Blogs from Asia

Our last day here was met with some expectation and anticipation. We were excited that no more 5am starts awaited us and equally delighted that our slow roaster would soon ding. But we were excited to see what Wilpattu had to deliver. A quick tea and we were on our way, pleased to be in pole position at the gate. The paperwork was done (in triplicate, again, identically incorrect as yesterday’s) and off we bumped down the road, still holding on to first place. We held our position for a while before another jeep, unencumbered by pesky passengers wanting to stop and look at animals sped past us, only to stop just around the bend ahead and flick its hazards. Apparently the human alarm call for leopard! Sure enough, on the road ahead, a mother and ... read more

Have I spent so much time at LAX. I had almost 7 hours between flights. But Mr. Mike is here to monitor my champagne intake. An 11 hour flight to Tokyo is a loooong flight. By the time I arrived at our hotel, I was awake for well over 28 hours. But the hotel is nice, within a 5 min walk to Shinjuku Station. Mike is still the BEST travel companion ever, despite not traversing the world with me for at least 5 years. I can't believe we saw a cantaloupe yesterday with a 32,000 JYen price tag, well over $200 USD!! Friday, cold and dreary. The Sakura (cherry blossoms) are spectacular, and I love the symbolism they find in their short, but repetitive life. So far, no car horns honking and no sirens! Kabukicho, the ... read more

We certainly weren’t relishing the idea of leaving the beautiful airconditioning to head back into the furnace of a safari camp again, but an evil-looking centipede basically chased us away, and we were keen to see a sloth bear. We’d heard good things about Wilpattu, that it was “the best” national park etc, and well, Yala had some making up to do! So we hopped in the van for the relaxing and cool journey to Wilpattu. We arrived just before lunch and relaxed under fans in our tent before a tasty lunch under a tree. We requested a later start to avoid too much heat and started the journey to the gate with some trepidation over what furnace-like conditions lay ahead. But we needn’t have worried. Beautiful tree-lined roads meant a lot of shade and much ... read more

We’ve taken to undertaking our activities in the dark - given it’s about 600 degrees by 7.30am, it seemed like a good idea to start at 4am to see if that made it any more pleasant…alas not. By 5 minutes in, we were still coated in sweat as we hauled arse up what can only be described as a ginormous mountain - Pudurangala. The idea is that you haul arse up there to see the sun rise over Sigiriya which is sacred. About eleventy billion steps carved into the rock, many many sweaty puffing bodies and we made it about half way on this ‘easy to moderate hike’. Given that part had half killed us, the ‘slightly challenging’ bit at the end was set to be a showstopper! Which it was, for me, I was physically ... read more

Easy start to day. Left Hotel Flex at 8:20 and reached Platform 14 at 8:40 for our Shinkansen bullet train, Mizuho, to Himeji. This one is older than the others we've been on, but still very comfortable. On arrival at Himeji Station we bought our reserve tickets for the fast train to Osaka at 9:11 for tomorrow Raining today unfortunately, but all good as we found our hotel easily and were able to go up another covered arcade almost the whole way. We left our bags, bur Oscar was reluctant to leave as he just wanted to play. Finally convinced him to go at 11:15 and again undercover right up to the park adjoining Himeji Castle. We decided to have lunch at the Kassui-ken restaurant within the Koko-en gardens which are next to Himeji Castle. We ... read more