Viva Trinidad. I can't tell you how excited I was to see this spectacular spot on the planet. UNESCO you rock. Keep up the good work. By far my favourite in Cuba (so far), Trinidad is amazing, slightly more touristy, but quite literally frozen in time for 60 years. There is a photo opportunity around every corner. Every dog has an attitude. Trinidad is the epitome of what I thought Cuba would look like: cobblestone streets, men playing dominos under street corner lamps late into the cool night, horse and carts clicky-clacking down the lanes, glorious white sand beaches only minu [View Full Entry]

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DAY 425 Well you all know we have been doing some modifications to the camper trailer, well I was not happy with the colour of the metal finish that I had managed to get, so had previously made a call to Camping Country who confirmed the trailer colour is “Hammertone” Silver Grey so, after phoning Bunnings, who confirmed that they had the correct colour in, we had to go into Wagga today. We jumped in the truck and set off with a couple of things to do for Helen on the way, one of which was to deliver some more eggs [View Full Entry]

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Part two...Switzerland. Tearfully leaving Germany behind, it was back on the train and back to Zürich. This was my third time in the country, but the first one I´d slept in a bed there! First time, a missed connection necessitated kipping in a shop doorway, the second was en route to Vaduz. Anyway, third time very lucky. We were met at the station by Manuela (another of Mitsu´s dearest friends from Montreal days), and also by Yvonne. Rich-sperts may recall that Manu and Yvonne visited us in Japan in the middle of 09, and it was groovy to be reunited. We [View Full Entry]

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5th April ‘09: Oh, what a bore. You know that cancelled show in Zurich? Well, it’s back on. So, instead of frolicking in the sunshine in Bilbao for a non-driving Sunday, permits have been organised and we’re now in a mad rush. In fact, the amount of time allotted to reach Switzerland again means that the dreaded “double-driver” must be used. The biggest worry on these journeys is whether one’s assigned man can actually drive. That sounds condescending - and fatuous - but you’d be surprised at how often a double-driver turns up with no experience [View Full Entry]

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I have to return to Tana in order to get transport to the last national park of my Madagascar visit and, despite being only ~400km from Fianar on the best road in the country, an eight hour journey time by taxi-brousse is considered exceptionally fast. The problem lies in the winding nature of R7, plus the fact that it's single-lane so slow-moving vehicles create hold-ups. One highly civilised aspect of taxi-brousse travel is that there are frequent loo breaks, often passenger-initiated. Our lunch stop gives me more French confusion - the waitress says they have no legume [View Full Entry]

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12 dives later...we can say it, this place is pretty amazing. I would not rate it top 5 in the world, but it is clearly above or in par with places like the Similans. Havelock is still in a discovery mode, as many exploring dives still take place every week. Last week, they just found one more site. A year ago, there was only 2 dive schools, today, there are six of them. The best sites we did are Jackson's Bar, Johny's Gorge and Dixon's Pinnacle. We dived with Dive India, and I can only recommend them, they do a truly [View Full Entry]

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Back on the road…. finally! For the past 1.5 years I have been going to school in the evenings (and weekends) to get my MBA. Needless to say it has really cut into my ability to travel, among other things. So when the opportunity to spend a few weeks in Europe “studying” came…well I jumped on it! So here I am back in Europe after 8 years. My last trip here was after I graduated from William and Mary, my friend Tony and I spent a few months doing the backpacking Eurorail thing. I was eager get back here and check [View Full Entry]

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Partas bus from Pasay City leaves at 9pm for Vigan so at 7:30pm I made my way from the hostel, took me a couple tries before a cab agreed to take me, I don't understand this why do taxi drivers here in Manila refuse passengers, don't they want to make money, very annoying, pain in the butt. Took about an hour to get to the station because of traffic. Once there the small station which can fit only 2 buses at a time, is very chaotic, people everywhere with their luggages, I need to queue for ticket as you can't buy [View Full Entry]

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