Joel

Crossing the border from Pakistan was no trouble at all and I was ushered through in less than an hour, it was once I was in Iran however that things started to get more complicated. I was issued with an army officer and told that from now on for my own safety he would travel with me. This didn't make much sense because it is far more dangerous on the Pakistani side and I had no guard there, but I had no choice in the matter so off we headed. On the way to Zahedan (The first big town on the Iranian side) we passed a number of checkpoints and at each I was issued with a new guard along with the accompanying paperwork which meant a lot of standing around on my part. Finally arriving ... read more

Nepal is like India on holiday. :) It has the same Indian flavours, cows on the streets, women in bright saris, men clustered around chai shops in the morning, but they are all watered down a bit, diluted. Everyone isn't in such a hurry to get places and even though the traffic may seem chaotic it is nothing compared to Indian streets. The people are also more friendly and laid back, prone to easy genuine smiles. Combine this with some of the most stunning scenery on the planet and you have a pretty interesting place in which to spend a few weeks! KATHMANDU Walking out of the Airport in Kathmandu it was so nice to see Mum's smiling face amongst the sea of blank expressions! She had arrived a few hours before me and had already ... read more

Burma has suffered immensely over the last century. First there were the three Anglo-Burmese Wars with Britain. Then World War II with the Japanese and British fighting for control of Burma. Finally in 1947 Bogyoke Aung San (the father of Aung San Suu Kyi) met with the colony's executive deputy chairman of the Governor's Executive Council and signed a pact which stipulated self-rule within one year. Unfortunately Aung San was assassinated by a rival political party before this happened on 19th July 1947. There followed a period of political upheaval where the country passed from one party to another and there was much unrest and unhappiness with the standard of living spiraling down. On 8 August there were massive demonstrations by the local people the subsequent government response left over 3000 people dead. The Government renamed ... read more

After a long break from travel following my year in Europe I once again managed to escape (only for a month), and decided to explore a bit closer to home. Initially the trip to NZ was going to be relatively small with Justin and me meeting Dan in Auckland and travelling around together but when the rest of our friends heard about it they decided to join too! So it went from 3 to 10 and ended up being one of the best holidays I've been on, but now I'm getting ahead of myself... Jumse, Deadman, Katrin and I arrived in Auckland to be greeted at the airport by Dan and Morgan, both of whom I hadn't seen in ages! Dan had been on exchange in Canada for a year and I hadn't seen Morgan since ... read more

The easy answer is that he never existed but I did find out about a very disturbing character called Vlad Dracul Tepes who had the nasty habit of sticking people on spikes and leaving them to die a slow and painful death. Dracul is derived from "son of the dragon" and Tepes means "impaler", thus you get the charming name of Vlad the Impaler, son of the Dragon. This bloodlust led to the myth of the Vampire Lord we all know as Count Dracula. Sadly this was one of the main reasons why I chose to visit Transylvania but after seeing a number of towns and their surroundings I can easily say that this area has far far more to offer than vampire myths and haunted castles. Before traveling to Transylvania I spent a few days ... read more