Terry and Frances

redcon

Terry and Frances

My wife and I are planning to go on a world trip in November for 6 months. This is to celebrate our sixtieth birthdays. We start on Frances and finish close to mine. We will be visiting Egypt, Northern India, Southern India, Singapore, Laos, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand and California before returning home. To be fair we won't be backpacking like most of the bloggers. We will be doing organised trips in each of the countries that we visit. Some of the trips are going to be a bit challenging and once we reach Australia we will be hiring a car and travelling with a bit more freedom. We want to keep our family and friends in touch with our adventures.



North America » United States » California May 1st 2010

America Saturday, 17thApril Well! Today we arrived in America, our last country before we get home. It has been a very long day as we left our hotel in Christchurch, New Zealand at 8:15am and arrived in the USA at 6am (so we arrived before we left so to speak). Of course, this was because of the time differences (we crossed the International Date Line) but it made for a pretty strange day. Our first flight was from Christchurch back to Auckland. We landed at the domestic terminal and made our way to the international terminal as we had plenty of time to spare - four hours before our connecting flight to Los Angeles. All of a sudden they were saying last call for our flight and we were running through the airport to get to ... read more
Frances on Venice Beach
Crazy skateboarding at Venice
Bart and Maggie at Universal

Oceania » New Zealand April 11th 2010

New Zealand - North Island and South Island Saturday, 20th March We arrived in Auckland airport early afternoon, picked up the hire car and drove to Auckland. After a bit of driving around we found our hotel, checked in and went for a walk around the city. The temperature felt pretty cool after Australia and we were quite tired so we just had a bit of a wander round and then went back to the hotel - nothing very exciting. Later we went down to the habour to find dinner. It was heaving with people as it was the conclusion of the Luis Vuitton Yachting Trophy and so there were lots of yachting type beautiful people around. We walked along a couple of wharfs and saw some beautiful boats. One was absolutely jaw droppingly beautiful, huge, ... read more
Our home in Russell
On the 'Phantom' - this is the life!
View from the island

Oceania » Australia » Western Australia March 7th 2010

Australia - from west coast to east coast Sunday, 7th February Our flight to Perth was at 9am so we checked out of the hotel early in the morning. We can't get over how orderly everything is after South East Asia, especially the driving, and arrive at the airport in good time for our flight. Everything went like clockwork and by early afternoon we were touching down in Australia - the big Ozzie adventure had begun. Getting through customs was a bit of a pain as they re-scan and check every piece of luggage but eventually we were done and there was Sarah (my niece) and Jack, Matthew and Mollie (her three children) all waving and jumping up and down. It was brilliant to see a familiar face and there were lots of hugs before we ... read more
Perth Bell Tower
Fred and Sarah
Freemantle Prison

Asia » Vietnam January 16th 2010

Thailand and beyond..... Friday, 8th January Getting to the airport in a taxi was a lot less hair raising than our arrival journey had been. We arrived with plenty of time to spare for our flight to Delhi at 4:45pm. In Delhi we had 5 hours to transfer from the internal to the international airport, sort ourselves out, do some emailing etc and then catch our flight to Bangkok. All was going swimmingly well and we congratulated ourselves on really getting the hand of this international jet setting life of ours. Oh dear! How wrong can you be? The flight was delayed and didn't take off until 8:30pm (fog and bad weather in Delhi would you believe!) and so now we were really worried as we wouldn't get in until 11:30pm for our 1am flight. As ... read more
The River Kwai
The Bridge over the River Kwai
Frances and terry on the Death Railway

Asia January 2nd 2010

Tuesday 22nd December We checked out of 'The Lalit' and were collected by car to transport us to the airport for our internal flight to Kerala. There was copious checking and stamping but finally we were through to departures. The flight was delayed an hour but we used the time catching up on emails etc. and arrived safely in Kerala at about 5pm. We were booked in for five nights at Poopally's Heritage Homestay near Alleppy, about 75km from the airport. As we were now seasoned travellers we were confident that we would just pick up a taxi and would be there in an hour. What foolishness! The guy at the taxi stand told us that all the taxis were on strike and there was no way we would get one. He waved us towards a ... read more
Fishing on the backwaters
View from our hotel in Munnar
In the tea plantation

Asia December 3rd 2009

Sunday 29th November Another nail-biting trip to the airport in a somewhat dubious taxi. As we were going along the driver kept opening his door and looking backwards. At one time he stopped the car and checked that all four wheels were still in place before finally rattling to a stop at Cairo airport. Our route to India was through Jordan so we had to fly to Amman, wait four hours, and then fly on to Delhi arriving in the early hours of Monday morning. Everything went pretty smoothly (except for Terry having his leg scalded by hot tea on the plane!) so we landed about 4:30am. Our taxi, in a very similar state to the one in Cairo, eventually got us to the hotel and we managed to persuade them to let us have a ... read more
Spices at the market
Our transport to Mandawa
An elephant statue outside a temple

Middle East November 22nd 2009

The big day and we're nervous and excited all at the same time. Sister Suni took us to the airport, Heathrow Terminal 5. What a revelation - so calm and quiet and easy to get to and checking in was a dream! The flight was delayed an hour but apart from that all went smoothly and we arrived in Cairo about .half past midnight and at our hotel about 2am. Hotel was pretty basic but OK for a couple of nights. Even in the middle of the night the streets of Cairo are crazy with traffic everywhere. On Friday night everyone was very excited because there was a big football match the following night, Egypt v Algeria, to qualify for the world cup. Already there were cars full of supporters waving flags, tooting horns, hanging out ... read more
Frances trying to look like the Sphinx
The Sphinx and the Pyramids
The two of us in front of the Great Pyramid at Giza

Europe October 14th 2009

This part is about our preparations for the Big Trip. I have put together my clothes and other bits eg toiletries, travel towel, cables. Most of the visas are sorted in terms of organisation of the ones that need to be done before we go and knowing which ones we can do as we reach each country. There has been a lot of debate about which luggage to take. What types of case/backpack will be manageable Frances has recently bought a really good case with lots of pockets and dividers. see photo. It's my turn to write a bit now as Terry has set it all up and is waiting for me to add some pearls of wisdom. We've done a bit more shopping in the last couple of days and have bought another bag like ... read more
The new suitcase




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