Craig and Sal Go Global

Written by Craig Drayton and Sally Robertson

The end.

So suddenly it’s been four weeks since we arrived home. As soon as we landed, our new back-home life started getting busy. Sally returned to…

Singapore

Visiting Singapore was a great way to end our trip. We had four days in the city, which we packed full of activities and time with family…

Below Borneo: Diving in Kota Kinabalu

Kota Kinabalu is most famous for nearby Mt Kinabalu, which towers 4,095m over Borneo. Having already done an expensive trek in Mulu, we…

Kuching, Borneo

We almost didn’t make it to Kuching. Our original plan had us walking out of Mulu on the Headhunters’ Trail and heading north to explore…

Miri and Mulu, Part 2: Ladders, Limestone and Leeches

Continued from last post We visited Clearwater Cave as the first stop on our Pinnacles trek, so it wasn’t a nice surprise to walk out into a…

The caves of Miri and Mulu

Upon landing in Borneo we knew that we’d come to quite a different place from Vietnam. We were back in the land of cars, with motorbikes a…

Southern Vietnam: Saigon and the Mekong Delta

Hotels in Vietnam take your passports when you check in. Then they give them back once you’ve checked out. At least that’s what’s supposed…

Our days in Dalat

Our latest stop was Dalat, and to discuss this destination we’ve decided to deliberately deal up dozens of Ds. In Dalat we partook in…

Central Vietnam – Hue and Hoi An

On our long journey south, one of the trains we were intending to catch turned out to be full, leaving us with tickets for a late night…

Riding along the Vietnam-China frontier

We arrived in Ha Giang, gateway town to Vietnam’s northern border, and hired a 150cc 2-stroke motorbike. We had come to ride a three day…

Cat Ba Island and Halong Bay

Cat Ba Island is near Vietnam’s most famous tourist attraction - Halong Bay. We decided to go to Cat Ba as it’s within reach of Halong Bay…

Hanoi

Passing through Bangkok once again on the way to Vietnam, we came across a very creepy Thai version of Ronald McDonald. Our first impression…

Mandalay

Mandalay has all kinds of romantic connotations. It’s mostly Rudyard Kipling’s fault (“on the road to Mandalay”). Kipling actually never…

Pyin Oo Lwin

Pyin Oo Lwin is a small town in the Shan Highlands, a few hours from Mandalay. During colonial rule, the British made the town their summer…

Trekking in Hsipaw, Shan State

We arrived in Hsipaw in the small hours of the morning. We found our guesthouse easily enough, but it was harder to find someone to let us…

Inle Lake

We arrived to Inle Lake via a very scary bus ride from Bagan. The standard of the roads, vehicles and driving was familiar from our time in…

Bangkok to Bagan

After leaving school we spent some time in Bangkok sorting out our visa for Myanmar. As we’ve already spent quite a bit of time in Bangkok…

New month, new ink

Update: Happy April Fools’ Day! Having left school behind and entered Burma, Craig decided he wanted a memento of our time volunteering with…

Graduation and Goodbyes

We ended the academic year with a fun activity – another technology challenge. This time the students had to build the tallest possible…

A clinic, a camp and a cave

We’ve had the opportunity to visit a few interesting places recently. We wanted to post about three quite diverse excursions – to a medical…

Chiang Mai

Last week we took a short holiday from our holiday and headed up north to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is one of the most popular tourist spots in…

Life on the border

In our last post we wrote about a selection of things from our experience volunteering as teachers for Karen refugees. For this post, we…

Volunteering on the border: An A to Z

So much has happened in the four weeks that we’ve been volunteering, that it’s hard to even know where to start. So rather than try to say…

Karen New Year

We arrived on the Thai-Burmese border a day before Karen New Year, the biggest festival of the year for the Karen people. The festivities…

Hua Hin, Thailand

We were very kindly offered a place to stay for a week in Hua Hin, a beach resort city just south of Bangkok. The timing was perfect - a few…

Kanchanaburi, Thailand

Our second destination in Thailand was only a few hours’ drive from Bangkok. We were staying in Nong Bua - a small village close to…

Bangkok

How nice it is to be in a tropical climate! We stepped out of the airport into a hot Bangkok evening. We had a couple of days in Bangkok to…

Delhi

Travellers hate Delhi. Over and over again, backpackers told us how they didn’t enjoy the city and spent as little time there as possible…

