk buying mission to Little India to get some material for Sophie's mum which took us to a new area previously unexplored by us so we enjoyed walking around here too. Whilst browsing in Siam Paragon Dale engineered a ... read more
January 19th 2010
There were a million things we'd have loved to do in the Philippines, but a while back we'd decided that top of our list would be to go to the Ati-Atihan festival, said to be the wildest and most colourful of all festivals in South East Asia. We'd had to pre book our hotel in advance so were a bit limited with how we could spend our remaining few weeks. Along with Dominic we'd all decided to head towards the Panay island where Kalibo, the home of the festival is found as well as the beautiful Boracay. On the way our boat would stop at the Cuyo Islands so we thought we'd make use of this stop and stay a few days on this group of islands that there is very little information about both in ... read more
Crusoe Christmas & Partying with the Princess...
Published: January 13th 2010Asia » Philippines » Palawan
January 3rd 2010
We'd been flapping a bit about where to spend Christmas so when we found a resort that was affordable we texted them straight away to try and book a room and thankfully they had a room free so that was sorted. This resort was on Cacnipa Island, a small island a 40 minute boat ride away from Port Barton. After a night spent in Port Barton to relax after our 6 hour dusty bus ride followed by a 1 hour bumpy rooftop ride on an overpacked jeepney we caught the boat over to the island on Christmas Eve. We were really happy with our choice because the resort was gorgeous with it's own little private beach and beautiful coconut tree garden behind. Our room was really nice, the food served on the island was mouthwatering and ... read more
The perfect setting for one of life's big questions...
Published: January 8th 2010Asia » Philippines » Palawan » El Nido
December 22nd 2009
After the 7 hour incredibly scenic (but expensive 2,200PHP) boat ride from Coron Town to El Nido through a land that can only be described as Robinson Crusoe real estate, we all got off with our sea legs well and truly on.. it's amazing just how long it takes for the swaying sensation of being at sea to wear off! El Nido is really small and easy to walk around in a few minutes so along with David from Israel and Dominic from Germany we set off to find somewhere to sleep for our time here. It was quite a bit more expensive here than we'd hoped, we'd all thought we'd find rooms for around 500PHP but the cheapest we could find (with rooms available) were 800PHP. This room was a lovely spanking new room on ... read more
December 16th 2009
To get to Coron we chose the ferry route which was surprisingly comfortable despite opting for the equivalent of 2nd class. We chose Superferry to sail with and it was a 15 hour crossing from Manila to Coron Town on Busuanga Island, part of the Calamianes group in Northern Palawan. We had reserved bunks and after a quick swap with another passenger so we could have adjacent top bunks, eating our disgusting included meal which was basically pork fat in salt with rice we settled down to a good nights sleep and woke up at 6.30am when we docked. We'd pre booked our accommodation here but as our room wasn't going to be ready until midday we decided we'd hire out a bike and explore the island so we didn't waste one of our few days ... read more
December 11th 2009
Tagatay was our next destination and an easy transition from Baguio - Manila and then Manila - Tagatay. It was the usual ordeal of not having any idea where we needed to get dropped off when asked by the bus conductor so we got dumped in the plaza and wandered around looking a bit lost until some kind local helped us find our way! For the first time ever we purchased a local country SIM card and were really glad we had on this occasion as the accommodation in Tagatay is spread out along the supervolcano wall in a long line covering about 8km. With our handy phone (the wonders of modern technology!) we were able to call the guesthouse we'd selected to see if they had any rooms before we jumped in a never-ending tricycle ... read more
December 7th 2009
We'd read about the tiny village of Kabayan in LP and were both intrigued with the mummies in caves so decided that a side trip there to do a trek would be well worth the journey. The rickety old bus ride there along roads that were quite honestly plain scary made us have some doubts but we made it there fine and we were just glad we wouldn't be going back the same way! Kabayan is a tiny little village with one guesthouse so finding a room wasn't a problem at all, our plan was to stay there one night then make the 6 hour trek up the mountain to the site of the mummies before circling back to the highway to catch a bus back to Baguio. Doing this was a piece of cake as ... read more
December 4th 2009
We got to Sagada on an hour long jeepney trip from Bontoc which snaked up and up into the mountains and cloud with it growing ever colder as we went. The last time we'd really needed our fleeces & hats was at Mt Bromo a few months ago back and could easily count on one hand the number of times we'd needed them in our year in Asia. This time we were very glad we'd kept hold of them as they were very needed up here after getting a little too used to the Asian climate! People rave about Sagada and some travellers stay for weeks and weeks but when we arrived we really couldn't see what all the fuss was about. It was really low cloud so we couldn't really see much past the small ... read more
Step up and step down in rice terrace town...
Published: December 14th 2009Asia » Philippines » Banaue
December 1st 2009
On our return to the Philippines we spent just one night and day in Manila before catching our night bus all the way up the Banaue in the Cordillera region, famed for it's rice terraces and beautiful mountain views. The bus was far from the best we've been on but like most transport in the Philippines it was stupidly cheap for a 9 hour journey at P450 (£5.92) so we didn't complain. We arrived in Banaue at around 7am and after only a few hours sleep on the bus we decided we'd have a relaxing day to catch up on sleep and take in the tiny town. In retrospect we could really have fitted in a trip to the famous viewing area overlooking the town but hindsight is a wonderful thing that lives only in the ... read more
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