Panama: one canal, two hats and three islands

As I mentioned in my last blog we had to cut short this leg so we flew from Buenos Aires up to Panama City. We stayed in the old city and spent a day exploring that part. There were several churches, including St Joseph’s, whose most famous story involves the gold covered baroque altar. Legend has it that when the pirate Henry Morgan ransacked Panama City the priest painted the altar black to disguise it, told Morgan that it had already been stolen and persuaded Morgan to make a donation to replace it. Morgan is then famously said to have said: ‘I don’t know but I think you’re more of a pirate than I am’.

Whilst the altar is beautiful, the most astonishing thing about the church was the incredible nativity scene that it hosts in the back of the church. It was huge and had so many different scenes and figures. We were breathtaken with just how much detail had gone into it. There were 17 different scenes from Mary visiting Elizabeth, to Joseph’s dream, to the shepherds and the annunciation in the temple. It was astonishing just how much effort had gone into putting it together and we enjoyed going back a second time to appreciate it again.

The nativity scene in St Joseph’s Church

Whilst we were in Panama City Joey couldn’t resist buying. Panama hat. I didn’t know that these hats were actually made in Ecuador, but were made famous by the gold rush, when the miners wore them when they traveled overland to Panama. Joey looked so good in his I had to run out the next day to buy one for myself!

The following day we went out to see the Panama Canal. We timed our visit for the afternoon so we could see the ships crossing. They cross one direction in the morning and the other in the afternoon. It was difficult to find accurate times online so we had to take a bit of a guess when we arrived. As it happened we were waiting for a while, mainly as the ships were late arriving! The exhibition halls were shut which was a shame but there was still information available and a bilingual commentator gave various facts and figures during the afternoon. Firstly three sailing yachts passed through, tethered together followed by a large container ship which only had two feet of space either side. Vessels that sail through the canal are piloted through the canal by specialist canal pilots. It was fascinating to see them open the locks and to see the ships fall with the water levels. It’s a slow process but very enjoyable. There’s an imax cinema on site as well where you can watch a film about the history of the canal narrated by Morgan Freeman. The canal was a definite highlight, but only because we got to see some ships navigate their way through. It would have been nice to see if there hadn’t been any ships but that definitely added to it!

From Panama City we headed up to the Cloud Forest and to Boquete. It took all day to get there but it went pretty smoothly. We had booked a hostel but were staying in a tent, the tent itself was comfy with actual mattresses inside to aid a good night’s sleep! The rest of the guests contained some characters, including a European couple, of which the male half smelt as though he’d never seen a bar of soap in his life! This led to some other guests complaining and a very heated row with the owner in the kitchen! They then left the hostel in a huff, at 10pm, but before they left they ensured that they pushed the button lock on the bathroom closed so that no one could use the bathroom. It was quite the act of pettiness that was still making us laugh days later. I have so many unanswered questions about this couple – they had their own tiny tent, how was she able to stand the smell? Where did they go at 10pm? So much to unpack!

During our time in Boquete we did the Pianist hike, a hike that steadily climbs through the cloud forest to the top of the mountain. It was picturesque at the start as we meandered through rolling pastures beside a stream. Then we entered the forest and the cloud descended and it felt as though we were in the cloud as we cut through gorges and climbed our way through masses of mud, slipping and sliding as we went. We eventually reached the top, not before reaching the biggest patch of mud and me having the biggest tantrum as I became very acquainted with it.

Once we reached the top there wasn’t a lot to see in the cloud, the only thing actually marking the top was a cross dedicated to two Dutch girls who went missing and died on the trail in 2014. Their deaths remain a mystery and since we hiked the same trail we’ve started listening to a podcast about it and are both in agreement that we’re not sure we would have done it if we’d listened to the podcast before going!

One long walk was enough for us so we spent the rest of our time mooching around town. We then headed over to the Caribbean side, to a place called Bocas Del Toro. This is an archipelago and you must travel 30 minutes in a speedboat to reach the main island. Obviously I’ve had bad experiences with boats in choppy waters on these travels, but actually I quite enjoyed this sailing! We went so fast I could almost feel the g force against my face. We arrived safely, checked in and then got a water taxi over to another island to go to a beach.

Bocas was a beautiful place, with super clear water, lovely soft sand and beautiful palm trees. Unfortunately for us the only sunny day we had was the day we arrived! The following day was cloudy with heavy rain forecast in the afternoon. We headed out to Wizard beach on Isla Bastimentos, again getting a water taxi followed by a short hike through the jungle. We were super pleased and surprised when the boat driver stopped the boat enroute to pick up litter from the ocean. You don’t get that in a lot of places! We headed back just as it started to drizzle. Once we were back it poured it down and didn’t stop for almost 24 hours. When it eventually did stop we caught a bus out to Starfish beach, a beach famous for, believe it or not, the number of starfish on the beach! It was beautiful to wade into the water and see a large number of them. They are hard to photograph but worth going to see. It surprised us how large they were, just sitting in the sea doing their thing.

Starfish at Starfish beach and beautiful beaches

The following day I woke up sick as a dog. My stomach had been bad since Boquete but this was next level so we took me off to a pharmacist and got me some antibiotics. I’m not usually one for seeking out help for my stomach and generally believe in riding the storm out but this felt like I needed help! I was feeling pretty sorry for myself and spent the day resting.

Panama on the whole was enjoyable, I’m still feeling a little on edge after the bag incident but trying to relax a bit more and go with it. Our next leg is Costa Rica and all I hear from people is how beautiful but expensive it is so I’m nervous and intrigued by that! We backpacked Japan on a budget so I’m sure we can manage Costa Rica.

March 2, 2024 0

From Cambodia to Thailand, the end of part one of Voyage 3.0

Resting, lost rings and more border crossings!

Our journey from Laos to Cambodia was just as arduous as the ones within Laos. There was a boat trip across the Mekong, a short bus ride to the border, a border crossing (not that scammy though given that we were going into Cambodia and have had past experience here with border scams), a long wait, another bus ride, another long wait and a final bus ride to Phnom Penh!

We visited Cambodia 9 years ago and ticked off the major sites then so this was a chance to visit a couple of new places on our way back to Thailand.

We left Phnom Penh almost as quickly as we arrived, lasting about 13 hours before we hopped on a bus to Kampot. Kampot is on an estuary and we took the opportunity to hire a Kayak and we had a very peaceful and beautiful kayak through some palm fronds. It was an highlight for us and felt so relaxing. We hardly saw anyone else and it was a good workout for the shoulders!

We took it very gently in Kampot and the only other activity we did was a sunset cruise along the Mekong. You get to see the sunset and also some fireflies in the trees. We enjoyed this so much we actually did it two nights in a row!

