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twotravelbugs - Karen and Colin

Karen and Colin

Where we have been

Svalbard Spain United States of America Antarctica South Georgia Falkland Islands Bolivia Peru Ecuador Colombia Venezuela Guyana Suriname French Guiana Brazil Paraguay Uruguay Argentina Chile Greenland Canada United States of America United States of America Israel Jordan Cyprus Qatar United Arab Emirates Oman Yemen Saudia Arabia Iraq Afghanistan Turkmenistan Iran Syria Singapore China Mongolia Papua New Guinea Brunei Indonesia Malaysia Malaysia Tiawan Philippines Vietnam Cambodia Laos Thailand Burma Bangladesh Sri Lanka India Bhutan Nepal Pakistan Afghanistan Turkmenistan Tajikistan Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan Japan North Korea South Korea Russia Kazakhstan Russia Montenegro Portugal Azerbaijan Armenia Georgia Ukraine Moldova Belarus Romania Bulgaria Macedonia Serbia Bosonia & Herzegovina Turkey Greece Albania Croatia Hungary Slovakia Slovenia Malta Spain Portugal Spain France Italy Italy Austria Switzerland Belgium France Ireland United Kingdom Norway Sweden Finland Estonia Latvia Lithuania Russia Poland Czech Republic Germany Denmark The Netherlands Iceland El Salvador Guatemala Panama Costa Rica Nicaragua Honduras Belize Mexico Trinidad & Tobago Puerto Rico Dominican Republic Haiti Jamaica The Bahamas Cuba Vanuatu Australia Solomon Islands Fiji New Caledonia New Zealand Eritrea Ethiopia Djibouti Somalia Kenya Uganda Tanzania Rwanda Burundi Madagascar Namibia Botswana South Africa Lesotho Swaziland Zimbabwe Mozambique Malawi Zambia Angola Democratic Repbulic of Congo Republic of Congo Gabon Equatorial Guinea Central African Republic Cameroon Nigeria Togo Ghana Burkina Fassu Cote d'Ivoire Liberia Sierra Leone Guinea Guinea Bissau The Gambia Senegal Mali Mauritania Niger Western Sahara Sudan Chad Egypt Libya Tunisia Morocco Algeria
Map Legend: 28%, 74 of 263 Territories
 Places we have lived 
 Countries we have visited 


ArgentinaAustraliaAustriaBotswanaBelgiumBoliviaBeninBrazilBruneiCanadaCambodiaChadChileCameroonColombiaCubaCook IslandsCyprusDenmarkEcuadorEgyptEthiopiaCzech RepublicFranceGhanaGibraltarGuernseyGermanyHong KongHungaryItalyJerseyJordanKenyaLebanonLatviaLithuaniaSlovakiaLiechtensteinLuxembourgMacauMalawiMaliMoroccoMauritaniaMexicoMalaysiaMozambiqueNigeriaNetherlandsNew ZealandParaguayPeruPolandRussiaSouth AfricaSingaporeSpainSudanSwedenSyriaSwitzerlandUnited Arab EmiratesTurkeyTanzaniaUgandaUnited KingdomUnited StatesBurkina FasoUruguayNamibiaSwazilandZambiaZimbabwe

Everywhere unmarked is probably on our "want to visit" list!


We are two Kiwis always in search of adventure and new experiences, currently hindered a bit with puppies and a mortgage, but full of ideas and excitement, just waiting for the chance to see more of the world.

Travel blogging like this is relatively new for us, previously we've just emailed updates to people, so this blog only contains genuine blogs from our recent trips. We are slowly adding some blogs from older trips, these are highlights based on emails we sent back then. We've unfortunately left out heaps of excellent photos too, but this blog is only intended to give you an idea of where we have been and what we seen.

To help you out, we have grouped some of our blogs into 'trips', shown below. Click on the relevant tab to see where we went and what we thought. Otherwise there is a search feature, or you can just scroll through the blogs and browse. However, you read them, enjoy! And please leave us some feedback, we love reading your comments.

