Twig - Lisa S.

OK, so we have booked and paid for the Round-The-World tickets and our first stop is Delhi, India.
We're going to head north to Uttaranchal before embarking on the "golden triangle" of Delhi/Jaipur & Agra. Then it's east through Varanasi (with a possible detour up to Nepal...??) to Kolkata. Than North again to Darjeerling and back south through the Sunderbans and Orissa. Finally we'll head west to Goa, via Hampi, and fly onwards out of Mumbai..................

From there the plan is to take in a lot of SE.Asia (most especially The Philippines & Borneo!) but where we'll actually end up is anyone's guess!!! I can't wait and I'm so excited.

There's six of us going: myself, my boyfriend Declan, my friend Sarah, her friends- Jennie & Dwayne and my cousin Donna (Donna's joining us in Feb.). We fly out September 14th and if things go well we wont be returning until August '08!

Very Rough Itinerary:
Dublin- Delhi... Mumbai- Bangkok- N.Thailand- Laos- Vietnam- Cambodia- S.Thailand (and the islands)- Peninsular Malaysia- The Philippines- Borneo- Singapore- Java- Bali (and the islands east)... Sydney- Melbourne... SanFrancsisco- Seattle (to Spokane & my Grandparents!) - Dublin!!!

So as I write this now the countdown begins to D(departure)-Day and the saving continues...wish me luck...and KEEP IN TOUCH...xxx
(that "visited countries" map below should be getting bigger & better by the week!)

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Joined on: June 3rd 2007
Last Login: May 21st 2009

Blog Entries: 45
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Blogs & Travel Journals

by Twig, order by Date newest first.

By Twig
May 25th 2008

Singapore- crime free and clean... Asia » Singapore » Little India

We flew from Kutching in Sarawak into Johor Bahru in southern Malaysia so as to save a few pennies and it meant that we then had to take public transport into Singapore. Thankfully the two are only separated by a small causeway and two buses and two hours later we found ourselves in the depth of little India, to the north-east of Singapore's shopping district and most cosmopolitan neighborhoods. Surprisingly, Dec had made it through Singapore's customs wielding a meter long blow pipe, leading me to suspect that it's not quite as authentic or deadly as he may have hoped! Little [View Full Entry]

By Twig
May 21st 2008

"Cat City"- farewell Borneo... Asia » Malaysia » Sarawak » Kuching

We landed in Miri and headed for the long distance bus station, where we caught a night bus to Kutching, the capital of Sarawak. Kutching means 'cat' in Bahasa so I had high hopes for some kind of feline paradise. It turns out that while there once was an abundance of stray cats littering the Kutching streets, they have since been 'relocated' and all that is left in there wake is a few strange cat monuments and a cat museum. Still, it's more than can be found in most cities!... We arrived in the very early morning and wandered Little India [View Full Entry]

By Twig
May 16th 2008

Gunung Mulu and the bat exodus... Asia » Malaysia » Sarawak » Gunung Mulu National Park

Gunung Mulu National park, a UNESCO heritage site, is the largest national park in Malaysian Borneo and is famous for it's enormous cave network and variety of animal, insect and plant life. It's also very difficult to get to and from Sabah it's nearly impossible overland. So one very short prop plane journey later and we were arriving into the tiny air strip that serves the park and were checking into the hostel that would be home for the next few days. It was a really beautiful big room with huge windows and with an abundance of exotic insects hiding where [View Full Entry]

By Twig
May 13th 2008

South East Asia's Highest Peak!!! Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Mount Kinabalu

A short bus journey (four hours- that's considered short now!) brought us to the gates of the Kinabalu National Park and to our dismay we found that it was very, very cold. Colder than we had anticipated and a lot wetter. We made our way to our hostel and almost immediately climbed into our bunks to shelter from the chill and prepare ourselves (mentally and physically!) for the days ahead of us. As the night wore on the winds and rain increased, as did my dread of the early morning ascent. Thankfully, when we woke up the weather seemed slightly brighter [View Full Entry]

By Twig
May 9th 2008

The Wild Man of Borneo... Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Sandakan

From Semporna we took a bus north east to the ery large town of Sandakan, the jumping off point for the world famous Sepilok orangutan sanctuary. We checked into a hostel with a sea view and hit the town for a spot of exploration and to pick up vital supplies for the impending mountain climb... The town is quite newly built following a series of bombs that all but levelled it and is very modern, much to my surprise. I don't know quite what i was expecting from Borneo (untamed jungle perhaps?!) but i do know that i have been surprised [View Full Entry]

By Twig
May 5th 2008

Diving Paradise!!! Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Semporna

We arrived into Semporna at 4am and, unwilling to pay for a nights accomodation for just a few hours sleep, we ended up spending our first night in town on a pier! Thankfully at 7am we were able to check into our hotel of choice and settled down for a few more hours sleep in the 'Floating Inn'. It was a really lovely hotel and so called because it is built out on stilts over the water- you can see the waves rippling beneath you through the wooden floor boards in the dorm room! Semporna turned out to be a horrible [View Full Entry]

By Twig
April 29th 2008

Camping and the likes... Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Kota Kinabalu

Our flight from Manila to Kota Kinabalu (KK) turned out to be a little more exciting than expected when Ais and Donna didnt make it to the airport in time! We reluctantly left without them and landed into sunny and extremely humid Sabah two hours later. We wandered the streets in search of a hostel and ended up finding one that far surpassed our expectations and it was there we settled for the next couple of days. Kota Kinabalu is a small and modern city built on the sea and was considerably more developed than i had imagined. Just off shore [View Full Entry]

By Twig
April 13th 2008

Our Visayan Adventure... Asia » Philippines » Cebu

Our second time in Manila was a hot and sweaty affair and we left as soon as we could buy bus tickets onwards. Our next destination was Donsol, a small town in Southern Luzon and we made it there following a 12hr bus journey and a 2hr mini van ride. Donsol is an absolutely tiny village on the coast with very little to do but we got lucky because the 'Butanding' festival was in full swing on our arrival. "Butanding" is the Tagalog word for 'whale shark' and it was the whale sharks that brought us to the town. It is [View Full Entry]

By Twig
April 12th 2008

The Rice Terraces of Ifugao... Asia » Philippines » Ifugao » Banaue

A long and uncomfortable night bus journey north left us in the gorgeous little town of Banaue, high in the North Luzon mountains. The town itself is situated on the bend of a river, on a hill overlooking a beautiful valley, surrounded by other tiny rural villages. Many of the hotels and restaurants, ours included, are built on stilts on the very edge of the cliff and have amazing views of the entire region. The area is famous for the rice terraces that were origionally built nearly 2000yrs ago by the Ifugao people, a tribe of subsistance farmers that dominated the [View Full Entry]

By Twig
April 9th 2008

Manila- greetings from The Philippines! Asia » Philippines » Manila

So after a four hour flight we arrived into Manila and immediately the contrast between here and Kuala Lumpur, the capital we had just departed, was obvious. Manila is a huge place that actually comprises a number of smaller cities that have grown into one enormous city and the airport we flew into is several hours outside of Manila proper. The journey into the city gave us a chance to see what would be in store for us and the first thing i noticed was the prevelence of fast food chains and franchises. Despite the Philippines former Spanish colonisers, the Philippines [View Full Entry]

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