After Kampot we went to Koh Rong, an island off the Cambodia coast. We took a bus to the pier and the road was as bad as the ones in Laos – it was so rough for an hour it was impossible to read or do anything else! We had a long wait for our speedboat and I have to confess that my patience was running out.

Koh Rong had some nice beaches to chill on but the island itself felt a little grotty. There was rubbish everywhere (I know it’s a remote island but there has to be some better way to clear waste than letting it all pile up) as well as frequent power cuts. The power cuts made it impossible to go back to your accommodation during the day as it was too hot.

This is the only photo I took in Koh Rong

We only spent a week in Cambodia before heading back to Thailand. We woke on the morning of departure to a strong wind and with strong wind comes choppy seas! Our speedboat was flying through the waves and what goes up must apparently slam back into the waves with a force. I felt that I was getting whiplash from being thrown around so much, everyone was holding on for dear life and my stomach was getting churned up. I felt like kissing the ground when we safely made it to shore an hour later. We took a bus to the border and it stopped a couple of times for comfort breaks (with actual toilets – how novel!) but the driver wasn’t great at checking that everyone was back and drove off twice missing passengers! This is my worst nightmare and I was happy to see that everyone was looking out for each other to ensure we were all present. We had to change buses at the border before changing again at Trat for a Songthew. If you don’t know, a Songthew is a pick up truck with a couple of benches in the back, comfortable enough for a short journey, not ideal for a long 45 minute ride to the pier. There was a group of 6 of us heading to Koh Chang so we all stuck together and we were glad we did as we were abandoned at the pier! We asked about the next ferry and were fobbed off before the staff disappeared! One guy abandoned the rest of the group to buy his own ferry ticket but the rest of us were not having it so we protested to the ferry staff before they made a phone call and someone turned up with our tickets! It was a long journey but great to be back on a Thai island.

Koh Chang was very peaceful and restful, the beach was secluded and lovely and we enjoyed some gorgeous sunsets, our last beach sunsets in Asia! We’ve been used to seeing small geckos throughout Asia but here we had Tokay geckos outside our room and they are huge! They are about 30 centimetres long and we had a Mr and Mrs right outside our room.

We headed to Bangkok and for once a very uneventful journey – one bus the whole way, the only thing of note being how many times the driver stopped for fuel and to top up the tyres with air!

We had a brief overnight stop in Khao San Road again before heading to our favourite beach, Cha Am. We spent 2.5 weeks here chilling, hanging with Joey’s family over Christmas and New Year. It was a brilliant way to spend our last couple of weeks of this leg of travels. The days merged into one as we chilled on the beach, topping up tans and planning the next leg of our journey.

Nothing much happens in Cha Am, just the way we like it. Except for one day when it all happened!

We were enjoying a swim in the sea when we saw this horse with a young woman on galloping along the beach and being completely out of control! The poor horse had been spooked by a dog and was running all over the place, rearing up with the girl trying to hang on to him! She made it further down the beach before she tried to get off when the horse decided it had had enough and. just dumped her off into the sand. Luckily she wasn’t injured and landed in soft sand but as it looked scary from where we were I can imagine she must have been quite scared.

Then I took my wedding rings off (they are fake ones) to put some suncream on and somehow without noticing knocked them into the sand. I spent ages sat on the sand digging through trying to find them! I borrowed a rake from the people we hire our sunbeds from but had no luck. Then she suggested calling the ‘machine man’ who owns a metal detector to get him to come and look for them. He only charges if he finds them, so he turned up and managed to find them! I think I paid more for the metal detector man than the rings were worth but they are quite sentimental!

Then just when we thought things had settled down the wind really picked up and a little fishing boat broke free and was sailing down the beach front quite a distance on its own – almost like a ghost ship! Eventually a man started to drag it back up the beach before its owner came to rescue it. Cha Am is normally a very peaceful place so for these things to all happen within a couple of hours was quite exciting.

Cha Am has a forest park and we headed there one morning to see wild gibbons, they hang out in the trees there and it was fantastic to see them in the wild swinging from tree to tree.

We headed back to Bangkok for a final stop before flying back to the UK. This is not the end of our travels, just a little rest before we head to the other other side of the world. It will be a welcome opportunity to change our clothes and eat some cheese!

January 31, 2024 0

Thai Trips

We took an overnight flight from Tokyo to Bangkok via Kuala Lumpur again, and landed around 9.30am so we headed straight to our usual haunt of Khao San Road. We never book ahead and just turn up, this meant we were able to check into a room straight away allowing us to take a short nap before we headed out. We planned two nights here and planned to do a couple of walks around Chinatown and the local area.

One of the places we visited was Wat Traimit Withayaram Worawihan, also known as the Temple of the Golden Buddha and is the world’s largest solid gold Buddha. It was once covered in plaster and no one knew it was solid gold until they went to move it and some of the plaster broke off. It was certainly a very impressive sight.

We had another two days booked in another hotel in Bangkok, this hotel had a jacuzzi bath on the balcony and was where we spent my birthday. We moved here by public bus and whilst we were waiting for the bus there was an almighty thunderstorm and an incredibly large clap of thunder and a flash of lightning happened right in front of us! It was pretty scary.

Following our treat we flew down to Phuket, we were on the descend when the pilot announced over the tannoy that there was ‘some weather’ in Phuket so we needed to hold over Krabi. I’m not a great flyer at the best of times (I hate take offs and turbulence in particular) and those words struck fear into me. I know ‘some weather’ is never good. It felt like we circled for ages and then when we did come into land we could see lightning out of the window and it got REALLY bumpy. I normally start to really freak out during moments like this, and I could feel Joey next to me flinch when there was more lightning, but this time I just went really really quiet and braced myself for a potential go around. Amazingly we landed first time and the guy the other side of me just said ‘finally’ when the wheels touched down. You could sense the relief in the whole plane and I was ready for a drink!

When we arrived at our hotel we dumped our bags and headed straight out. We were staying in the notorious Patong area, famous for its nightlife and girly bars. We wanted to get food at the night market but when we wandered through it, it was like being in a nightmare with all the vendors surrounding you and saying things like ‘I know you’re hungry’ ‘come and eat here’ and it stressed us out! We quickly escaped and I really likened it to a ghost train where everyone jumps out at you! We eventually found a quiet side street for some dinner and afterwards decided we definitely needed a drink so headed to the bar area. There were lots of girls dancing on bars wearing not a lot and lots of drink offers – it felt like Khao San Road on speed. Surprisingly we didn’t find it too seedy, no one seemed to be taking it too seriously and there were families with young children in the area. We spent the next day chilling on the beach before doing it all again.

