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| Diary Name :yearaway | sue_and_nathan | Show all entry summaries for yearaway | Date :3rd April 2001 - 28th June 2002 | |||
| Number of Diary Entries : 38 | Miles Travelled : 59820 | Beds Slept In : 164 | ||||
| We decided upon a year's honeymoon travelling mainly in South-East Asia. This consequently turned into an 18 month trip as we returned through Europe to the UK. We set up this site to record our adventures. | Show yearaway page by page | |||||
| Countries Visited : Australia, Cambodia, Czech Republic, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, United Kingdom, Vietnam | Read all diaries by sue_and_nathan | |||||
| 28 Jun 2002 : Hull - United Kingdom Belgian beer, football and itchy feet | 4 photos attached | |||||
| Early one morning just as the sun was rising we donned our backpacks for the last time and disembarked from the ferry at Hull. This was to be our last journey on our yearaway. But, let me not go any further before I tell you about the trip across Western Europe that got us to this point. From Prague we caught a train to Moenchengladbach in Germany where Sue’s brother, Gerry, and his family live. We spent our time there being bought back up-to-date with current culture by Sue’s nephews. ...More... | ||||||
| 18 May 2002 : Prague - Czech Republic Homeward Bound | 4 photos attached | |||||
| After a final week in Goa we were flying west towards Poland. Thirteen months away and we were on our back to Europe – can you believe that? We always knew that leaving India was going to be hard, however long we stayed, as both of us had really fallen for it. Our last day was spent busily buying all the books Sue wanted in Bombay and also trying to keep our minds off of the flight that night. One hour to go before our taxi was due to arrive and we decided to take a final stroll along the Strand to the Gateway of India. ...More... | ||||||
| 4 May 2002 : Darjeeling - India Monks and mantras | 9 photos attached | |||||
| Two hours above the sweaty plains of West Bengal we found ourselves wrapped in thick fog and shivering from the cold. We were in Darjeeling, Queen of the Hills, at an altitude of around 2000m. We had been joined by our friends, Che and James, for a three-day whistle stop tour of the hills and our intention was to retrace our steps at a far more leisurely pace after they'd left. ...More... | ||||||
| 8 Apr 2002 : Calcutta - India Calcutta - City of Crows! | 5 photos attached | |||||
| The one time capital of British India Calcutta is probably the most famous city in India (although perhaps infamous would be a more accurate description). It was founded in 1690 by an English merchant called Job Charnock who persuaded the Emperor Aurangzeb to lease the land to the East India Company. ...More... | ||||||
| 28 Mar 2002 : Nainital - India An assault on the senses | 9 photos attached | |||||
| Today is Holi - the official end of Winter - and a good excuse to cover everyone with colour. The 'colour' usually comes in the form of vegetable dye, but if you're unlucky, as we were this morning, it could also be metallic silver car paint! We took a walk into town from our lovely hotel, Fairhavens, on the hill overlooking Naini Lake in Nainital, in our newly very cheap set of clothes. The first person we met on the way down into town said 'Happy Holi!' and then placed a tiny spot of paint onto each of our foreheads. ...More... | ||||||
| 23 Mar 2002 : Bharatpur - India Palaces, forts and tigers | 6 photos attached | |||||
| After meeting up wih Viv and Heleyne in Mumbai, the four of us embarked on a train journey north to the hillstation Mount Abu - little did we know that this would be one of those journeys to remember - maybe in a few years time we'll be able to joke about it. It all started on a hot and humid evening when we squashed ourselves into a tiny old taxi (somehow we always manage to end up with the most decrepid vehicle in town!!) The station was two hot and uncomfortable hours away and we arrived ten minutes before departure. ...More... | ||||||
| 16 Feb 2002 : Benaulim, Goa - India Goan Hospitality | 4 photos attached | |||||
