Author: Becca

When I am not travelling, I'm either reminiscing about travelling or planning the next adventure.

Taiwan – Typhoons and Tea

Our journey to Taiwan was relatively smooth, in the grand scheme of things. We’d booked two separate flights with two different airlines with a change at Kuala Lumpur airport. We had to wait around 25 minutes to even park at the gate, wait an absolute age for our bags and then change terminals so when we landed in Taipei and deplaned immediately, effortlessly went through immigration and collected our bags we were impressed. Our first impressions of Taiwan were that it was well organised, clean and very efficient!

We headed to our hotel, arriving around 9pm and went for a small wander to the convenience store. We slept like babies that night only to be woken just before 6am by the sound of some very low fighter jets. Everyone knows there’s tension between China and Taiwan so we put it down to maybe some drills that we’d heard about. A couple of mornings later we heard the same again and this was followed by the sound of a chinnock helicopter, so I looked out of the window and saw a huge Taiwanese flag being carried by the helicopter! I called out for Joey to come and witness this and he then saw the red arrows doing a fly past! And all of this was before 7 am! I did a little bit of research and it appeared that they were rehearsing for the Independence Day celebrations a couple of weeks later.

Very poor photo of helicopter carrying the huge Taiwanese flag

Once we got up and went out and about we slowly got our bearings and visited our first temple, the first of many! We started to learn more about how to pray in a Chinese temple and the different symbols. We were caught slightly off guard by just how hot and humid Taipei was! We’d obviously been used to extreme heat in the Stans but in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia it was more ‘normal’ temperatures and we often had a sea breeze to cool the air. In Taipei we had none of that and had to revert back to our ways of getting up early and doing things.

Elephant Hill

We really enjoyed Taipei. For two people who profess to not love cities we loved it! It was so different to anywhere else we have been with the language and culture. We spent four days there initially checking out lots of temples. We climbed Elephant Hill one morning, which although very hot and humid gave us an incredible view of the city. We met some very friendly locals here who stopped and chatted to us with one of them feeling inclined to reassure us that China wouldn’t invade Taiwan!

One morning just before 10 am we were at the Memorial Hall and we had unexpectedly found ourselves there for the Changing of the Guard Ceremony. We hadn’t planned or researched this but it was a beautiful thing to watch the precision of this activity and I’d highly recommend going if you are in the area.

The changing of the guard

We visited lots of different night markets as well to try some local cuisine. The first one we visited was Shilin Night Market, possibly the most famous night market in Taiwan. Our strategy for night markets developed here and we basically joined a big queue when we saw one as we guessed that the locals knew what they were doing! The first thing we bought by doing this was some fried chicken – the board advertised it as the biggest fried chicken in the world and it probably was the size of our head! Shilin market also has lots of games to play so it had a great atmosphere.

Fried chicken as big as Joey’s head

One thing we tried in Taipei was a knife massage. Our friends Wun Lee and David had told us about these when they visited recently so we put them on our ‘must-do’ list and when we saw them being offered in a shopping centre we leapt at the chance to have one. The massage is carried out by someone wielding two large cleavers, it looks pretty scary but they were blunt! We opted for a quick 10 minute tester for head and shoulders and we both agreed that it was very relaxing. They chop incredibly quickly and the rhythm is so relaxing!

Taipei was also where we first tried bubble tea. Bubble tea is obviously quite big in the UK and Europe anyway but we’d never tried it and the home of bubble tea seemed a great place to start. If you’ve never had it, it’s basically iced tea in whichever flavour you like, sweetened to your choice and filled with tapioca balls. I must admit the tapioca balls were very unusual but it was really good fun drawing them up through the straw and bubble tea became a must have treat for us in Taiwan.

We saw lots of unusual sights in Taiwan including at one night market , a man with a pig on a lead! I think this was unusual for even the locals as they were taking photos of him. We also saw a few days later a man with a lizard on a lead! Not to mention all the adorable dogs in dog prams – it was definitely more common to see dogs in prams than to see them walking.

One of the many dogs in a pram we saw

Taiwan has thousands of claw machines for everyone to play to win all kinds of things. There are mainly toys to win but you also saw things such as noodles, crisps and iced coffee. I love a claw machine anyway so this was heaven to me. We set ourselves a daily limit and I was determined to win something by the time we left Taiwan!

Claw machines

The beauty of Taiwan is that it is a small country (some obviously dispute that it is a separate country in its own right, but for the purpose of this blog I am referring to it as a country!) so we were able to see a lot of it in the space of a couple of weeks. This means that we would be on the go a lot but we decided it would be worth it. Our next point of call was Hualien, home to the Taroko Gorge, a national park featuring a gorgeous marble gorge. You can take a bus to the park and do various walks. We started at the beginning of the park and did a walk before taking a bus to another part and doing another walk. We ended up at the park during the weekend of a national holiday so there were lots of signs at the bus station warning us of a queuing system for the bus to the park so we decided to get the first bus of the day to avoid this. The park has a famous ‘rain cave’ which, as you may have guessed, has lots of rain pouring through the ceiling and you get extremely wet walking through it!

The marble gorge
The rain cave

From Hualien we headed to Ruisui, an area with some hot springs. We only had one night here so as soon as we arrived we dropped our bags and hired a scooter to set off to the hot springs. We had a walk through the forest area there, eventually reaching a very high suspension bridge! I wasn’t too keen on walking over this so Joey went first and I followed very closely with my eyes very firmly on the back of his neck refusing to look anywhere else! After this walk we definitely deserved a dip in the hot springs – imagine my horror when I realised that I actually managed to bring two bikini bottoms rather than two separate pieces! I ran out to the reception to see what they could do and luckily they had a shop so I ended up buying a very modest top to wear! We had a very relaxing time checking out the various pools, they were all different temperatures and there was a largest pool which had various things such as jet bubbles or spouts to pour water onto you.

Joey on the suspension bridge

The next day we were up early to catch a train to Kaohsiung, the second largest city in Taiwan. This was really just a way to break up the journey and we just spent the day checking out various shopping centres, the Taiwanese love shopping so shopping centres is something they do well! The shopping centres tend to have large areas full of claw machines so we spent a bit of time trying to win a Hello Kitty purse. A woman there took pity on our attempts and opened the machine and moved some to give us a better chance – it still took a couple of attempts but we were so happy with our win! She was very sweet and opened up the machine so we could chose the colour. We took an evening stroll to try and see a pair of famous Pagodas the Dragon and Tiger pagodas. We arrived and the pagodas were closed due to renovation! We did get to walk around the pond and saw lots of turtles which made up for it.

The Dragon and Tiger pagodas are behind here
We did get to see this

From Kaohsiung we headed north to Tainan, an ancient town with plenty of temples and history, we had a great time exploring here. A typhoon had been forecast for later in the week and on our last day the skies turned very overcast and the wind picked up but there was no sign of rain yet.

Temples and a beautiful tree in Tainan

We were due to move on to Sun Moon Lake on the day that the typhoon was forecast to make landfall and I checked online to see if the train was running and it certainly looked like it so we checked out of our hotel and headed to the station. The roads were empty but there was no real strong winds or lashing rain as you would expect with a typhoon – it was almost disappointing! We reached the train station and our train had been cancelled! We asked at the desk and he was very matter of fact about it – ‘no trains today – typhoon’ and he refunded our ticket. So that left us homeless and in a bit of a quandary really! We didn’t faff around too much though and just decided that the best option was to head back to the hotel, ask for our room back and stay another night. We contacted the next hotel to explain the situation and they very kindly didn’t charge us for the night that we didn’t stay. Luckily the hotel wasn’t busy and as everything was shut we were left with a spare day to plan then next leg of our trip.

Our hotel taped up the door ahead of the typhoon
Debris from our morning walk to and from the station

They do take typhoons seriously in Taiwan and everything was shut bar the convenience stores so we were at least able to get some food! The typhoon did hit the southern part of Taiwan but luckily for us it didn’t really hit our area that badly. It was almost disappointing as we it would have been a once in a lifetime event to experience a typhoon but we are grateful it wasn’t that bad.

It was a train and a bus ride to Sun Moon Lake and we’d lost a day already so we were keen to maximise the time that we did have there. The town that we were staying at was a bus or boat ride away from where our bus dropped us so with the purpose of trying to do as much as possible in a short space of time we took the boat across. Most people use the boat as a sightseeing activity so we were the only ones on it with luggage!

We dropped our bags at our hostel and headed straight out to walk around the lake. It was very peaceful and there is a purpose built walkway around the lake which you can either walk or cycle around. It started raining heavily that afternoon but we just carried on walking. We saw the famous nine frogs monument in the lake which is used to demonstrate how much water is in the lake. There were a few frogs on display that afternoon and the following morning we walked back there were actually more on display despite the rain the night before!

The nine frogs the afternoon we arrived
Sun Moon Lake
The frogs the morning after rain
You can really see how many there are here

We had some more luck with the claw machines and Joey won a happy/sad octopus. Beating the machines gave us so much joy!

Us and Octi

We were headed back to Taipei for a couple more nights as we still had more temples to see. We also wanted to visit the National Palace Museum which has the world’s largest collection of Chinese antiquities outside of China. It was a fascinating place to visit with most people seeming to visit to only photograph the jadeite cabbage and the meat shaped stone without really taking the time to admire them. Our favourite part of the museum came as a surprise to us and was actually the rare books section! In particular the map section was incredible with amazing detail and colour.

The Jadeite cabbage
A rare map

We revisited the Shilin night market and it was my turn to have luck with the claw machine – I won a goose! I was so happy – it was like being a child when the goose fell down the chute!

Goosey and I

We really enjoyed Taiwan, it was still Asia but also very different to other parts of Asia we’ve visited and after the chaos of Indonesia it was so refreshing to have the notion of organisation and efficiency again!

2

Gliding through the Gilis

Leaving Bali was just as chaotic as the rest of our trip there. Yes we were picked up on time but we got stuck in Bali’s ridiculous traffic and then hung around the port for about 90 minutes with no instructions until we were shepherded towards a series of boats. There were no instructions though, again we just had to wait and eventually we skuttled onto a boat in accordance to the colour sticker we’d all been issued.

