Travel Blog

After 5 months, 10 countries and over 20 modes of transport, we're heading home! Highlights of the trip included: The very beginning - the feeling of ultimate freedom driving the hire car away from Auckland! New Chums (our first beach!) The Great Barrier Reef (a predictable choice, but true!) Trekking through the rice terraces at Batad in the Philippines El Nido, especially being the only people on Helicopter Island- best beach of the trip! The jungle night trek through the Borneo rainforest (in spite of leeches!) Swimming with turtles in the Perhentians, Malaysia Luang Phabang (it may not have looked much from the rainy photos but even in the pouring rain it was a beautiful, peaceful place to spend time) Dong Ba Market in Hoi An, Vietnam Tuong Suel Genocide Museum, Phnom Pehn Sunrise over Angkor ... read more

From Siem Reap we caught a bus to Bangkok where we spent a few days before flying to Bali. We stayed on the Khao San Road, and having just been in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia we were definitely back in the land of the 'Golden Arches' with avengeance! The street was swarming with Western tourists and neon lights. Bars and stalls lined the street, selling t-shirts, jewelery, pirate DVDs and CDs, hair braiding, pad thai and souvenirs. Perhaps because of its notoriety as a "crazy" place, Khao San (and as it turned out, Bangkok in general) seemed to us to be a bit tame - not hectic and intoxicatingly exotic, more seedy and overly westernised. We went to see Wat Pho with its colossal Reclining Buddha - a 45m long gilded statue, the Grand Palace (which ... read more

Leaving Hue, we were picked up soon after breakfast on foot to go and catch the bus to Hoi An and walked through the streets in a crocodile line style, picking up extra tourists from various accommodation on route. The bus itself turned out to be a really comfy sleeper bus - laughable that we only had it for a 4 hour journey, after the grotty night bus we had had a couple of days earlier we certainly weren't complaining! We stopped off halfway (a strangely long 45 minute stop as it wasn't a meal time and the journey was so short - presumably to encourage us to spend money at the village.) Behind the cafe we pulled up in was a beautiful lake, so we walked along the shore past ladies shelling shellfish and huge ... read more

Our first day in Luang Phabang was drizzley, so we spent it wandering the little streets and tiny alleyways getting a feel for the place, thinking that it would be better to save any "sights" for a sunnier day. The whole city felt a lot like a sleepy French town with wooden shutters on the windows and a sedentary pace of life. We walked to the end of the Old City where the river bends back on itself and the land forms a point. Here we saw lots of young orange-robed monks having their lunch break in a Wat and it was surreal to see them crowded round watching television! For lunch we ate a big bowl of delicious beef noodle soup at a very simple street cafe where the ladies cooked in huge metal pots ... read more

After the Perhentian Islands, we caught a sleeper train to Singapore which meant a 2 hour wait on Wakaf Baru station with literally no Malaysian Ringits to our name (there are no ATMs on the Perhentians), we were hoping that Singapore dollars were accepted on the train, as otherwise we would be going hungry without dinner or breakfast (this didn't seem promising as the man at the ticket office said that only Ringits were accepted!) When it arrived the train was great - we had a little bunk each with fresh white sheets, curtains, and a little window to outside. It was not only far more luxurious than any other mode of transport we'd been on, but also nicer than some of our accommodation! Phil walked all the way to the other end of the train ... read more