A bat crash-landed on our bed.I say bed, but it was really just a piece of tarpaulin laid out on the floor of our camp, deep in the jungles of Borneo. Perhaps the bat was confused by the light from our candles flickering feebly in the night breeze, no match for the deep darkness that lay thick around us. While Andrew and I leapt up in shock, the dazed bat pulled itself along on spiky elbows, its leathery wings stretching and contracting as our local guide, Ganya, herded it away from our camp.
20 August, 2013 /

We’ve seen some incredible sunsets since we set off on the road almost six months ago, here’s a selection of our best sunset pictures to date - what do you think of them?

16 August, 2013 /
You never know what you’re going to get when you arrive in a new country.  We've found that those first few hours and even moments after emerging from the airport can entirely colour the way you feel about the place; while we immediately fell in love with Melbourne, for example,  we just as instantly detested Jakarta. Unfortunately, those first few days in Jakarta really stained our whole experience in Indonesia, so I was nervous about what we'd encounter in our next destination. Would Malaysia be the tonic we needed to help us fall back in love with travel?
11 August, 2013 /

When some poor travel planning and a surprise twist of fate left us with a chance to completely change our travel plans we were left with a dilemma – should we stay in Indonesia as planned or head off somewhere completely new? Here’s what we decided.

07 August, 2013 /
After an idyllic couple of months in Australia and New Zealand we headed to Indonesia where travel well and truly got tough. We were  slapped in the face with culture shock when we arrived in Jakarta, had a hard time negotiating our way through Java, suffered severe bouts of homesickness and struggled to balance work with travel - but we did learn a lot in the process.
04 August, 2013 /
We were looking forward to getting to Asia after more than two months and over £7,000 spent in Australia and New Zealand. Before we arrived we had set ourselves a budget of about £30 per day for backpacking Indonesia (along with the rest of Asia – a little naïve no?). So, we were ready for our costs to dramatically drop from here-on-in but how much did it really cost to travel Indonesia?
31 July, 2013 /

I knew full-well when we set off on this trip that I’d have to confront many issues that morally outrage me such as the global sex trade, homelessness and animal cruelty. These issues are prevalent enough in so called ‘developed’ countries like the UK but we found that as soon as we hit Indonesia they became even more visible; in particular we were struck by the plight of Indonesian street animals.

28 July, 2013 /

We all want to make our hard-earned travel savings last as long as we can on the road, but when Andrew and I got to Indonesia we became obsessed with spending as little as possible, with disastrous results – here’s how becoming travel budget fanatics almost ruined our trip.

25 July, 2013 /

Compared to Australia and New Zealand, we found travelling in Indonesia a bit of a challenge. For a start, we were dealing with a completely new language that neither of us spoke; we were travelling huge distances by often dubious public transportation, coping with strange new foods and an unfamiliar currency – that’s all part of the fun when it comes to travel though, right? When you are heading to a new country though it’s nice to have some insider tips; if you're planning to travel Indonesia we've put together some tips to help you make the most of your trip.

21 July, 2013 /

Thinking of renting a car for your travel adventure? We’ve had great experiences with hire cars so far on our trip; we spent a month exploring New Zealand and also took road trips along the East Coast of Australia and the Great Ocean Road in our very own rental car. Here’s why we recommend travelling by car and some top tips on how to make renting a car as hassle-free and cost-effective as possible.

18 July, 2013 /