Amyn & Yaz's Travel Journal - Welcome
In and around London, United Kingdom
Welcome to our travel journal.
Our travels will begin in mid June, immediately after our wedding, and you should see some updates shortly after that. As you can imagine, we can't wait! : )
Route taken and entries by Real Traveler Amyn & Yaz
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1
The Beginning....
So... This is where it all began. The build up to the wedding was a lot of fun for us, albeit a tad stressful at times, but we had an a... Continue reading »
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2
Someone shoot Iberia!
So - here begins our journey, and what a start it was. After a very tearful good-bye at Naples airport (we´ll never forget little Zach runnin... Continue reading »
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3
Quito? No...!
What a scary place... We landed in Quito at around midday, and the airport was manic. It seemed that everyman and his dog had come to "... Continue reading »
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4
Lima - At last..!
We made it! Finally we had arrived in Lima at 2am and checked into our hotel. We slept like babies and woke up fresh and ready to venture out... Continue reading »
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5
Goodnight Jon-Boy...!
Lima to Cusco by coach was actually quite nice. A total of 22 hours on the sleeper coach, where they show movies, and serve dinner and b... Continue reading »
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6
I will survive....!
No one in their right mind should be awake at 4:30am... We had to be at the tour operators (SAS) office at 5:45, so an early start for us.&nb... Continue reading »
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7
In the jungle, the mighty jungle....
Day 1: After another early start, and a very short flight to Puerto Maldonado (otherwise known as the middle of nowhere) we arrived at Tambopa... Continue reading »
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8
Lago Titicaca
So the journey to Puno and Lago Titicaca was "interesting". We had decided before Machu Picchu to book a tour bus to Puno which stop... Continue reading »
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9
Anyone for salt?
After an overnight coach ride from La Paz to Uyuni, we arrived at around 7am to find the smallest and most desolute town on earth! It was inc... Continue reading »
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10
Salt sickness....
After returning from Salar De Uyuni, I found that the food from the past few days was not as agreeable as I first thought, and so found myself hotel r... Continue reading » -
11
Civilisation!!!!!
What a shock! After stories of Santiago from othr travellers, we were a little apprehensive. "It´s a dangerous place", "it´s just a big city"... Continue reading »
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12
Wet wet wet
A you might have guessed, Valdivia was wet. very wet. It rained constantly for three days....! Not just drizzle, but heavy rain! Anyway, fortunatel... Continue reading »
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13
Argenti-narnia
The coach trip from Valdivia to Bariloche was possibly the best yet. Unable to get a night-bus, we left in the morning and headed towards the... Continue reading »
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14
Whale of a time!
So finally we made it to Puerto Madryn, and after Bariloche it´s wasn´t exactly a party town and it was pouring with rain (Tourist Information... Continue reading »
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15
Ice Age
El Calafate was a pretty nice place, with small cafes and wood panel buildings, and a massive chunk of ice they call Perito Moreno Glacier, an... Continue reading »
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16
Torres del Paine
Puerto Natales was a bit of a shock after El Calafate, but then we were back in Chile and so shouldn´t have expected it to be the same. It wa... Continue reading »
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17
Antarctica... well, almost...
Not much to say here... Five days of nothingness. Ok ok, we got to Punta Arenas (which is pretty much the closest you can get to Anta... Continue reading » -
18
Copa! Copacabana!
We arrived at Rio Airport early in the morning, and it´s a pretty daunting place. The Tourist Information booth was closed coz we were too ea... Continue reading »
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19
Paradise Island
Ilha Grande (translates to ´Big Island´) is, surprisingly a big island off the coast or Rio. We took a coach to Angra Dos Reis and then a one... Continue reading »
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20
Let´s paaaaaarty!
Buzios can only be decribed as Party Town! And after Ilha Grande was quite a shock to the system. The day we arrived was Brazilian Independen... Continue reading »
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21
Ghetto Heaven
So, we arrived back in Rio and headed straight back to the same hotel we had stayed in previously in Ipenema, in fact, even the same room! I was fe... Continue reading »
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22
Water, water, water
Enroute to Foz do Iguacu we hit a couple of delays and so arrived pretty late at night. We had no hostal booked and so after chatting to a co... Continue reading »
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23
Bye Bye South America....
Well, this is officially our final destination in South America... And what a way to go. Buenos Aires is truely an amazing city! The fi... Continue reading »
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24
Playtime!
One giant playground. That's how it was described to us, and how right they were! But I'll start by saying what a culture shock this was for... Continue reading »
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25
Catch of the day...
The next morning we picked up our tiny little car and headed north to the Northlands, and to a place called Paihia. After a few hours of driv... Continue reading »
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26
Sandboarding...