We took a ferry the following day to Koh Phi Phi. There are two Phi Phis, big and small, you can only stay on big Phi Phi but little Phi Phi is famous for Maya Bay from the film The Beach. I don’t know if we had paid extra for a bouji boat but our ferry included a few brief photo stops around little Phi Phi including Maya Bay so we got to view it for free! I wasn’t terribly interested in visiting it separately as I knew it would be full of influencer types trying to get their IG shots so this was a bonus!

Our free sightseeing tour of little Phi Phi

Phi Phi is a party island but we were savvy enough to book accommodation far away from the parties! We had a good few days on a beautiful beach where you could snorkel off shore. Our accommodation wasn’t amazing and we shared our bathroom with two cockroaches, but in a sign of massive personal growth I didn’t freak out about them at all.

After Phi Phi we headed to Koh Lanta, a more laid back island close to Krabi. We had a pool here and it was right on the beach so perfect for relaxation. Unfortunately night one saw Joey spend most of it with his head in the toilet. I felt awful for him as it’s probably the sickest I have seen him. So whilst I was relaxing enjoying dinner and cocktails on the beach at sunset Joey was sleeping and restricted to the BRAT diet.

We had a mammoth travel day planned, our longest one yet, so Joey needed to recover. We were planning on travelling over 1300km overland without any overnight stops. We had to first get a bus to Krabi, which also involved a short car ferry, before waiting for another bus to Surat Thani. Surat Thani is the main jumping off point for the Gulf islands but this time we were continuing to head north. We’d booked an overnight sleeper train which is one of the ways to travel in Thailand. We were both on top bunks as we booked at short notice but we could at least poke our heads round to the other. We both slept really well thanks to the flat bed and the gentle slow rocking of the train. By a miracle our train arrived into Bang Sue station (I can’t help but have a giggle at some of the Thai names) on time- quite unusual for Thai trains! We caught a local bus to the bus station and went in hunt of our next transport. We were heading to the town of Sukothai, the ancient capital and a place full of ancient ruins. Now if you’re sat there thinking ‘didn’t you already go to the an ancient Thai capital full of ruins?’ Then you’d be correct – that was Ayutthaya!

We were lucky and there was a bus an hour after we arrived so we bought the tickets and headed to 7/11 for breakfast. We then headed off to get our bus, I could see the bus, it wasn’t far, I was excited, our mammoth travel day had one final leg left. The next thing I know I have caught my foot on some uneven ground and right now everything is happening in slow motion – I’m trying to save myself but the weight of my backpack is pulling me down. I can see my left knee twisting under me and I know when I hit the ground I’m going to hurt myself. I’m trying to untwist my knee but I can’t and as I hit the ground I am thinking to myself ‘oh god, that’s it, this is the end of travels now’. Joey has tried to save me but the weight of me, my backpack and his backpack pull him down as well. I sit on the ground for a few seconds and a woman rushes over to help me. I have to take my backpack off to try and get up and I really don’t know how I’m going to feel when I get up. I stand up and my legs hurt but I seem to be able to walk, I’m in shock and our bus is due to leave in about 10 minutes and my illogical thinking is to catch the bus at all costs! So I put my stiff upper lip on and hobble to the bus. As I approach the bus though I start to realise that perhaps I’m only hobbling because I think I should be rather than because I’m injured. I make it onto the bus and into our seat before bursting into tears. I’m still not sure if I’m injured and I’m definitely not sure 7 hours of sitting still is going to do me any good but by some miracle as the journey goes on I realise that I’m ok. Joey puts that down to the yoga we’ve been doing since the start of the year!

The next day I did wake up extremely stiff with some bruised ribs but all in all I considered myself very lucky. We caught a local bus to the ruins and took it very gently, just walking around the central zone. Sukothai is made up of five zones and you can cycle round them but we decided to walk the central zone as a gentle start as it’s the most compact zone. Wat Mahathat is the most famous sight in this zone and it’s the largest and most important temple in Sukothai. There are other temples in the zone which also demonstrate typical Sukothai style with lotus bud chedis. It was definitely worth the few hours we spent here wandering around.

The next day we headed back to the park this time hiring bikes with the intention of exploring the North Zone. The North zone is more spread out and there’s only two temples really worth seeing. The first is Wat Si Chum, this is another incredibly famous temple, as it holds a huge seated Buddha, the whole of which is hard to photograph. The Buddha has very large fingers which are very frequently photographed.

The next temple is Wat Phra Phai Luang. This is Khmer style and so resembles Angkor Wat, although there’s not a lot left! However these ruins were actually my favourite. They are so ruined that some of the plaster has crumbled away to reveal the bricks inside and you can clearly see how the Buddha is shaped from these bricks – I found it fascinating to see the process! There were a few other ruins on our way back to the main park, including this really funky one with lots of elephants around it.

I really enjoyed Sukothai, but was glad that we’d had a couple of months between here and Ayutthaya – it’s common to do them back to back and we definitely wouldn’t have enjoyed them as much.

The next day was a travel day and I was extremely relieved to wake up and my ribs not be hurting! I wasn’t sure I’d have been able to carry my backpack if they were!

We were heading to Chiang Rai and had booked a long but direct bus. Only we were told that our bus had broken down so we now had to get two buses! Still at least we made it.

Chiang Rai was a chance to slow things down a little. We visited the White Temple one day and the Black House the other, both utterly bizarre in their own ways. The White Temple was constructed around 1997 so isn’t as historical as some other Wats we’ve visited and from a distance it is quite stunning. Get a little closer though and things become a little strange. You must walk over a bridge to enter and as you approach the bridge you are met with lots of hands reaching up from the ground towards you apparently representing temptation. There’s also a section with paintings from the matrix and the twin towers from 9/11 but this was closed when we were there. It was very busy but worth a stop. We then visited the cave of art which was also a little bizarre but turned out to be our favourite thing.

The Black House is the work of Thai artist Thawan Duchanee and is housed in several buildings including one that very much resembles a black temple. The art pieces are utterly bizarre and range from cow horns to crocodile skins on tables to lots and lots of phallus! The main building housed several of his paintings and there was an option to use a QR code to view them through a filter which brought them alive. We really enjoyed this stop!

We headed onto Chiang Mai where Joey’s brother lives and where we were due to meet him and Joey’s parents who were flying over from the UK. We have spent a bit of time in Chiang Mai before so we allowed ourselves just one day to revisit some temples before relaxing with the family. It was a big birthday celebration for Dan, Joey’s brother, so lots of good food was consumed!

We always love going back to Thailand and it’s been amazing having these opportunities to explore more of the country and to allow for a bit of culture and a bit of relaxing time on the gorgeous beaches!

