The second time we found out the hawker food was even better in Penang, dove the Perhentian Islands, dove with turtles and sharks in Sipadan, and had an amazing experience riding motorcycles in Malaysian Borneo.

This third time, we laid on the beach!

After 6 months in Europe and the UK, we decided to head back to Malaysia to enjoy the tropical climate while Australia warmed up. After a few initial days in Kuala Lumpur, Kelly and I hopped a quick Air Asia flight to Langkawi. It was a short shuttle from the airport to our home for the next few weeks. We had rented a unit unseen at Casa Fina bungalows on Cenang Beach (the main beach in Langkawi). It was a small space, but had reliable internet, hot water, it was clean, modern rooms, and had a small fridge. All we needed at the time, though we were hoping we’d find a place with a kitchen for a decent price after having been on the road eating in restaurants in the EU for the last month or so. After a week or so, we had looked around the town of Kuah and the other nearby beaches and ended up booking the remainder of our time at Casa Fina. It’s nice when your initial online booking instincts end up being right and you don’t have to shuffle somewhere else.

Langkawi is a duty free island. So the majority of people there are purchasing a huge amount of goods from the duty free stores that dot the main streets. It was a great place to buy cheap beer and liquor, chocolates, perfumes, watches, etc. But you had to watch the prices. Just because it was duty free didn’t mean it was cheaper than online options. Mostly, we bought Reese peanut butter cups and a lot of Tiger and Carlsberg beer. ;)

Cenang Beach is approximately 10 minutes from the airport by car and stretches a good kilometer or two down to Pantia Tengah (the really quiet beach). While huge, it isn’t flooded with tourists, or restaurants, or clubs, but there’s a significant occupation of seadoos, jetskis, and parasailing during the day.

There’s a few decent places to eat or have a drink on the beach while watching the sunset, like The Yellow Cafe and our personal favourite Raffi’s bar. At night, Babylon was the place to go for some rasta grooves and cheap beer, or Debbie’s Irish Pub for a pint of Guinness. But all in all, it was a pretty quiet scene. There’s plenty of restaurants along the main road, but opening hours will vary. You’ll find a lot of Chinese, Indian, and Malay cuisine and alcohol licenses will be hit and miss due to the differing religions in the area.

So we worked. And laid on the beach. And hung out at Raffi’s with our favourite bar stars: Bob, Shawm, and Rocky who took very good care of us. And then it rained… So we started hitting up the tourist attractions.

We started off at Crocodile Adventureland! There’s well over 1000 crocodiles in various enclosures. They’re pretty sedate, basking in the sun and rarely moving… until feeding time that is. They put on a few shows a day, but there is this one enclosure with a wooden bridge through the middle and a pool about 3m below with literally hundreds of crocodiles in it. The whole time I was walking on it, I couldn’t help but think what would happen if an earthquake struck or if I ate one too many laksas and collapsed the thing. An employee came along blowing his whistle, and entered the enclosure with a bucket of chicken parts and bundles of fish. After a couple minutes of tossing the bundles to various crocodiles; listening to the ‘CLOMP!’ as their jaws snap shut, he was quite surrounded and backed out of the enclosure while rubbing the croc’s noses with a stick to keep them at bay. They must be well fed because only 10-20 crocs came over for feeding while literally hundreds of others basked on the banks and paid him no interest. We carried on and saw baby crocodiles, caymans, and turtles, as well as a bunch of crocodiles with malformed tails in some sort of breeding/hospital setting. It was interesting, but unguided and without much information posted about what you were looking at, it was short lived past feeding time.

Our next rainy day was spent at Underwater World, literally across the road from our room. We tend to spend a lot of time in aquariums when we aren’t diving, so the Langkawi aquarium was an obvious must. It’s one of the largest aquariums in South East Asia. Its exhibits are divided into zones (temperate, tropical, freshwater, marine, etc) with a range of birds, reptiles, coral, fish, and many creatures we haven’t seen in the other aquariums we’ve visited.

They have a number of penguin exhibits, stingrays and sharks in tanks which you walk underneath. It’s very cool to see the underside of stingrays and sharks for a change! They have otters, jellyfish, lionfish (STAB! – sorry I can’t help myself after months in the Caribbean fighting their invasion), seahorses, and even leafy sea-dragons which I’ve never seen anywhere else.

