http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Sophie-and-Dale/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Sophie and Dale en-us Fri, 25 Dec 2009 22:02:41 +0000 Fri, 25 Dec 2009 22:02:41 +0000 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 v http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Philippines/Cordillera/Sagada/blog-458518.html 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 B http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Philippines/Banaue/blog-458103.html We made the round trip back to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah from the Philippines because of the 21 day visa limit. Of course you can extend the visa but we'd planned to do this when we returned and flying in and out of the country was a cheaper alternative to extending it twice so it was a bit of tooing and froing but this is the way things worked best for us. Rather than just fly in and straight out http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Brunei/Bandar-Seri-Begawan/blog-455211.html After our first propellor plane flight from Cebu to Kalibo getting to Boracay from Kalibo was very easy. A minibus from the airport to Caticlan then a ferry to the island and finally a motorbike taxi to White Beach where we hunted for somewhere to stay. It didn't take very long before we'd found a nice big room with a hot shower and tv for just 800PHP 10.25 for the 3 of us which we really http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Philippines/Boracay/blog-453824.html Our introduction to the Philippines came as quite a surprise it started off pretty much as we were imagining with funky jeepneys converted US army jeeps running around and typical houses we've seen in most of SE Asia but as we'd landed in Clark which is about 3 hours North of Manila we were really surprised as we made our approach to this huge capital city. For a country that is among the poo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Philippines/Bohol/blog-453823.html Sandakan is a busy town which is up there on the tourist map because of the nearby Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary which is just a few km's away. It's also quite close to the Sungai Kinabatangan which is where we made our way from by minibus. Generally we have found minibus travel in this state quite expensive so for anyone who is coming here do your best to steer clear of them wherever possible as http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Sabah/Sepilok-Orang-Utan-Sanctuary/blog-447482.html The Sungai Kinabatangan was yet another place we only learnt about on our travels.. we don't do much research until we arrive at a place so only get set on going somewhere if someone highly recommends it.. which is exactly what happened here.This is basically a natural reserve located alongside the Kinabatangan river where you have the opportunity to spot Orangtans Pygmy Elephants Probiscus Monk http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Sabah/Kinabatangan/blog-447480.html We hadn't heard of the islands Sipadan Mabul when we were in the UK planning our trip but as you venture out to this part of the world then you will often be asked the question so have you dived at Sipadan The reason for this is that Sipadan has been voted one of the world's best dive spots and is famous for it's huge limestone drop off that is crowned by the island itself. Here in this are http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Sabah/Mabul/blog-445674.html This blog is about a beautiful island towards the top of Kalimantan where the sand is pure white the sea is crystal clear turtles play around in the surf every single day the coral is pristine and if this isn't enough you can venture out to visit jellyfish lagoons and manta rays gangs in neighbouring islands.. and best of all you have it all to yourself as there are no other tourists there to t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Kalimantan/Derawan/blog-441983.html The bus ride to Bontang was officially our scariest yet.. yes we know we do go on our about transport a lot but it plays such a huge role in travelling it's hard not to The bus driver really did seem to want to scare the bejesus out of us and literally flew round corners virtually on 2 wheels this was bad enough in daylight but a million times worse when it was pitch black and he was flying dow http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Kalimantan/Sangatta/blog-441982.html After a reasonably nice trip on the Penli ship with the only drama being Sophie getting locked below deck for a few hours while tickets were checked and being subjected to a million questions by the locals who surrounded her while she waited we docked in Balikpapan Borneo at 3am keen to discover this island that seems so undiscovered from back home in the UK. We were still with Tamil Marusha http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Kalimantan/blog-446564.html We travelled up to the Togeans with Tamil Marusha via Poso Ampana on the way. This was the second time we were to travel though an area that has seen sectarian violence in recent years so we were a little concerned but there was nothing to worry about and we were greeted with the usual hello's and waves as we walked around the towns. What we hadn't anticipated was how long it would take to http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Sulawesi/blog-442570.html In keeping with tradition our journey from Flores to Sulawesi was.. err.. interesting to put it mildly. Like we said in our last blog we'd decided to make use of the Pelni Ferries that travel all across Indonesia to get between the 2 destinations. We had no ideas on what it would be like but when the ship pulled up we got quite excited. We'd joked about it being like a cruise liner and it reall http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Sulawesi/Tana-Toraja/blog-436139.html Our great bus ride ended abruptly when we got to Sape in Sumbawa this is the port where you catch the ferry across to Labuanbajo in Flores. We'd read that there was a ferry at 8am so when all the people told us it had already gone when we pulled up we thought it was the usual scam of trying to get us on their private boat so brushed them off. Finding anyone from the ferry office was quite diffi http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Flores/Rinca/blog-434180.html After having such a bad end to our week in Bali we really hoped that things would improve for our time on Lombok. We had been told from quite a few people that the locals on Lombok were much more friendly and not so greedy so we were quite looking forward to a more relaxed time not having to argue over every Rupiah.In our haste to leave Bali we'd picked a really rubbish ferry time this meant tha http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Lombok/Gili-Air/blog-434179.html Our time in Bali was one of love and hate.. at first we disliked it.. then we loved it well Sophie did and then we left hating it and vowing never to return to this island ever again...We caught the bus from Probilinggo to Denpasar which was an easy overnight journey and one that actually left Probilinggo 2 hours early This meant that we got to Ubung bus station at around 2.30am which is a rea http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/blog-431549.html As we said we had shunned the tourist bus trip to Mt Bromo in favour of doing it ourselves for less money so we had a target to reach and there was no way we were going to be beaten Our night train from Yogya reached Surabaya at 7am from there we needed to get to Probolinggo the nearest main town to the Mount BromoTenggerSemeru National Park. From the station we got a bemo which we thought w http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Mount-Bromo/blog-430780.html We reached Jakarta at around 10pm along with Jamie who was also on the same flight as us after his tooing and frooing about whether to leave Danau Toba or not long story. None of us had planned to spend any time in Jakarta and wanted the first bus or train out of there but the cheapo minibuses to the city stop running at 6.30pm why so we decided to spend the night in the airport to wait for http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Yogyakarta/blog-430779.html We included Sumatra in our Indonesian itinerary for the sole reason of visiting Bukit Lawang where they have a conservation programme reintroducing Orangutans back into the wild as many as 5000 wild ones are also thought to live in this area. Here they have a good opportunity to see them when they visit the feeding platform twice a day which is just inside the Gunung Leuser National Park. Our http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Sumatra/Bukit-Lawang/blog-428347.html We had planned to reach Taman Negara by the Jungle Railway that runs funnily enough though the jungle from Tumpat to Gemas. We'd read that it would involve an early start to catch it but didn't realise that we'd need to be up for 04.18 to get it We were quite used to these stupidly early starts though so booked ourselves 2 tickets from Wakaf Bharu to Jerantut which is the jumping off point for http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Pahang/Taman-Negara-National-Park/blog-425561.html