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!
What makes a country? Hong Kong and Macau are designated as special administrative regions of China, under the ‘One China, Two Systems’ policy. Yet both require your passport to be checked and stamped when you enter. This applies to Hong Kongese and Macanese just as it does to foreigners. So if you have your own … More Macau – country #60?
There was no queue for foreign passport holders at Kaohsiung immigration, instead we spend quite some time waiting for our bags. Then we got MTR passes and given we were staying in the old part of the city to the north, spent quite some time on that. The airport and MTR had hardly been busy … More A quick dip into Southern Taiwan
The atmosphere of big cities can’t be beaten at new year, and in Hong Kong they do the whole big fireworks and light show thing so we’d deliberately planned to be there to see in 2019. Our flight was on time and unlike on our way out to Manila there was hardly any queue for … More New Year in Hong Kong
The fast ferry (passengers only, no vehicles) to Dumaguete on the island of Negros, was a smaller more beaten up craft than the one to Siquijor. Open class (the cheap seats) weren’t on top this time, but were at the back with the luggage. Everything was dirty looking. Once again it was a perfectly flat … More Island hopping to Cebu
Marie & Emma's Travel Journal 