TravelStream™ news feed for member rbisset on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/rbisset en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:15:46 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rbisset/rtw05-06/1258711959/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rbisset/rtw05-06/1258711959/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rbisset/rtw05-06/1258711959/tpod.html Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:15:46 -0500 Putting off work for another year to go round-the-world!

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Bangkok, Thailand

Back to SE Asia for 2 weeks
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Tarifa, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands

Summary Soon
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Fes, Morocco

text to come
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Rabat, Morocco

text to come
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Marrakech, Morocco

text to come
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rbisset/rtw05-06/1252581040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rbisset/rtw05-06/1252581040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rbisset/rtw05-06/1252581040/tpod.html Thu, 10 Sep 2009 07:23:12 -0400 Putting off work for another year to go round-the-world!

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Meknes, Morocco

Currently in Meknes sheltering from the rain. Middle of Ramadan so nothing much is open during the day and only seems to come alive in the final hours before sunset.More later.
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Unawatuna, Sri Lanka

13th OctoberTo ensure that we got away from Nuwara Eliya today we were up at 5:30am for the second day running. Quickly packed, checked out and were at the bus stop at 5:59am! Who said holidays were relaxing? I found some shop selling random food and stood around waiting for the bus to arrive. At 6:30 the bus arrived and we quickly secured the best seats possible, opposite the door at the back and started waiting for it to leave. We finally pulled away at 7:30 for the start of a mammoth journey. The journey was a bit weird in many ways. For a start there were 4 other backpackers on the bus (2 Israeli, 2 Slovenian girls). Having not seen ANY backpackers for the whole time in Sri Lanka this was quite a turnup. There was also an albino Sri Lankan woman at the front of the bus and a guy with 6 fingers! Freak bus!! What ensued was 8 hours of torture in the smallest seats imaginable. We stopped once after 4 hours for about 10 minutes for a roadblock but that was it for the whole journey to Matara. When we finally arrived in Matara we jumped straight onto another bus bound for our final destination, Unawatuna. The journey was along the coast and the sea looked so inviting that it was reinvigorating. An hour later and we jumped off the bus and stepped onto the beach for the first time in the trip. All thoughts of budget went out the window and we checked into a luxury villa, right on the beach, with a room each!The room was fantastic! A large double bed drapped in a mosquito net, minibar, satellite tv and brilliant en-suite. Shattered but happy to be at the beach I made my way downstairs and cracked open the first beer of the trip. 10 hours by bus, 350rps. Getting to the beach for my birthday, Priceless! Once the first beer had been opened there was no stopping. I ended up in some bar on the beach playing pool with the locals and beating all of them! Can't say that happens often. A great day all round.14-16th OctoberI spent the next 3 days basically relaxing on the beach all day, eating seafood for dinner every night and playing pool. As it was the low season there wasn't a lot going on in the evenings and very few people around at all. However I still had a great time and the rest was definitely needed after the action packed previous 10 days. As there was no ATM in Unawatuna we took a tuk-tuk to Galle on 1 afternoon. We spent about an hour wandering around the walls of Galle Fort. It was a good diversion from the beach but was so hot that we were soon back at the beach, cooling off in the sea. Unawatuna was great for a few days relaxing and I'd love to go back during high season when it was a bit more lively!
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Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka

11th OctoberThe last 5 days travelling round the ancient cities had been extremely action packed and quite tiring. However it was time to start phase 2 of the trip and head to the mountains for a break from the oppressive heat! Getting to the hill country town of Nuwara Eliya was going to be an adventure itself!When we had checked into the hotel we had enquired about breakfast. The owner had been quite loud and forceful about going to his house for some breakfast before we left for Kandy. It seemed dodgy at the time and in the morning felt like a pretty bad idea. We hastily packed up, paid the bill at reception and made a runner for the bus stop. Luckily there was a bus just leaving and we were on our way towards Kandy by 8am.As the bus had started in Anuradhapura it was packed by the time we got on. As a result we had to stand by the door for the 3.5 hours it took to crawl into Kandy, nearly an hour of this time was in the final 5kms around the jam-packed streets. Once in Kandy we had no idea where we were as there were at least 3 bus stops. We asked for some directions and managed to locate the train station and purchased some 2nd class seats for the journey to Nuwara Eliya.We had decided to travel by train as the LP said it was a fantastic journey around the mountainous tea plantation areas. It sounded good so we sat about waiting for an hour, eating random pastries for breakfast before making our way over to the train. We couldn't find the 2nd Class cabin so I went for a look whilst Lars used the time to disappear off to the toilet. 30 seconds later the train left without us! Not best pleased but it had only cost £1.A rather perplexed Lars reappeared and we went in search of a bus to take us there instead. We had had enough of the usual slow buses so we splashed out an extra 50rps and got an aircon minibus instead. On any normal route the air con would be a blessing but within 20 minutes of leaving Kandy it started to get cooler quickly as we gained altitude. I also made the most of the views by falling asleep for 90 minutes!When I did wake up the views were great. Huge hills covered in tea plantations, nestled in the cloud layer. The temperature difference at 1900m above sea was incredible. It had been sweltering in Kandy but freezing 2.5 hours and 60km's away. The town was completely different to Kandy in every way. Massive pine trees, a horse racing track, golf course, cute colonial era houses. It was all very cliché and felt like a holiday resort. As a result the prices were double what we had been used to paying.We looked around a couple of massively overpriced hotels, and checked out the Grand for the hell of it before settling on a much cheaper fleapit that was within our budget. It was probably the worst room so far but double the price of all the others.With our bags dumped we set off into town to get some money and lunch. Amazingly the bank was open on a Saturday afternoon, which would be unheard of in England, and managed to get a load of cash for what would be an expensive day tomorrow. The main town of Nuwara Eliya doesn't really have much to offer. It's a couple of streets of concrete buildings selling off cheap tat for tourists. With very little to do, compounded by 3 hours of afternoon rain, we spent the rest of the day relaxing after the journey.12th OctoberThe reason we had come to such a tourist trap as Nuwara Eliya was to visit Hortons Plains National Park. To do this we needed to arrange a jeep through our guesthouse, at quite a fee, as the roads to the park are massively uphill and in quite a state. As the park is over 2000metres we needed to get there early before the clouds descended and blocked the views.So we found ourselves standing around shivering at 5:30am waiting for our jeep to the park. Our jeep was a great old battered thing but it was perfect for the job. We stopped at a small shop on the way to pick up supplies but ended up staying for about 30 minutes, clearing them out of honey & coconut hoppers (delicious!) and some tea to warm up. The tea they seem to drink here is milky and very sweet, I prefered to have it black with no sugar which was quite difficult to get.Once we got to the park we noticed that the fees were quite excessive and dual pricing very blatent. To get into the park we had to pay $15 each entry fee, $8 surcharge and 300rps charge for arriving in a jeep! This is on top of the 3500rps we had to pay for the jeep meaning the trip had cost us about £20 each. Local price was 200rps (£1).Still, I think it was worth it in the end. The park was stunning and looked like Scotland. We were basically the only people in the park for the first hour or so and took loads of photos. We walked as quickly as possible to get to the main view point, Worlds End, before the cloud descended and managed to get about 30 seconds view of the 800m drop before the clouds obscurred it. Once we had rested for about half an hour at the Worlds End viewpoint we decided to slowly make our way round the rest of the walk. It seemed that half of Kandy had decided to visit the park as well as there were bus loads of daytrippers on what turned out to be a national holiday. We took nearly 4 hours in total enjoying the walk and I'd highly recommend it even though it is quite expensive. Heading back towards Nuwara Eliya we were thankful we had chosen to take a jeep. The car park was packed with full size buses which should never have been allowed up the narrow, twisting lanes and were going to cause chaos on the way back down. Back in Nuwara Eliya we had considered visiting a tea plantation but it started raining so holed up in the hotel instead to plan the rest of the trip. We were knackered and had 5 days left in Sri Lanka, all of that was to be spent on the beach! We enquired at the hotel about how to get there and found out there was only 1 bus a day and we couldn't get a definite answer as to what time it left. We decided to get up really early to make sure we didn't miss it!
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Dambulla, Sri Lanka

10th OctoberWith only 2 weeks in Sri Lanka we needed to keep moving quickly in order to see as much as possible. 2 days in Anuradhapura had been enough and we needed to move on. Our next port of call was the final point of the cultural triangle, Dambulla.Well Dambulla doesn't really have much to offer, it's a 1 street dusty town, but there are a couple of sights that I needed to see but most of all Sigiriya. To get to Dambulla we just had to jump on any bus going to Kandy and jump off when it stopped in Dambulla. Jump off turned out to be the correct term.When we knew we were getting close to Dambulla we started making our way towards the exit. This sounds easy but on a packed bus with luggage it was incredibly difficult. Lars managed to make it through the scramble and fall off the bus, losing a shoe in the process. Half a mile later I managed to get off as well! Once we had found each other, and I reunited Lars with his lost shoe, we set about trying to find somewhere to stay. The LP map was shocking and we just had to give up trying to follow it and checked into the first random guesthouse we could find. It seemed pretty good and had a decent en-suite and air con so we were sold!With accommodation sorted we hit the dusty streets of Dambulla in search of a bus to Sigiriya. We spent about 20 minutes looking in the wrong place (thanks to the LP map) before being sweet talked by a tuk-tuk driver who agreed to take us there for a reasonable fee. Sigiriya was the site I had been most looking forward to seeing whilst in Sri Lanka and it was really quite impressive. We spent 2 hours exploring the area in searing heat but it was worth it. The frescoes were superb, as were the views from the top of the rock. I had expected more from the palace area on top but it was still well worth the entrance fee. We met up with our tuk-tuk driver and headed back to Dambulla and towards the caves.The paintings in the caves were very impressive but the entrance fee had more than doubled and as a result wasn't that good value for money. Still, it took the number of UNESCO sites seen to 2 for the day and 5 in total in 5 days! Sri Lanka packs a punch for such a small country!With the sites seen we headed back to the tuk-tuk for a confrontation and ended up paying a complete rip off fee, at least 2x what we should have done, and weren't best pleased. Sure it was only about £5 each but that's still miles too much!Once back at the hotel it was completely deserted so I headed to the Internet for 30 mins for the first time of the trip. It was obvious that our hotel wasn't too interested in serving food so we went to find somewhere in town. We ended up at some local canteen that had probably never served any foreigners and polished off seconds! The food is so good in Sri Lanka!!! For dessert we found another local place and polished off a hopper (pancake thing) with fried egg and chili sauce. With a long day travelling planned for tomorrow we headed back to the hotel early to make the most of the aircon!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rbisset/rtw05-06/1223548260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rbisset/rtw05-06/1223548260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rbisset/rtw05-06/1223548260/tpod.html Sat, 14 Mar 2009 18:35:39 -0400 Putting off work for another year to go round-the-world!