The trouble with Indonesia, and Asia as a whole, is that everything takes longer than you’re told it will. I don’t mind that the speedboat takes 3 hours, but tell me it’s going to take 3 hours rather than saying it will take 2! A girl we sat next to on the boat had obviously been told the same thing as she kept getting phone calls from her driver demanding to know where she was!

We were heading to the Gili isles, a set of three main islands, made up of Gili Trawangan(known as the party island), Gili Meno (good for honeymooners) and Gili Air which fell somewhere in the middle. As I was in charge of the Indonesia leg I ummed and ahhed about where we should go and eventually settled for Gili Air, and it was worth it! It’s roughly 5 square kilometres in size and we walked a loop of the island in 90 minutes. It was a little bit of paradise after Bali. There isn’t a lot to do on the island aside from sunbathe and snorkel or dive. We’re not divers so we settled for snorkelling. I spent my whole childhood and early adulthood basically being terrified of water and whilst I’m still not the most confident swimmer this trip has slowly built up my confidence and my skills so I am very proud of the achievements that I made in actually being able to go and snorkel and swim quite far out of my depth away from the shoreline.

There are no motorised vehicles on Gili Air so walking, pushbike or horse and cart (not recommended due to potential ill treatment of the animals) are your only forms of transport. Thankfully it is a tiny island so you don’t need to worry about transportation. Interestingly there are also no dogs on any of the islands to prevent the population getting out of control. There are lots and lots of sweet cats though!

The coral was beautiful! Indonesia is part of the coral triangle and there were so many beautiful fishes of all sizes! It was stunning to see and we had a great time splashing about. Unfortunately the amount of coral means that inevitably dead coral washes up on the beaches which makes getting in and out the sea a challenge! You either have to wear water shoes or choose your path very carefully! I opted for shoes whilst Joey did the ‘try and avoid stepping on stuff’ thing before getting in and swimming as soon as he could!

Check out the number of snorkelers
Look at that gorgeous sea!

We had a blissful few days in Gili Air, either hanging around our pool or snorkelling. The size of the island meant that we could watch sunrise from the beach next to us and then in the evening we could walk over to the other side and watch the sunset!

I hope you can gauge the size of the island from these shots

We were headed to Lombok from Gili Air and we booked a boat / bus transfer through our hotel. That was an experience! The boat was fine, it was a very old public boat and the journey itself was only 15 minutes, we were met off the boat and then walked to an office where we were kept waiting for 90 minutes for our bus. In that time the owner was shouting and swearing at various customers which certainly made for an interesting experience! The bus driver asked the name of our hotel and then proceeded to drive right past it!

Lombok was very different to Bali, we were back in Muslim territory so back to the early wake up calls! We stayed at Sengiggi which has definitely seen better days, however let’s not forget that this area was devastated by an earthquake in 2018 and then Covid hit. It had a nice beach with a calm sea and beautiful sunsets though. From one sunset point we were able to clearly see Mount Agung on Bali and it was gorgeous! Finally that dream sunset we were after!

Sunset with Mount Agung in the background

Unfortunately for me I was unable to really enjoy Lombok as much as we would have liked as Bali belly finally caught up with me so there was much resting time!

Indonesia itself was a really varied experience and we were able to experience so many beautiful unique things, such as finally seeing dolphins and climbing an active volcano. It’s a huge country and hard to pick a few things to do in the time the visa allows but I’m content with the choices we made and it gave us lots to talk about!

0

Java Jaunt

We arrived safely into Yogyakarta (also referred to as Jogja) on the island of Java. I’d read that 50% of people who make it to Indonesia only ever go to Bali so I was determined that we would not be amongst those! We resisted the urge to get a Grab from the airport and hopped on a shuttle bus instead which allowed me to practice my best Indonesian for ‘here please’ when we neared our stop. Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim country and we’d read some reviews of our guesthouse which highlighted that it was located pretty close to a few mosques and every morning and at plenty of other times of the day we were woken to the Adhan at 4.30am. It was so loud we couldn’t help but laugh!

We had two main things that we wanted to see in the region – the Prambanan Hindu temple and the Borobudur Buddhist temple. Borobudur is the world’s largest Buddhist temple so we decided to do that one second, so we headed to Prambanan first, it was the weekend so we expected it to be busy but it wasn’t actually too bad. When we arrived we were stopped by a couple of young lads (we later found out that they were only 16) who explained that they were studying tourism and needed to practice their English and tour guide skills so could show us around the site and explain some things to us. They were so good and I think we were both stunned when they said they were 16 years, they were so mature.

They took us inside the temples and explained some of the stories to us which were really interesting and definitely helped us get more out of the experience. There are three main temples, each one dedicated to one of the following: Brahma, Vishnu or Shiva. The temples were constructed of volcanic rock which gave them a really black appearance, we’ve obviously seen a lot of temples but this made this one particularly unique.

Prambanan Temple
Joey
You can see the volcanic rock

We headed back to the city where crossing the road was an experience. We’ve crossed roads in difficult countries (Hello Vietnam) but this was something else. There are no real pedestrian crossings so you had to run across at a suitable opportunity and hope that you didn’t get hit by a scooter, there were times when we really thought we wouldn’t make it and we actually joked about calling a Grab just to get across the road. At least in Vietnam you could trust the scooters to go around you but we didn’t get the vibe that they would here!

The next day we headed off to Borobudur in a Grab of course! Borobudur is a 90 minute drive from Yogyakarta and our driver offered to wait for us and drive us back which we accepted with great pleasure! As mentioned above Borobudur is the world’s largest Buddhist temple, until only a few months ago you used to be able to climb up it freely and it could get quite crowded but nowadays you need to book a ticket in advance as numbers are limited to 1200 a day. We only discovered this the day before when we were at Prambanan and were advised to try and get some online from 4pm. I did this and didn’t have any luck, I thought we would only be able to walk around the outside as I could see tickets available for later days but not the next day. Just after 6pm I went to look something up on my phone and still had the ticket page open and I was amazed to see tickets available! I didn’t hesitate to book some. We arrived about 50 minutes before our slot thinking it would give us time to walk around the perimeter and take some photos and the people at the check in said we could enter the grounds. So off we headed. We had a great walk round and took some great photos, it was fast approaching the time we needed to be back for our tour and we headed to what we thought was the exit but were told we couldn’t go that way so we spent about 10 minutes trying to find a way out, which was obviously in the complete opposite direction of where we needed to be! We were pretty stressed and ended up walking very quickly to where we needed to be! We did make it and collected our free ‘slippers’ that we needed to wear to climb the temple which were bamboo flip flops that we got to keep. So my top tip if you do go is to not go into the grounds before your tour!

World’s biggest Hindu temple
Carvings
Stupas
Lots of Stupas
More Stupas
One of the uncovered Buddhas
Borobudur Temple

The tour was actually really interesting and there were about 10 groups of 15 people so it wasn’t crowded as everyone went different ways. The carvings on the temple were incredible and the guide told stories the whole way round. There are about 9 levels and it was nice to climb each one knowing you were going to get an impressive view from the top. The final level that you can access is covered in Stupas all containing a Buddha, a handful of these have been damaged so the Buddha is now uncovered. It was a great day out and a highlight from Indonesia.

Borobudur also gave the ultimate masterclass in ‘exit via the gift shop’ as you leave via a row of stalls selling souvenirs. Only this row becomes a maze of stalls and it goes on and on and on and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it went on for about 300 metres. It was so vast I started to think I was stuck in a nightmare of souvenir stalls from which I couldn’t escape from.

The next day we had booked a tour to Mount Bromo, an active volcano in the east of Java. The tour was one of the oddest tours we have ever done. Normally with tours you’re picked up and taken care of from start to finish but this one was quite different. We were picked up from our guesthouse and driven to the train station where we were given our train ticket and left to our own devices! We had to find the train and seats ourselves. The train was fine, pretty slow but it was very clean and I was even happy to use the toilet which was cleaned regularly and kept stocked of toilet roll! About two thirds of the way there the train switched direction and everyone flipped their seat around so we were all facing forwards. 8 hours later we arrived into Probolinggo where we were met by someone who eventually put us on a bus and also then left us! We were driven to a tour office where we were called up individually and told what time we would be picked up in the morning, and about our ongoing transport. We were then driven to our guesthouse and it was all a bit Fawlty Towers, there were lots of staff but when we arrived there was only one other couple. Joey commented that it was like the start of a horror movie. We went to bed around 8.30pm as we were getting up at 2am for a 2.30am pick up. It was a lot cooler in this area as we had gained altitude (something I could tell by ears continually popping on the drive there) so this meant in the morning I could wear my leggings and jacket again- the leggings I’d not worn since Armenia and the jacket I hadn’t worn since our balloon flight in Cappadocia.

We waited in reception at the allocated time and there were a few more guests then but it was about 3.15am before our jeep finally arrived! I was starting to think the sun would rise by the time we got collected! We drove further up the valley to reach a sunrise point and the road was lined with jeep after jeep after jeep. We climbed further up a steep hill in the pitch black grateful that we’d had the foresight to pack our headtorches. We found a good spot to watch the sunrise over the valley and light up Mount Bormo. It was very ethereal and seeing the smoke rise from the volcano during golden hour looked just like a painting – it was beautiful!

The start of sunrise
Sunrise
Realising we can see smoke
It looks like a painting
Could be a painting
I made Joey pose like this
Lots of jeeps

After sunrise we headed to the sea of sand to climb the crater itself. It was a tough climb with more steepness followed by 254 steps! It was worth it though to say that we’ve stood on the crater of an active volcano. You could hear the volcano bubbling away and the smoke billowing from it looked just like a cloud! We walked a little way around the crater but chose not to venture where there were no safety railings! You could smell the sulphur and it made quite a few people cough including me.

The sea of sand
Volcanic sand
Close up of the crater
Smoke
That’s not a cloud behind us
Us in the sea of sand
Still not a cloud

It was then time to head back to the jeep and whilst we were waiting for the other couple we emptied our shoes which were full of volcanic sand! Our feet were filthy when we later took our socks off.

We headed back to Fawlty Towers for our breakfast only they didn’t seem to know what was going on. We waited ages and were eventually bought some sweet tea and I asked (again in my best Indonesian) to order a coffee and they told me coffee wasn’t included! I needed to head upstairs to the coffee shop for that so that I did. We were eventually bought some Nasi Goreng (fried rice, the Indonesian staple food) and prawn crackers, and honestly it was pretty identical to the dinner I’d had the night before!