All in all, it was a really nice aquarium, but it was oddly broken up every few minutes by stations where people were selling tourist nicknacks. There were also a ton of children running about, seemingly without any supervision since they were ignoring the “DO NOT TAP ON TANKS” and “NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY” signs everywhere. I was aghast when one took multiple flash photos of the leafy sea dragon and I watched it physically recoil next to the “can die from shock due to flash photography” sign. Attempting to explain the situation resulted in me getting my photo taken…

Next up was the Langkawi cable car and sky bridge. We actually had to wait for a break in the rain to do that one. If it rains, they close the sky bridge until it dries. The cable car is a little over 2km in length with a middle viewing station before continuing to the top and takes around 1/2 hour round trip, minus any time spent hiking the sky bridge. The steepest gradient is 42 degrees and it rises 680m from the base to the peak.

To put that in some perspective, the Sugarloaf mountain cable car in Brazil is only 396m high. Kelly had a few freak outs when we’d roll past and bounce over some of the posts that support the cables. As much as it was like a fast lift up the ski hills back home, this was significantly higher and steeper!

The sky bridge itself spans 125m between two peaks with a vertical drop of 700m. Honestly, it scared the bejeezus out of me. I had to shuffle across this thing holding the rail, not looking down, and the movement of the stone rails laid across the metal frame really freaked me out. I’m not a sissy about heights when anchored to the ground in some fashion, but with the fog and wind and… yeah, scary! Both Kelly and I definitely had our moments on this outing, though the views were fantastic when the fog broke.

Lastly, we decided to hit up the night market in Kuah in hopes of finding some hawker food to rival our previous Malaysian street food experiences. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. While the night market has a lot of good food like satay and murtabak, it couldn’t compare to the hawker stalls of Penang and Kuala Lumpur with their seafood culinary bonanza.

We wandered for a while eating fish balls and other appetizers, but didn’t find any laksa, fresh seafood grill or bbq, or decent noodles, and ended up sitting down at a nearby Chinese restaurant for some crispy pork (a rarity in a lot of Malaysia), rice and veggies.

Overall, we struggled to find a lot of stuff to do to occupy ourselves in Langkawi, but at the same time we really enjoyed the slower pace of the island after our time back in civilization. I’d definitely go back for a relaxing beach vacation and would next time rent a bike to explore the other side of the island more thoroughly. All in all, it was a month well spent.

Read the original article here: Malaysia, the third time around – Langkawi

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1. Malaysia and Canada travel budgets
2. Week 42: Penang, Malaysia
3. Week 41: From Bali to Malaysia

Shortly, after realizing we were mistaken about the visa requirements and only had 3 months because of the EU Schengen Agreement, I took on a large amount of freelance contract work and costly train tickets kept us from roaming too far.

So we checked out a windmill:

Tried some local beers:

And went to the Heineken ‘Museum’:

We took a canal tour:

Then went on a canal booze cruise with some new and old friends:

We ate a lot of fried food…and pancakes:

Rags came to visit!:

So did some other dive buddies:

…on a tugboat in Urk:

We took an extended weekend and jumped the train to Bruges, Belgium:

There were lots of old people and old buildings:

We went for a local brewery tour:

And of course, we tried some local beers:

We ate Belgian chocolate and mussels and frites:

We flew to England to check out the sites and to shop:

It rained, a lot:

But we had fun:

…with more dive buddies:

We took a train and a ferry to Dublin:

to say ‘Hullo’ to Geoff and Charlotte:

We saw some street performers:

Visited the Guinness brewery:

And had a real pint of the black stuff:

Then my computer crapped out and we had to head back to Amsterdam for backups and a new computer. So I booked the right plane ticket on the wrong day. I’m no longer allowed to book flights.

…without checking with the boss:

We spent a few more weeks in Amsterdam, doing what the locals do. Hanging out in parks, BBQing, dodging bikes and trams. Then we flew to Croatia. Currently, Croatia and Turkey are the only 2 EU countries that are not part of the Shengen Agreement so Croatia would be our haven for a month till things warmed up elsewhere. We decided to spend the first couple weeks in Pula. It’s a medium sized town with plenty of shopping and a lot of resort accommodation on the beaches. Which are in reality really rocky bluffs and rocks, with some more rocks.

