It’s been a while since our last blog post so let me give you all a quick update on the Ramble. I’m happy to report that we have arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland and that we will be arriving in Perth, Scotland later today! It’s hard to believe that after 5 and a half months of driving and 5 years of planning that the journey is almost over. I’ll have more blog posts up over the next couple of months as…
With the pillars of Zhangjiajie behind us we continued our drive towards the north of China. We were interested in seeing one of the large engineering marvels of China, the Three Gorges Dam. Unfortunately due to the long drive we did not have much time and the only close up viewings we available exclusively through long bus tours, but we got to observe this very large piece of concrete from a nearby bridge. Our next stop was the major city…
Our time in the high altitudes of the Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (where it is culturally and ethnically Tibetan) drawing to a close we packed the car and started driving down the mountain to the major city of Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province. Our Chengdu adventures started with a trip to the People’s Park to view a Chinese Opera. This is very different to a European Opera, we heard music from a Chinese orchestra, very high pitched singing…
Our journey through South East Asia complete we pulled up with our convoy at the Boten China border and met our guide from Navo Tours, Leo at the very end of May 2017. We chose to use Navo Tours as they handle all the documentation and communication in regards to bringing our car into China. They also provide a guide for the journey who can translate, assist with finding accommodation and answer any questions about China ranging from food to finding…
Laos is a very laid back country with friendly locals, tasty food and spectacular scenery. We spent the last few days of May 2017 here as we drove north to meet our convoy before we crossed the Chinese border. We drove towards the first major town, Pakse and enjoyed the green scenery interspersed with locals and huts. Arriving in Pakse, we stopped for a bite to eat by communicating in our introductory Lao and pointing at the menu. Thankfully…
OLIVER took longer than we expected to arrive into Phnom Penh such that we only had 6 days to cross Laos and arrive at the China border to meet our convoy. Needless to say we were eager to get going and explore the world! Once we had confirmation from the shipping company OLIVER had arrived we were driven to the shipping yard and the container was opened and OLIVER was driven out into Cambodia at the end of May 2017!…
A trip to Cambodia could not be completed without a trip to Angkor Wat, an area comprising a large number of Buddhist and Hindu temples in the west of Cambodia. We explored this area in mid May 2017. We were still waiting for OLIVER to arrive so we took a bus out from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, the closest town to Angkor Wat. We made a mix up with the bus tickets therefore we got moved to a mini…
As we travel around the globe we have found a number of apps that are great for large road trips, travelling in a group and travelling in general. Settle Up Tracking expenses among a group can be time consuming and potentially stressful but Settle Up has helped us solve this issue. It give us a shared expenses book that is synced online to a Google account and allows any of us to enter expenses and track how much each person…
With our car in a shipping container heading towards Singapore and then onto Sihanoukville, we decided to explore Cambodia while we waited for its arrival. First on the list was the capital Phnom Penh which we checked out over the first few weeks of May 2017. Alastair and I arrived from Singapore with Tonina waiting for us at the airport. Bags by our side, our Airbnb host had arranged a Tuk Tuk driver for us to take us to our accommodation…
Before beginning the Ramble, Alastair and I (Richard) made a 47 hour stopover in Singapore at the start of May 2017 to check out the sites and bites of this island nation. We left Perth and flew 6 hours up to Changi Airport. After navigating through Immigration, Baggage Retrieval and Quarantine we found the MRT and journeyed towards Chinatown station to find the accommodation for our small side trip. I got very excited as it just occurred to me we…