Caye Caulker, Belize

We had been wondering whether the extra few dollars to get the ADO GL service instead of the standard bus was going to be worth it.  The free can of soft drink as we boarded was pretty exciting, but the almost fully reclining seats were even more so!  7.5 hours later we arrived in Chetumal on the Mexican border, having slept reasonably comfortably for most of the journey.  Then we changed to another bus to take us across the border to Belize city, and then rapidly escaped to the beautiful island of Caye Caulker.  Due to Claire's longstanding obsession with all things purple, we wandered down the coast to the purple beach huts that we had spotted from the boat as we sailed in.  Despite the flaking paint and extremely basic nature of the accommodation, the location right on the edge of the sea and by the mangroves, plus the individual balconies and hammocks, made these a very enjoyable place to stay for our few days on the island.

 On the boat to Caye Caulker

Matt relaxing in our hammock 

We spent most of Monday lazing around by the beach, with a spot of swimming thrown in just to keep us nicely chilled.  In the evening we headed up the coast for some BBQed lobster and fish, freshly caught of course!

 Dinner!

On Tuesday we headed out to the reef for some snorkelling.  Along with the multitude of colourful fish and coral, we also saw some sharks, rays and a couple of eels.  In the evening it was time for more BBQed catch of the day.  Tasty!  Then on Wednesday we hopped on the boat to start our journey back to Mexico.

 snorkelling Matt!

More photos to follow when we get some better internet access. . .

Palenque

Whilst wondering round the museum at the entrance to Palenque ruins we spotted a sentence on one of the displays which stated that Palenque is the wettest place in Mexico.  We believe it!  Luckily the frequent rain showers (and constant overnight rainstorm) didn't interfere too much with our sightseeing though.  We spent an enjoyable few hours on Friday exploring the ruins and climbing up and down hundreds of steps (Claire's calves aren't really enjoying the post-marathon recovery for some reason!).  The ruins were even more stuck in the middle of the jungle than Uxmal, and the Indiana Jones feel was becoming more prominent.

The ruins at Palenque

View from our hammock!

 On Saturday we headed off at some silly time in the morning to get a bus out to Bonampak and Yaxchilan.  After pausing en-route for a tasty Mexican style buffet breakfast, we arrived at Bonampak and went off to explore the famous Mayan paintings.  Then we headed for Yaxchilan, which involved a boat trip in which it is very likely that we strayed into Guatemalan water.  We survived though and spent a lovely couple of hours wondering up and down yet more stairs in the ruins, but this time with the added bonus of being surrounded by howler monkeys.  After a late lunch we then headed back to Palenque to get on the second of our night buses.

Paintings at Bonampak

A howler monkey, if you look closely (a bit like our wild orang-utan photo from Borneo!)

 

Claire climbing up more stairs at Yaxchilan

San Cristobal

Lonely Planet describe Madre Tierra as 'San Cristobal's best breakfast place', which sounded like just what we needed when we arrived on Wednesday morning after our 14 hour bus ride. We were greeted promisingly with the aromas from the attached bakery as we settled down in the courtyard garden and ordered our food. The fresh bread that came with our coffees more than lived up to expectations and we were almost in danger of not leaving room for the tasty huevos mexicanos and chilaquiles that followed. (Just to make sure that breakfast hadn't been so good just because it followed such a long journey, we returned to Madre Tierra for thursday's breakfast. It was still tasty and so we also visited the bakery to stock up on brownies and cinnamon raisin buns for our next bus journey!)

 Matt relaxing in the garden of Madre Tierra after our big bus trip




We spent most of Wednesday wandering lazily around the sights of  San Cristobal sampling some very good local coffee. We managed to see all of the rather pretty local churches, and of course Dr Claire couldn't leave town without a trip to the Mayan Medicine Museum!

 Claire enjoying a Mexicano coffee (it has tequila in!)

 One of San Cristobal's many churches

On Thursday morning we got in a bit of altitude training and some more sightseeing before heading to the bus station for our 5 hour bus trip to Palenque.

 Matt got a bit left behind on our little morning jog!

 San Cristobal market

The buses so far have run pretty much on time but this bus didn't show up and everyone was transferred onto the next bus which left an hour later. We didn't think that was too bad , but they hadn't let us know that this bus took a somewhat longer route to Palenque. When we told we were still about 2 hours away after being on the road for 7 hours, we could at least console ourselves with the fact that we could add Tabasco to the list of Mexican states we had travelled through. Oh, and Matt informed Claire that she had now had a glimpse of what the majority of the country is actually like, as she had got to experience the smoggy traffic jams most of Mexico lives with.  Claire was just relieved that we´d made our morning visit to the bakery at Madre Tierra.

Mexico!!!

Having failed to resurrect the blog when we travelled to central Europe, and again when we went to China, we thought that a holiday in Mexico would be a good opportunity to finally dive back into the blogging world!