The food was okay. We cooked a lot at home, but would go out for a pivo (beer) in the evening or have a slivovica (croatian spirit, kind of like shnapps or brandy depending on the kind) or try a local wine.

We went to the Croatian Film Festival and on another night to the Jack Johnson concert at the Pula amphitheater. What an amazing venue under the stars!

After a few weeks in Pula, it was starting to feel like Kellerman’s resort in Dirty Dancing. Everything near the beach resorts was mini golf and dance lessons, with a really family oriented vibe and kids everywhere.

So we headed an hour North to Rovinj; an old fishing village, and rented a suite 20 minutes walk from the main square. Rovinj was much more scenic with its cobblestone streets, the Esplanade, and the cliffside restaurants leading up to the church which towers over the town.

The food was remarkably better, though I still have little idea what real Croatian cuisine tastes like. Croatia as a whole caters heavily to Italians on vacation, so pizza and pasta was everywhere. Though there was plenty of seafood and we had an amazing 11 course dinner at Monte for my birthday. There was a lot of foams, mousse, and flames involved. In the end, it was around $10 per course per person for what would have easily been a few hundred dollars each at a fancy restaurant back in North America… with a bottle of wine!

After 2 weeks, we took a fast ferry to Venice and stayed just outside the city so we didn’t have to haul all our luggage through the canals. Only 10 minutes away by bus, we’d head into the city each day to endlessly wander the alleys, getting lost in our hunt for cicchetti (Italian snacks, typically served 4-6pm for the way home from work) and a glass of good red wine. One eventing, we found a great little restaurant serving your choice of 3 different platters (meat, cheeses, or seafood) and they even bottle their own beer! Yum.

We flew to London after a few days, to pay another visit to our friends Liz and Jez (Thanks again for the house!) who were busy dodging imaginary hurricanes in New York. While they were away we did some shopping and ate jerk chicken at the Notting Hill Carnival.

After a few days in London we hopped another train… this time to the south west of England. To a town called Newquay on the Cornish coast. Newquay is a quaint little place known mostly for it’s surf. Pretty much everyone who comes here is here for the waves. Being the tropical beach bums that we are, we decided to give the frigid English waters a miss, and contently watch the surfers from the warmth of the pub instead.

With not much to offer other than surfing, we quickly ran out of things to do in Newquay. We had a few more days to kill before our dive trip to Egypt, so we decided to check out Brighton and spend a couple more days on the English Coast. Brighton is less than an hour train ride south of London making it a popular weekend getaway. There are lots of interesting streets to explore, and a great selection of restaurants. We had some really yummy Thai one night and even managed to find a Vietnamese Pho restaurant. It was funny to be loading up on Asian food less than 2 weeks before leaving for Malaysia, but it was a nice change after all the English pub food we’d been consuming over the rainy couple of weeks.

After Brighton we headed back up to London. We had one last night out with Liz & Jez, dropped off some extra gear at their place and jumped a flight to Egypt with our dive buddies from Honduras, Jose and Alex.

Spending a week on a liveaboard from Marsa Alam down to Fury Shoal, chasing hammerhead sharks, leopard rays, guitar sharks, and hunting for huge green turtles and dugongs 3 times a day (Unfortunately, we didn’t find a dugong). It was a great week of diving, relaxing, and we met a bunch of folks from Wales and Australia. Shame we didn’t get to actually see much of Egypt through. We went from plane to boat and back to the plane with little more than a few hours of Egyptian soil beneath our feet. The Red Sea was wonderful though. Quite warm, I ditched the wetsuit for most of our dives. I haven’t been able to do that since our first trip to Roatan in 2009! Think I’m getting acclimated to the tropical life? ;)

Returning to London, we then called an end to the European/UK leg of our adventure and boarded a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a month before we continue on to Australia. While I feel like I missed out on visiting a lot of Europe because of our visa silp up, I still feel like we did a lot considering our office hours. I’m looking forward to going back in a couple years to explore the rest.

