Hello! My memory of events in the UK, and Germany, is sketchy. I had gone home for two weeks solely to attend a stag party and a wedding, and to catch up with old friends in my hometown, and hence I spent much of the time inebriated. I had such a great time though and enjoyed being back in the UK much more than I had eight months earlier. I'm sure that this was due to the greater sense of purpose that I felt about what I was doing with my life this time, tha...

Hello! It has been a long time since I have written anything in this blog and I was even thinking that I might leave it altogether; but so many funny things have happened lately that have reminded me of the value of recording my experiences. This blog goes back to where I left off in June 2011. After leaving the Philippines I found myself once again in Taipei, Taiwan, my two visits to this city forming brackets around my eight-month trip to Australia and ...

Hello! The next week was a little up and down: a great little adventure, but one which I would have preferred to have had more time to enjoy. It was a classic case of not being able to do exactly what I wanted to do (i.e. go to Palawan), or to have the freedom to make mistakes, explore, and seek out the best locations to spent time in - the sort of freedom I was afforded when travelling around Latin America. So, for my last few days in the Philippines I had ...

Hello! After a very rushed trip from Indonesia to the Philippines, punctuated by a very welcome 5-hour transit at the world's most entertaining airport (Changi in Singapore), I eventually arrived at my hostel in the Makarti Avenue area of Manila. I stayed in a very peculiar place called Our Melting Pot, which was essentially a penthouse apartment in a very posh development which they'd just jammed a bunch of bunk beds into. A great idea, and a friendly place...

Hello! Having already witnessed one magnificent volcano in Java, I decided to skip the famous Bromo mountain (which I'd heard was looking a bit ashen these days anyway) and headed straight to Yogyakarta, where I was to stay until the end of my trip in Indonesia. Yogyakarta (Yogya) is Java's second city: Jakarta represents the grey and polluted financial powerhouse, and Yogya the vibrant centre of Javanese arts, culture and heritage. Unlike Banyuwangi, Yogya ...