| Our first destination in Goa was a town called Panjim. The old part of town, where we stayed, still oozed with old Portuguese charm. We could have been in a small town in Portugal! It was just a little rougher round the edges, which somehow adds to the character and ambience. Our hotel was an old Portugese house. We had a cool room with old dark wood furniture, a wonderful four poster and a comfortable planters chair on the large balcony in which many a hot afternoon was spent relaxing and reading. ...More... | ||||||
| 10 Feb 2002 : Goa - India And now for something completely different... | 1 photo attached | |||||
| This is the part of the trip that Sue has really been looking forward to. In fact, for her, seeing India again was one of the main reasons for going travelling. Me, well I was basically trying to ignore it and hope that it would go away, but it didn't! It wasn't until we boarded the connecting flight out of Singapore that it actually became a reality. We really were off to India for three months! One of the most worrying, and exciting times, is when you step off the plane or train into a new country. ...More... | ||||||
| 29 Jan 2002 : Queenstown - New Zealand Balloons and ice-picks | 2 photos attached | |||||
| We saw in 2002 on Ray's boat on Lake Wakatipu with Ray, Daniel Day, Viv (Sue's sister) and Heleyne (her partner). Quite obscure really a gathering of some of the Crow Clan so far from home! The shores of the lake were lined with crowds of people and there we were, relaxing in comfort on the boat and watching the fireworks explode above our heads. ...More... | ||||||
| 31 Dec 2001 : Queenstown - New Zealand Kiwi Country | ||||||
| Yet again, we haven't written an installment for absolutely ages and we've received a few complaints. Our only excuses are that we have been on the move quite a bit and also that being on holiday for so long tends to make you a tad lazy!! When we left you last we were just heading down to Sydney and now, a good month later, we're relaxing at Sue's brother Ray's house in Queenstown, New Zealand. As for Sydney, well it had both its good points and its bad for us. It's a good place to just hang-out. ...More... | ||||||
| 19 Nov 2001 : Gold Coast - Australia Home Comforts | ||||||
| Of late, people have been asking us how we're going to be able to lead a normal life when we get home from this trip. When asked, we looked blankly at one another and proclaim that we basically don't have a clue! And, we don't! So far, this trip has been absolutely amazing. We've seen and done things we could only have dreamed of and right now we're not going to even think about a 'normal life'. ...More... | ||||||
| 5 Nov 2001 : Cairns to Airlie Beach - Australia The Sunshine Coast | ||||||
| After a four hour flight we finally arrived in the hot steamy part of Australia, Cairns, in the north east. It’s just amazing that you can fly for four hours and still be in the same country. Cairns feels like a made-up place for tourists – and there are plenty of them! We quickly headed north to Cape Tribulation in the ricketiest hire-car in existence. We booked into Cape Tribulation Retreat, a large open wooden house right on the edge of the Greater Daintree rainforest. ...More... | ||||||
| 25 Oct 2001 : Adelaide to Melbourne - Australia The Great Ocean Road | ||||||
| As we were flying over the spectacular Great Barrier Reef this afternoon we realised that, once again, it has been a while since we last wrote an entry. In the last three weeks we've done just so much - after all, Australia is just so big - and we've been doing our best to fit in as much as possible! But, doing so much has also meant very little time to write home. A few of you may remember that we left home only a couple of days before Sue's birthday. ...More... | ||||||
| 5 Oct 2001 : Perth - Australia Down Under | ||||||
| So, what are the Aussies like then? Do they all dress like Mick Dundee out in the bush, wearing hats with dangling corks and wrestling crocs without spilling a drop of grog? Or, is this just a fictional character and Neighbours is real life (but with better acting I hope!) Well, the Aussies are famous sporting fanatics - this is the country where the PM recently wouldn't announce the future election date on the footy (said 'foudy' here) grand final weekend as it would be sacreligious?. ...More... | ||||||