December 21, 2023 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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

September 28, 2023 2

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

August 8, 2023 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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

July 26, 2023 3

Bobbing around the Balkans part 2

Our border crossing to Albania was very uneventful although the border point was right alongside Lake Skadar so we did have some beautiful views. We had two nights booked in Shkoder and had been hoping to done a 3 day / 2 night trek from nearby Valbone to Theth but the terrible weather that we’d had in Montenegro was following us and the ferry that we needed to catch wasn’t running so we’d agreed that we’d have an excuse to return to Albania in the future.

We borrowed a couple of bikes from our hostel and cycled to the fortress. It was a pretty hairy bike ride along a really busy road with lots of double parking. The fortress itself had amazing views over the lake and town and was a pleasant way to while away a few hours.

Our plan had been to head south in Albania and hit the coast but as the weather was so awful we had a rethink and decided to head east straight away to Kosovo, down into North Macedonia from there and then head back into Albania. Prizren in Kosovo looked to be pretty due east on the map but there are no direct buses from Shkoder. We asked around at a lot of travel agencies and most of them just shrugged their shoulders at us. We went to one which turned out to be shut but the girl next door who was working in an aesthetic beauty place was one of the more helpful people that we met! She called the agency for us and told us to go to Milot, a town halfway between Shkoder and Tirana. We’d heard differing opinions about whether we should go to Tirana or Milot. The tourist information person wasn’t that helpful either but did tell us where we could get a 5.30pm bus from in Milot. So the next day we ummed and ahhed and as we left the hostel we were aiming for Tirana. We even asked a taxi driver if he wanted to drive us (we were often asked if we wanted to go to Montenegro, but he seemed no one wanted to take us to Kosovo!) but he just told us to go to Milot so at that moment we changed our mind and decided that’s what we would do.

The conductor on the bus must have checked about 5 times that we definitely wanted to go to Milot and not Tirana (we were getting the impression that backpackers don’t really ply this route) and after about an hour they left us on what felt like the hard shoulder of an Albanian motorway and pointed us in the direction we needed to go. So not for the first time on this trip we found ourselves walking along the hard shoulder, only this time for 3km with our rucksacks. I had the intention to head for the gas station that the tourist information place had said the 5.30pm bus left from and hope for the best. Worst case scenario we’d only have to wait 8 hours for it. We stopped at another gas station for a coffee and to check we were heading the right way and they seemed to confirm it so we continued our path. We arrived, spoke to the attendant and he confirmed we were in the right place, he pointed out where we should wait and said that the buses would pull in so we just sat and waited. We actually didn’t have to wait too long, probably only 30 minutes until we saw a bus with Pristina on the front, we told them we wanted to go to Prizren, and they ushered us on! We arrived at the border and they took our passports for us and took care of all the formalities for us, we didn’t even need to leave the bus! There was short comfort break after that and everyone took care of us and ensured we didn’t miss the bus. We reached the outskirts of Prizren and we found ourselves again being thrown out at the hard shoulder, only this time the bus company had arranged and paid for a taxi for us to take us into the centre! We had such fun doing this journey, and sometimes we actually find it less stressful to not have anything booked!

Similar to Bosnia the phrase ‘the Kosovo war’ was relatively fresh in our minds, and we weren’t really too sure what to expect. The people were so friendly and helpful always having a smile and saying hello, although we did often get mistaken for being German! The city of Prizren was in excellent condition with hardly any scars. There was a monument to freedom and a Serbian Orthodox Church which was behind barbed wire, but those were the only obvious sides of conflict that we found. Prizren had another fortress which we visited early in the morning for free- it’s open 24 hours a day and we had it to ourselves at 7am.

After Kosovo we headed to North Macedonia, we hadn’t planned on going to Skopje and Joey was almost anti going there as we’re not massive city fans, but Skopje is the birthplace of Mother Teresa and given that we’d visited her grave in India I really wanted to make a quick stop to see her birthplace. We only spent the afternoon there visiting the old town, her Memorial house and around the corner from that there is a plaque and some trees where her house used to stand. It was quite moving to visit and we’re both glad that we did. We also visited the Alexander the Great Statue which was huge, very impressive. We left the next morning on an early bus to Lake Ohrid. One thing we noticed in this area is how poorly signed and named accommodation is here! Our apartment in Skopje was called ‘lovely condo next to Salt room’ on booking.com but luckily the owner had given us excellent directions otherwise we wouldn’t have stood a chance. Ohrid wasn’t quite as clear, the address didn’t have a number, I didn’t think too much of that until we were walking down the road (which had several offshoots) trying to find the unnumbered, unnamed place!

Lake Ohrid was beautiful. The Macedonian side of it is a UNESCO World Heritage site and it’s not hard to see why. The lake water is so clear and it’s surrounded by beautiful hills and mountains. It was definitely tempting to stay longer than we’d planned for but we had to press on.

We spent our time walking around the lake, sitting watching the sunset and exploring the old town. We took a bus out to Sveti Naum monastery and walked around the lake and grounds there. There were several peacocks there determined to put on a show and they even gave chase to Joey when they deemed that he got a little too close! By far our favourite thing though was when we hired a guy to row us across the lake to some natural under water springs. The lake water was so clear, in places it’s as deep as 3.5 metres and you can see the bottom. He explained that in that area motorboats are banned and no fishing is allowed in order to protect the lake. He rowed us out to the middle of the lake and pointed out the bubbles in the sand at the bottom of the lake where the natural springs are. We saw lots of tiny ducklings, including some which must have been only a day old. We paid slightly extra to have the boat to ourselves and we were so glad that we did as it really enhanced our experience and we agreed that was definitely one of the best things we have done so far.

From Ohrid we took an early morning bus to Tirana, Albania with the aim of catching an onward bus to Berat. There were two minibuses leaving for Tirana, one left slightly ahead of us but the driver had forgotten to shut the back door, where all the luggage was before driving off at speed. Luckily enough people shouted at him to attract his attention, before any luggage was lost. If we were thought we were in the right minibus we were mistaken. We had driven about 20 minutes before a guy right opposite us, who was dressed in full army fatigues, asked the driver to stop so he could be sick. We could hear him retching at the side of the road and I was not looking forward to him getting back on in case he was sick again. There was quite an intense conversation between him and the driver, the road between Ohrid and Tirana looked windy on the map and I was very fearful. Luckily he disappeared at the border, which I was very grateful for – I am not good around sick, or the sound of someone being sick, or the smell of it.

