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Plitvice: Deep Gorges and Gorgeous Villages
About a 40 minute drive north of Mukinje is the incredibly picturesque village of Rastoke, which is so utterly charming that it’s difficult to know where to start to describe it in words. But we’ll give it a go…. Two rivers converge in the village, but one, the Slunjcica, enters at high level from the mountains; the other, the Korana, flows in from the bottom of the deep gorge and therefore at a much lower level. Consequently, the waters of the Slunjcica cascade down a series of waterfalls and rapids, flowing into the larger Korana in multiple places throughout the village. In fact, much of Rastoke is effectively built on…
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From The Sea To The Lakes
Saturday morning’s rainstorm has just about cleared by the time we pick up the hire car and head off on the road trip section of this adventure. With the Adriatic on all sides of the city bar one, the only way out by road is the steep climb up and over the mountains which form such a dramatic backdrop to this part of the Dalmatian coastline. For our journey northwards from Split, we ignore the motorways and head along smaller roads through great plateaux of green between the rolling hills, passing through quaint towns and sweeping valleys as we make our way towards Plitvicka Jezera, the Lake District of Croatia.…
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Our Split Shift
Red tiled rooftops descend the slopes down towards the sun soaked bay of deep blue waters, restaurants and bars line the well heeled seafront promenade, ancient characterful buildings speak of troubled pasts and fierce pride in equal measure. The labyrinthine old town, nestling between the mostly still standing walls of the ancient palace which form a perfect square around its perimeter, oozes spirit and character from its every stone. Tiny cramped streets lead you to inviting piazzas, the crumbling stone gates of the old city open out on to the waterfront esplanade known by locals as the Riva, swifts fill the warm air feeding their young nesting in holes in…
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Croatia: The Adventure Begins
The city of Split is said to have first become a major settlement when the Roman emperor Diocletian stood down from his role and retired here in 304AD, the magnificent palace built for him in this stunning bay was therefore effectively his retirement home. We don’t suppose our arrival here on the second trip of our own retirement will create quite such a stir however; in fact, we couldn’t even get into our room. Back home in the UK we are all still being encouraged to avoid unnecessary use of public transport so it’s a cab rather than the customary train which takes us to Gatwick. It costs £80. The…
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Split Decision
It’s four months now since we escaped Vietnam as the world closed its doors and our dream year of travelling fell apart after just 49 days and 3 countries. For the most part we have spent the intervening 123 days keeping ourselves safe and watching developments, always with one eye on borders reopening and controls loosening. And at last things are moving. The UK now finds itself at the pinch point of weighing up a virus which has not yet gone away against a pressing need to reboot the economy, with the travel industry at the forefront of that reboot. This has seen the creation of so called “travel corridors”,…
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Nobody Told Me There’d Be Days Like These…
……strange days indeed…. It seems impossible that it was only a week ago today that matters really started to unravel and it became more and more obvious that we needed to get out of Vietnam. Such is the unique nature of life in the UK just now that it seems a lot more than five days since we arrived home. There’s not really much point dwelling on our lost dream, difficult as it may be for us, when the scale of what the world is dealing with right now is so immense. At the end of the day, when all this is history, we will, hopefully, be ready to pack…
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Glad To Be Home, Gutted To Be Home
First things first, we got home. The euphoria of escaping Vietnam was soon replaced by the sadness of losing our dream year after 7 weeks, which was in turn soon replaced by the stark reality of how much life has changed back here in the UK, and how insignificant are our own experiences in the face of this crisis. After almost 24 hours travelling home we had missed the latest developments and quickly tried to appraise ourselves by scouring the internet as we neared home. And it seems the new buzz words are social distancing. We couldn’t have imagined what was going to happen when we set off on what…
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Our Place In The World As The World Collapses
And so we pick up our story from our eviction from Tuan Chau…. For 4 hours we sit at the offices of Halong Tours, at first outside and later, as it chills, inside with the lovely Nhur Minh (aka Julian), who is incredibly sweet and helpful and looks after us for those four hours, from providing water to reassuring chat to organising our driver. Nothing is too much trouble for her. We will never forget these four hours. As we sit here, scared and bewildered, news is changing at an incredible rate as nation after nation take extreme measures to combat the pandemic. Everything is collapsing across the globe and…
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Halong Bay, Coronavirus And Us
In the few days we’ve been in Hanoi, the news around the COVID-19 outbreak has raced on, both at home in the UK and across the world. And as these days unfold, so the evidence of change becomes more obvious here too: we are issued with face masks; Michaela is refused entry to a shop simply due to her Western appearance, and the talk of our next destinations on this trip being on shutdown is escalating. So we are only half surprised when our bus to Halong Bay fails to show, and the message comes through that they are refusing to take us on board because we are British. It…
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Laos – Luang Prabang
As the mighty Mekong swings its way through northern Laos, a tributary, the Nam Khan, no small river itself, sweeps around to join the Mekong at a 45 degree angle. In the resulting triangular peninsula sits Luang Prabang, a UNESCO world heritage site with a reputation of being one of the most beautiful places in South East Asia. Here is the story of our 5 days in Luang Prabang. The Town Expectations were high coming here, based on many blogs and commentaries, and, as we all know, high expectations can often lead to disappointment. Not here though: everything about Luang Prabang is delightful, from its mix of Lao housing and…