| 23 Sep 2001 : Bali - Indonesia Jalan Jalan! (Just walking) | ||||||
| Sitting here in our luxurious apartment in Perth, Australia, quoffing an exceedingly good bottle of red, Sue reminds me that we haven't written a yearaway.com entry in ages. So, I guess we'd better let you know what we've been up to. Well, after a few more days at Bill and Theresia's place being fattened up on home-cooked food we headed to Bali. The drive took a whole two days as we made a little detour to Mount Bromo, where we stayed on the first night in a hotel overlooking the volcano. ...More... | ||||||
| 3 Sep 2001 : Ungaran, Central Java - Indonesia Into the Southern Hemisphere | ||||||
| 'I never thought we?d actually get here!? said Sue as we sat among the stupas at the top of the Buddhist temple of Borobudur. We were up there at five in the morning waiting for the sun to rise. As it did it slowly revealed the surrounding hills and, Mount Merupi, which spewed some red hot lava from its depths especially for us. The reason for Sue?s comment was that in the early stages of planning this yearaway Indonesia didn?t reckon in our itinerary at all. ...More... | ||||||
| 19 Aug 2001 : Melaka - Malaysia And so Melaka it is? | ||||||
| So, the decision was made and we headed down to Melaka, probably the most famous and therefore possibly the most touristy place we'd been to in Malaysia so far. ...More... | ||||||
| 7 Aug 2001 : Yamaguchi prefecture - Japan Kimurasan shows us Japan | ||||||
| We're back in KL again and there is a decision to be made. Should we go back up to Penang and sit on a beach for a week or do we pay a visit to the historical town of Malacca? Mmm.. what a decision! I suppose we should start by letting you know why we are in KL again. Well, we have just spent the last six days on a little detour to Japan and it was the cheapest place to fly from. ...More... | ||||||
| 27 Jul 2001 : Sabah - Malaysia Happy Holiday! | ||||||
| The slow, bumpy bus ride back to Kota Kinabalu seemed to last forever. Exhausted, bruised and battered we dreamt of pizza and beer in bed on our return. Unfortunately, we decided to check our e-mails before we went back to the hotel and found out that Nathans folks were due to arrive tomorrow instead of the day after as we'd thought. What followed was a frantic hour of phoning hotels and airlines to verify that this was true. ...More... | ||||||
| 14 Jul 2001 : Kinabalu National Park, Sabah - Malaysia I came, I saw, I nearly conquered | ||||||
| Sitting at my desk at work I often dreamt of those lazy days relaxing in a far flung coffee bar, sipping cappucino and watching the world go by. On the road we seem to always have a busy schedule. There's always so much to see and do and we don't want to miss a thing. But, today is one of those rare lazy days. We are sitting in a waterfront coffeeshop in Kuching trying to watch the sunset. I say trying, as there is a commotion going on at the table next to us. ...More... | ||||||
| 10 Jul 2001 : Sepilok, Sabah - Malaysia The Wild Man of Borneo | ||||||
| The orangutan is an endangered animal and can now only be found in two places on the Earth - Borneo and Sumatra. When you see one it's impossible to imagine how anyone could harm one of these amazing creatures, no less than kill them, but they have done and that, plus the forest being replaced by palm oil plantationsk, has led to them becoming a highly endangered animal. ...More... | ||||||
| 9 Jul 2001 : Sukau, Sabah - Malaysia Into the heart of Borneo | ||||||
| We flew into Sandakan on Borneo in a twin propellor Fokker aircraft, which was adventure enough for Sue as she hates flying at the best of times! We then headed out on a boat with Wildlife Expeditions to an island in the Sulu Sea called Selingan. The neighbouring island is Phillipino territory so we were just about as far east as you can get in Malaysia. Selingan is truly a paradise island - very small, surrounded by turquoise blue seas and with beaches of fine golden sand. ...More... | ||||||
| 4 Jul 2001 : Raffles Hotel - Singapore A luxurious interlude at Raffles Hotel | ||||||