We made it to Tirana international bus station without further incident, and just needed to change bus terminals, another 2km walk in the searing heat but we’d rather that than pay for a taxi! Once we reached the regional bus terminal (I say terminal; it was just a massive melee of buses) we got spotted, and swept up by a conductor who obviously thought we looked like two people who wanted to go to Berat (we did in fact, want to go to Berat) and 10 minutes later we were on our way to Berat! The terminal at Berat is about 3km outside the centre so we waited for a local, bus, I found some WiFi and messaged the apartment owner to tell him our approximate time of arrival and he messaged straight back and said he would come and pick us up! The hospitality that we have been shown in the Balkans has been second to none, and we’re so grateful to everyone that we have met who has helped us and shown us kindness.

Berat is another UNESCO World Heritage site and is known as the city of windows. It’s not hard to see why! There’s another lovely fortress you can climb (again it’s open 24 hours- people live there!) but if you visit outside the core hours of 9-6pm you don’t need to pay. We climbed the ridiculous hill and arrived around 8.30, beating the crowds and the need to pay! We spent most of the morning walking around a few times and visiting the museum which has a large, impressive iconostasis. Iconostasises are quite the thing in this neck of the woods, and we’ve seen a lot now.

We wanted to head to the beach after Berat, there are a lot to choose from in Albania but we didn’t want to go to beaches that were really touristy so we looked at where we could get a direct bus too and then just picked one. We opted for Vlorë, it wasn’t in the Lonely Planet guide book, but I found a blog that mentioned it had sandy beaches which was good news for us! We were waiting for a local bus to take us to the bus station when we saw a bus approaching to Vlorë so we flagged it down for a free lift to the bus station and the onward journey! Upon arrival at Vlorë the driver asked a local girl who spoke some English to help us with where we wanted to go and she went out of her way to take us to the bus stop. She was training to be a nurse and was on her way to university and at the speed she was walking us I think she was going to be late! The bus arrived, we got off where our host told us too, but again there was no signage. We went into the first place we saw and asked for directions, and would you believe it was actually the right place! Some days travel days are great and work out well and other times they’re a bit rubbish. The good ones definitely leave you on a high.

Vlorë was a great place to relax for a few days and we did nothing but lie on the beach. It was bliss! The sunsets over the sea were beautiful. We decided to head to another beach, called Ksamil, I’d seen an article describing it as the Maldives of Europe so we decided we should go check it out. Our host called the bus station for us and arranged for the bus to stop near us rather than us going all the way back into town to catch it so we stood on the side of the road and flagged the daily bus to Sarandë down. The bus was full, we got on and prepared to stand for the two hours we’d been told it would take. Luckily for me the conductor said something in Albanian and a young man got up and gave me his seat. Joey wasn’t quite as lucky and had to stand. Although the man I was sat next to didn’t really speak any English he motioned that he would move up so I could move up and Joey could have half a seat. The journey was really winding through the mountains, I admit to not knowing that Albania had so many mountains, I obviously knew about the accursed mountains in the north which we’d wanted to hike, but I didn’t realise that most of the country seemed to be covered in them. We stopped after about an hour up a mountain and Joey was lucky to be in the right place at the right time to nab the one spare seat.

Becca clearly not convinced that the bus is going to turn up

Our journey ended up taking four hours rather than two. We were about 20 minutes outside of Sarandë when someone at the back of the bus started to be violently sick. I’m not sure why the locals travel by bus so much if they’re just going to be travel sick on buses! I was really not happy about this so I tried to shut my eyes and hope for the best. The conductor seemed to just be worried about his bus, but someone had handed her a bag in the nick of time. At one point I think I did catch a whiff of it and I was worried it was going to set me off so I whipped out my jar of Vicks that I always carry with me (I find a slather of it under my nose will get me through smelly toilets) and stuck that under my nose. I was glad we were nearly at Sarandë and I made sure we were quick off the bus. After we’d collected our bags we saw the lady walking down the street casually carrying her back of sick and almost swinging it. We had one more bus to Ksamil to catch, and we arrived late in the afternoon. Ksamil was beautiful, lots of hills and clear waters. It’s been a joy to swim in such clear waters and see little fish swim around. Ksamil has several beaches, we decided to aim for one called ‘The last Bay’ purely because it was the last beach and we determined that it wouldn’t be as busy, and we were right! You had to walk down some dirt tracks to get there but it was glorious. We spent two long days just chilling again, we’d been on the go for about 7 weeks at this point and needed a rest as the next two months will be intense and hot with little respite as we venture inland towards Central Asia.

We took another couple of buses to Gjirokastër, another UNESCO world heritage site, also known as Stone City. We only had one night here, but we made the most of our time, we dropped our luggage at the hostel we were staying at and headed straight out. In the Balkans we’ve been using pure WiFi and relying on downloaded Google maps to get us places. We wanted to head to the Cold War Tunnels and Google maps was sending me the most ridiculous way down roads that didn’t seem to exist. It was really hot, the hills were steep and I’d only had one coffee that day so for the first time I lost my shit (good going for 8 weeks in – if you read the India blogs you’ll know how much I lost my shit there!) and wailed ‘I hate this town!’ luckily Joey knows what to do in these situations, he took me into the shade, got me some Pepsi and all was right again.

We did make it to the war tunnels, which were really interesting. Albania’s leader was really paranoid about nuclear war and attacks so he basically bankrupted the country building bunkers that are dotted about all over the country (there’s apparently one bunker for every four people) as well as this secret nuclear bunker that could hold up to 200 people. The rooms that you can see include include the generator room, the conference room, the kitchen and two rooms for the general and the mayor. There’s also a water tank which you can climb a very rickety ladder to peer into- the water naturally pools in from the mountains and the room has stalactites!

The conference room in the Cold War tunnel

We also visited the fortress (i think in total we maybe visited 8 fortresses!) which was probably one of the best with stunning views and the ability to roam free.

Unfortunately our stay in the Balkans ended on the last night with a loss. Somewhere, somehow, in our room my fake engagement ring got knocked off a cupboard and couldn’t be found. It was very sad. Although it was fake, along with my fake wedding ring (I didn’t want to bring the real ones in case they got lost!) we’d bought them before we went to India and they travelled through India and Sri Lanka with us so they were special. Let’s hope that’s the only thing we lose!

We absolutely loved the Balkans and I’m sure there are places that we will return to.

June 15, 2023 1

Balkan adventures, Part 1

Arriving into Belgrade I first described it as being ‘gritty not pretty’. I’d also booked us into dorms again, and after our experience in Olomouc I was not looking forward to it. And to be honest our first impressions of the hostel weren’t great. We were told the hostel receptionist was currently busy and we could hear someone teaching English online in one of the two dorms. Yeah, that was the hostel receptionist sitting on one of our beds teaching! So before we’d even checked in I mooted the idea of finding somewhere but Joey put his foot down and insisted we stay.