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Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

8th October We knew it was going to be another long day of travelling today so we were up and ready to go by 6am. We were heading to Anuradhapura, another point on the "Cultural Triangle", and another town I was eager to see. As Polonnaruwa was a 1-street town we figured it'd be pretty easy to flag down a passing bus but it wasn't quite that straight forward. 2-3 buses flew passed at high speed and we had no idea if they were going where we wanted as the destination sign was in Sinhala. After 40 minutes we gave up and took a tuk-tuk to the main depot 3km's away and found a bus within minutes. The bus journey took 3 hours and was far from comfortable. We were heading north, closer to the conflict areas, although still 100km's away from the main fighting. However after the bomb attack in Anuradhapura 3 days previous, there were numerous stops by the military to search the bus and everyones bags. We were basically spared having to get off every time as we were the only foreigners. All the other men got off and the women stayed on. The road was also in a bad state. When we reached a pit stop town of Habrana it was as if we had been transported to Sub-Saharan Africa! Burnt terracotta red earth, wide flat plains and terrible roads. Whilst on the bus I had spotted that there was a supermarket in Anuradhapura and we figured that they must have suncream! Salvation! Once the bus pulled into the outskirts of town I kept my eyes peeled for any landmarks from the LP and managed to get off directly opposite the supermarket. 10 minutes later, and £14 worse off, we not only had uber strength factor 30 suncream but after-sun cream as well!!!! The joy was indescribable. The main area of hostels cluster around a "lake" area and boast of lake views. The one we finally settled on had a tiny slither of a lake view about a kilometer in the distance, through some trees. However it was cheap, had a friendly old man who looked after us and a few very good ceiling fans which came in very handy on an oppressively hot day. After a couple of hours sleep to avoid the midday sun and some dairy lea and tomato sandwiches we were ready to hit the town. It was good to be in a modern town again so that we could get a few things in order. Sun cream was obviously first on the list but finding a UK-Sri Lanka charger was getting quite desperate as well as the camera batteries were running dry! Didn't take too long to find and I managed to find a USB SD Card ready (which I later discovered didn't work!) as I had forgotten a cable at home. With little light left in the day we decided to pay a visit to the Bodhi Tree Shrine in the centre of town. A huge tree grown from a cutting from Bodhgaya, India and of huge spiritual value to the Sinhalese. I was expecting more to be honest but it was a good diversion for about an hour and we were even given fruit by the army personnel manning the gun turret! We headed back to the guesthouse for another excellent curry (especially the dahl) before going to bed at 8pm in readiness for an action packed day tomorrow. 9th October After hiring bikes in Polonnaruwa I figured it'd be a good idea to do the same here. The ruins were much more spread out here so it was going to be a long days bike riding! Polonnaruwa had set a very high standard and ultimately Anuradhapura didn't match up. The ruins weren't in such a good state, although the carvings were better preserved and a lot was covered in scaffolding. There were a couple of huge dagobas dotted around town (1 of which was the the 3rd tallest structure in the world when originally constructed) which were very good to look at but in the process of restoration. The best moments of the day came from chatting with the locals. Sitting around discussing why there weren't any tourists with the water sellers near one of the ruins and chatting over dinner with the old man at the guesthouse were brilliant memories. Sometimes it's not all about seeing wonders of the world and just relaxing and enjoying being somewhere different.To take a break from the most uncomfortable bikes in the world, Lars was really struggling, we decided to take lunch in a local canteen. We had no idea what we were eating and just ordered everything, much to the amusement of the locals. The place was packed so we assumed the food was good, and it was. There is only so long you can go without rain in the rainy season so we were overdue a storm. It had been so humid during the day that we knew it was coming and sat waiting on the balcony. Torrential would be a mild term to describe the amount of rain that bucketed down for an hour. We had to head back into the room to deal with water coming through the roof and to shoo frogs back outside where they belonged!It had been another great day all round, but not for the ruins as I had expected. 
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