We gathered our belongings and headed to reception again for pick up. We had arranged a transfer to Bali and were told we would be collected at 10.30am for a 12 o’clock bus. A minibus turned up at about 10.45am and everyone except us was confirmed as travelling on this bus, they asked us our room number about 3 times and it was only on the third time of asking when I typed the room number into the calculator on my phone and showed it to the driver that he confirmed that we were on that minibus! It was like some sort of test!

We were dropped at the tour office from the day before and he said our bus would be about 12.30, then at 12.30 we were told it would be about another 30 minutes. We were waiting with another two couples so at least we were all together and joking about the situation. When we booked the ticket we were told it would take 8 hours, then the night before we were told it would take 10 hours. We messaged our guesthouse and told them our ETA and didn’t hear anything back.

Us on the ferry

The bus arrived around 1pm and was actually pretty comfy, the seats reclined quite far and there was a toilet – something we’d not seen since the early Europe days! We were given lunch, fried chicken and rice and then settled down for a nap given we’d been up since 2am. The driver was invincible and just kept on driving without ever stopping until we reached the ferry. We were given more rice and chicken for dinner meaning we ate rice three times that day! We got stuck in heavy traffic which obviously delayed us so I think it was about 7pm before we boarded the ferry, the ferry took about an hour and we welcomed the opportunity for some fresh air on deck and a walk around.

Bali is an hour ahead of Java so we drove off the ferry around 9pm local time. We still had another 3 and a half hours before we reached Denpasar and the bus seemed to stop every 500 metres to let someone off. We were following on Google maps and tried to get off when we were nearish to our hotel only the driver wouldn’t let us! We’ve no idea why as he was letting other people off and only kept saying that we needed to go to their office. We checked the map and the office was miles away and we’d still need to get a taxi from there. By this time it was 1.30am and we really just wanted our bed, so the next time it stopped I decided to lie and say we were close to our hotel so could they please just give us our bags and we’d be on our way. It took a bit of to and fro-ing but we got there! We were at the front of a Circle K convenience store and obviously I called a Grab, it didn’t move on the app and then we were approached by two motorcycle taxi drivers and just ended up negotiating with them. I’ll be honest with you here and say that this was not an ideal situation to be in, we didn’t really want to be separated at 2am on motorbikes we’d not ordered through an app so we had no comeback from them, driving through the back streets of Denpasar with our backpacks on but that’s where we found ourselves! We did make it to our guesthouse safely and felt terrible as we ended up waking the security guard who then had to wake the host but she greeted us with a smile. So we’d been awake for almost 24 hours at this point and we were glad to crawl into bed. As is usual with Asia everything always takes longer than you think or expect! The main thing was that we’d made it and we were going to spending some relaxation time on the paradise island of Bali!

Java was a good cultural stop and I’m glad we made the time to visit and we were so fortunate with our timing as the day after we visited Bormo the park was closed due to wildfires.

2

A brief introduction to Borneo

Our next travel day was taking us from Singapore to Kuching on the island of Borneo, in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. We arrived at Singapore airport with loads of time before our flight as we wanted to have a good look around. I’d been to the airport once before in 2009 and enjoyed the butterfly garden then and was keen for Joey to experience it as well.

We went straight to the Malaysia airlines desk to drop our bags and there wasn’t much of a queue but they were so slow. One desk was manned by someone who was giving out stroppy teenager vibes. There was a problem with her desk and she got out to go and speak to her manager and she did it in a manner that really resembled Kevin the Teenager from Harry Enfield.

We eventually made it to the front and were immediately asked for proof of onward travel which we didn’t have. As usual we only had a vague idea of where we going and when but had nothing solid booked. We explained that we were planning on catching a bus to the Indonesian side of the island and then intended to fly to Java but they wanted proof, so we had to quickly panic buy a bus ticket. We only had WiFi and Joey quickly found a site to book a ticket, only it was such a cumbersome site that it was only when we received the email we realised that we’d booked a ticket from Indonesia to Malaysia. Not what we needed! Now I stood over him whilst he was booking it so I know he put the right information in but somehow a glitch switched it! We tried again and eventually we got a ticket proving our exit. We managed to check in eventually and headed off to see the Jewel. We weren’t lucky enough to see the waterfall in action but it was certainly an impressive structure. We also made it to the sunflower garden but we didn’t want to venture to another terminal as we had less time than expected so we didn’t make it to the butterfly garden.

Joey at the Jewel
Sunflower garden at Singapore airport

We arrived into Kuching on a Sunday afternoon and we had booked another apartment with kitchen, washing machine and a balcony overlooking the river and a beautiful pool. It was just what we needed as I was feeling the travel burn in Singapore, my feet were blistered from too much walking and I was exhausted. We had planned to do some cool stuff but we opted to choose things that we really interested in doing and spend some time resting.

View from our apartment in Kuching
Gorgeous sunset

The next day we got up to go to the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre. The centre was established in 1975 to care for orangutans which had previously been kept illegally as pets or had been orphaned and injured. Since then a number have been rehabilitated and released into the forest reserve and some have even had babies, the orangutans are classed as semi-wild and they spend the majority of the time in the forest but some do appear back at the forest twice daily for supplementary feeds. It was fruit season whilst we were there so the chances of seeing some was reduced, however we got lucky and were able to see two guys, an uncle and nephew and they were absolutely fantastic creatures to watch. We made our way to the feeding area and on our way the uncle was also making his way there swinging above our heads in the tree and I swear that was a sight that I will never forget. We spent 40 minutes watching these two guys interact with each other and feed the fruit that was left for them. They had coconuts which were whole and the uncle picked one up, took it and then bashed it to open it before giving it to his nephew. His nephew was pretty lazy – he kept pestering his uncle to get him more food! They were also given bananas and cartons of milk! Watching those guys get the cartons, open them and then pour them into their mouths (but mostly miss) was incredible. I had tears in my eye as it was so joyful to see these creatures. We also got to witness the little guy do his business! It was such a magical experience and chatting to the staff there you could really tell how much they loved the animals and the care they took of them. They talked with particular fondness of the oldest orangutans and how she’d been ill recently and you could tell they loved her so much. It was a shame that they felt that they had to justify the fact that we ‘only’ saw two – we felt lucky as it was fruit season and actually it was better because if they’d been loads we wouldn’t have known where to look.

Look at these guys!

We had a rest day the next day and then the following day we headed off to Bako national park, to get here you can catch a bus but we opted for a Grab to get us there. Grab is the Asian version of Uber and we have been using it for EVERYTHING in Borneo and subsequently Indonesia! Once you’re at the park entrance you then need to take a boat to the start of the trails. Another couple approached us to share a boat which helped to reduce the costs. There are various trails you can do and we picked one which would give us the best chance of seeing Proboscis monkeys. Spoiler alert: we saw no wildlife on the trail whatsoever! The trail was pretty nice, we were deep in the jungle complete with all the sounds of the insects. It was a hard climb up a hill to a viewpoint and then back down and my knees and thighs were dead! We hitched another trail onto this one which took us to a beach but I wasn’t keen on hanging around too long given all of the ‘beware of crocodiles’ signs. We walked back to the start of the trail and bumped into a ranger who showed us what we think was a flying lemur up a tree and he then led us to a viper in a tree! It was incredible to see it and you’d probably have missed it if you’d walked past and I was not keen on getting too close!

Warning sign upon entry to the park
Gorgeous jungle walk
The view when you reach the top of the trail
The beach
Not hanging around
As close as I was getting to the viper
Joey was braver (and had a more powerful zoom)
I’m definitely not going near him
Flying Lemur?
I don’t look too enthused about having my back turned to potential crocodiles

We took the boat back and then got a taxi back. We had a day exploring Kuching itself, Kucing in Malay/Indonesia means cat and they really milk it in the city – there are cat statues everywhere! There’s also a cat museum apparently and I’m gutted that I missed it.

Cat statues
Cat statues

We enjoyed our time in Kuching, the city was nice and there was lots to do on the doorstep, I would love to come back another time and explore more of Malaysian Borneo.

Our time on the island of Borneo wasn’t over though, we had a bus to Indonesia to catch! Our friends Wun and David had told us that the town of Pontianak had an equator monument and we were keen to visit. We have visited the Equator in South America so we wanted to do it in Asia too. Our bus ride was pretty good, it was on time and the seats were comfy, we’d got an E-visa online so the border crossing was pretty straightforward. We arrived into Pontianak in the middle of an almighty thunderstorm, it was torrential rain but everyone was still riding their scooters in flip flops just with ponchos on!

Scooters everywhere
It was so wet

We got a taxi to our hotel and enjoyed a cocktail on the rooftop to toast our first night in Indonesia.

The rain gave way to a very pleasant sunset

The next morning we had a packed agenda, we got a Grab to the equator monument and had fun recreating some of our pictures from when we visited the one in Quito. We’re determined to visit the equator in Africa next! We wanted to head back but didn’t yet have a local SIM card to call a Grab so we asked the very helpful staff to help us only there were no Grabs to be had! We went to the office and he called a friend and then printed out a certificate for us to say that we’d visited the equator!

Joey recreating the Ecuador
The lovely lady told us to pose like this
The monument
The OG Ecuador pose
Joey recreating the Ecuador pose
Equator selfie
Monument

We made it back to the hotel, packed up our stuff and then called another Grab to take us to St Joseph’s cathedral. The cathedral was very modern and we enjoyed our visit. We met a very enthusiastic lady there who showed us around and then proceeded to give us a thousand warnings about walking back and to be careful of muggers on scooters who would slash our bags etc etc etc. she said it so many times that she put the absolute fear of god into us and we were really stressed as we headed off! We headed to a phone shop so we could get SIM cards and the process took so long. In Indonesia you have to register the SIM card and it took about 40 minutes. It was after 11.30am before we finished and we had a flight to catch at 1.50pm! I called a Grab but the app placed our location in a weird spot and we spent about 10 minutes trying to find our driver. Once we found him we asked him if he’d wait at our hotel and then take us to the airport which he was happy to do! We ran up to get our bags and quickly check out and we did make our flight but my goodness my stress levels were high!

St Joseph’s Cathedral
St Joseph’s Cathedral interior
The very enthusiastic lady made me pose for all these photos

As I say earlier Borneo was really enjoyable and we got to see some good wildlife and I am definitely adding it to my return list for a time when we don’t have a backpacker budget!