| Raffles Hotel (http://www.raffleshotel.com)at 1, Beach Road, Singapore is probably the worlds most famous and luxurious hotel and we were about to be lucky enough to stay there for 2 nights. We approached this famous institution with the kind of excited energy reserved for Christmas mornings when you're a kid. It was originally opened in 1887 by the Sarkies brothers who also owned the Eastern and Oriental Hotel in Penang, Malaysia. ...More... | ||||||
| 30 Jun 2001 : Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia On the road in Malaysia | ||||||
| We arrived in Malaysia after a very long overnight train journey from Bangkok feeling knackered and skungy only to find that the first train to KL didn't leave for another ten hours! This wouldn't have been so bad had we not been in Butterworth where there is absolutely nothing apart from a train station and a port. So we hopped on a ferry to Georgetown in Penang for the afternoon. We realised when we got there that it would have been a really nice place to have stopped for a few days, but our onward ticket was already booked. ...More... | ||||||
| 15 Jun 2001 : Bangkok - Thailand End of Part I - Indochina | ||||||
| Arriving back in Bangkok marks the end of the first stage of our trip. This part was Sue's baby really. I was the apprehensive one. But, we have both enjoyed the last 60 days immensely and feel a little sad, but excited nonetheless, about moving on to the next stage. We both feel that a rounding-up is needed and here follows a few thoughts and observations we've made along the way. Animals we've known 1. Who can forget the jellyfish (Nathan won't!), the barking lizard and the 20 foot spider on the antique four-poster? 2. ...More... | ||||||
| 6 Jun 2001 : Siem Reap - Cambodia Mr Rithy | 1 photo attached | |||||
| One of the reasons we came to Cambodia is because I wanted to celebrate my 30th birthday by seeing Angkor Wat. We stayed in Siem Reap, a small place that tourists use a base for seeing the temples. We stayed in a pretty nice hotel called the Angkor Village (http://www.angkor-village.com) At 8am on my birthday we were out with Mr Rithy in his tuk-tuk (it's a bit like a horse and cart with a moped replacing the horse, nothing like the Thai version at all, more like its country cousin) on the road to our first temple. ...More... | ||||||
| 2 Jun 2001 : Phnom Penh - Cambodia Somphal and Paul show us the sights | ||||||
| We were somewhat cautious as we arrived in Phnom Penh because of all the warnings in the guidebooks about armed robberies of tourists. We were expecting to have to eat evening meals in our hotel because it was too dangerous to venture out after dark. We're not saying that those things don't happen in Phnom Penh, but never once did we feel unsafe there. The first thing that struck us about Cambodia was how friendly the Khymer people are. ...More... | ||||||
| 31 May 2001 : Ho Chi Minh City - Vietnam Same same but different | 2 photos attached | |||||
| We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City a few days ago – this is our last stop in Vietnam before heading for Cambodia. Since we last wrote we have been to two towns, Hue and Hoi An, both in central Vietnam and both very different. We took the Reunification Express from Hanoi to Hue where the Imperial Capital was based for a whole dynasty (the Nguyen Dynasty). Most of the site of the original city which was within the Citadel walls was bombed to oblivion during the American War. ...More... | ||||||
| 17 May 2001 : Halong Bay - Vietnam Where the dragon flailed his tail | 1 photo attached | |||||
| Halong Bay is the product of millions of years of erosion and chemical reactions working on limestone to produce around 300 islands rising from the Gulf of Tonkin. Legend has it that the islands were created by a dragon who careered into the sea here cutting the bay of rocks as he flailed his great tail. The truth is that at the end of the Ice Age when the glaciers began to melt the sea level rose turning hills into islands. ...More... | ||||||
| 14 May 2001 : Sapa - Vietnam Greetings from the Tonkinese Alps | 3 photos attached | |||||