The next day we took a tour to Cape Reinga, right at the tip of New Zealand... It was pretty dull, I don't mind telling you, and for the entire four h... Continue reading » -
27
Smellyville
Rotorua is smelly... and I mean rotten egg smelly! Rotorua has a thinner earth crust than anywhere else in the world, and so geothermal... Continue reading »
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28
It's called Wellington for a reason...
The weather in Wellington was appauling. Rain and wind - that was it. We arrived late in the evening and booked into a hostal in the ce... Continue reading »
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29
Adrenaline junkies...!
So, for the past couple of day we had been looking into doing a skydive, but the weather was pretty poor, and so we had decided to skip it and mayb... Continue reading »
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30
No kayaking for us....
We arrived in Nelson quite late at night. Before we left Welly we had asked at the hostal if they knew of any good hostals, and they rec... Continue reading »
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31
One big block of ice...
We arrived in Franz Josef, the town of the giant glacier, pretty late at night, and after checking in to our hostal, we decided we needed an evenin... Continue reading »
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32
Adrenaline? Keep it coming!!!
Queenstown is decribed as the adventure capital of NZ, and if you've seen any of our previous entries in NZ, you'd agree that that's quite an achie... Continue reading »
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33
A very spooky place...
Milford sound was a one day tour, but deserved it's own entry mainly because the place was like nothing we've seen before. The journey up the... Continue reading »
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34
Back to Queenstown
After a much needed lie-in we went in search for breakfast before heading up a mountain to do some luging, and we managed to find a place... Continue reading »
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35
Is this New Zealand??
Enroute to Christchurch we decided to make a small diversion to Wanaka as we'd seen a leaflet for a place called Puzzling World - and it was so wor... Continue reading »
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36
Home and Away and Neighbours...
As we were landing at Sydney airport the views over Sydney were beautiful - but Yaz wasn't interested - she was preoccupied with singing the theme... Continue reading »
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37
The lighthouse
So after a week of partying with Nargis and Martin, we thought we had better drag ourselves away and see more of this big island, so we booked our... Continue reading »
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38
This really is the name of the place!
Surfers (as the locals call it) was really not what we expected. After Byron Bay we kinda figured that all the towns along the east coast woul... Continue reading »
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39
Everything under one roof
So we arrived in Brisbane and it looked pretty much like any other city. We took a taxi, checked into our hotel and ventured out for some lun... Continue reading »
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40
No crocs for us....
Australia Zoo, the home of Steve Irwin, was one of the highlights of the east coast for us, so as soon as we arroved in Noosa we started our enquir... Continue reading »
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41
Ging-gang-goolie
So we arrived in Hervey Bay and were taken straight into a briefing at the Koala hostal with which our tour was booked. We were a little nerv... Continue reading »
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42
Row, row, row your boat...
This has got to be described as the most relaxing few days of our lives.
We had booked on to a large sail boat called Derwent Hunter fo... Continue reading »
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43
Magnetic Koalas
Ok - the title is a little confusing, and maybe a tad misleading.
We arrived in Townsville expecting some small town around a beach with a fe... Continue reading »
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44
Mission by name, mission by nature...
Mission Beach is the kind of place you arrive at and wonder why you did. There's nothing here! Any place with the word "beach" in it's name s... Continue reading »
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45
Downtime
So we arrived in Cairns and had a couple of days to relax before our three day tour of the jungle - and boy we needed it! Unfortunately it also mea... Continue reading »
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46
Welcome to the jungle...
Our journey up to the oldest rainforest in the world was pretty good. A guided tour of the north east coast with a stop off at Mossman G... Continue reading »
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47
The jewel in the crown...
I've got to start by saying that I loved Melbourne - and so my entry might be a little biased. This is the kind of place that, given half the... Continue reading »
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48
The Rock
So we caught a flight from Melbourne, and arrived in Ayers Rock Airport early in the morning to be picked up by our tour guide and start the tour.&... Continue reading »
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49
The wild wild west
We had originally planned to spend two weeks in Perth, but after travelling Oz for a while, we decided that staying in one place for two weeks just... Continue reading »
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50
The real Australia!