The map to the side here, the World Map Maker one, shows where we have been together - before we met doesn't count! Some places we have seen much of the country, other places have been more brief. The smaller map further down usually shows only what has been blogged (but sometimes it gets confused and highlights other places instead!)

Thanks for having a look at what we have been up to, and keep watching, who knows what past, present or future trip we'll add next.

Check out these other travel websites we've joined: Couch Surfing , Hospitality Club , and Geocaching . OK, so geocaching isn't exactly a travel site, but its something we've just started and plan to do while travelling (and at home too).

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Joined on: March 13th 2007
Last Login: November 3rd 2009

Blog Entries: 92
Photos: 1071
Recommended by 3, Recommends 4
Visited Countries


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Blogs & Travel Journals

by twotravelbugs, order by Date newest first.

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Friday 11th September 2009 Breakfast in Kota Kinabalu, lunch in the air, dinner in Singapore. The life of a pair of international jet-setters! After breakfast in the hostel (Summer Lodge) in KK, we went out to the airport and returned the car. We told the agent that it would be a good idea to take it to a mechanic but he wasn't very interested. Arriving at Singapore Changi Airport, we went quickly through immigration and customs. We found the 'Singapore Stopover' desk and checked in, getting our free passes, transfer vouchers and some lovely “Singapore Stopover” [View Full Entry]

twotravelbugs - Karen and Colin | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
2311 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 20 Photo(s) | 1 Video(s)
Published: September 16th 2009 | 134 Views | [diary=436954]

Sipping my Singapore Sling
Shame we cant keep the glass
Fruit bat

Rafflesia Flower on the forest floor
Rafflesia Flower on the forest floor
At only 40cm across, its not the biggest Rafflesia, but it was ours! The red and white quite striking against the forest floor.
Tuesday 8th September 2009 One of the beauties about travelling with no fixed itinerary, with no pre-booked accommodation, with a little bit of time, is that you can change your mind about what you are doing and where you are going. Its something we have a habit of doing. Like the time we took the bus to Sao Paolo to watch a football game, arrived at the bus station, remembered we didn't like Sao Paolo last time we were there, and got on another bus heading to Rio. And saw a better game at the Maracana. Its been a while since [View Full Entry]

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2817 Words | 6 Comment(s) | 17 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: September 10th 2009 | 139 Views | [diary=435543]

Rafflesia bud
Rafflesia Priceii
Karen by the Rafflesia flower

By twotravelbugs
September 7th 2009
Visiting the Rungus Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Kudat
Sunday 6th September 2009 We must have been too early or not stayed long enough at the Kota Belud Sunday Tamu (market) as it was nothing like the LP described it as. For a start, it wasn't huge, there weren't any buffalo and we didn't see any Bajau horsemen. I think this is a case of being too well travelled - a bad case of been there, done that already. Markets are places that draw the tourists / backpackers (we try hard not to be tourists if we can help it), and this one drew us. It was still a good [View Full Entry]

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1741 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 16 Photo(s) | 2 Video(s)
Published: September 9th 2009 | 100 Views | [diary=435029]

Entrance to the longhouse
the communal area of the longhouse
new longhouse under construction

our snake
our snake
we were told it could be a common tree snake by a guide who admitted he knew nothing about snakes!
Tuesday 1st September 2009 cont. We left the Uncle Tan Adventure Camp at 10am on day three of the 3D/2N trip. So as you can see, its not really a three day jungle adventure! A quick ride up the river brought us back to the jetty where we were met by some 4WD utes, rather than the minibuses that we came in. A much better ride through the plantations, then we transferred to minibuses at the road. We had lunch at the operations base near Sepilok then walked to the main road to wait for the express bus towards KK. Luckily [View Full Entry]

twotravelbugs - Karen and Colin | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
2117 Words | 2 Comment(s) | 20 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: September 9th 2009 | 113 Views | [diary=435023]

the trail
the bat cave
Colin looking for the bats

Sunday 30th August 2009 We had a leisurely morning as the first day of our 3D / 2N jungle trip didn't start until 2.30pm. We made our way down the road from Labuk B&B to the Uncle Tan Operational Base, the company we are heading into the jungle with. The staff at the B&B had given us an idea of what to pay for a taxi to Uncle Tans (RM3-4), but the taxi drivers weren't cooperating, they were asking RM10. It was interesting trying to haggle with them, to see how far they would go and at what point they would [View Full Entry]