| We arrived in Sapa in the early morning, fresh off of the Victoria Express - a luxury train run by the Victoria Hotel Sapa, our home for the next 6 days. Sapa was originally a Black Hmong settlement, that was until the Europeans discovered the place in the early 1900s when it became known as the Tonkinese Alps. Sapa is a very small town with the Fansi Pan mountain range as its backdrop. The scenery is fantastic. ...More... | ||||||
| 9 May 2001 : Hanoi - Vietnam On the road in Nam | ||||||
| Just a quick entry to let you in to our first few days in Vietnam and to give you some of our first impressions. Well, first off, customs wasn't as horrendous as the guidebook had made out, in fact the uniformed chappy behind the desk checked our passports swiftly and with a smile! So we weren't instantly faced with the red tape that Vietnam is famous for. We've done a little bit of site-seeing, but there's nothing much to write home about - it's the general feel of the place that is great and watching life going on around you. ...More... | ||||||
| 2 May 2001 : Phitsanuloke - Thailand Last few stops in Thailand | ||||||
| In the middle of a very hot afternoon we boarded the train from Chiang Mai and headed south to Nakhon Lampang. The train was a wonderful way to see the country. The prehistoric diesel locomotive ambled through the countryside enabling us to see everything that was going on around us. Lampang, just like Chiang Mai (and probably lots of other Northern cities) was built as a walled rectangle along the a river. It's a quiet, sleepy town and apparently lots of Thais visit to get a real taste of Northern Thailand. ...More... | ||||||
| 23 Apr 2001 : Chiang Mai - Thailand Up country | ||||||
| Chiang Mai, according to the guidebook, is a quaint, moated and walled city surrounded by mountains with legendary mystical attributes. It still kind of is, but it has also become pretty modern and cosmopolitan. It has over 300 temples, which in a city this size makes it look pretty good, with temple chedis covering the skyline. ...More... | ||||||
| 20 Apr 2001 : Bangkok - Thailand A few more nights in the capital | ||||||
| The name Bangkok comes from 'Bang Makok' which means 'place of olive plums' and refers to the original site which is today the old part of the city - that's where we've been staying. ...More... | ||||||
| 15 Apr 2001 : Koh Samui - Thailand Beach life - Tamarind Retreat to Tongsai Bay | ||||||
| Our last night at the Retreat turned into a real wildlife fiasco. Sue was sitting there writing her diary for the day when from the top of the wardrobe next to her came the BIG sound of a lizard barking and when I say BIG sound, I mean BIG, HUGE enough to make us both jump out of our pants and scoot across to the other side of the room. We then sat on the bed only to find lots of little black bugs on our nice white sheets. ...More... | ||||||
| 11 Apr 2001 : Koh Samui - Thailand Rest and rehab | ||||||
| We flew out of Bangkok on Saturday lunchtime in a super-dooper modern plane (Thai style!) with propellers. It was a bit scary really, but we got here in one piece so propellers are okay after all! We arrived in Koh Samui and it was HOT - really HOT. In fact, it's taking a bit of getting used to at the moment and yesterday the electricity was down for the whole day so we really got a taste of the heat as there wasn't any cold water and worst of all there weren't any fans running. ...More... | ||||||
| 6 Apr 2001 : Bangkok - Thailand One night in Bangkok | ||||||
| Arrived in Bangkok - only just though - we got a little caught up in the airport and only just managed to get on the plane. Needless to say we were rather hot and bothered by the time we did get on! Not much to say really except that we're here and it's DAMN hot (36 degrees). We're staying at a hotel right next to the airport, so it's noisy as well as hot, but WE'RE HERE! | ||||||
| 3 Apr 2001 : Weybridge - United Kingdom Nearly there! | ||||||
| Well, Saturday was the wedding and everything went really well, but it was all extremely nerve-racking. Neither of us heard much of the ceremony because we were so nervous! There were plenty of tears, lots of champagne and heaps of very good food so we were happy! Feels a little weird to Mr and Mrs Cope though! Anyway - tomorrow we fly out to Thailand. ...More... | ||||||