http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/mattandmegan/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from mattandmegan en-us Sat, 02 Jan 2010 10:20:05 +0000 Sat, 02 Jan 2010 10:20:05 +0000 We rented a Citroen C2 which is roughly the size of a shopping cart but which pleasantly surprised us with it's awesome gas mileage roughly 65 miles to a gallon and was plenty spacious for the two of us. We took off from Alicante and headed north through Valencia along the Mediterranean until we finally reached Barcelonait was a much longer drive than expected because after testing out our f http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/blog-395472.html We arrived in Alicante after a short flight from London into the open arms of our good friend Bristol. Bristol was in my Master's program at UM and is now getting her PhD in neuroscience at a the University of Miguel Hernandez in Alicante Spain. She took us back to her new apartment where we made ourselves right at home eating her food and drinking her winebeer. Her apartment is quite large http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Valencian-Community/Alicante/blog-389768.html As we were settling into to our plush Air Asia X seats eagerly awaiting our takeoff the captain came over the PA with all the usual preflight info names of crew expected altitude weather and wind strong headwind and flight time dooor to door 14 hrs. What 14 hrs For some reason Meg and I had thought the flight would be in the range of 68hrs perhaps because neither of us bothered to loo http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Essex/Romford/blog-385520.html In keeping with our decision to make our time in Indo as relaxing and chill as possible we decided to spend our last week or so in the country close to our home base of Kuta Bali rather than spending hours upon hours on buses and ferries trying to cram in as many sights as possible. So we arrived in Kuta after a long day of travel from Lombok and tagged along with the SpanishPolish couple an http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Bali/Bukit-Peninsula/blog-385482.html As we write this blog we are only days away from the end of our tour of SE Asia. We have been traveling for 6 months and a handful of days about two months more than we originally predicted but we aren't quite ready to come home yet...though we're getting awfully close which is both a very scary and very exciting thought. In 48 hours we leave Indo to fly to Kuala Lampur from where we'll http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Lombok/Gilli-Trawangan/blog-384215.html Welcome to the Java blog Matt style. Meg's been doing a great job keeping you all up to date but I decided I should pitch in and help catch us up or you guys up actually before we start making our way home. Don't worry this won't take long. After leaving Kota Kinabalu Borneo we headed for Bandung Java via the capital of Indonesia Jakarta. We stayed one night in a hot Mosquito farm owned by http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Bandung/blog-384214.html After spending a few days in Sandakan at the homey Winho Lodge trying to wait out the floods at Uncle Tan's Wildlife Camp we finally decided that it was time to get a move on and instead booked our Kinabatagan River safari through the Bilit Safari camp. Turns out this place was flooded too I guess the week before we arrived in Borneo they had experienced some torrential downpours and while w http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Sabah/Kinabatangan/blog-377281.html The word Orangutan literally translates in Malay to the people of the forest. For centuries these creatures have held a special place in the hearts of natives living throughout SE Asia and being in their presence on our visit to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center it was easy to see why. The SORC was set up to take in orphaned orangutans or ones who have been displaced by habitat loss http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Sabah/Sandakan/blog-374403.html Ok. So we didn't literally climb to heaven but after 8.7km of climbing straight up they haven't mastered switchbacks in this country yet it certainly felt like it. And the views couldn't have been much better either.In one of our most amazing adventures yet during our travels Matt and I successfuly completed the summit climb to Lowe's Peak on Mt. Kinabalu on the northern coast of Borneo Ma http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Sabah/Mount-Kinabalu/blog-374417.html THE PICTURES IN THIS BLOG ARE NOT IN ORDER WITH HOW WE TRAVELLED OR TOOK THEM...WE PUT UP TOO MANY TO GO THROUGH AND REORDER...IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN TOO LONG...THEY ARE ALL LABELED SO YOU CAN CONNECT THEM WITH THE PARTS OF THE BLOG...ENJOYAfter two weeks in Dumaguete visiting with Wilson and family we were back off on our own trying to cover all the sights in the few weeks we had left. We covered http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Philippines/Visayas/blog-373748.html Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes We arrived in Kota Kinabalu Malaysia the night before my birthdayso I had a Bornean Birthday. Matt brought me breakfast in bed the backpacker lodges' complimentary toast and milo we toured the Sunday market and read our books on our hotel's roof deck. After our Malaysian dinner Mee Goreng we even found some chocolate ice cream cake for a birthday http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Philippines/Negros-Oriental/Dumaguete/blog-371913.html So it's time to play catch up No excuses this time as to why we haven't written in months literallywe've just been too busy travelling that's all. We arrived in the Philippines December 14th so we've been here about 7 weeks and have one more to gothe longest we've been in any country on our trip yet Our original plan was to fly to Borneo the 22nd of January but the Philippines has been http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Philippines/Surigao/Siargao/blog-369488.html We decided to see Malaysia primarily because Kuala Lampur it's capital provided a convenient place from which to fly to the Philippines and because we could travel there overland from the Thailand beaches. We had very few expectations or preconceptions upon arriving...in other wordswe had no idea what to expect. Malaysia is divided into two landmassesPeninsular Malaysia which occupies the s http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Penang/George-Town/blog-361433.html Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Matt and I spent the holidays in Damaguete Philippines visiting our friend Wilson and touring the island of Negros. My mom and stepdad joined us for Christmas as wellso after three months of being on our own we were suddenly surrounded by family and friends. We had a fabulous time...details to come in our Philippines blogif we can ever get there.So goi http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South-West-Thailand/blog-353858.html I'm going to take a quick break this blog from documenting our journey to provide a quick update and recap the first two months of our trip. We've been getting a lot of similar questions by email and are starting to set our future plans so I'll just take a few minutes to address those On November 18th we finished what to us feels like the 1st Half of our trip despite timewise being only http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-352970.html And we're back It feels like a long time since we last wrote so apologies once again Again I'll blame it on the bad internet actually expensive internet this time but really it is just too hard to sit in an internet cafe when we could be laying on some gorgeous white sand beach instead. So just to clarify although this blog is about Cambodia we left the country about 3 weeks ago. We http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Kampot/blog-352421.html Wersquore back again and slowly trying to catch up. In an attempt to use our time efficiently here in the internet cafe Matt is going to publish a photo blog so he can start uploading the pictures while I write a separate blog. Our last blog left off in Ho Chi Minh City. This was the end of our Open Tour bus ticket and so we started off on our own to explore the very south of Vietnam and http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Phu-Quoc-Island/blog-347468.html Howdy.These pictures are from my camera so there are only a few. They go from the Mekong Delta Vietnam to Phu Quoc Island Vietnam to Phnom Penh Cambodia to Kampot Cambodia to Siem Reap Cambodia to the last one of some fruit in Bangkok.There will be heaps more photos from Meg's camera and you'll probably see the same sequence of places with different and better pics.ENJOY http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Phu-Quoc-Island/blog-347453.html Hello again Almost a month after our last blog we finally sit down to start writing again. The internet in Vietnam was slow at best and after fighting with it for hours to email our moms and let them know we are still alive and paying our credit card bills we couldn't convince ourselves to spend another few hours uploading pictures and writing a blog. So now that we have found decent inter http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-345920.html hello. Last time we wrote we were about to embark on our Halong Bay journey. This is one of those must sees here in SE Asia and after our trip we would definitely agree. We chose to travel on a tour through the Hanoi Youth Hostel choosing a tour is the biggest challenge as there are thousands of choices from all the travel agencies throughout Hanoi and they are all pretty much the same. Ho http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Hoi-An/blog-336474.html