Stacey and Keith
After years of saving all the pennies, we've decided it's about time to leave Southampton and see a bit of what's out there! The trip includes California, Latin America, New Zealand, SE Asia and India. Stacey and Keith
Travel Blog Posts
September 13th 2007
From our last blog we went to Nuwara Eliya, a favourite holiday destination for many Sri Lankans as it epitomises Britain in their minds, with cute cottages, vegetable patches and lodges. The only similarity we could see was the weather that was blooming freezing and had us wearing jumpers and scarves the entire time! We looked at a thermometer in the hotel and it only read 25 degrees - Brrrr! Please tell us Britains warmer!!! We spent a fun day at the horseraces, dahling, picking 3 winners out of 4, and 4 second places out of 4. We didn't make a penny or lose a penny, but it was fun nevertheless to bet with each other who bought dinner. We met up with Dad and Margreth, who made sure we ate well again before making our ... read more
September 8th 2007
Sri Lanka, as the saying goes is a land like no other and for the past 5 weeks we've been appreciating what it has to offer. We started in Hikkaduwa, about 4.5 hours South of Colombo and one of Sri Lanka's main beach destinations. We quickly got to grips with the relaxed pace of life here, fantastic curries and soaking up the sun. They have a good snorkelling reef but we were in the wrong season for that. A couple of days into beach mode and we had to make a trip to the local doctors with the hotel guy in tow as swollen and red eyes made us nervous. He sent us to a hospital in Galle to see a "specialist" so off we went in a tuktuk trying to admire the view and not ... read more
July 18th 2007
Cambodia's glorious past Asia » Cambodia » Siem Reap » Temples of Angkor By Stacey and Keith July 18th 2007 Stacey and Keith After a 7 hour delay, we finally arived at Siem Reap, the base for visiting the Angkor Temples. It was a nice little tourist town with cheap bars, excellent restaurants and nice guesthouses which are a treat after Malaysia - concrete walls and spring mattresses we welcome you back! We hired a tuktuk for the day with our driver Wee Shit (thats the closest we could manage and at least seemed right for pronounciation) We decided on a one day pass and did... read more
July 18th 2007
Phnom Penh is the modern capital of Cambodia and is home to the Royal Palace, National Museum and the sites of some of the worst atrocities carried out during the Khmer Rouge Regime. Tuol Sleng started off as a high school. It was converted to the notorious S-21 Prison. Between 1976-79, 14,000 prisoners were taken to the prison. The several buildings, 3 storeys high were used as holding cells and torture centres to obtain information and confessions from politically sensitive prisoners. The first floor held the individual cells, 0.8 x 2m big. The second floor held women prisoners, rooms 8m x 6m holding as many people as you could lay side by side. the top floor was also mass holding cells. At any one time the prison held 1500 prisoners. They were taken away for ... read more
June 22nd 2007
We were looking forward to Borneo as it was always a place on our wishlist and we had originally thought we wouldn't be able to afford it this year. It was also a welcome change from the pavement pounding concrete jungle of mainland Malaysia. We landed in the northern State of Sabah and headed to Sepilok, home of the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, to start Borneo with a bang. This centre rehabilitates orphaned, injured or displaced Orangutans through gradually reducing their human contact. One stage of this process is regular feeding at three different platforms. Visitors are allowed to observe feeding time at the closest platform and several Orangutans normally swing in, some to show off to the crowd, some taking more than their share of bananas and some taking their first steps towards independence. The ... read more
June 22nd 2007
Hey guys, it's been a while since our last blog on Indo, but we thought it was about time to put pen to paper, bottoms on plastic broken chairs, piccies on slow connections etc etc, so here goes. Malaysia is celebrating its 50th year of nationhood, a young country with trade roots going back 500 years or so, with ambitions to being fully developed by 2020. We spent 3 weeks travelling around Peninsular Malaysia before ending in Singapore, doing a lot of pavement pounding and city living as schools were out and for the first time on our travels this meant beach bumming was not possible as transport and accomodation was booked up! We started in Kuala Lumpur, a spread out yet very modern city and home to the Petronas Towers, the second tallest buildings ... read more
May 15th 2007
We were looking forward to a holiday feel in Indonesia after spending the last 6 weeks sleeping in a car round New Zealand and Australia. We landed in Kuta, Bali and got the bus to PadangBai for our journey to Lombok. There we were drinking our cokes and watching the world go by when the boat arrived. Ok, we thought, it doesn't leave for 30 minutes, so we'll walk the 400m no problem. If only it was that easy. We had our first experience of scooter riding, complete with crazed driver, 15kg rucksacks on our back, day bags on the front, no where to hang on and trying to dodge potholes, people and trucks haphazardly parked with their veggies spilling everywhere. All was well as we fell off them and clambered on board. We found ... read more
April 22nd 2007
So, from our last blog we think the only things we missed writing about was the visit to Milford Sound from Te Anau, which was a beautiful car trip followed by a two hour boat trip along Milford Sound fiord. It was even made a tad more impressive because the sky was grey and moody, the cloud hung low, and made the place more atmospheric. Of course, we had to watch out for the tiny monkey at the top, knowing it would be pretty big if it came down, and had to comment how pretty it would look in the snow, all those mountains, eh mum, just imagine it! :) Our last stop in NZ was Moeraki to see the boulders. They were round, and while steve and keith hypothesised about their formation, me and ... read more
Touring the South Island - look who we found!
Published: April 4th 2007Oceania » New Zealand » South Island
April 4th 2007
Hi everyone. Hope you're all alright. We've had a busy couple of weeks since our last blog, starting with a 4 day canoe trip down the Wanganui River. It was absolutely beautiful, peaceful and oh so sunny for a change, and we even managed to break a couple of records by paddling 100km in 2 days, the fastest the hire company has ever had people do it in! It helped though that the river was fast flowing due to the storms the previous week though, but sshhhh! So we have met up with my mum and Steve, spent a couple of days in Christchurch letting them catch up on sleep and just catching up in general! Took a while but the next day we were off, sporty little greta the granny car leading the way ... read more
March 18th 2007
Last weekend was my birthday weekend in Rio de Janeiro, our last stop in South America. WE had a great couple of days exploring the Ipanema area and a little bit of Rio at large. We had a great birthday meal and then went out for some drinks... cappasumthings (not coffee) which were a great way to get the spin of the city really going! Our travels have made us both really cheap dates - only 2 drinks each and we were well tipsy! We then headed to Christ the redeemer with a hangover which was perhaps not the smartest thing to do - but we didnt have to climb any stairs as we caught the train up and then got the rest of the way by escalators - how lazy is that! Anyway from Rio ... read more
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