Tbird

Yesterday I left my trusty raincoat at home and got rained on. Today I left the sunscreen at home and sunburnt…but I had my raincoat! I got this travel thing down!! I met a tour guide, Hari, yesterday and we talked about a tour that was a bit off the beaten track. It sounded interesting so I signed on. The first stop was Swayambhunath stupa, aka the monkey temple. This is definitely on the beaten track, but it was the only big tourist attraction the days itinerary. Hari suggested we walk to the temple, it was only 20 minutes. I thought that would be a good idea. Never trust Nepalise with time. They are about as good with time as Aussies are with distance. It was a long 20 minutes. And even then, it only got ... read more

Today I had agreed to meet up with my guide from yesterday to go for a hike. As hiking is not something I do regularly (cough cough), I’ve rocked up, fully prepared in active wear, hiking shoes and fully stocked backpack. Roshan turns up in jeans and converse. To be fair, it was probably more like a casual stroll to him, to me….I’m hiking the Himalayas bitches! We started the day by stopping for breakfast. We had agreed to meet at before my guesthouse opens for breakfast so I needed food. We stopped at a coffee shop that sold very nice coffee. A little luxury I did not expect here. But I’ll take it. We then hoped into a taxi and took off to Changu Narayan. The taxi dropped us in a little village (whose name ... read more

For the first time ever I had the best seat in economy. Front row, looking down the aisle into premium economy. Ie Lots of leg room. It was a great flight, I read, I watched movies, I slept. Awesome (perhaps Singapore air wanted to make up for the BestJet fiasco) The flight was late getting into Singapore although I still had an hours to make my connection to Kathmandu. Which was late leaving so it all worked out fine. The second flight I booked a window seat thinking I’d be able to see the Himilayas as we came into Kathmandu. I don’t know what I was thinking because it was dark when we touched down, so I spent 5 hours crammed in a window seat to see the lights from above!! Once down, negotiating the airport ... read more

Today we arranged to go on a tour of a cacao plantation and a coffee plantation. Coffee and chocolate, my two favourite things. Our tour took off around ten (scheduled start 9.30) and we made our way to the plantation. Now in my mind we were going to see two plantations, however, they grow the coffee and the cacao on the same plantation. As it turns our both plants prefer the shade, so to shield them from the Cuban sun they also grow palm and banana trees around them. The end result is the plantation looks like a thick tropical forest, which explains why the area around Baracoa looks so beautiful. Our guide, Benny, started talking us through the growing and harvesting of both plants. While he was talking I felt some pain in my stomach. ... read more

So today our host found us a nice driver, Robbie, to take us for a drive out of town. We started off heading towards Valle de la historico. It’s a fun park is about 4 acres of dinosaur statues. T-rex’s, mammoths, brachiosaurus’ etc. And quite a few others I couldn’t name. Very cheesy but fun anyways. The park was originally built by inmates at a nearby prison and in its heyday I could see it being a great family attraction. These days some of the statues are starting to fall apart and are in need of a little TLC. There was a little lake area where they had the heads of some water-living-sauruses coming up out of it and a disused slide. Jo decided it would be a great idea to build a wave pool there ... read more