The hostel wasn’t great but it wasn’t THE WORST place we’ve ever stayed either. Yes, there was a bloke in the room who appeared to be living there and just slept all day and disappeared in the evenings and filled the room with his stuff but he did at least open the window and showered so that was a massive improvement on Olomouc. Plus as he wasn’t there most of the night that was one less person to keep me awake with their snoring. Or, as it happened, for me to keep awake with my snoring!

Once we got away from the bus station, Belgrade itself turned out to be utterly charming! There was a large fortress (turns out that there a lot of fortresses in the Balkans) which doubles as a park and has several museums inside (including a military museum) and we spent a lot of time in this park just chilling. Belgrade also has one of the largest orthodox churches in the world, Saint Sava, which has a stunning interior that took our breath away. On one of our evenings there we decided to splash out and take a sunset cruise along the river, which was really enjoyable. We hadn’t been on a sunset river cruise since Phnom Penh on Valentine’s Day 2015. We were catching a night bus from Belgrade to Sarajevo so we took ourselves to the cinema on our ‘homeless’ day. We saw an English version of Super Mario bros which was shown on an imax screen. We walked in just before the start and had the place to ourselves! It was a such a huge screen – you can barely even see Joey!

The nightbus was an experience from start to finish, staring at the bus station. I always like to have a ‘nervous wee’ before going on a long journey (or any journey, or leaving our accommodation for the day) and I had my first encounter with a squat toilet. I always expected to see them along the way but I thought we’d be in Asia before that happened! The bus was full of inconsiderate people who talked really loudly the whole journey, couple that with a 3am border crossing (middle of the night border crossings are not the one, although probably when I most look like my passport photo) and then a unexpected change of bus at 5am and you can see why we didn’t get much sleep. Somehow we do manage to function the next day and just get on with it.

Joey and I grew up hearing the phrases ‘war torn Bosnia’ and ‘war torn Sarajevo’ so it was a surprise to discover how beautiful Sarajevo was. It had a delightful old town and was surrounded by rolling green hills that were often covered in swirling clouds. There are a lot of war scars with buildings covered in pock marks from bullets, and the most sobering details are what are called Sarajevo roses. These are memorials made from a mortar shell and filled with red resin to represent blood, these are dotted all around the city and mark places where more than 3 people died in an attack. There are over 200 of these in the city. We visited the Alifakovac cemetery, a cemetery unlike any other we have been too. Firstly it was Muslim so the gravestones were very different to others we have seen, and secondly the vast majority of those buried there died in the early 90s as a result of the war. It was another stark reminder of atrocities that happened in our lifetime.

Sarajevo is also where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated; that event is what ultimately led to the First World War.

After Sarajevo we headed to Mostar, a town famous for its stone bridge, where during summer you can witness people jumping off it into the river below. There are two ways to reach Mostar, a cheap, incredibly scenic train or a more expensive slightly less scenic bus which takes longer. So which do you think we chose? Yes, the bus! The train only runs twice a day, and for once we didn’t fancy an early start. We thought the bus route was really scenic and we enjoyed it, maybe if we return we’ll take the train.

Mostar was just gorgeous and one of our favourite places, it was timed with some great weather, a lovely apartment complete with washing machine and the King’s coronation! We did have to walk up an incredibly steep hill to get to our place but the views were worth it. We walked through the old town several times and down to the bridge at various times of the day, but our favourite was early one morning when there was a couple of minutes where we had the bridge to ourselves. The original bridge was actually destroyed during the Bosnia war in 1993 and then rebuilt in 2004. My favourite thing about Mostar though was when dusk was falling and we sat outside watching the town lights come on and listening to the Muslim call of prayer, it was so magical. As I say it was the King’s coronation, so we watched that from our apartment and celebrated with a cheap bottle of sparking wine.

From Mostar we took the bus to Dubrovnik. That was an interesting journey which again started at the bus station. I went for my nervous wee and was rather startled to discover that the toilets (which we paid for) DIDN’T HAVE A DOOR! I’m used to some rough toilets but that was a first!

I think there was a door once. Also, probably not the worst toilet I’ve ever been in.

We only planned on a couple of days in Dubrovnik as you pretty much have to go through Croatia to get from Mostar to Montenegro, and go through Croatia we did – twice! Leaving Bosnia we didn’t even need to leave the bus, the bus driver collected our passports and then gave us back to us. Without an exit stamp. Very disappointing. Then we entered into Croatia, with another Schengen stamp, and about 20 minutes later we were at another border leaving Croatia and getting an exit stamp. Then we re-entered Bosnia (no entry or exit stamp) for about 30 minutes (including a 20 minute stop) and re-entered Croatia with another Schengen stamp! Two stamps for the same country on the same day -lucky we got those 48 page passports hey?! I’d previously read a blog about a 6 hour bus journey you can do on the island of a Borneo which will get you 8 stamps and I’d been quite keen to do that but I’ve now changed my mind!

Dubrovnik was gorgeous and well worth the 48 hours we spent there. Those 48 hours absolutely blew our budget, but it was a beautiful city. We felt sick at the prospect of spending €35 each on the city walls, but decided to buy the Dubrovnik pass for the same price – which also got you free public transport and various other museums. That’s our top tip for Dubrovnik! We walked the walls at 8am, as soon as they opened, and we avoided most of the crowds which meant we could really take our time and take about 500 photos each. Although I think we still took less photos than the guy we passed who had set up his tripod and camera and spent A LONG time taking photos of himself posing moodily, never looking at the camera.

After our short stop in Dubrovnik we headed to Montenegro. We decided to base ourselves for the entirety of our stay in Kotor, it was nice to have a base for 5 days. We spent a couple of days exploring Kotor itself. We walked up to the fortress (I think that’s fortress number 3 for the Balkans). You can either pay and climb 1350 steps or you can go the free way and climb what’s called the ladder of Kotor – this is a steep path consisting of 65 switchbacks. We paid. The view was totally worth it, as you climb higher and higher the views of the bay (and the cruise ships docked) get better and better. We descended via the ladder, and to do this you have to climb through a small hole and drop down maybe 6 or 8 feet. There is a small metal spur to help with this but it’s still a drop. There is randomly a cheese shop at the top, but we didn’t buy anything. The walk down was hard on the knees with a lot of loose stones so I was glad we didn’t choose that way for the ascent. Kotor’s old town was gorgeous, full of lovely churches and beautiful buildings. Unfortunately the weather was not good. It was lovely and sunny when we arrived in Kotor and was dry when we visited the fortress, but the rest of the time it rained so heavily! We were going to explore the waterfront on our first evening, but we went about 100 metres when we met this gorgeous dog who decided to follow us, he had this big lolloping tongue and wouldn’t stop following us! We were about to cross a major road and were worried that this dog would get run over so we decided to retrace our footsteps and return him to where we found him and hope he’d leave us alone! Well we got back to where we were and the heavens opened! So we retreated and gave thanks to the weather dog for saving us.