2

Orchids and temples galore, from Malaysia to Singapore!

Well I am very pleased to announce that this blog opens with a smooth, drama free border crossing! Yes we had to change buses twice (once more than expected) but it was a smooth journey. We were picked up from our hotel in Krabi and we met a guy on a bus who was staying at the same guesthouse as us in Penang so he negotiated a drop off at the guesthouse, so nothing to report here!

Our first stop in Malaysia was Penang, a UNESCO site, and we arrived on the first day of the hungry ghost festival, so as we were driving through the streets of Penang we saw people burning piles of paper money and leaving gifts of incense and piles of food on the side of the road. The Hungry Ghost festival occurs during the seventh lunar month and it is said that during this month the gates of hell are opened and ghosts will come out until the gates are closed on the 30th day of the month, so for the safety of ghosts and the living there is a Chinese tradition of worshipping the dead. So it is believed that offering ghosts sacrifices of burning paper money and food (to feed them as they are hungry) will stop the ghosts from causing mischief amongst the living. It was an interesting way to be welcomed into Malaysia!

Penang has a huge Chinese influence and as such has a huge abundance of Chinese temples which was fascinating for us to see as it was so different to anything that we have seen so far on this trip. Penang also has some very British style buildings from colonial times as well as very different quarters such as an Indian quarter – the smells and temples here took us right back to Southern India and I even found myself craving chai! We walked miles round the city exploring all of the different quarters, temples and hawker centres for dinner!

Just one of the Chinese Temples
Joey in front of temple
The Hindu temple which has a huge South Indian influence

There are some interesting and unusual museums here, including the ‘cool ghost museum’ which we thought would be interesting to visit in light of the Hungry Ghost festival. This museum had displays of various ghosts and the stories behind them and why the tales were told – for example the water nymph story was told to stop children playing in dangerous waters. There was also the opportunity to dress up as some of the ghosts and take photos. There was also the cat art museum which was our favourite, there were thousands of examples of cat art, cat statues and paraphernalia all to be enjoyed whilst listening to various cat songs (such as Smelly Cat from Friends).

Joey dressed as an Egyptian ghost
One of the ghost stories
Joey and the mummy nurse
Me as a ghost
Cat art museum
Cat art museum
Cat art museum

We had a day trip to Ken Lok Si temple, this was a beautiful, huge temple that looms down from a hill, it’s the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia and has a huge statue of the Goddess of Mercy, as well as a 7 floor pagoda that you can climb with a Buddha on each floor, these Buddhas differ as they are in Burmese, Chinese, and Thai styles! There’s a lovely tortoise pond here as well which we almost missed but was great to watch those guys climbing in and out and climbing over one another. We tried to get the funicular up Penang hill but the queue was over an hour so we quickly abandoned that idea!

Kew of Ken Lok Si from the approach
The Goddess of Mercy
Temple grounds
Inside the temple
Temple grounds
Twins
Look at those fellows!

To leave Penang we took the free ferry to Butterworth (back on the mainland) and just bought a ticket for the next bus to Kuala Lumpur. The buses in Malaysia were really nice and easy to just buy a ticket for on the day. The accommodation in KL was looking to be pretty expensive until we read a tip about booking serviced apartments so that’s what we did! We were able to book a really nice apartment with a small kitchen, washing machine and a balcony with a lovely city view including the Petronas towers. The building also had a pool, gym and a couple of small grocery stores so we were happy! You can’t beat a bit of home comfort, especially just after staying somewhere with a shared bathroom! We walked around the city, visiting Independence Square, Chinatown and a very large mosque. The following day we visited the botanic gardens and I was a little disappointed to discover that the orchid gardens were temporarily closed. Ever since I’d worked for the RHS I’d wanted to visit botanic gardens in Malaysia and Singapore and see the orchids.

Petronas Twin Towers
The view from our apartment
Botanic Gardens
Botanic gardens
I did not take many pictures in KL so here’s this guy

The main problem with both Penang and KL was that neither were particularly pedestrian friendly. Penang didn’t really have pavements and crossing the road was basically a dash across the traffic, KL did have pavements and pedestrian crossings but most of the time we thought they were broken as they would take MINUTES to change to green, so half the time we would take our lives in our hands and just run across. I eventually got the hang of commanding the traffic to stop by holding my hand up and it seemed to work!

We left KL early to catch a bus to Malacca, another UNESCO world heritage town similar to Penang. This one had a Dutch quarter which I really liked, it was full of buildings all painted red. We also stayed in a guesthouse within a Chinese temple which was different. Again the town was full of Chinese temples which we are really enjoying seeing. I actually preferred Malacca to Penang as I found Penang to be a little grotty.

Dutch quarter
Dutch quarter
Our guesthouse was in this temple
The town was obsessed with this guy, Mr Universe, there were statues everywhere!

From Malacca we caught a bus down to Johor Bahru, a town which borders Singapore. The purpose of this was to just stay overnight to give us an early start to get to Singapore the next door. Again this border crossing was straightforward – you book a train in advance to Woodlands, get there 30 minutes in advance and then go through Malaysian immigration, wait for the train, board the train, get off 5 minutes later and then go through Singapore immigration! All very straightforward. Getting into Singapore city itself involved a bus and then a metro. By sheer coincidence our hostel was in the district of Maxwell so we had great fun getting off at Maxwell tube station and snapping pictures of the Maxwell’s at Maxwell.

Maxwells in Maxwell Singapore

We’d booked dorms as Singapore accommodation was frighteningly expensive, we booked 6 days ahead and budget options were limited! It was a toss up between dorms or a capsule hotel bed and we opted for the dorm option and I almost cried when I realised it was two thirds of our daily budget! Definitely our most expensive accommodation so far. It was an ok experience, there was free drinking water and coffee so we were happy enough! Again there seemed to be a bit of a lack of fresh air and my sensitive nose can’t cope with all these smelly men I seem to end up sharing with. I was pleased though to finally have a dorm room where I wasn’t the only girl!

We only had two days in Singapore so we needed to hit the sights hard. We started off with another visit to a Chinese temple, this one holding a relic of Buddha’s tooth. The tooth relic is held on the fourth floor and not many people actually make it up there so we almost had that floor to ourselves! There was also a cute little roof garden. We then went to another Hindu temple and similar to Penang it was very South Indian in style. We walked to the river and to the Merlion statue from which you can view the famous Marina Sands Bay hotel. There are lots of sculptures along the river as well such as these boys jumping in and these little cats.

The merlion
Merliom
Marina Sands Bay hotel
Front view of the boys jumping
Tiny cats
Side view

It wouldn’t have been a trip to Singapore with having a Singapore Sling, we couldn’t afford Raffles but we managed to find somewhere with a happy hour. This was just up the road from our hostel and Joey now has a video of me with me saying my made up tongue twister of ‘Maxwell sipping a Singapore Sling in Maxwell Singapore’ for anyone who wants a giggle! That evening we visited the Bay of Gardens for their Supertree light show.

Maxwell sipping a Singapore Sling in Maxwell Singapore

The following day we were back at the Bay of Gardens for a walk around and we visited the flower dome, which also happened to have an Orchid extravaganza on so I finally managed to see orchids in Singapore! We then headed to the botanic gardens and to their orchid gardens! It was definitely worth the visit and I’m so happy to have finally seen these famous places.

So many beautiful orchids

From Singapore we were flying to Borneo and of course there’s a border crossing story to follow!

4

Thai beach breaks

The last blog left us in Bangkok where we’d booked a night bus to take us to the islands to start some beach time and our journey south towards Malaysia. Our bus was actually quite comfy and I got a bit of sleep for a change, but the trouble with Thai night buses is that they often stop around midnight for a meal which is included in your ticket price! I’m not sure why they think it’s a good idea to eat a meal at midnight but we joined in anyway! We arrived at the ferry port at just before 6am and our ferry wasn’t until 8.30am, so we had a few hours to kill. At least the toilets were clean and I felt comfortable cleaning my teeth in them, there were even free showers if you felt inclined. Our destination was Koh Phangan, famous for its full moon party, but this time we were heading to the north of the island to Bottle Beach. Joey had holidayed here a few years before he met me and he has always said he wanted to take me there so I was excited to go there. The ferry took 2.5 hours and then we had to take a taxi to another pier before finally taking a long tail boat to the beach. When you get a long tail boat you have to wade in the water to get into so I took my sandals off before getting in and they didn’t go back on until we left three days later! Bottle beach is very secluded with the main way of getting there being long tail boat, you can also get a very bumpy 4 wheel drive taxi there, or you can trek for a hard couple of kilometres through the jungle. Arriving by long tail boat was definitely the best way, Bottle Beach was beautiful, just what you imagine when you think of a Thai island, beautiful white sands and palm trees. There’s nothing there other than a few beach bungalows and their associated restaurants. It was a beautiful place to spend a few days relaxing. There were some fire shows in evening to amuse us.

Us in the longtail boat on our way
The longtail boats lined up on the shore
Bottle beach
Look at that sand!
Sunrise
Sunrise
Fire show

We then caught the ferry to Koh Samui, which was very different, it was very busy and touristy with constant cries of ‘Hello! Massage?’ It felt that every time we walked down the street we were running the gauntlet of restaurant owners trying to lure us in. We hired a scooter one day and drove around the island visiting various beaches and seeing some temples. There are an interesting set of rocks called Grandfather and grandmother rocks, you can guess which one is grandfather rock! We managed to catch up with Giles, an old friend of Joey’s who now lives on the island and who we had spent a couple of weeks with on our first travels 9 years ago.

Guess which is grandfather rock?
Big Buddha Koh Samui
Wat Plai Laem

From Koh Samui we headed back to the mainland and down to Khanom. It seemed that the only way to get there from the ferry terminal was to get a very expensive taxi so we decided to walk to the main road and see if we could flag a bus down. We didn’t make it to the main road though as a very kind couple stopped and gave us a lift. We tried to give them some money but they were really reluctant to take it but eventually we left some in the car for them which we felt was fair as they went right out of their way to drop us at our guesthouse.

We were in Khanom for the sole reason of trying to see some pink dolphins which can be found in this area, but unfortunately the weather was not on our side and we didn’t even make it out on a trip! We’re seeing this as a sign that we need to go back. Nonetheless the guesthouse had a private beach and beautiful clear calm water.