A Christmas Story in Jodhpur

It was an inauspicious start to Christmas Day. We stepped off our overnight train into Jodhpur Railway Station at 5:00am, stashed our bags…

Jaisalmer - the desert city

Within a few hours of reaching Jaisalmer we were in the back of a jeep heading out into the desert. We had arranged an overnight camel…

Jaipur

A quick post for Jaipur, as we had just a night here on our way to Jaisalmer. We found the city busy and hostile for walking around (even by…

Udaipur

Udaipur is the prettiest Indian city we’ve visited yet. The city is built around five lakes (all manmade by past rulers). There are dozens…

Agra

Some really fun interactions with Agra locals helped us to shake off our weariness at the scammers and touts. In fact, we think that Indian…

Varanasi, India

It’s a two day journey from Pokhara to Varanasi. We decided to break up our trip in Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha, near the Nepali…

Pokhara, Nepal

Travelling from Kathmandu to Pokhara on the bus is an experience. Despite the cities only being 200 km apart, the bus takes about seven…

Trekking in the Himalayas

After a short taxi ride, we started our trek from the road end at Nayapul. Nayapul is a small place with taxis crowded along the edge of the…

Kathmandu

Our 30 hour journey from Istanbul to Kathmandu (via London and Delhi) was not as hard as we had feared. Delhi Airport even had some nice…

The ANZAC battlegrounds of Gallipoli

Of course we couldn’t leave Turkey without undertaking the Kiwi pilgrimage to the Gallipoli Peninsula. We booked a one-day tour from…

Istanbul

Markets, Mosques and… Mannequins? We found all three in abundance during our visit to Istanbul. We expected the Grand Bazaar to be one of…

Cappadocia - a photo essay

At the centre of Turkey lies Cappadocia, a UNESCO protected area which is famous for its incredible rock formations. We thought we’d try…

The Lycian Coast, Turkey

Fethiye is a resort town at the start of the Lycian Coast on the Mediterranean Sea. We quickly realised that it was going to be a sleepy…

The holy city of Jerusalem

We know it’s a big call, but Jerusalem has got to be one of the most fascinating places in the world. Simply wandering around the streets we…

The Dead Sea and Negev Desert

Route 90 is the longest road in Israel, running all the way from the Lebanese border near Metula to the Egyptian border at the Red Sea. The…

Northern Israel

We headed north up the Israeli coast in our trusty little car, stopping at a few small towns along the way. One of the places we stopped in…

Tel Aviv

Sooner or later every traveller goes through the rite of passage of trying to sleep at the airport. Having travelled through the evening, we…

Berlin

One thing we noticed straight away about Berlin was how different it looks and feels compared to other European cities. The city was largely…

Prague

We were wondering how we’d feel about visiting Prague, as we’ve been to lots of old European cities recently (and also because it has the…

Budapest

We had a few days spare in Europe and spent quite a while deciding where to go. Budapest won out, with several recommendations leading us to…

Vienna

As this is our first time in Europe, three months ago we were new to the architecture and streetscape of Europe’s old cities and towns…

Innsbruck, Austria

We recently spent four nights in a small town called Fulpmes, just out of Innsbruck, which has been one of the highlights of our trip so far…

Munich and Oktoberfest

Staying in a 152-bed dorm full of Oktoberfest tourists, which isn’t a building but a huge circus-style tent. In a cold Munich autumn. Doesn…

Zagreb

Having recently been on a very commercial island cruise, we were looking forward to CouchSurfing in Zagreb for a more cultural experience…

Plitvice Lakes National Park

Plitvice Lakes National Park is the largest national park in Croatia. It is most known for its beautiful series of cascading lakes and…

Cruising the Croatian coast

Five boats sat in the Dubrovnik port, tied up side-to-side. We were told our boat was the last one in the row, so laden with our packs we…

Dubrovnik and Montenegro

After the overnight ferry from Bari we arrived in the south of Croatia to the town of Dubrovnik. The walls, drawbridge and decorated gate…

Rome and Vatican City

Just after arriving in Rome we joined our first Couchsurfing event: a walking tour by a local guy. He wanted to show visitors some of the…

Venice

We had thought Florence was bad for having an excess of tourists, but Venice took things to another level! Apparently there are more…

Florence

We had a short time in Florence (just one night), so we’ve written a short post. Here are the four best and four worst things about our…

Moneglia and the Cinque Terre

We’ve been travelling pretty quickly for the last three months. In fact, only once have we spent more than four nights in the same bed! We…

