Ruthii Clifford-Turner

Ruthii

Ruthii Clifford-Turner


TP PROFILE

Former TravelPod Member: ruthii


Joined: April 18th, 2010
From: lives in Cambridge,United Kingdom
Favorite Book: The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffinegger, Charlotte's Web by E.B. White.
Favorite Movie: Back to the Future, Love Actually, Dirty Dancing.... anything 80s or girlie will do me!
Favorite Music: Cheesy pop mostly...
Hobbies: Travelling, singing and dancing, reading, photography.
Languages: English (obviously), French (Basic - teach it to 9 year olds!), Spanish (basic, learned while living there...!)
Bucket List: Ride in a hot air balloon. Preferably in the Masai Mara
Profession: Teacher
Amazing Event: Swimming with Dolphins at sunrise in New Zealand, getting engaged at the Taj Mahal, hiking in America's National Parks, seeing NYC for the first time, SCUBA diving, skydiving, abseiling Table Mountain, but mostly seeing the world with my wife
Description: Itchy-footed


The world is a book, and those who travel read only one page.




Europe » United Kingdom » England » Cambridgeshire » Girton March 24th 2018

Just want to make sure this is all ready before we go! Started packing this morning!... read more

Asia » Indonesia » Bali » Ubud August 18th 2017

I got up early to replicate yesterday's solo walk on beach, and again enjoyed the seclusion of having the beach all to myself, although unfortunately, the tide was well and truly in and I was unable to go anywhere near as far as I had the day before. Not wanting to travel with wet clothes, I headed back to the hotel, where we packed and jumped in the minibus for the last journey we would take as a group. It was a long journey to Ubud, but was made bearable by the amazing scenery we passed on the way. Because of the mountainous landscape, Balinese farmers found it difficult to find space to grow crops, and thus used the ingenious method of growing rice on terraces, cut perfectly and uniformly into the hillsides. Due to these ... read more

Asia » Indonesia » Bali » Pemuteran August 17th 2017

I woke up this morning with a little bit of a fuzzy head, and so there was only one way to cure it.... A long walk on the beach and a good old snorkel! The beach was a short walk from our hotel, and at 9am, not only was the sun beaming down, lighting up the entire landscape in glorious technicolor, but it was DESERTED. I walked away from the main stretch where two or three dive boats were loading on equipment and a couple of passengers, and walked as far as I could along to the left. Despite passing a couple of low-key beach "resorts", I was the only person out on the beach that morning. As I wandered through the dark sand, which curved in a gentle horsehoe around incredibly clear water, the sun ... read more

Asia August 16th 2017

We enjoyed a great breakfast and then bade farewell to our bat friend, who was back chilling on his palm tree after a night's hunting. On way out of Kalibaru, we were treated to a plantation tour and a visit to a rubber manufacturing plant. The Glenmore plantation was founded by Scots over 200 years ago and is still in operation today, using the original processing machines. First, we were shown, and given the opportunity to smell and taste, the different crops growing on the site - coffee beans in bright greens and reds, cacao pods, their scarlet shells vivid against the leaves and fragrant nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon. The coffee beans were, predictably, bitter but the cacao seeds were a peasant surprise. I have seen cacao growing before, and watched the production of chocolate many ... read more

Asia » Indonesia » Java » Bromo Tengger Semeru August 15th 2017

At 2.30am, a gentle knock on the bamboo door of our room was met by a muffled, "Yeah!" from us and we got up, threw on the clothes we has cleverly left out for ourselves the previous evening and stumbled out to the waiting jeep where our guide practically threw us into the back of the decrepit vehicle and we were off! Whizzing around tight bends in the road, following the tail-lights of the line of jeeps ahead of us, we climbed even higher still, our ears popping and bones shaken to the core. There was a loud growling noise coming from the back of the car, and our driver soon stopped and got out to look what was causing the noise. It transpired that it was the rear door that was the problem, so to ... read more

Asia » Indonesia » Java » Bromo Tengger Semeru August 14th 2017

Having drifted off to such a tranquil soundtrack which made us feel as though we were miles from civilisation, we did not expect to be wrenched from our sleep at 4.30am by the call to prayer echoing from the trees, but rouse us it did, and since we were awake, we were able to appreciate the jungle waking up around us before we enjoyed breakfast with a stunning view. We were taken on a walk around the plantation of the centre itself, a not-for-profit organisation designed to educate both children and adults from Indonesia and elsewhere about the importance of conservation, as well as using all profits to benefit ecological programmes for the local area. It was created entirely from barren woodland in 1990 when all the trees that now surrounded us were planted, and has ... read more

Asia » Indonesia » Java August 13th 2017

We started our day with another train ride, this one was around five hours, and took us, yet again, through local villages, passing agricultural landscapes backed by mountains. The train was not quite of the standard we had had before - on one wander from end to end, to get my bearings, I had to hop over one particularly rickety looking connecting plate, which looked as though it may collapse at any point, and then passed by a set of doors which hadn't fully closed and were shaking as though they may fall out of the side of the train at any point. However, the journey passed without incident and we were soon on our minibus bound for the Seliloman nature reserve. En route to our destination, we passed through some local villages, again being greeted ... read more

Asia » Indonesia » Java » Yogyakarta August 12th 2017

This morning started with another bus transfer to the outskirts of the city, where we would embark on a 20km cycle ride. En route, we stopped off at a tofu producer, where we learned about how it's made. We watched the hot, heavy work of boiling soya beans down, before mushing them and boiling them again and pressing them in. a process not dissimilar to making cheese. Then we were fortunate enough to taste fried tofu straight from the source, which was crispy, light and delicious. Soon, we were at our bikes, helmets on (not the usual cycle helmets of the west, but more like the bucket ones favoured by climbers and cavers! Very attractive, and of course, with absolutely ZERO ventilation!) The temperature was already 31 degrees and we would spend the morning with relatively ... read more

Asia » Indonesia » Java » Yogyakarta August 11th 2017

We woke up at 4.15 in order to be ready for the meeting time of 4.50, when we sleepily dragged ourselves onto the minibus, accompanied by the call to prayer. Through the darkness, we could make out the blurry forms of worshippers heading to the mosque, the traffic far less frantic than it had been on the previous evening. We devoured our pack-up breakfasts in the way that only the sleep-deprived can, and soon we were out of the city as the sky began to lighten around us, a faint pink beginning to appear in the inky dawn. As the sun began to rise, we were able to see more of the scenery around us, and soon the imposing form of Mt. Merapi emerged from the darkness, a plume of steam rising from it, tinged a ... read more

Asia » Indonesia » Java » Yogyakarta August 10th 2017

This morning started with an early photography walk along the sea front, watching the fishermen haul in their catch and then a little light retail therapy, buying lightweight clothing from the stalls lining the road. Our minibus packed and ready after breakfast, we headed out of Pangandaran towards the train station where we would board our train bound for Yogyakarta. Our journey took us back some way along the road we had arrived on, and the twists and turns were every bit as brutal as they were on the way in. Fortunately, this journey was to be broken up by a visit to a local brickmaker, who would show us his craft and explain the long process of creating bricks from the natural environment. We got off the bus, alighting by the side of the road ... read more




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