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1770 Words | 1 Comment(s) | 36 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: September 5th 2009 | 110 Views | [diary=433960]

orang-utan
one of the camp staff on the river
Colin searching for something wild

From Sipidan it was back to the rig to get our gear ready for the transfer back to the mainland. We had one night in the town of Semporna to wait for an early bus to Sepilok. We took the advice of some other people from the rig and stayed at Lee's Guesthouse, very quickly and successfully negotiating the room price down from the listed RM70 to the generally paid RM50. There is no challenge in that kind of negotiating! We failed to find a laundry that could get our clothes washed and dried quickly (no mechanical drying aids!) but did [View Full Entry]

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1086 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 21 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: September 3rd 2009 | 105 Views | [diary=433451]

no no no
orang-utan at Sepilok
feeding platforms in the jungle

By twotravelbugs
August 28th 2009
Sipidan Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Sipadan
We only had one morning, three dives, at Sipidan. In many ways it was a disappointment, after all the hype, but also in many ways it was really impressive. What we did see, the coral, the fish, the sea life, was quite spectacular. The weather that day didn't make it an easy set of dives. The sea was pretty choppy and the currents underwater were strong in places. This didn't help with spotting the sea life, or with getting on and off the boat. Between dives, we were dropped off on Sipidan island, for a hour each break, and that wasn't [View Full Entry]

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475 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 22 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: September 3rd 2009 | 117 Views | [diary=433445]

Colin
Barracuda ball
Blue-faced Angel Fish

By twotravelbugs
August 26th 2009
Mabul and Kapalai Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Mabul
We spent three days on the Seaventures dive rig exploring the underwater worlds of Mabul, Kapalai and Sipidan. The rig was pretty basic and still smelled like a rig or ferry. It is a rusting hulk planted about 500m off the coast of the island of Mabul. It was strange walking around it, I kept feeling like it should be moving like a ferry, it was hard walking down the corridors in a straight line, talk about sea legs (or not!)! Our room was pretty basic, twin beds and a bathroom that desperately needed ripping out and replacing. But the rig [View Full Entry]

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350 Words | 3 Comment(s) | 32 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: August 30th 2009 | 128 Views | [diary=432258]

On the boat 2
Karen backroll entry
Blackbarred Sandperch 1

Day One - Saturday 22nd August 2009 When does your trip begin for you? When you finish the last day at work? When you leave home for the bus / plane / train / boat? When the plane leaves the ground? When you arrive at wherever you are going? For us, our trip begins when we leave home. The excitement begins when we leave work for the last time though! So technically, day one was yesterday, when we left home and drove down to Auckland. But as day one then would only include the drive through multiple sets of roadworks, dinner [View Full Entry]

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1203 Words | 3 Comment(s) | 8 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: August 25th 2009 | 178 Views | [diary=431030]

Foot massage machine
Cute little takeout coffee cup holders!
Flying over Borneo

Mamutik is one of five islands that make up the Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park, just off the coast of KK. Its an easy trip out there, bus or "Kuni Taxi" to the Jesselton Ferry terminal, pick a company to go with (one that shouts the loudest, has the longest or shortest queue, the first one in the door - doesnt matter, the prices are fixed) and wait for the boat to leave. Mamutik is a 10-15 minute speed boat ride away, and there are no speed limits in the harbour, in fact, if you can go faster than any other [View Full Entry]

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445 Words | 4 Comment(s) | 28 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: August 27th 2009 | 155 Views | [diary=431542]

C snorkelling in the rain
Grouper
Toadfish



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