mon78

So, after the hectic KL, we took an Air Asia flight to Denpasar, Bali to get away from the hustle & bustle of a busy city. Only to find out Bali is not necessarily a quiet place either. Well, that's not necessarily true - we went to stay in one of the busiest parts of the island, namely Kuta, which I now understand when they say Kuta is Australian Spain… Anyway, when we landed in Denpasar, it was hot - our prayers have been heard! We set off to find some decent guesthouse and ended up in a place called Suji Bungalows: a charming place with a swimming pool. That was rather nice. And the even nicer thing was the price we managed to haggle: £7 a night per person. We did haggle hard but the ... read more

After that brief city break, we thought it'd be cool to hop on some proper island (Sentosa doesn't count) and so we decided to go to Tioman - an island on the east coast of Malaysia sitting in the South China Sea and looking like a sleeping dragon. There is actually a legend attached to that island saying that once, a Chinese dragon princess was flying to her prince in Singapore. She stopped to have a rest in those warm waters and ended up loving the area to the point she decided to cut the journey short and take a form of an island. Not sure what the Singaporean price had to say about the fact the princess preferred to turn into an island rather than see him but that didn't seem to be included in ... read more

Although I'm home already, I still have to tell you about this one thing... First of all, you need to understand that seeing 15 flamingos in Celestun just wasn´t going to cut it. I was still in Merida and I had one day left to do whatever and I figured that if I left the town early in the AM, I should be able to get to Rio Lagartos, see lots of flamingos and then make it all the way down to Playa del Carmen where I was supposed to wait for my flight. Now, if you actually knew the route, you'd realise that it was an ambitious plan, but not impossible and for that reason I decided to go for it. I mean all I wanted at that point was to see the damn flamingos ... read more

San Cristobal de Las Casas is a colonial town that is quite small and so perfect for walking. It also has a very pleasant micro-climat which means you don´t have to sweat anymore! Woohoo! Needless to say, we loved it straight away because we could finally breath some fresh air and walk around the town without constantly trying to find the shade. Other than the perfect temperature, San Cristobal is simply a beautiful place that has a very bohemian vibe to it. You can feel the European influence not only in the architecture but also in the abundance of foreign restaurants or lounge bars. They even have a jazz club! Not quite Mexico like shall we say. Most of San Cristobal´s shops are travel agents, restaurants, Internet cafes or amber stores. And that´s when we are ... read more

So, the time has come to spam yet again! Don't you worry though, it's not going to last... 2 weeks in the depths of Central America is hardly a massive trip but still worth a quick little blog. What a beginning of the trip though! For those who haven´t heard yet: I didn´t get on the flight to Guatemala because I didn´t have a US transit visa! These visas are not what you normally think about when you go places, at least I don´t as I´d never needed one before but after having to trek back home from the airport, I think I learnt an important lesson... Also, it just didn´t occur to me I´d need to make an appointment with the embassy and pay $130 just to be able to change planes! Madness... Anyhow, I ... read more