Sunrise on Khanom beach

We then headed to the west side of the country where it was rainy season, some days during rainy season are pretty dry and sunny, some days are wet all day and unfortunately we had hit a rainy patch. Upon arrival in Krabi it was pouring it down and there were no signs of it stopping so we decided to abandon our plans to head to the islands on that side and head to Malaysia. We decided to make the best of it though and go for a walk on the beach even though it was pouring down.

We had one more day in Krabi first though and there was a small break in the weather so I suggested that we head to Railey beach, famous for its limestone karsts. You can only get there by longtail boat, Joey commented that the sea looked a bit rough but I didn’t think anything of it. Within about three seconds of getting on the boat I was regretting my decision. The sea felt very choppy, rough and a little unsafe. I was ok though until a boy of about 6 or 7 started screaming and crying as he was so scared. I think we all felt like that and to be honest, if he hadn’t been crying I think I would have been the one screaming and crying! Instead I decided I had to step up and be really brave as me screaming and crying wasn’t going to help the situation so I tried my best to reassure him. I was very glad when we reached the beach!

Railey was ok but I don’t know if it was because it was rainy season but it felt a little grotty and run down. There were some nice beaches but they were very crowded – and this was a rainy day in low season! I’d hate to go in peak season.

Railey beach
Railey beach
Railey beach
Trying to make the best of it
Cave on Railey beach

We headed back to Krabi and I wasn’t looking forward to the journey back, I made sure I shoved a life jacket on this time and just prayed it would be over quickly! To be fair the journey back wasn’t as bad as the way there. We are looking forward to heading back to this area later in the year to explore more islands, but these three weeks felt like a holiday rather than travels and that was the recharge that we needed after some hard weeks in the Stans.

0

Thailand part 1 – rest and culture!

Much like the last blog, the border crossing / flight to Thailand wasn’t as smooth as it could have been! We had an early flight and an early start but I was awake about 3 hours before I needed to be with a bad stomach. This was not good for flying. So I reverted to the Imodium which I hate doing, I’m a fan of letting nature take its course, and while taking those tablets sorted one problem they left me feeling really queasy. We’d just taken off and hit some turbulence which added to the queasiness and I spent the whole of the first flight (3 hours) with my head in the sick bag dry heaving. Maybe it would have been better if I’d actually managed to be sick, instead of just threatening to. We had a very tight connection at Delhi airport made worse by our plane holding for 15 minutes and we thought it would be ok when our plane pulled in next to our Thai Airways plane, but no! We were sent through security again which was over the other side of the airport! We were picked up by a buggy driver who dropped us there but the security screening was the slowest we have ever experienced. It wasn’t a long queue just slow. When we eventually made it through we started sprinting through the airport as we had about 5 minutes until the gate was due to close and thankfully got picked up by an another buggy driver. That little sprint did not help me feel better and I was certain I really would be sick! Thankfully while we just about made it, we were not convinced that our luggage would! We’d experienced delayed luggage when we were in Thailand on holiday last year so we were more prepared for it this time. We didn’t know when it would arrive if it didn’t make the plane so we decided not book any accommodation for that night before we left Kazakhstan. We sailed through immigration in Bangkok airport with the immigration officer commenting on my place of birth (Yeovil) as he recognised the football team! We went to the luggage carousel more to play the game of waiting, when upon arrival I spotted my rucksack shortly followed by Joey’s! We couldn’t believe it. That meant that we had just had time to catch the last bus of the day to Cha-am, our favourite beach in Thailand, where we had 3 nights booked to stay from the following day! We turned up at our hotel around 10.15pm and asked to extend our booking, it was very straightforward.

As I say we had planned a few nights to rest after The Stans, and we had a great time doing so. It’s rainy season in Thailand at present but we didn’t experience too much rain, just a bit of cloud cover. We had a day doing chores, a day on the beach and then we caught a bus to Hua Hin, a bigger town down the coast with a shopping centre and a cinema so we could finally watch Barbie!

Fully recharged it was time to move on and get some Thai Culture. Cha-am has direct buses to Kanchanaburi in the west, famous for the Bridge over the River Kwai, so that seemed an easy option. We turned up at the bus stop but after the ticket seller made a quick phone call it turned out that the mini van was full! He wasn’t phased though, he bundled us into another mini van, told us to change somewhere but not to worry as the driver would take care of us. And he absolutely did take care of us! We have no idea what town it was we changed in but the driver told us to get out, pointed us to the next van and off we went! It was so easy. We stayed a little bit away from the main sights of Kanchanaburi but that meant we got to do lots of walking! We made the famous bridge our first port of call. It is very touristy around the site of the bridge with many souvenir stalls, drink sellers and even hawkers selling eels on the bridge. You can walk on the railway line across the bridge stopping for your Instagram pictures as you wish, there are a few trains a day so you need to watch out for those but there are places of safety you can wait on if one was to come whilst you were there. We walked the whole way across and were definitely in the minority for doing so! Over the other side is a lovely Buddhist temple which makes a good viewing platform. After seeing the bridge we visited the Death Railway museum, this was definitely worth a stop and it’s very sobering. It puts into perspective the numbers of men killed in the building of the bridge as well as the conditions in which they had to live and work.

In Kanchanaburi there is a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery which holds the graves of many of the men who perished during the construction of the railway. Very close to this is also a Buddhist cemetery; something which we have never come across before so was very interesting to see,

Bridge over the River Kwai
Joey standing on the railway tracks
CWGC site
Buddhist cemetery

We spent the next day at Erawan falls, a seven tiered waterfall about a 90 minute bus ride away. The falls are in the middle of the jungle and you spend time hiking up steep paths to get to each of the tiers. You can stop and swim in the different tiers, we only went in the second tier and the seventh tier. In order to swim you have to rent a life jacket which I actually appreciated. The waters are full of flesh eating fish so you get your own free pedicure! The fish tickle your feet which takes a little getting used to, we didn’t really enjoy swimming in the pools though when the fish were eating our knees or arms! The seventh tier has a little cave behind the fall which you can swim in and around and back out which I really enjoyed but I wouldn’t recommend if you are claustrophobic

Erawan Falls
The second pool
Modelling our mandatory life jackets
Joey’s feet getting eaten alive

Kanchanaburi has a lively night market which we ate at every evening. It was fun to just go to different stalls and pick something different to try each night. I started off quite safe (pasta!) but got a little more adventurous as time went on.

After Kanchanaburi we went to Ayutthaya, which is 80km north of Bangkok and was the capital of Siam between 1350 and 1767, when it was razed by the Burmese. There are many, many ruined temples there to see so we borrowed a couple of bikes from our guesthouse and set off. Most temples are 50 baht (around £1.10) or you can buy a ticket for the 6 main sights for 220baht (about £4.90). We wanted the 6 temple ticket but upon reaching the first temple I realised that I hadn’t topped up our cash and we didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket! So off we cycled back to our guesthouse to get some from our stash!

One of the things that helps our relationship on the road and to keep us organised is for us to have ‘jobs’ in each country. So one of us will be in charge of the country, by which we mean planning and researching roughly where to go and the other one will be the ‘treasurer’ so dealing with our cash on a day to day basis. I’d been in charge throughout the Stans of planning the countries but for Thailand we didn’t really have anyone in charge! I definitely drove the ‘we should do some Thai culture and not just lie on a beach’ bit though!

Once we’d got our finances sorted we cycled back to our first temple, Wat Phra Sin Sanphet, famous for its three pagodas. This ended up being one of our favourite sights and hopefully the pictures will show you why. Next door to this is the Buddhist temple of Wihan Phra Mongkhon Bophit which has been heavily restored. Pictures inside show the before and after of the renovations and are worth a look, but what really wows is the huge Buddha inside. After this we cycled to Wat Phra Ram and then to Wat Phra Mahathat which is famous for the sandstone Buddha head in the tree roots. It’s impressive and you’ll easily find it by the massive groups of people gathered to take their pictures!

Wat Phra Sin Sanphet
Wihan Phra Mongkhon
There he is
Wat Phra Mahathat

We decided enough was enough for that day and headed back to the guesthouse. Our guesthouse ran a free shuttle bus to the night market each evening so we caught that for a bit more market food. We didn’t think that the Ayutthaya night market was as good as the one in Kanchanaburi but we still found plenty to eat.

The next day we hopped back on the bikes early to visit Wat Chai Wattanaram, this is one of the busiest sites and we just managed to visit it before the first coach load arrived! We then went to Wat Tha Ka Rong which is really hard to describe, it’s a Buddhist temple but also like a seaside pier – there are weird animated skeletons around the place greeting you with a wai, as well as stalls and bizarrely, very large crows! We didn’t know what to make of it, but again it was definitely worth a visit.

Wat Chai Wattanaram
Wat Tha Ka Rong

We also saw the reclining Buddha, it’s almost as large as the one in Bangkok, but is no longer covered in gold, it’s probably more impressive it’s fully outside so you can really see the scale and detail.

Our final stop was Wat Ratchaburana where you can actually climb the prang, I popped my head inside but the smell of bat poo was pretty overwhelming so we quickly retreated!

We checked out of the guesthouse and headed to the train station, trains to Bangkok are pretty frequent, if somewhat late, but very, very cheap! We were heading to the Khao San Road area, an area famous for backpackers. It’s a street lined with stalls selling elephant pants, t shirts, cocktail buckets and scorpions on a stick! You either love it or hate it and we love it! We have noticed the change though from when I first visited 8 years ago. Then you had stalls selling old copies of lonely planets and fake driving licenses and dodgy dvds. Those stalls have gone, partly as part of a clean up by the government and partly I guess as time has moved on and the digital world has diminished the need for knock off copies of The Beach.

Probably as big as my head

We had a fun but chilled evening, I went for a foot massage and Joey took some time to just sit and people watch. Obviously I had a couple of large cocktails and Joey some beers. The next day we had booked an overnight bus to the Gulf islands and so we had a day to kill, we headed to a strip of shopping centres on a local bus. In the past we would have taken a taxi there but now it’s easy to find information online about which local bus to catch so catch the bus we did. It was a nice way to spend the day – one of the shopping centres has showrooms for cars such as Bentley, Porsche and Land Rovers – imagine going to the Oracle shopping centre in Reading to pick out your car!

