Articles from this Category
23 August 2015
Today is the beginning of the end when I finish the adventures and relaxation and proceed to Kuching for time with family before flying back to reality in Auckland in less than two weeks. We had set the alarm for 0600 to catch breakfast at the hotel before getting on the 0730 dhoni to Male. […]
21 August 2015
We did two dives during our stay at Maafushi. Most people would probably consider the dives we experienced to be quite good, but I am fortunate that I can access top-class sites like Sipadan relatively easily. So, the dives we had here were OK. Diving does depend on luck and exactly which dive site you […]
21 August 2015
Introduction We did two dives at Maafushi (a handy but beautiful island only about 90 minutes from Male). There were three dive operators on the island. Shark Diving & Watersports (which we dived with because they were straight up and no-nonsense). They gave us a discounted price of USD35 per dive including all equipment (without discussing […]
20 August 2015
We were pleased to see our noisy mainland neighbours move out today. Little did we know till the evening that a bigger group of mainlanders were moving in. After breakfast, Kim spent a bit of time catching up with friends on the internet till mid-morning when we walked to the beaches. We walked east past […]
19 August 2015
Despite the 2h time difference, I woke up surprisingly early at 0745. We both wanted a sluggish start and didn’t take breakfast till 0845. In view of our 1500 departure to Maafushi, we opted to stay in till check-out at 1200. I edited photos while Kim read his book. We had lunch at a waterfront […]
18 August 2015
We got our boarding passes an hour prior to departure; we were seated in the same noisy area as our two previous Emirates Boeing 777-300ER flights. We were fortunate again to have a spare seat to be shared between us. Due to a different configuration, there was a wall immediately behind us which blocked off […]
1 August 2015
After breakfast, we walked out of the old city to a taxi stand in order to have better competition and bargaining power for our ride to Dakshinkali. We managed to get a price slightly lower than that asked for by the hotel’s taxi driver. The ride took about 45 minutes. Once we left the valley, […]
31 July 2015
After five nights in Kathmandu, we still hadn’t walked around Durbar Square yet. The weather was dull but dry so we made our way there after dropping laundry off (NPR50 per kg) and having breakfast. The destruction at Durbar Square was really bad. Key stupas are gone; the wooden structures have fallen leaving leaving behind […]
30 July 2015
Having experienced a taste of the monsoon yesterday afternoon, we decided to repeat our early start in case the afternoon was wet and gloomy. We taxied to Patan (Lalitpur) which we didn’t visit last time. The taxi dropped us at the north end of Durbar square and where the ticket kiosk wasn’t (it just happened […]
29 July 2015
We set the alarm for 0615 and got going early for Pashupatinath, which we reached by taxi. We got dropped off before the stalls of trinkets and flowers which were aimed mainly at local devotees. We walked to the main temple area into which we weren’t admissible (but we knew that). We found our way […]