Read the original article here: 5 months in Amsterdam/London/Dublin/Croatia and Egypt – The Pictoral Recap

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1. Philippines Recap
2. Week 39: 9 months in Asia and the things we (will) miss.
3. Week 13: 3 Months Housewarming Party

The first day back, we were just sitting at the dive shop, watching what little traffic there is go by. Adapting back to ‘island time’ hasn’t been hard. It’s nice to be back among the familiar faces in the West End. We made a lot of friends the last time we were here and though many people have come and gone, there’s still a bunch of dive buddies and party pals we’ve reunited with over the last week.

Also, the scuba diving is so much more our style than our Playa del Carmen/Cozumel experience and it’s way more convenient. We can drop in on the shop at the last moment and head out on any of the scheduled dives that day. I’ve missed these near vertical wall dives and even though much of the reef is now densely covered in algae, I’m noticing so many more small critters than before. Although that could be from starting to dive wearing my contact lenses. ;)

Kelly and I scored a great place to stay while we’re here. We met a couple who own a condo in the West End on our previous visit, and when we mentioned coming back they offered it to us at a steal. It’s a fully furnished 2 bedroom, 3 bathroom with 2 balconies, hardwood floors, a well stocked kitchen, and an essential hammock. Needless to say, we’ll be very comfortable for the next couple months.

We stopped in Fort Lauderdale for a few days on our way here. It was a novelty to be back in ‘normal’ society for a while. We went for a good steak, rented a car (first time driving in over a year), and did a ton of shopping. We both got fitted for new wetsuits in preparation for the rainy season dives. Kelly has a new wide angle lens and a dome port for her underwater photos (a very belated birthday gift) and I got a small underwater HD video rig (a slightly belated birthday gift). It’s changed how we dive a lot. We used to be at the back of the pack, letting the silt settle and seeking out the small creatures. Now we’re right up front, fighting for the best unobstructed shots of stingrays and turtles.

It was a logical choice for us to come back. We were looking for good diving, but with the coming hurricane season we were wary of much of the Caribbean. Luckily, Roatan is just outside the hurricane belt. As we’ve already seen numerous times this season, they most often pass north of Roatan. We get a few days of rain and choppy seas as they go by, and it’s not to say that Roatan never gets hit… but we’re pretty well sheltered from the most of it. In the meantime, it’s still smokin’ hot and will stay that way for at least another month before we start carrying our rain gear around with us.

Much like the last time we left Roatan, it’s a wedding that will be pulling us away again. We’ll be headed home to Canada at the end of November. Straight to Whistler for the wedding, hanging around Vancouver for a while, then off to Kelowna for Xmas, and back to Vancouver for New Years. We’re looking forward to coming home for a bit. It’s been over a year since we last saw our families. Though adapting to a Canadian winter again will be… interesting.

Then comes a brand new year, who knows? Maybe we’ll still be caught in the vortex.

Read the original article here: The Return to Roatan

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We packed up our things (including 50 lbs of new dive gear) and headed out the door to catch the 7am ferry from Roatan back to La Ceiba. An hour later we were in a taxi headed to Puerto Cortes, north of San Pedro Sula. We had to stay overnight in Puerto Cortes and booked one night at the Brisas Hotel on Coca Cola beach (named for it’s proximity to the bottling plant). Puerto Cortes was a little thin on entertainment, so we splashed in the pool, had a bite to eat, and retired early along with a new frog buddy who apparently lived in our sink.

The next morning we showed up at the port for the D-Express, a once a week fast ferry from Puerto Cortes to Placencia, Belize. They loaded our bags onto the boat, which is always an interesting affair. Watching 60 year old porters struggle with our bags down into the hold is still uncomfortable, but they refused any help I offered. I’d estimate we have around 200lbs of gear now, but I’m guiltily looking forward to our next flight to confirm our baggage overage. It’s a bit excessive at the moment.

The D-Express crew then drove us to the immigration office in the back of a pickup and we got our exit visas. After which we chatted for 4 hours with a Norwegian couple while the rest of the passengers arrived and went through the same process. We’re nothing if not punctual…

Around 12:30 we left the port on the 50 passenger fast ferry, bouncing across the waves at full throttle, a girl in the front of the boat yelping with each crash and bang of the bow. Thankfully, we’ve learned from previous experiences that the best seat is in the middle of the boat. Not far enough ahead that the bouncing shatters your spine, and not far enough back that you’d get thoroughly soaked by every wave or scorched by the sun.