Nice, Monaco and the French Riviera

We took a bit of a different approach for deciding where to go after Paris. Googling ‘best hostel in France” pointed us to Villa Saint…

Paris

Finally Sally’s three years of learning French at school has paid off with five days in Paris. She had the most essential phrases ready…

Amsterdam and the Waterlands

It was after midnight in the Port of Dover and we were wearily standing in line to be processed through the (surprisingly lightweight…

The English seaside of Brighton

Brighton was a good choice for a place to hang out for a couple of days. It’s a seaside town not far from London. The sun was shining and…

Manchester

Surprisingly, our first bus breakdown happened not in South America, but in England. Forty-five minutes from Manchester, the bus crawled to…

Exploring the Scottish Highlands with the Evil Clowns

Craig, Sal and the evil clowns set off from Edinburgh on an adventure in the Scottish Highlands. At first we were given a van with pretty…

Exploring Edinburgh (and its Fringe Festival)

Edinburgh made a great first impression – we stepped out into this beautiful city on a lovely sunny day. A few of our friends are either…

York

York was founded by the Romans in 71 AD, who created a fortress on the site. York has been a walled city ever since, with first Roman and…

Taking the waters of Bath

A few centuries ago, the wealthy elite of England flocked to Bath to “take the waters” of the town’s natural hot spring. If it was good…

Oxford

This will be a short post, as we were only in Oxford for one night. Oxford of course, is known primarily for Oxford University and its other…

London

We had an exciting and busy week in London – staying with friends, the Olympics buzz, beautiful sunshine and lots of exploring to do…

Washington DC

After New York we headed south to Washington DC We were immediately hit by the heat – it was almost 40°C while we were there! With dozens of…

New York City - Part 3, Lower Manhattan

Without a doubt New York has been our favourite city so far. It’s vibrancy, beauty, history and excitement makes it a wonderful place to…

New York City, Part 2- Midtown Manhattan

When you think New York, you probably think of Midtown Manhattan. Times Square, skyscrapers and yellow cabs. Despite neither of us having…

New York City, Part 1 - Brooklyn

Some cities grow on you over time, while others you fall in love with instantly. New York City charmed us as soon as we arrived. It’s…

Eating Lima

We read some advice to, when travelling, think about what you want to do in a place, rather than what you want to see . The reason being…

Huacachina - The desert oasis

Huacachina lies just five minutes’ drive from Ica. It’s a universally touristy town, with one real draw – going on dune buggy trips and…

Arequipa and the Colca Canyon

We successfully went on an independent trek in the Colca Canyon, despite reading and hearing a lot about how you need a guide. It was easy…

Machu Picchu - Lost city of the Incas

No trip to Cusco is complete without a visit to Machu Picchu. We wanted to do a trek to the ruins (rather than just catch the train) and…

Cusco - Centre of the Incan Empire

Cusco (also Cuzco or Qosqo) was the centre of the universe according to the Quechuan (Incan) people and served as their capital for hundreds…

Rio de Janeiro

Rio is a truly stunning place and has been our favourite city yet. It has a great energy to it and the scenery is amazing with the mountains…

The favela communities of Rio de Janeiro

Driving up the hill on a windy road, we passed an idle police car by the side of the road. We had reached Rocinha. Just by passing through…

Sao Paulo

Sao Paulo is huge. 5 th largest metropolis in the world huge. On our first day we went to a viewing platform on the 41 st floor of a…

Iguazu Falls - Argentina & Brazil

Iguaҫu/Iguazu Falls is the second largest waterfall in the world. The falls are on the border of three countries – Argentina, Brazil and…

Buenos Aires

We’ve spent the last four days in Buenos Aires. While neither of us fell in love with the city, we did still enjoy our time there. It’s fair…

Mendoza, Argentina - Surfing our first couch

We said adiós to Chile and hopped on a bus to cross the border into Argentina. The bus ride took us through the Andes, offering amazing…

Santiago, Chile - Entiendo Castellano muy, muy poco

Buenos Dias from Chile! Our first travel post. Well within an hour of landing in Santiago we paid our first Gringo tax! After failing to…

Our itinerary

While 12 months sounds like quite a long time in which to to “see the world”, the world really is rather big. There’s probably no “right…

Hello!

Hi there :-) For those that don’t know us, our names are Craig and Sally. We are both Wellingtonians born-and-bred. We attended Wellington…