After celebrating the start of a well earned (Matt`s been working very hard and Claire ran a mararathon!) holiday with a Mojito at Miami airport, we arrived safely in Cancun and hopped in a shuttle taxi to get to our hostel.  We had a slightly amusing journey which involved two drop offs at some very posh and swanky looking resorts, followed by a journey down the backstreets of downtown Cancun to our dark and scruffy looking hostel.  All was fine inside though, although the Harry Potter theme disappointingly only extended as far as the room names and there weren't any Hogwarts decorations anywhere.

We weren't too sorry to make a swift departure from the very touristy-looking Cancun, heading for Merida early on Sunday morning.  We arrived in time to see the weekend fiesta in full swing, with the town square full of colourful bunting, live bands, and plenty of tasty food stalls.

A yard of Margarita!

Fiesta in Merida town square.

On Monday we had a very early start to get out to the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza before the tourist crowds got too heavy.  The site was impressively large and we got to see lots and lots of Mayan architecture before the heat got the better of us and we were forced to settle down in the cafe with a Michelada or two :-)  This prepared us nicely for a spot of salsa dancing when we returned to the hostel.  (Matt was far better at the hip waggling than Claire, who is obviously still recovering from the marathon!)

Big pyramid at Chichen Itza

Claire & Michelada = :-)

On Tuesday it was off to some more ruins, this time the quieter site of Uzmal.  There was much more of an 'Indiana Jones' feel to the ruins here as the place was completely surrounded by jungle, you could wander right in amongst the ruins, and there weren't hundreds of people around trying to sell souvenirs to you!  When we returned from Uxmal we had time for a spot of yummy Yucatan dinner to fuel us up for the upcoming 13-14 hour night bus to San Cristobal. . .

Matt at Uxmal

Singapore

The final stop on our travels is Singapore. We began with a visit to the botanic gardens (well no city visit is complete otherwise!). There were some lovely lakes filled with turtles and lilypads and plenty of tropical trees and flowers. The highlight was the orchid garden though, where we saw hundreds of beautiful orchid varieties and were even lucky(?) enough to bump into Maggie Thatcher.

One of the lakes in the gardens

A few of the orchids

Margaret Thatcher (we jest not!)

After our stroll round the gardens we went to the colonial district and saw lots of old buildings and statues, including one of Sir Stamford Raffles (founder of modern Singapore).

Sir Stamford Raffles (check out that tropical rain!)

The Merlion, mascot of Singapore

In the evening we felt obliged to head to the Bar & Billiard Room at the famous Raffles Hotel for a Singapore Sling. We had intended to go somewhere slightly less classy and expensive for dinner but Matt got a sniff of the buffet dinner and we somehow never left. Oh well, with 8 courses we definitely got our money's worth (it was very yummy too, especially the desserts)!!

Claire with her Singapore Sling, invented at the Raffles

Now we just have a few hours left then time for the long flight back home. See you all soonish :-)

Malacca

Our final stopover in Malaysia was in the historical city of Malacca, which was home to Portugese, Dutch, British and Japanese colonial masters and has been the home of lots of chinese people for centuries.

The only remaining part of the portugese fort, A'Famosa

The main attraction to Malacca though was the beautiful old Chinatown, full of century-old buildings and old chinese blokes trying to flog you trishaw tours. There was a chinese temple on every corner and the smell of incense filled the air. It was like stepping into a whole different world and well worth the visit.

The interior of one of the temples, I haven't a clue what any of it means though

Pulau Tioman

From Taman Negara we zipped our way down the east coast to a beautiful tropical island called Pulau Tioman. Staying in a hut just yards from the sandy beach and surrounded by palm trees, we tucked into freshly caught barbecued barracuda as the sun set over the ocean on our first evening. The next day we ran inland, up over the hill and down towards the village on the undeveloped far side of the island. Those who haven't experienced tropical heat won't realise quite how hard it is to run for two hours in temperatures of over 30 degrees and humidity of 90% (and don't forget the humungous hill!)

Post-run, we found something a litlle more relaxing to do. There is a coral reef just metres off the beach in Pulau Tioman, and for the cost of snorkel hire (about 50p!) you can see all sorts of brightly coloured tropical fish, evil looking spiky sea urchins and even the odd turtle (very cool!). Unfortunately, we have to return to England, or we would have had longer to lie back and enjoy the island and the snorkelling, maybe next time!

Taman Negara National Park

We spent a few nights in a jungle village just across the river from the national park. Unfortunately Matt was a bit poorly so he spent most of the time lying in a hammock reading Harry Potter while Claire went across the river to do some exploring.

Matt has a well earned rest

View from one of the BIG hills that Claire climbed ALONE!

Batu Caves

Due to a slight mishap involving passports (wasn't my fault, I didn't lose them, honest!! - Claire) we were forced to return to KL. After being pleasantly surprised by the lack of queuing at the embassy we headed north of the city to the Hindu shrine at Batu caves. There were lots of statues everywhere including some very big ones, and the caves themselves were pretty huge.

There were also lots and lots (and lots) of monkeys, including some cute baby ones: