The landscape and way of life again constantly changed as we headed south to Ranomafana. Like in Tana there is quite a bit of brick making taking place on the outskirts of Antsirabe. Sprinter vans, minivans and cars mingle with Zebu pulling carts, hand carts and bicycles. Bicycles, of the old school gearless style are … More Looking for lemurs – Ranomafana National Park
A big smile greeted us at Antananarivo (Tana) airport. We immediately liked Patrick our driver. We had no idea how long he’d been waiting in the sun in the crowd of people outside the exit yet he was still smiling. Immigration formalities were easy, we’d applied for an online visa on arrival and got an … More God made trees so beautiful the devil wanted to be able to see, so he turned them upside down – Avenue of Baobab Trees
Getting to Madagascar was a mission. Despite only being 3 hours from Johannesburg the flights are expensive. Air Madagascar was the cheaper of our 2 options (South African Airways being the other). Less than 2 weeks before we were due to fly Air Madagascar cancelled our outbound flight and moved us to their next which … More I like to move it move it – Madagascar
A landlocked island within South Africa, Lesotho (Le-Soo-Too) is known as an adventure travel destination. That in itself is usually enough to signal it’s probably our kind of place, but when Marie saw it described as “The Tibet of Africa,” it was a done deal. It was on the wish list. A country the size … More Lesotho – taking the opportunity for a whistle stop visit
Short on time and with no public transport infrastructure and no desire to attempt to load to both of us and 2 rucksacks onto a scooter, we organised a car and driver through our hostel. First stop was Besakih Temple. Often referred to as Bali’s Mother Temple it is the most important, largest and holiest … More Temple touring on 2 wheels (Bali)
The hotel said they’d give us a free transfer to the train station. We’d double confirmed with them it would be there at 5am. The station was a good 10 minutes away and we had to swap our booking confirmation for a ticket. The train was at 5:25am. There was us and a security guard … More Traversing Bali’s coastal backbone
They say train is the way to travel in Java. The 8 hour train journey through Central Java and east to Probolinggo was bliss compared to the buses. It consistently moved, it was comfortable, we had aircon, even the toilet was usable. The best part of the journey though was looking out of the window … More Watching the sun rise over active volcanoes
With sleep severely lacking Marie had to have a power nap before she could consider shipping out. Having splashed out on nice accommodation Emma decided to make the most of it and instead have a swim in the pool and gaze over the rice paddies. We’d decided to take the cheaper option of catching the … More Exploring Java’s cultural soul
Borobudur temple is the largest Buddhist temple in the world. A UNESCO World Heritage site, it is one of the one of the most important Buddhist sites in the world and one of the finest temples in South East Asia. Together with Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Bagan in Myanmar/Burma Lonely Planet considers it one … More Visiting an icon of SE Asia – Borobudur Temple
Indonesia has been on the wish list for literally years. We’d gazed at it wistfully from Timor-Leste in 2012 when islands were so close it felt like we could almost reach out and touch them. But since 2016 it has been high up the wishlist, when through some work focused on Indonesia Marie discovered the … More Indonesia, at last!
Marie & Emma's Travel Journal 