We took a day trip along the coast to Budva, and guess what? It rained. We got caught in a thunderstorm on the way to the bus station and spent a fair bit of our time in Budva taking shelter in various places. Budva also has a fortress which gave nice views of the coast and mountains. The next day we did a day trip to Durmitor National Park with Vuk, who owns the apartment that we rented. This was such a highlight of Montenegro and the trip to this point. Vuk has a history degree and his passion for the subject was clear as we spent the three hour drive chatting about the history of Montenegro, communism and the war. It was so interesting chatting and hearing his views (and those of his dad) and learning more about the Orthodox Church. Communism discourages any religion so when communism fell his parents took their time choosing their religion and opted for Orthodoxism. He told us about the saint day that had been celebrated a few days prior to us arriving and how the priest comes to the house to bless it. We didn’t know an awful lot about Orthodoxism before but had noted the lack of seating in any church we entered and Vuk said that was part of it – it’s meant to be uncomfortable, your back is meant to hurt, your feet are meant to hurt – you’re meant to suffer!

On the way to Durmitor we stopped at Tara river canyon. This is the largest canyon in Europe and was so impressive. The river rushes below you if you have the nerve to peer down! Durmitor is a gorgeous national park with a lake which you can circuit (depending on the weather), it’s a little higher than sea level Kotor and we were surprised to see snow still on the ground in mid-May!

Kotor and Montenegro were definite favourites and I would absolutely return there. Plus they have hedgehogs so if I ever have to go into exile that’s where I’m heading and I’m staying at Vuk’s place! On our day of departure there was the Ocean Lava triathlon happening which meant a lot of roads were closed. Vuk gave us a lift as far as he could but we had to walk the last 2km which we don’t mind (to date we’ve only got one taxi which was in Dubrovnik) but that 2km also happened to be a stretch if the triathlon, so we were walking with our rucksacks alongside these athletes, there was no separation either so we were occasionally yelled at to move when a runner came along!

When I was thinking about the blog in my head I thought one blog would cover the whole of the Balkans. How foolish was I! When I jotted down stories and anecdotes I wanted to share (which incidentally I never do, I never plan, I just write) it became apparent I was going to have to do two blogs! So hopefully another blog will follow shortly!

June 4, 2023 2

Clocks, Popes and some smelly blokes!

We left Berlin on the morning of a public transport strike. This was announced only 2 days prior and we discovered it by chance and it was challenging trying to work out what was running and what wasn’t – god bless the U-Bahn!

We’ve been using Flixbus to travel around, we plotted out the initial three weeks so we were able to book these in advance for a good price. So far we’ve found them reliable, comfortable and the toilets haven’t been too questionable. We arrived into Prague mid-afternoon and we had booked an apartment outside the city centre but with good transport links so after a freshen up and costume change we headed onto a tram and into the main centre for our first explore. We were a little bit overwhelmed to be honest when we got back into the centre as the first thing we heard and saw was a bunch of very loud drunk British men on a stag do and it was very crowded. We arrived on a Friday afternoon which probably had something to do with it but we definitely needed to sit down with a Czech beer and mentally prepare ourselves!

Prague is a very pretty City with little cobbled streets and a very picturesque square that hosts the famous astronomical clock. We spent some time roaming around before figuring out the tram system and heading back to our apartment.

The next morning we got up really early and headed to catch a train back to the centre. We wanted to really explore the castle, the Charles Bridge and square before it got too busy. As it happened we arrived in the square just before 7am and there was a small crowd gathered round the clock waiting for the infamous chimes. If you don’t know then on the hour the twelve apostles appear through the wooden doors to a musical tune while a skeleton omnimously chimes a bell. We decided to stay and watch as you can’t not watch this when in Prague. Only the bell only produces this musical display between 9am and 11pm so there were quite a few disappointed people around! We really need to more research! We did make it back later in the day to watch it though and to be honest it was a little underwhelming.

We then headed to to the Charles bridge which even at 7am was busy with people trying to get an Instagram shot, it was very amusing to watch – there definitely were some very patient photographers on the bridge.

We headed to the castle and spent a couple of hours wondering around the grounds before we headed back to our apartment. As I mentioned we were staying a bit outside the centre but looking at the map there looked to be a park close by and the weather was finally sunny and 20 degrees so it was time to finally peel off the leggings and put some shorts on and head to the park for a spot of outdoor relaxing. Only what looked on the map to be park actually turned out to be beautiful countryside- an absolutely delightful surprise!

From Prague we were headed to Olomouc, in my research Olomouc was described as being much like Prague but without the tourists- this definitely sounded like our kind of place! We had to change buses in a place called Brno (pronounced Bruno), another place that I’d read about and sounded interesting so I suggested that we spend a few hours exploring and seeing some of the places I’d read about. Brno also has an astronomical clock, but it’s VERY different to the one in Prague. It is shaped like a large bullet (allegedly, but I’ll let you decide) and at 11am each day people gather round with their hands in various holes and try and grab a large marble that’s fired each day at that time. It’s unusual for 11am to be the time for this activity to happen, but it happens at this time thanks to an event during the Thirty Years War. During this time the city of Brno was under siege by the Swedes and a Swedish general promised to lift the siege if the city did not fall by noon, so the locals played a trick and changed the clocks to 11am meaning that the Swedes surrendered. A local girl caught the marble and promptly shoved it her mouth, which made us quickly back away lest she accidentally swallowed it and I was forced to use my ‘resus training for non clinical staff’ course that I’d completed at work!

There were two other things that we were interested in Brno, one was the labyrinth under the cabbage market, but being a Monday it was shut. Again our research failed us. The other was the Capuchin crypt which holds perfectly mummified remains consisting mainly of friars. Some of the remains are on display and it’s very tastefully displayed.