2 hours later we arrived in Belize. Holy flatness! I think that if you stand on top of a speed bump you can see the other side of Belize. We went through a funny little immigration and customs process where they unload the whole boat 10 minutes from the port, don’t check anything, then load it all back on the boat.

After a short trip to the dock we arrived at Placencia where we were met with the strangest sight of all… nothing. There were no taxis, no vendors, no porters, no anything. We’re so used to being prey for the various tourist predators that lurk around airports and ferry ports, we were truly shocked by the lack of our usual welcoming committee.

Flagging a taxi van, we had a quick ride to the Laru Beya hotel (our home away from home for the next 2 weeks) just as it started to rain. The storm quickly escalated and I’m glad we arrived when we did because the sea quickly turned ugly and that trip could have been a lot more uncomfortable.

Our first impression of Placencia is that it’s a small quaint town. There’s a few nice resorts, a handful of hotels, restaurants, and bars. It’s looks to be a sleepy little place by the sea where can unwind next to the pool, watch the pelicans and frigate birds soar by, eat a pile of shrimp, do a couple dives, and have a few ice cold beverages.

Read the original article here: From Roatan, Honduras to Placencia, Belize

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1. 2 weeks vacationing and diving in Belize
2. From Tamarindo, Costa Rica to Roatan, Honduras
3. The Beers of Honduras and Belize

Before I jump into the numbers part of this post I want to remind everyone that we’re not budget backpackers. Yes you can do Costa Rica a lot cheaper than we did, but since this isn’t just a vacation for us, it’s a lifestyle, we often make choices that aren’t inline with other travelers priorities.

A comfortable place and a decent internet connection are always first priority on our list of requirements, which often means we stick to more touristy places and don’t venture off the beaten track as much as other travelers. When we arrived in Costa Rica we both had a lot of work lined up and knew we’d be spending the majority of our days online, so it was even more important than usual.

We rented a two bedroom, three bathroom condo similar to any modern condo you’d find in Vancouver (or other large North American City), for $1000/month. We had satellite TV, cable internet, a pool, a dishwasher, in-suite washer/dryer, and even an Xbox. Sure we weren’t getting the ‘authentic Costa Rican experience’, but unless you’re traveling to some of the more remote areas, you’re probably not getting much of it either.

We based ourselves in Tamarindo, or Tama-Gringo as many people call it, which again, for many travelers, may not be the first choice. Some argue that it’s too over developed, and full of tourists but so are a lot of places in Costa Rica. For us it had a lot of the things we were looking for and was a pretty good fit, but after six months we did come to realize that it still wasn’t quite perfect… and thus the search for our little piece of paradise continues.

‘

Read the original article here: Costa Rica Budget

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1. Week 56: Costa Rica and our “Casa del Surf”
2. Handmade Souvenir in Costa Rica
3. From Tamarindo, Costa Rica to Roatan, Honduras

We arrived in Managua around 7pm. Asking at the front desk of the Ticabus Hotel (a bit of a dump, but you can’t get any closer to the bus station) where to go for a quick bite and we were told to head for the Mall for safety and selection, so we hopped in a taxi. 5 minutes later we arrived at an extremely busy food court complete with karaoke. After a quick McBurger; only the 2nd time we’ve had fast food in the last 6 months, we headed back to the hotel, massively over-tipping the taxi driver by mistake when I did the conversion from Nicaraguan cordobas to Costa Rican colones to dollars wrong. Another oops and definitely not the last. We crashed out early, watching the closing Olympic ceremonies on tv.

With a 3am wake up call and a 5am boarding, we were headed next for Tegucigalpa, Honduras. We arrived at the border and into Honduras with minimal effort. Arriving in Tegucigalpa 7 hours later; we split a taxi with Peter – another Canadian who we’d met on the bus and was going the same way, and headed to another bus station. When we arrived at the station, the taxi driver wanted $15 a piece for the 10 minute ride. Oops. Always negotiate the price beforehand! We bartered and complained him down to $5 each. Still not exactly a deal.

