Currency:United Arab Emirates Dirham (Dh or AED) Highlights:Seeing the tallest building in the world, catching up with more mates Our Adventure: Dubai is surreal - you really do feel like you've stepped into someone's man-made dream - and in a sense you have in that Dubai has become a reality of several sheiks' dreams. It has a reputation for being the city of superlatives - for the fastest, biggest, tallest, largest and highest, Dubai is the destination. Du...

Currency:Maldivian Rufiyaa Highlights:Being in paradise Our Adventure: Welcome to paradise!! Our seaplane skimmed the surface of the crystal-clear ocean water and Shaun and I turned to each other and smiled, not needing to say anything, just acknowledging that we had indeed arrived in paradise. The Republic of Maldives is an island country in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of 26 atolls. The atolls of Maldives encompass a territory spread over roug...

Currency:Sri Lanka Rupee Highlights:"The Best Beach in the World", relaxing in the peaceful and beautiful beach town of Unawatuna Our Adventure: The road from India to Sri Lanka was a long and hard one and consisted of the following: • A journey that took us through the following cities: Varkala - Trivandrum - Mumbai - Colombo.• First up was a packed 45 minute train ride from Varkala to Trivandrum which was delayed by an hour and a half. There w...

Currency:Indian Rupee Highlights:The backwaters, chilling out on the beach in Varkala Our Adventure: Day 1 - Buses, Boats & Trains It was a day of travelling that rivalled all others. It started off with a bus ride from Kumily to Kottyam - but this wasn't just any bus ride as there were only local buses that did this route. Given our terrifying experience with our private driver to get to Kumily, we figured it couldn't get much worse and so we decided t...

Currency:Indian Rupee Highlights:Being in nature again away from the hustle and bustle. Our Adventure: Day 1 - Getting to Periyara A dream for many people is to see a tiger in the wild so this is what the 6 of us set off to do when we headed for Periyara, South India's most popular wildlife sanctuary (777 sq km with 46 tigers!). From Kochi, there is only one public transport option - the local bus. Having seen the local bus, we hurriedly tried to think of a...