Posts by alexhumpage

Coming here ranks as my most unusual arrival into a country in my life so far. The boat we'd taken from the Malaysian side arrived into Tarakan. A typical border town, with zero to recommend it. It berthed not against the pier but adjacent to another boat, with the only door on the side facing the open ocean. Fully laden with all our belongings we climbed around one slender hull, then delicately across a second before hauling ourselves up on to the rustiest, most derelict pier in southeast Asia. Welcome to Indonesia.

It's 85 days since we left the UK on our big adventure. Assuming the longer end of our time scale this puts us at a tiny bit under 20% of the trip so far.

As several friends and family have acknowledged, 12 to 14 months.com is yet to see the number of intended updates and posts detailing our journey so far (although Céline has been much better than I, especially if you're reading in French). 

The amount of things we have seen and done so far has been truly breathtaking in their scale, and many of the experiences almost defy description. The last two weeks traveling through Borneo have been particularly notable, with superb wildlife both on land and under water. In just the last week we found the kind of island paradise which at points of my life I've wondered even existed in the world - just the two of us and our boat man, and the most beautiful blue sea and sandy beaches with not another soul for miles.

Hello everyone and thanks for your patience so far. 

Finding an internet connection in Myanmar sufficient enough to post to our newly formed website has proven tricky so we're not as up to date as we would like. That said, as you can see it is taking shape and you'll find our full proposed itinerary using the toolbars on the left.

In terms of what we've done so far, we had a great fortnight in India with Charlotte and Doug, traveling around Kerala, taking in backwater canoe tours, cooking classes and some beach time. 

Following that was an impromptu week in Malaysia; time to sort out our visas for Myanmar as well as fit in our first dives of the trip on the relative paradise of the Perhentian islands on the east coast. The highlight though was two days in Penang taking in the UNESCO old colonial city of Georgetown, with some splendid street food and street art. 

We're now in Myanmar, and after a few days in the cities we've been exploring the glut of Buddhist temples in Bagan (see below), and we're soon to board a ten hour public bus heading to Inle lake.

More fully formed thoughts on where we've been and what we've seen will follow - hopefully with a decent internet connection in Thailand en route to the Philippines. Until then, we're very well and enjoying every minute.

Alex & Céline