Trousers
Trousers Joined: April 4th 2006
Logged in: June 9th 2011
Logged in: June 9th 2011
I've done 2 big trips around the world; 1. US coast to coast, Hawaii, Cook Isles, Raratonga, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia (living in Sydney for a year) with trips up the east coast, a side trip to Thailand and then through center to Darwin, Indodesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Sumatra, Sweden and back to the UK.
A few side trips to Canada, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia again before setting off for
2. Sweden, Finland, Russia, trans-Mongolia to Ulan Bator and the Gobi Desert, China for 2 months, HK, Thailand and then living in NZ for a year, back to Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatra, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, China, HK, NY for a week and then home.
Last year I had a month in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam again.
Hankering after another year (or two) on the road again now! :)
2006 was a good year, a week in France, a Month in Ghana, a week in Ireland, a week in Cairo, a month in Uganda and most recently a month in India. Think that will do for a year.....
Most of the early entries are very basic, I will be trying to move my journal entries over when I can.
Visited Countries Map
http://www.traveltrousers.com for all the current blogs!
Travel Blog Posts
Stow that bike!
The next stop was Tamale, but we had quite a journey ahead of us to get there. For starters we were on the wrong side of the lake, and our choices were a car ferry at 9pm, or a people boat at 7am. We were strongly advised to get the earlier one, and I guess that was the best choice. Earlier start = sooner to town. Most of the germans had come to the hotel too, but they all had an early night, not like us party animals! But we saw them all at breakfast, which was a greasy omlette on half a baguette with tea, coffee or milo. What, no rice crispies!?! There were a few unhappy faces on the guests, but, what you gonna do? This might also have been due to failed attempts ... read more
Lake Volta
I got up at 11am and packed, checked out at noon but was pretty hungry. I woke up with a pain in my stomach though, it felt like there was a brick in my stomach, obviously something I had hadn't agreed with me. I had a bit of a headache too, but no fever. Still, it didn't seem like such a great idea going on a ferry for a day and a half if I was going to be ill. I generally don't get ill when Im away, I had a few loose 'movements' the week before, but nothing to stop me from travelling, I was just getting used to the water and the food. I needed a cash machine and breakfast so I started walking up the road into Adabraka, it was pretty warm but ... read more
Dragged myself out of bed in the afternoon and got myself back down to Osu to buy a charger for my gadgets. I'd found one the previous day in a camera shop which would do it but didn't want to carry it around all day. I bumped into the yannks playing Jazz from the previous night and got chatting about what they were doing and what I was doing and they'd done the boat trip up the Volta Lake recently and told me the guide book was wrong about the times. The ferry leaves in the afternoon, not the morning, so could leave the next day and get it. In the camera shop I got chatting to a Indian girl from London who was there with her Ghanian boyfriend, she said she loved it, but was ... read more
Habib Koite
As drunk as I was I still had something to remember, the place to meet for the following night. I got Jo to shout it into my camera as a video so I would remember. But first I needed some food to recover so I heading back to Osu for a bad coffee, terrible sandwich and dodgy cake. For about £4, but thats hangovers for you. I didn't get up until about 2pm so it was already late. I just hung out reading in the food court, watching the kids have birthday parties reading on the phone. I went to use the net for a while too and send a few mails. Haven't been using it much as its so damn slow and the PCs are horrendous too. Welcome back to the ninties in some cases.... ... read more
Swedish dancing experts
Beep! beep! went my alarm the next morning but in the background the noise of rain meant I had a legitimate excuse not to get up and go and see the Cape Coast castle. These slaving forts are the African equivalent of Asian temples and you need to see a few before you can be considered a tourist, but this one would have to wait. I wasn't sure what time the bus would be leaving but I guessed it would be best not to hang around too late, being Friday and all. I am a foolish boy and should have bought my ticket the day before as the 1pm bus was full, as was the 4pm bus! Damn, no Irish pub for me! Luckily Peter and Renet from Holland also needed to get to Accra as ... read more
Walkway
Today was the big day I was going to do something touristy! I didn't get up very early after getting into 'The Da Vinci Code' which I hadn't read before. After a quick lunch of egg sandwiches on the roof I jumped into a taxi for the 40km ride to Kakum National Park. I got there for pretty much the last walk of the day, flashed my student card for my discount and hung around the museum waiting for my guide. We had a good chat about our lives while walking up to the canopy walkway a couple of Canadians had built 11 years ago. It was just us two which was great because if I was going to see any wildlife it would be now since I knew when to shut the hell up was ... read more
Cape Coast
The girls were heading east back to Accra and then the east coast and I was going back to Cape Coast to see the rainforest so our paths we together for a while. They dropped their bags of at my room to wake me up and pack while they hiked over to see the castle. They didn't get robbed either, stupid guidebook! I got my shit together, paid for my room and when they got back went and got a taxi. Nana was very sad to see us go, but I promised I'd see him again as I decided Busua would be a great place to see the eclipse in 2 weeks time. Even if it was cloudy you can't beat a nice beach, and surely it would be heaving with pretty tourists then! We got ... read more
I got up feeling fine, I hadn't drunk that much to feel bad the next day and Ghanaian beer hasn't given me a hangover yet, obviously I need to do some more research! I found the girls eating breakfast by the beach in my hotel, the local guy chatting them up wasn't very happy to see me but I think they were. It's not fun to be the victim of unwanted attention all the time and they had a understanding sympathizer in me after being stalked for 2 days! Tua was a it worse for wear and had drunk just as much as Anna who is half a foot taller, maybe Anna should just drink more. We played the chili's through the bars sound system and Anna put on Belle and Sebastian, I think they ... read more
When I woke up, the bikini was gone! Not quite as funny as my crap joke about dreaming I was eating a giant marshmallow and when I woke up my pillow was gone, but i felt a huge weight lift from my shoulders. Not taking any chances I skipped breakfast (couldn't afford it anyway) and skipped all the way to the next village. My guidebook said lots of people got robbed on the way there so I left everything behind apart from a few quid in my pocket and pinned a bit more emergency cash inside my shorts. I think this was before the road was built as I could imagine walking along a path in the jungle would be now quite as safe as the road that is now there. Ah real village life I ... read more
Nana
tap tap tap.... tap tap tap.... tap tap tap.... oh god, no prizes for guessing who was knocking on my door. I was buggered if i was getting up or even answering, I was on holiday! There was an outside chance it was someone from the hotel but I wasn't going to rick making a sound. Eventually it stopped and I went back to sleep. I had already bee woken up twice that morning. It was early and the sun was shining when my fan went off. I had it tucked under my mosquito net, since even on high it sent no air through it from the outside. I suspected it was intentional because shortly later it restarted along with a choir singing nearby. The church was only 30m from my hut, and although the ... read more