So, we headed up the West coast of Oz, not having a clue what to expect. We were told numerous times about Road Trains - massive trucks with... Continue reading »
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51
Wino's Paradise
So after a long long drive back through Perth and down towards the south, we reached Busselton at about 10pm on a Sunday night. Busselton is... Continue reading »
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52
Home sweet home... well, almost
We had been looking forward to this part of the trip for a long, long time and it had finally arrived. We flew back to Sydney where we would... Continue reading »
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53
A brief stopover from hell
A lot of people we had spoken to in Oz had told us not to bother going to Darwin mainly because there's not much to see there. We had a one n... Continue reading »
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54
The high life
Bali was set aside for our 'real' honeymoon. An entire week in a five star resort without the worries of backpacking, and it was true bliss.&... Continue reading »
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55
The land of nothingness
We decided to spend a couple of nights in Jakarta to check it out before moving on from Indonesia. We needn't have bothered. The city i... Continue reading »
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56
Lights, Camera, Action!
We arrived in Hong Kong not knowing what to expect. Our Lonely Planet Guide (our bible so far whereever we've gone) was for S.E Asia and so d... Continue reading »
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57
Home of the Singapore Sling
We arrived in Singapore and checked into a horrible little hostal in the city, although the location was great. The city itself is quite smal... Continue reading »
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58
The Twin Towers
When you reach Kuala Lumpur the thing that truly sticks out above anything else is the Petronas Twin Towers. At first sighting we stood there... Continue reading »
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59
Where are all the orang-utans?
After much deliberation, and a lot of researching, we headed to Borneo to check out the national parks, possibly visit a tribal longhouse, and mayb... Continue reading »
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60
It's cold outside...
The journey to Toronto was long. After an exhaustive search on the internet we had managed to secure what seemed to be the easiest and cheape... Continue reading »
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61
Back on track
After a week and a half of cold weather, Phuket was a shock to the system. It was hot, and we were no longer used to it. We suffered fo... Continue reading »
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62
Back to basics
Koh Phi Phi is a tiny island off the western coast of Thailand, and isn't quite what we had in mind when we left Phuket. The island is so sma... Continue reading »
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63
Our own little paradise
We arrived in Krabi and found that accomodation was a little more expensive than we had expected. After some discussions with an agent at the... Continue reading »
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64
East coast
After a bus and a boat, we arrived in Koh Samui late afternoon expecting hundreds of representatives from bungalows to greet us to persuade us to s... Continue reading »
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65
Diving
We arrived in Ko Tao and were immediately met by a scuba diving school asking if we wanted to book a few days of diving. We had read that mos... Continue reading »
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66
Full Moon Paaaaaaarty
So we headed to Ko Phangan for the prime purpose of checking out the world famous (or infamous) Full Moon Party. This is held once a month, y... Continue reading »
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67
City on Speed
We arrived in Bangkok after an incredibly long boat and bus journey, and I've gotta admit, we were tired and a little off-guard. As a result... Continue reading »
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68
Food Glorious Food...
Chiang Mai in nothern Thailand is truly a beautiful place. The city itself is relatively large, but is split into two with the old city bei... Continue reading »
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69
Show me the money!
We arrived in Luang Prabang airport aware of the fact that we needed a visa-on-arrival. However, what we didn't realise was how expensive thi... Continue reading »
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70
Good Morning Vietnam!!
Vietnam was definately one of the hot spots of our trip so you could probably imagine how excited we were flying over from Luang Prabang... Continue reading »
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71
Gloomy but Roomy!
Ok maybe we should'nt have ignored the weather warnings of rain and wind chills.....
The trip to Halong Bay would have been a little pointles... Continue reading »
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72
Same Same But Different
Anyone who has travelled to S.E Asia will be familiar with the phrase 'same same but different' - this is the only thing you will hear from a loc... Continue reading »
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73
Home of Uncle Ho
Arriving in Ho Chi Minh was like walking into the heart of Vietnam's answer to city-life. We were greeted by well paved roads, beautifully d... Continue reading »
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74
From One War Zone To Another....
Our journey to Cambodia's capital city was a long one and interesting one. From Ho Chi Minh city we spent three days travelling along the M... Continue reading »
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75
Temple Fatigue
After Phnom Penh we made our way to Siam Reap, and to the largest religious site in the world - Ankar Wat.
Siam Reap was a shock for us... Continue reading »
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76
Back in Bangers
So after a short flight from Siam Reap, we arrived back in Bangkok. This time, we decided to stay in Khao San, the main backpacker area of th... Continue reading »
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77
Family Reunion
The journey to Mauritius was an interesting one. After arriving late in Mumbai from Bangkok, we met my dad and aunt and dashed to the do... Continue reading »
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78
Holy Cow...
After a very relaxing week in Mauritius, we arrived in the rather chaotic Mumbai with a bit of an entourage. Yaz's mum was to join us in Indi... Continue reading »
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79
The Beach Life...
We arrived in Goa and were, again, shocked - this time for very contrasting reasons. We had visited Goa a number of years ago, for a two week... Continue reading »
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