I’m glad that we had some time to explore some of the places in Thailand that I’d wanted to explore and to see some culture rather than just beaches although the beaches will follow!

0

Canyons, lakes and a narrow escape

It feels as though I open every blog with a dramatic border crossing, and today is no different! I was still feeling a bit poorly in Tashkent and it was 40 degrees so we decided that we’d treat ourselves to a taxi to the train station rather than sweat like pigs on the metro. We asked our hotel an hour in advance to arrange one, told him where we were going and which train we were getting so he had all the information to hand. We went downstairs about 10 minutes before we needed to to check out and get our registration slips (Uzbekistan takes foreigner registration very seriously and when you check out of somewhere you have to get a little slip of paper which states how long you stayed somewhere). We got our latest slip and I checked it and the dates were incorrect, I questioned him and he said it would be fine, everything was online etc, etc) this was the first clue that perhaps he wasn’t the best at attention to detail.

Then he ordered our taxi on the Yandex app (the soviet equivalent to Uber) and said it would be 3 minutes, 3 minutes came and went, then another 3 minutes, we kept checking with him and making sure he knew we needed to catch a train. After about 20 minutes I was starting to get a little bit anxious and was saying to Joey that we needed to leave NOW, and we said that to the guy. I then insisted that we go to the street to flag one down and even that took over 5 minutes! We were cutting it fairly fine at this point as Uzbek railways like you to be there to check in for your train 30 minutes in advance. Eventually a cab did stop and he said a price which we just agreed to straightaway, no time for messing and bartering at this point! We had a really nice guy who spoke a little bit of English and who’s sister lives in the UK. We were a way into our journey when Joey checked Google maps and realised we were heading in the wrong direction- the hotel receptionist had told him to go to the wrong train station! The taxi driver wasn’t convinced that we were right until we’d shown him our tickets and all he said was ‘good say’ before making a quick u-turn. He was great though and got us there just after the 30 minute slot and boy did we run with our rucksacks – I felt like we were on the BBC show ‘Race across the world’. It was really stressful thinking we might miss it if they didn’t let us on so we really tried to race through the security checks. Thankfully two very sweaty and stressed people made it!

That was not the end of the stress though! We still had a border crossing to do, and you may remember from the last blog that we were carrying illegal goods with us! Leaving Uzbekistan the train guards came and collected our passports so I thought that might be straightforward and we’d be ok, but then the border guards boarded the train with sniffer dogs and wanted everyone to open their bags. Thankfully Joey had hidden the drone in a packing cube of clothes! They checked the bags a few times and even asked us if we had a ‘helicopter’ before clarifying that they meant a drone and it’s not my proudest moment to admit that I lied to a border official and denied that we did indeed have a drone. Before too long thought the train guards were back with our passports and we were on a short journey to the Kazakhstan border. This time the border guards boarded with a small handheld computer and sat at a table seat with passengers taking it turn to sit opposite them and have their passports scanned, pictures taken and getting the vital stamp. Then the dogs and border guards were back on board for the luggage checks. I found the whole experience so stressful, knowing I’d lied earlier and having everyone in close proximity in the carriage watching the two foreigners was almost too much to bear! Thankfully everything was fine and before we knew it we were In Shymkent, a very narrow escape!

We spent a pleasant morning exploring Shymkent, there were a surprising number of green parks and a lot of WWII memorials. The next day we were catching a night train and so we decided to take ourselves to a town a couple of hours away called Turkestan, which is home to a mausoleum of Kozha Akhmed Yasaui, and is described as Kazakhstan’s most beautiful piece of architecture, the best piece of man-made beauty in the whole of the country! So with those words I was keen to go, and we were a little underwhelmed! Maybe if we’d visited before we went to Uzbekistan it would have been better but the place was half finished! There was wooden scaffolding in place and the tiling hadn’t been finished at the front! Ok, so the guy who commissioned it had died before it was finished but you can see what I mean, the rest of it was nice, but it just didn’t wow us in the same way all the buildings in Uzbekistan had. It was however a good way to spend a homeless day.

You can see the wooden scaffolding on the inside of the arch of this photo

I had pushed the boat out with the finances and booked us a first class cabin on the train, which meant it just had two beds in. This was great for us, it meant we could sleep in peace without well meaning people forcing us to eat meat. We locked the door and both slept fairly well. I got up around 4am to go to the toilet and all was well, a little later, when I wanted to go again I tried the door and it wouldn’t open, at first I thought I was being weak, but it soon became apparent that the door was stuck, possibly locked from the outside, we pressed the attendant’s bell but no one came! I was getting a little panicky at this point, definitely a new fear unlocked of getting stuck in a train carriage! At this point we decided to just hammer on the door and hope someone heard us! We were hammering for a good 5 minutes before someone came to our rescue and it took a little while before we were freed! At that point I decided the door was staying open!

We arrived into our hostel and were able to shower before heading out to explore. Almaty was again full of green parks which surprised us, we also visited a catholic cathedral, which was constructed from wood but you wouldn’t have known this if you hadn’t been told.

Almaty cathedral

We had arranged for a private two day the next day to take us the Charyn Canyon and to the Kolsai lakes, it’s pretty hard to get there on public transport which is why we opted for a tour. We had a great tour guide named Sergey and a very comfy car which was just as well given some of the terrain we went over! We started off going to the main canyon where we walked for 2km down to a river, it was about 31 degrees at the top of the canyon but inside the canyon it felt about 45 degrees so it was hot! We had a little paddle in the river when we got there and then walked back which was hard going due to the heat. It was beautiful down amongst the rocks though, we then walked up to the top to view it from above.

Charyn canyon from below
The river
Charyn canyon from above
Obligatory sign picture

After this we drove on to another canyon, the moon canyon, then stone shelf canyon, the Austrian view and the black canyon! There was a lot of very hot canyons and they were all quite different, we had to go off road across some really rugged terrain to get to these which meant there was no one else but us there. Driving along some of the main roads to get there meant that we encountered lots of animals in the road such as cows and donkeys! Seeing donkeys instantly made me sing the Christmas song ‘little donkey’ and I don’t think Sergey knew what to make of me singing this song and trying to explain that it was a Christmas song.

Lots
And lots
And lots
Of canyons
The ‘road’

That evening we were staying in a guesthouse which was probably nicer that a lot of accommodation we’ve stayed in! The thing I liked the though was the dinner, or rather a peculiar element of dinner! We were served what Sergey kept referring to as ‘cookies’ but definitely looked and tasted more like crisps, which you were meant to dip into jam and honestly it was the tasty combination ever! I don’t know if I was just making up for not eating much over the past couple of weeks but I couldn’t get enough of these!

Crisps and jam, my new favourite dish

The next day we were headed to the main event, to Kolsoi lakes, the first lake was Kaindy lake, formed about a hundred years after an earthquake. The lake that formed flooded a forest and left lots of tree trunks to form a unique view known as the sunken forest and it was quite beautiful. We had a lovely walk around the lake and dipped our toes into the river again – it was freezing! To get to this lake we had to drive through a river to reach it!

The sunken forest lake
Sergey was trying to get to us to do something different

After lunch we headed to Kolsai lakes, which is the most famous lake and has a beautiful view of it between the mountains. It was nice, but overcrowded and we preferred Kaindy lake.

Kolsai lake

We headed back for a night in Almaty before heading off early the next day to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. We had planned on one night in the capital before heading to Karakol in the mountains. The topography/ public transport system was slightly frustrating as we’d been almost parallel with Karakol when we were at Kolsai lakes but public transport limited us to going via Bishkek (unless you wanted to pay a fortune for a taxi) we were lucky upon arriving into Bishkek though as we met some of the nicest people we’d met so far. We met a Slovenian guy who we spent the evening with drinking beer and hopefully inspiring him to quit his job and travel longer term. We also met Ombi and Alex who we kept in touch with and who ended up in the same hostel as us in Karakol.

The journey to Karakol was pretty uneventful, just long, it we had great views of Lake Issyk-kul along the route. Issyk-Kul is actually the second largest alpine lake in the world, after Lake Titicaca in Bolivia /Peru. Kyrgyzstan is very accessible for many long treks, but we opted out of doing any! We instead had a day padding around the town, visiting the cathedral (again constructed of wood) as well as the Dungan mosque – the Dungans are an ethnic Muslim group originally from China and the Chinese influence was evident in the mosque which resembled more a Chinese temple.

We visited the lake beach two days in a row which was very pleasant. We also went to the hot springs which I’d been looking forward to going to. It was an effort to get to as not all the marshrutkas (local minibuses) went there and when we got the one we wanted it didn’t go to the hot springs so we ended up getting off, walking and waiting and bickering about the whole thing. Then when we made it there the springs were really tiny and the first pool which you had to walk through was SCALDING. It was almost impossible to walk through. Then when we did make it to the main pool there were loads of dead flies. It was such a disappointment! We ended up staying 20 minutes! The only thing that saved the day was when we were waiting for a bus back a car stopped and gave us a free lift back to Karakol. I’m not sure if we had a bad day or something as we heard from Ombi a few days after that they’d had a great time when they went.

We spent our evenings in Karakol strolling round a park, the temperature dropped to about 20 degrees and it felt like an English summer evening – it was so much more pleasant than the high 30s/ low 40s we’d been used to! We also went with Ombi and Alex to an evening at another hostel which put on traditional Kyrgyz music which consisted of low singing and playing an accordion. It was a little bizarre at times but good fun.

We left very early on a Tuesday morning to get back to Bishkek before heading back to Almaty to catch our flight to Thailand. We were on the 8am Marshrutka and us and the driver were the only sober passengers. The bus was full of extremely drunk men who were either passed out or who were bothering us. They kept trying to talk to us or to touch us. At one point one of the men got up and went to the front and ripped the driver’s sunglasses from his head! He was not happy about this but at no point did he threw him off the bus! After a short break he did make him sit in the front next to him, presumably thinking that he’d been able to keep an eye on him from there! We were very glad to reach Bishkek in one piece and we just wanted to make it to Almaty.

We took the first bus we reasonably could the next day and thankfully made it to Almaty without any drama. We had one night in a hotel close to the airport and spent the afternoon messing around in the pool, sauna and steam room to gear ourselves up for our flight to South East Asia.

