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Showing posts from 2017

We have arrived in the Philippines :-)

Hello! We have safely arrived in Boracay. It took 14 hours ( two planes, one stopover, one bus, one speedboat and a taxi van). We are staying at Isla Kitesurfing guest house. Today we spent the day with a lot of walking, exploring the island and we had a swim at a very clear water beach. Not many photo's yet, will get onto that and post soon :) xxxx

Sri Lanka: Kandy & Ella

Hello all We are at the end of our ten days in Sri Lanka. Tonight we fly to Kuala Lumpar and then to Kalibo airport in the Philippines. Sri Lanka has been great. We have had to travel on some long journeys but the destinations have been worth it. From Hikkaduwa beach we took a train to Colombo (2 hours) and from there we took another train to Kandy (3 hours). They wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so crowded and if we had seats! Kandy Lush and green, Kandy was a lot cooler than Colombo so it was a nice break from the heat. We visited the Royal Botanic Gardens and roamed the city for a day. We had planned to go to Sigiriya rock but it meant a 6am wake up to locate a bus, a bus transfer and it would take 6 hours there and back. So we decided to miss that one out. Ella Our favourite destination so far. This was the famous train route from Kandy to Ella. We got 2nd class tickets so that we could hang out the doors and windows for the best view. The vi...

Sri Lanka

We have arrived safely in Sri Lanka! What an amazing country, we can already tell it's going to be a great ten days here. It was only a forty minute flight from Kerala, India to Colombo. We were expecting that Sri Lanka would be very much the same to India but actually we are noticing that there are a lot of differences. The roads are new with road lines, traffic lights and pedestrian crossings (that vehicles ACTUALLY stop for pedestrians at). There are real shops and supermarkets rather than garages on the side of the road. We even had our first air conditioned room! Our destinations for Sri Lanka are Mirissa - Hikkaduwa - Kandy - Ella - Colombo. We caught the train from Colombo to Mirissa on Monday which was an extremely easy process. The train station was busy with other tourists and locals buying tickets also. We bought 2nd class but due to it being busy we had to stand nearly the entire way (three and a half hours). The train was very slow but ten times better than th...

Travel changes and update! :-)

Hello :-) We have made some decisions in the last week and have now got some plans set in stone. Tomorrow we fly to Colombo, Sri Lanka. We had planned on staying a whole month but we are now only staying about ten days. Apparently this is a nice amount of time to see the sights of Sri Lanka and we are both keen on getting on the homestretch! Our next destination is Boracay Island in the Phillipines. We are flying there via Kuala Lumpar on the 28th of September and plan to stay for around 5 full days/7 days including travel. Not booked yet, but in the making is our flight from Boracay to Melbourne (5th October...?) We think we will stay in Melbourne and visit family for about a week and then... we are coming HOME!!! :-) See you soon! xxxx G & T

Alleppey & Varkala

Greetings! Currently I am swinging in a hammock outside our room. The sun is shining, the sky is blue and the waves are crashing in the near distance. I've just finished my book. It sound perfect, and it is, but it was torture finding our way here! We are currently in Varkala staying near Varkala Cliff but before I fill you in on here I'll quickly tell you about Alleppey. We stayed in Alleppey for two nights. We were there to see the Alleppey Backwaters. In the morning we headed to the river where all the tour companies sit with their boats offering deals. We were hoping for a half day tour but most were only offering full day tours (nine hours) and were a little out of our price range. Luckily we found a lovely local who took us on a four hour ride for considerably cheaper. I reckon this was actually a nice way to do the backwaters because he had a small boat The was able to fit through the smaller canals, we had the boat to ourselves so we could take our time, and he t...

Fort Cochin to Munnar

Hello everyone, We left Udaipur last Saturday and flew to Kochi in Kerala and we stayed in Fort Cochin for three nights. Fort Cochin was nice. It was small and pretty quiet. It was Onam which is the Hindu Festival that actually originated in Kochi so there were lots of family celebrations going on. They celebrated in a similar way we do for Christmas. Most families travelled to be together and ate lots of food . There were many restaurants closed but we found one open that was serving their traditional Onam meal called Onam Sadhya. Usually served on a large banana leaf, it has 25(sometimes more) of the different kerala curries. The Indian people eat with their hands and the lady in the restaurant was adamant that I try it that way. It's very difficult to eat rice with your hands but the indians are very good at it! Yesterday we bravely took the bus from Fort Cochin into the mountains of Munnar. A hill station home to the largest tea growing region. It was a 5 hour bus rid...