We then headed to Olomouc which was indeed as pretty as described without the crowds. We’ve been using the app GPS my city to do self guided walks around each place that we’ve been to but Olomouc didn’t have one, I had picked up a map from the hostel which had 30 places of interest marked on them and we did our own walk, and boy did we walk! We walked over 37,000 steps that day visiting churches, climbing their towers and seeing lots of fountains which seemed to form the crux of most of Olomouc’s sights. Olomouc also has an astronomical clock and this one did not disappoint – it chimes for a full five minutes and was utterly delightful. Olomouc is a beautiful city and the highlight was finding a little park with a rose garden where we sat for around an hour in the sun drinking some beer we’d picked up. One major motivation for doing so many steps was that we didn’t want to go back to our hostel! Yep, we had our first horror accommodation experience. On paper, and even in reality it looked to be a decent hostel, but as always, I was sharing with a bunch of men and these men smelt like they’d not seen a bar of soap for a while. We’ve stayed in dorms in South America, South East Asia and India and NEVER have we stayed anywhere that smelt as bad as this place. I was gagging everytime I went back into the room and it really made me question if I ever wanted to stay in a dorm again.

Other than the hostel we loved Olomouc but we were so happy to arrive in Krakow knowing that we had a little studio apartment booked. Krakow was again absolutely stunning city, the square was probably the best one we’ve seen- it was so spacious and utterly charming. We spent some time exploring the Jewish quarter and learning more about some of the horrors that took place there. We walked a lot that day, another 27,000 steps – over three days we walked 90,000 steps and my feet were throbbing and the only solution was to sit them in a saucepan and let them soak- its all glamour!

The next day it was time to do probably the hardest thing that we will do on this trip, and that was to visit Auschwitz. I found the whole experience very moving, walking the same path that hundreds of thousands of people had walked to their deaths. The whole thing was done in a very respectful manner but Joey and I both agreed that the thing that moved us the most was the huge pile of hair that had been shaved from victims. It’s important to do this type of thing to remember and try and stop these things happening again. However as our guide said, these things have happened since and are happening now, only a couple of hundred kilometres from where Auschwitz is in Ukraine. I find that very difficult to swallow.

After Krakow we definitely needed something to cheer us up and we headed to Budapest for a couple of days. We’ve been to Budapest before and had planned this stop to be a rest point after three weeks of being constantly on the move and planned to do nothing other than go to a ruin pub and the thermal baths. Only the day before we arrived in Budapest we found out that The Pope was also in town. If you don’t know my maiden name was Pope and Joey’s catholic, so when I turned to him, gave him a look and said ‘the Pope’s in Budapest the same time as us’ there was only one response ‘we should go see him’!

So our weekend of taking it easy actually meant getting up at 6am with a hangover after drinking more aperol spritz than I had intended, and heading to Mass. We queued for about 45 minutes to get through security and into the square. The square was more spacious than I thought it might be and we were actually in a good spot to see his convoy speed past (which we’d also managed to do from the balcony in our hostel!). We stayed for the first 30 minutes of mass which was in mainly Hungarian with a little bit of Latin thrown in. The first time we were in Budapest we accidentally saw the Brazilian president and his huge convoy and now we’ve seen the Pope here – we’ll definitely return and see who we can see the next time!

After this we headed off to the thermal baths for a few hours, making sure we visited every bath and we both agreed that we’d had one of the best days of the trip so far.

From now on we’re leaving the Schengen zone (although we do pop back briefly for a quick stop in Dubrovnik) which means hard border crossings- we’ve done a few land border crossings before so we’re excited to get back to these, sometimes they’re easy, sometimes they’re laborious and sometimes we do them whilst being really sick! Bring it on!

May 8, 2023 6

FAQs

We get asked SO many questions whenever we tell people what we’re doing so we thought it would be fun to include a selection:

What are you doing about jobs?

I am taking a career break, and am due back on 1 July 2024; Joey was working a Fixed Term Contract which is due to finish on 31st March, so will just look for another job when we get back.

But you’ve just bought a house! What are you doing about that?

We’re letting it out – this will cover our mortgage and the majority of the storage costs.

So what are you doing with all your belongings?

Some things will be stored at Joey’s parents. Some bulky furniture and kitchen stuff is being put into storage and we’re giving some bulky furniture to charity.

How much is this costing you and how are funding it?

We’re planning on a budget of £50 each per day. Obviously some days we will spend less and some more. We have spent over 3 years saving for this trip – we were mortgage free for most of that time and we saved every penny we could. Our mortgage costs will be paid for by letting our house out.

How do you keep to your budget?

We use a travel budget app which we use to track all our expenses. We will cook ourselves where we can, choose reasonably priced accommodation, limit the alcohol we drink 😦 use public transport, taking overnight options where we can and they don’t arrive at 3am. We try and eat and travel like a local so we don’t eat out in swanky restaurants or every night. We’re happy to eat on the street and flag local buses down. We will walk for 30 minutes plus in 30 degree heat with our backpacks on rather than pay £2 for a tuk tuk!

How are you travelling around?

The majority of time will be overland and we want to travel as much as we can overland using public transport but we will take flights where necessary.

What happens if you need to come home?

Then we will come home! See Covid 2020 for an example of this 🙂

How much luggage are you taking with you?

I’m taking a 40 litre bag and Joey has 60 litres. This is all we have! We’re taking enough clothes for 5/6 days. Other countries have washing machines so we will use them or do hand washing.

Are you taking disposable underwear?

ACTUAL QUESTION.

NO. As above – washing machines are not exclusive to the UK.

What happens if it’s cold where you are?

Layers are your friend – a pair of leggings under a pair of trousers will be fine and I’m taking a shirt. We’ll be fine. They also have shops abroad.

Are you staying in hostels?

Yes- hostels will be part of our accommodation options. Even dorms! We’ll stay in a mix of hostels (some private rooms, some dorms), guesthouses, apartments, air bnbs, hotels etc. We’ll aim to get the most for our money but we’ll not stay in complete dives (hopefully).

How do you decide where you’re going?

We read a lot of travel books, watch vlogs, read blogs but our main source of information is probably Lonely Planet! Once we’re away we’ll talk to people and find out about places along the way. We generally have an idea of a rough route but often change as we’re going along.

Where are you flying to first?

We’re not flying! At the moment we don’t have any flights booked. We’re catching the Eurostar and our first stop is Bruges.

Are you working whilst you’re away?

No. We want to enjoy the experience as much as we can. Our work will be this blog 🙂

How will you keep connected?

Back in the dark ages of 2014 we solely relied on wifi and books. These days it’s very easy to pick up local SIM cards very cheaply, for example a month’s SIM card with unlimited data in Thailand costs less than £10.

What about Christmas?!

We actually have our plans for Christmas sorted! Joey’s birthday is 2 days before Christmas and we usually end up travelling on his birthday. Not this time though! We will be in Thailand, on our favourite beach. We have booked 10 days there and all being well Joey’s parents will be there and his brother and family will also join us for a few days.

Do you have any questions for us? Stick them in the comments below!

March 19, 2023 1