Central Asia was different to anywhere we’d been and the language barrier made it hard going at times but I’m glad that we went. We had originally intended to visit Tajikistan on this trip but we changed our minds during the planning for a couple of reasons – mainly because we’d have to re-enter Uzbekistan to leave Tajikistan as the border with Kyrgyzstan is currently closed due to their war and we couldn’t face going through the drone drama again! I’m sure we will be back to visit Tajikistan in the not distant future though as we’d love to spend time driving the Pamir highway.

2

Under the Uzbek spell

It definitely felt like a bit of a treat to fly. We had to fly to Tashkent international airport, collect our bags, go through customs and then take a taxi to the domestic terminal which is 5km away. It should have been relatively smooth but it was hard work! Our first issue was not being able to use the ATM at the airport to get any cash to get a taxi. A guy behind us said he could never get it to work either and actually offered to give us the money for our taxi, but there was an exchange office so we opted for that rather than taking money from a stranger! Once we had collected our bags Joey’s bag had some customs tape around it which neither of us were really sure about and when we tried to leave the airport we were stopped by customs who insisted on x-raying our bags and then opening Joey’s. This wouldn’t normally cause us any stress as we’re not carrying anything illegal, except for when we were entering Uzbekistan. You cannot import drones into Uzbekistan and we had read stories about them being destroyed at the border so we were semi prepared for this to happen and it looked like this was the moment.

The border guard insisted on getting us to open all the packing cubes and asking what was what ‘what’s that?’ ‘Rain jacket’ ‘open’ ‘what’s that?’ ‘Clothes’ ‘open’. He eventually got to the bag containing the drone and we both thought this was it, but he was too busy wondering what something else was to actually look at it properly and do his job! So we were somewhat relieved and bewildered a few minutes later when we left the terminal with everything still in our possession. I would definitely not recommend chancing this though!

We caught a taxi and actually met a really nice taxi driver, who gifted us a traditional Uzbeki bracelet; our time in India has scarred us and we were both a little sceptical but he was just a really nice man! We arrived at the domestic terminal and had our first massive cultural shock. The language barrier was huge, I had been learning a little Russian in preparation but not nearly enough! Then there was the money situation, the exchange rate was 15,000 to the pound so getting my head around all the notes and their value was huge. Then there were really quirky things such as someone drying their washing on a few seats and there was a washing machine in the toilet! Not sure why there was a washing machine in the airport but there you go.

Uzbekistan was HOT. We got off the plane at Tashkent and were hit by that immediate wall of heat, we were arriving at the hottest time of year were its temperatures regularly reach the high 30s / early 40s so we wanted to move through the country as quickly as reasonably possible. We landed into Nukus in the evening and even in the dark we could tell just how hot it was.

Nukus is in the far west of the country and is the gateway to the Aral Sea, a largely dried up lake, destroyed by mankind when the Soviet started diverting rivers for irrigation purposes. However we were not intending to visit the Aral Sea, instead our reason for visiting the town was to visit the Savitsky museum of art. This museum is home to one of the largest collections of soviet art in the world and remained hidden from the world for many years. Stalin had banned all non socialist realist work and these paintings remained hidden in the middle of nowhere, precisely because they were in the middle of nowhere.

The museum is closed on Mondays and flight timings meant that we had arrived on Sunday evening so we had a day to kill before we could get to the museum. It was a day for adjusting to the culture and climate, and one we needed. We’d only exchanged a small amount of cash and needed to get some more out so off we trotted to find an ATM that worked. We actually found one straight away and managed to withdraw some cash, an old lady was very intrigued by us and was standing right next to me whilst I was doing the transaction, she then wanted to know how much we were getting and looking in my wallet – she was quite excited to see I had a million Som in my wallet (about £67).

The guide books described Nukus as having very little charm, but we actually quite liked the city! It was clean with wide pavements and everyone was friendly. We were pretty bowled away by the museum as well, we’d both imagined that soviet art would be really grey and brutalist but everything was so colourful and modern, it was definitely worth the stop.

Next up was Khiva, which was 2.5 hours away in a taxi. Shared taxis are a great way to get around this area but we splashed out on a private one to take us there. Uzbekistan is huge and as you’re driving or catching a train anywhere the whole amount of nothingness and desert takes your breath away. We were dropped at the door of our guesthouse and had an amazing welcome from our host, we’d booked a budget room but he upgraded us to the best room in the guesthouse- it was huge and had a small balcony but best of all the bathroom had a bath!

Khiva was such a delightful city, our guesthouse was in the city walls and we liked nothing more than wandering round and taking in all the sights. Every building was caked in mud and looked like something out of Aladdin. There were beautiful minarets, and a mosque made of over 200 wooden pillars. You can buy a day ticket which will allow you to enter various museums and palaces, and you do just wander around and go in any building you like the look of. We climbed the city walls at sunset, the gate was locked and there was a guy hanging round the bottom of them offering to let us up for 20,000 soms. We decided to take him up on his offer and we were the only people on the walls at sunset. In one of the museums we visited we met a 15 year old girl who had the courage to approach us and practice her English, you could tell she was really embarrassed about it when she went back to her family but I was so proud of her for having the courage to approach us! She told us it was her dream to visit England so I hope that one day she achieves her dream.

The minor minaret in Khiva
Khiva
Khiva
The mosque in Khiva

We loved Khiva, we were just so charmed by its beauty. A lot of tourists stick to Bukhara (our next stop), Samarkand and Tashkent but I’m glad we started in the west made our way there.

Our train ride to Bukhara was over 7 hours, in a non air conditioned train, when it was 38degrees outside! The windows were open, which was fine when we were moving but stopping at any station was very hot! As we travelled through the desert a lot of dust made its way into our cabin! We were sharing with two men who insisted on sharing their food with us. The food they wanted to share was meat, some chicken wings and sheep trotters. I was really reluctant to take any, as I say it was 38 degrees outside and our cabin didn’t have any air conditioning and I could foresee some health issues if I ate anything. Unfortunately the men were VERY persistent and it got to the point where it was becoming rude to say no so I took a small amount and tried not to eat too much.

We were grateful to arrive into Bukhara and get into an air conditioned car. Everyone is Uzbekistan drives a white Chevrolet. That’s not even a sweeping statement, it’s a fact, everyone drives a white Chevrolet- finding your car in a car park must be a nightmare!

Bukhara was a nice city but we didn’t love it in the same way that we loved Khiva. We had a wander round at night upon arrival and found some beautiful lit up minarets and mosques. The next day we continued our habit of getting up early and getting out before coming back late morning and staying in until the evening to avoid the worst of the heat. We were at the Ark in Bukhara, it was super hot and the inevitable happened. I needed to get back to the guesthouse NOW. The guesthouse was pretty much where I stayed for the next couple of days feeling a little bit sorry for myself! We tried to console ourselves by reminding us that we’d made it to the three month mark without getting sick and it was going to happen at some point so at least we were somewhere relatively comfortable and had our own bathroom!

Bukhara
Bukhara
Bukhara
Chor Minor
Minaret Bukhara

We did manage a couple of walks out but were glad to move on to Samarkand. This train ride was only about 4 hours and we had air con this time. Samarkand was an absolutely gorgeous city, we loved it from the moment we arrived. Our guesthouse owner collected us from the train station (in his white Chevrolet), and he said he didn’t speak much English so it allowed me the opportunity to wow him with my Russian. By wow I mean saying all the Russian words I know- which include: cat, dog, mice, flies, car, towel, how much and daughter. At our guesthouse in Khiva I had actually asked for a towel in Russian which impressed me! I will actually say at this point that probably the most useful thing I did was to learn the Cyrillic alphabet which allowed me to be able to read place names (useful for when catching buses) and some things off a menu!

Our guesthouse was a stone throw’s away from the Registan in Samarkand, a collection of three buildings and honestly our favourite thing in Samarkand. The night we arrived we went for a walk and ended up at the Gur-e-Amir mausoleum. It was beautifully lit up and as we arrived so late we were the only ones there! We then wandered back and got to the Registan in time to see some of the light and sound show that happens most evenings in summer. The next day we were up early and headed to the Bibi-Khanym Mosque. This mosque is huge (the cupola is 41m high) and it’s so beautiful. It’s also in a bit of a state of disrepair having been damaged by an earthquake and you can see the minarets leaning and huge cracks in the walls. It sparked an interesting discussion though as I realised that the buildings I find the most beautiful and have been moved by, have all been Islamic. There was Humayun’s tomb and the Taj Mahal in India, the Blue Mosque in Turkey and now the Bibi-Khanym mosque and Registan in Samarkand.

After the mosque we headed to another mausoleum before turning back and spending a couple of hours at the Registan. The Registan is so beautiful, as I say earlier it consists of three buildings and the tiling on each of them is very different. One of them has ‘lions’ on the outside – although these lions actually look very much like tigers! Inside the middle building, the Tilla-Kari, is a fascinating photo exhibition of how Samarkand used to look, and how much restoration had taken place at the Registan and the Bibi-Khanym. Perhaps the most fascinating thing of all though was the the ceiling. It is flat, but is painted so as to appear domed – quite exquisite.

Ulugbek observatory
The ‘lions’ which look like tigers
The Registan
Check out my outfit
The light show at the Registan
The flat ceiling which looks like it’s domed
We’re miles away and the mosque is still huge!
The mosque – you can see some of the damage
Look how big the mosque is- Joey’s tiny here!

We spent every evening at the Registan, watching the light and sound show, it was such a lovely place to hang out and spend our evenings. We also visited the Ulugbek observatory which was really interesting, then we made it to yet another mausoleum! I was all out of clean modest clothes by this point so had to be lent some suitable attire at the front desk to cover my dress!

Our next port of call was Tashkent, the capital. We were able to catch the metro to our hotel which saved a taxi ride. We retreated inside until the early evening when the sun wasn’t beating down on us. We had a walk around the city taking in some famous sights such as Hotel Uzbekistan (as featured on Race Across the World). At some point we reached a fountain and were so hot we joined everyone else and dunked our feet in! The next day we wanted to visit some monuments in a couple of parks but everywhere we tried to go to was closed off and guarded by the police, there had been elections a few days before so perhaps it was connected. We decided that we’d hop on the metro and visit a few stations. The metro stations in Tashkent are really intriguing, everyone is different and they’re all very soviet! We bought a ticket each, went to the next station, hopped off took a few photos, then hopped on to the next train to the next station. This was a good way to pass an hour in the heat of the day – all for about 10p each! We then headed to the Green Bazaar, after about 5 minutes there we vowed to not eat meat whilst we were in the Stans! No wonder we were ill if people bought their meat from here whilst it was lying in 40 degrees heat!

Some of the metro stations
Hotel Uzbekistan

We didn’t enjoy Tashkent as much as the other cities of Uzbekistan but overall we loved Uzbekistan, it surprised us both how much given that it was all about the cities here and I wished we’d actually planned to stay a little longer, however all good things must come to an end.

3

Blood, sweat and cheers!

Once upon a time, for a short period of time, there was a direct bus from Kars in Turkey to Tbilisi, Georgia. Nowadays the recommendation is to head west to the border town of Hopa and cross to Batumi in west Georgia before heading east to Tbilisi. We were not having that so we researched hard to find a way to cross to the capital, there really isn’t much information about this route at all; it appears that people do just take the longer easier route! Not us though, we were determined to find a way and it appeared that way would involve 3 buses and a couple of taxis!

We first needed to get to the town of Ardahan – this was easy, we got the first bus at 8am and said to our driver that we wanted to go on to Posof so he kindly dropped us at the next bus station in Ardahan. From there we took a bus to the border town of Posof, this minibus was absolutely packed to the rafters of bags, suitcases and boxes. It looked like one woman and her two children were using the minibus to move house! Once you were in your seat there was no way of moving! It was a very light hearted journey though and just as we left the bus station the woman realised half her stuff was still in the bus station so we stopped and went back for it. Then about two minutes later she realised she’d left another bag behind so phone calls were made and we pulled into a petrol station and waited for someone to bring the bag. Once we got to Posof we got out the minibus and asked about where we could get a taxi to the border and luck was on our side that day as the woman with all her possessions was heading to the border so we paid an extra couple of pounds and hopped back in!

We all piled out at the border and we offered to help her with her belongings over the border but she said her sister was coming so we left her there. We walked over the border to some amusement, it’s mainly a truck border point and I don’t think they get too many backpackers crossing by foot but the border guards were very friendly and laughed as I tried to say thank you in Turkish. The Georgian guards were equally friendly but asked a lot of questions about our plans. They were really helpful though when I asked about money exchange and said it was cheaper to do it at the petrol station rather than at the border. We had to walk about 10/15 minutes to a petrol station and we asked them to call a taxi for us to take us to the nearest town and to change our money and it was very efficient! The taxi driver was great, I asked how much the fare was, he told me, I said I didn’t have that much and he said ‘no problem!’ He stopped right in front of the minibus that we needed to Tbilisi, blocking it in so we could make it! I made a quick dash across the road to the ATM and we were on our way! The days when we improvise our travel, especially when it involves a border crossing, are some of the least stressful, there’s no worries about missing a booked bus and there’s always someone willing to help you.

On the first bus to Georgia surrounded by boxes and bags
At the border, just one taxi and a bus to go

We had a very quick one night stop in Tbilisi, just having enough time to orientate ourselves and plan onward journeys. When we arrived in Tbilisi we realised our time there coincided with the Euro Under 21 championship so we immediately booked tickets for the first game that we could attend the following weekend when we would be back in Tbilisi.

For now though we were heading east to Georgian wine country! We arrived into the town of Telavi and immediately arranged a tour through our guesthouse, our guide would be a fellow long term Russian guest. The next day we planned to visit two wineries, but first we stopped by a monastery. It was interesting to see but we were all about the wine that day! The first winery we went to offered a tour into a cave where all their wine is stored, but there was a power cut that day so we had to take a golf buggy and torches to complete the tour! Georgian wine is traditionally made in huge pots called Qvevri with everything left on – stalks and skins. We tasted four different wines, all of which tasted pretty good to us! We headed to the next winery and the guide made a suggestion that maybe we didn’t want to taste any wines as we had already tried some. Imagine how that suggestion went down with us! The grounds were lovely though and once we’d shaken off our guide we sat down to a large tasting menu which involved comparing wines made using the traditional method and some using the non traditional method, we ended up preferring the traditional method on this occasion. Our guide definitely was no Vuk from Montenegro but we did get driven around to drink wine so it wasn’t all bad!

The town of Telavi has a small fortress (and I mean small) so we also visited that and a plane tree that was over 1000 years old – very impressive!

The plane tree in Telavi
Wine cave
Wine cave
A qvevri
Some of the wine
Joey and qvevri
Size comparison against the plane tree
Symbol of Georgian wine country

After Telavi we headed up to Kazbegi, a town in the mountains that’s only around 12km from Russia. Kazbegi is surrounded by beautiful mountains, but most of the time they are surrounded by clouds! Mount Kazbegi is apparently also known as the bride of Kazbegi as she’s often hidden by a veil of cloud! There’s a church high on a hill to climb up to – you can climb up a very steep hill or you can take a taxi or car up to the church. We obviously walked. It was worth the climb up but as is always the way it was way harder coming back down! The church itself was a little underwhelming with the best thing being a carving into the stone apparently showing dinosaurs. The church was built in the 14th Century and it was definitely worth stopping to contemplate the effort that went into building it and carrying up the materials required.

Joey made me do a jump
View from the Church
The church
Kazbegi bride finally showing her face
Joey
Dinosaurs at the church

We did a couple of other walks in Kazbegi, one we were told about by a Polish couple we met on the way down from the church, where you could reach another church behind some forests and we agreed that we preferred that walk to the famous one.

We headed back down to Tbilisi, the road to and from Kazbegi is busy with trucks heading to Russia and the driving can be a little crazy as there are a lot of bends, on our way back we met an accident where a car had crashed into a lorry – it didn’t look like anyone was hurt, it was just trying to work out how to move the car and the lorry! Our minibus driver had the crazy idea of trying to go round the back of the lorry and of course it didn’t work!

We had another night in Tbilisi, arriving back in time for the Euro U21 match – Netherlands v Portugal. We were staying in the same accommodation as we had previously, it was a great location and clean, it was set up so there was a mezzanine level with a bed and the stairs were in the middle of the room and were perfect for storing my bag under. Unfortunately I forgot about those stairs whilst rooting around for something, stood up with great force and cracked my head on the edge of the stairs! It really hurt! I thought I would end up with a headache for a bit but when I took my hand away it was covered in blood – not what i was expecting to see and I definitely went into shock! Thankfully the bleeding stopped and I didn’t need stitches but I didn’t really fancy going out after that though so we skipped the match. We did however immediately book tickets for the quarter final the following weekend!

Our minibus tried to go round the back of this
The stairs which tried to take me out
Tbilisi
A park in Tbilisi

The next day we headed to Armenia, we had heard that there were two places you could take a minivan from so we headed to one we had been to before and were told that there wouldn’t be one for three hours so we headed off to the other one and were lucky as it filled up quickly. We were impressed as well, it was a lovely Mercedes minivan, very comfy and with loads more space than all the other minibuses we’d had in the area. We arrived quickly at the border and the border guards seemed to have some sort of problem with me; as we left Georgia they kept me waiting for ages, for no apparent reason! I was eventually let go and eased into Armenia. Once we crossed the border our driver seemed to think he was an F1 driver and needed to drive at twice the speed limit and overtake 5 cars at once. I think he spent more time on the wrong side of the road than the right side and he was beeped at more than once. His driving was honestly the worst we have experienced and we were both genuinely terrified at points.

We did eventually make it to the capital, Yerevan, where we spent 3 days walking round and catching up with admin and laundry etc. Yerevan had a lovely cascade – a set of around 500 steps leading to a great view of the city. You can also take an escalator which is inside an arts museum so that was worth doing.

The cascade in Yerevan
View from the cascade
Joey at the cascade – note the mountain appearing to float in the background!

From Yerevan we headed to Dilijan, a national park where we planned to do a hike from a lake 17 km back to the village of Dilijan. We got a taxi to the lake which was the start of the trail and on our way up there we saw a stray dog in the road who upon seeing our car looked very happy and excited! He headed to the car park and bounded up to us. We tried not to encourage him too much but he decided that he would accompany us. So we set off through some woods which were really muddy, you needed to climb pretty much continuously and the dog headed off in front of us taking short cuts but he kept coming back to check on us and keep us on the right path! It was really reassuring but we kept saying to him, it’s ok you can go back but he kept on with us. We were about two hours in those woods, climbing and trying to avoid mosquitoes and we didn’t particularly enjoy that part, but it was great to have the dog to guide us in the right direction! We eventually reached a beautiful wildflower meadow that we climbed through. We’d been walking for about 8km with the dog at this point and decided he needed a name and so ‘Woody’ was named, we had taken some leftovers with us for lunch and we ended up giving most of it to Woody to say thank you to him. Still he kept on with his as we entered more woods, eventually after about 12km we bumped into a group of German hikers and Woody decided to go back with them. We speculated that perhaps Woody did that every day, and we were glad to have his company, especially when we kept seeing signs warning us of bears, wolves and snakes!

‘Woody’ in the wildflower meadow

We headed back to Tbilisi, arriving back in the middle of a torrential thunderstorm! We had a full day in Tbilisi and had saved the cable car to the last day but as luck would have it, the cable car was not operating due to the wind! If we ever return we will definitely do it then. That evening we did make it to the football. It was Georgia vs Israel in the quarterfinals and the record was set that night for the highest attendance at an U21s match. The crowd was highly partisan and booed every time the Israelis touched the ball. Georgia had a goal disallowed for offside and the match was 0-0 at full time. After extra time it went to penalties and I so admire the Israelis for keeping their cool and managing to beat Georgia on penalties amongst the booing and general noise. We needed to leave quite sharpishly, as it was almost 11pm and we had to be up at the crack of dawn to catch our first flight of the trip.

Confirmation of the record attendance at the Euro U21s
Getting ready for penalties

Georgia and Armenia were an interesting chapter and they both have some stunning scenery, they are both relatively small countries with something for everyone. We had managed to travel overland all the way from the UK to Georgia, a total distance of 10,218 kilometres. We would have liked to have continued overland but the land border to Azerbaijan from Georgia is still closed so the only options were overland via Iran or Russia and we didn’t really fancy either of those options! We will continue to travel as much as we can overland, we love slow travel and the encounters that we have with locals along the way.

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