Travel Blog

Located in the remote Juan Fernandez Islands 416 miles off the west coast of Chile, Isla Robinson Crusoe is where Royal Navy officer, Alexander Selkirk was marooned in 1704. He was put ashore following an altercation with another officer and spent four solitary years on the island before being rescued.…

We have six stops in Chile which north to south is the longest country in the world at 2,672 miles. With an average width of only 112 miles it is 24 times longer than it is wide and it covers 38 degrees of latitude with the Andes running the entire…

How many famous Peruvians can you name? Hmmm, the best I could come up with was Paddington Bear which doesn't say a great deal for Peru. It used to be naming famous Belgians but Peru is far trickier but then again so is Ecuador, Costa Rica, Panama etc. Most people…

Our only stop in Ecuador was a port town called Manta which is apparently the tuna capital of the world. Sounded a bit fishy to me so I googled it and it was true. There are statues of tuna all over the town which was a little disturbing until we…

The first stop of about 30 port calls was the Isla de Providencia which is an island belonging to the San Andres group of islands in the southwestern Caribbean Sea which in turn belong to Colombia. Throughout history the islands have been ruled by Spain, England and even the pirate…

Aside from a hapless flight attendant spilling a glass of tomato juice down my trousers it was a pleasant but uneventful flight. I inadvertently only watched movies with a name in the title so first up was Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, 7 out of 10, then Jason Bourne which…

The final blog for this trip involves eight days in Pattaya which was an education to say the least. From Rayong I headed north towards Bangkok and ninety minutes later I reached a place that some might describe as Disneyland for adults. Well, Disneyland for middle-aged men.   I'm staying…

After flying back to BKK I jumped in to a taxi and headed for the province of Rayong which is south of Pattaya, and very lovely and chilled indeed. The flight was two thirds empty and only took 70 minutes. Five nights here at the Novotel then up to Pattaya…

We were all excited to be finally heading to Ho Chi Minh City. I say all but Fiona is Scottish so it was a stretch for her but she did the best she could. So eager to get there we'd elected to skip lunch. On the way into HCMC our…

On Tuesday we left early as we had to be at the Vietnamese border by 12pm. The traffic leaving PP was atrocious. We had a four hour journey and many of us were trying to sleep but every now and then the bus would hit a pothole violent enough to…

Like many inhabitants of Southeast Asia, Cambodians don't buy a family car: they buy a family motorbike that can accommodate up to six people. Remaining "slim" is therefore a requirement for outings on the family transportation device. One way to retain the sylphlike physique is through a diet of insects…

Three days in Cambodia have left us all with a sense of awe for this relatively small nation in Southeast Asia which is still recovering from the brutality of the Pol Pot regime. There are now 15m people living here which is less than a quarter that of Thailand. Back…

Our cycling group met on Sunday afternoon in the hotel lobby. There are 14 of us: 6 men, 8 women ranging from 21 to 63 years old and already I sense some blog worthy moments ahead. Our tour guide is a Thai chap named Tom. His English is only passable…

At the boarding gate at Heathrow I was struck by the number of single middle-aged men who didn't look like they were going on a business trip. And I was one of them. I tried my best NOT to look like a sex tourist but it wasn't an easy task…

We sailed into Messina on the northeastern tip of Sicily on Tuesday morning looking forward to our day on the largest island in the Mediterranean. The top five are Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, Corsica, Crete. Sicily is separated from the mainland by the Strait of Messina which at its narrowest is…

Saturday was our final sea day and if the highlight was having my torso smothered in seaweed, fitted with electrodes and connected to a power supply with the aim of instantly losing an inch from my waist, then the low point was being talked in to a game of scrabble…

Rhodes After a sea day we stopped at Rhodes which is the largest island in the Dodecanese Islands which are a group of 15 larger islands and 150 smaller ones. Other than Rhodes, Kos and Patmos are the most well known. The tip of Rhodes is only 12 miles from…

Overnight we had sailed north to Haifa which is Israel's third largest city and the name Haifa is a female name meaning slender (unlike the English term Heifer meaning not so slender).  I was booked on another tour only this time Brenda and Susan had abandoned me and found a…

Ashdod is the main port of Israel located about 25 miles north of the Gaza Strip. We were booked on a tour (I think the whole ship was booked on a tour) and we headed about 50 miles inland to Jerusalem.  Israel is a small country with 8 million people…

Friday 21st was a sea day followed by a gala dinner. We had 5 new table mates and to say it didn't go well would be an understatement. After dinner Brenda, Susan and I had a post-mortem about our dining experience in the hot tub. I drank a little too…