We grabbed a quick lunch of chicken and rice from a little cafeteria and then got onto another bus headed for La Ceiba. This time with no air conditioning and another 7 hours still ahead of us. After a very sweaty ride and a few liters of water we arrived in La Ceiba. Staying downtown near the ferries there weren’t too many options beyond a Pizza Hut and a Wendy’s, so we went for a pizza and a beer. Unfortunately, the restaurant had run out of beer! Ugh, the hardships of being on the road. ;) Downtown La Ceiba didn’t really seem to have much in the way of options, so we headed back to the hotel.

The next day we woke up early again and caught the 9am ferry to Roatan. We caught a collectivo taxi and headed south to Casa Calico where we’ll be staying for the next couple months. We unloaded the car and checked in, only to realize that in all the bustle I hadn’t grabbed my laptop bag! Shit. Panic ensued. My laptop, my dive computer, my backup drives, everything was in that bag. We ran up the street to where Peter was staying, but the driver had already been there and gone, headed to the hotel of the 3rd couple in the van. While I went to the main road to possibly catch him if he headed north to the ferries again, Kelly went to the house and talked with the front desk about how to get in touch with the driver’s company and made a few calls. 15 heart pounding minutes later, they’d tracked it all down and he was headed back our way. Needless to say, the driver got a bigger tip than the one I had previously miscalculated. But lesson learned, don’t carry your backups in the same bag. Kelly and I will swap drives from now on instead.

And so ended 3 very long, uncomfortable days on the road with over 20 hours spent in a bus. Kelly and I are very happy to have arrived. We’re not really emphatic travelers, preferring the destination over the process of getting there.

So far, we’re loving Roatan. It was cold when we first arrived. Around 27 degrees Celsius, which was an adjustment after the months of 36 degree weather we’ve been having in Costa Rica… but it’s warmed up considerably already.

As is the case with most dive destinations, the people are very friendly. Will from the dive shop even took us out scouting for apartment options when we first arrived and the dive crew are a hilariously good time. We’ve already made some new friends and gotten a ton of advice about living on Roatan. We’re stocked up with a kitchen, have done a few dives already, and had a few good nights out on the town with our new friends. So we’re settling in nicely, back to work, and enjoying our days off in the water.

Read the original article here: From Tamarindo, Costa Rica to Roatan, Honduras

Related posts:

1. Week 56: Costa Rica and our “Casa del Surf”
2. From Roatan, Honduras to Placencia, Belize
3. Nicaragua Visa Run from Tamarindo

We started off catching the local bus to Liberia from Tamarindo around 11am. It meanders through each locality on its way to Liberia and took us around 2.5 hours to arrive at the main bus station. A quick taxi ride back one station brought us to where the road from Tamarindo meets the main highway. Having no idea where we were, we had just missed our stop. The cost for the 1 minute taxi ride nearly equaled the $3 we had paid for our 2 hour bus trip. We stopped for a bite to eat at the restaurant beside the Ticabus stop and awaited 3:30 when the bus from San Jose to Nicaragua was supposed to arrive. 2 hours late, the bus finally showed up around 5:30. We kicked a couple people out of our seats and 6 hours after we began, we were finally on our way to Nicaragua!

An hour from the border, we began passing the queue of semi-trucks. Some of them would be waiting days for their turn to cross border inspection. There being only 2 lanes, we were passing in the oncoming lane and often had to stop while the bus driver finessed the bus past traffic on the soft shoulder.

Arriving at the border and exiting the bus to obtain our exit stamps, we were bombarded by money exchangers snapping their wads of Nicaraguan Cordobas. We then had to go through Nicaraguan customs where the bus was unloaded and searched. We gave our passports to the customs official and with our few bags, limited Spanish, and repeating “Turistas, turistas…” we were simply waved through.

A few short hours later, we arrived in Granada and grabbed a cab to our quaint colonial hotel near the central park, appropriately named “The Colonial Hotel”. 12 hours after leaving the house, we had arrived approximately 200km from our starting point. Kelly and I are pretty easy going, but our first experience with bus travel in Central America had proved to be a test of patience.

Granada itself is a quaint colonial city on the shore of Lake Nicaragua. It reminded us very much of our favourite town in Brazil, Paraty. Plenty of places to stop for a drink or a bite to eat. Many of them set up in the courtyard gardens of the old colonial homes. We wandered around the downtown district for a few days exploring the local markets, the bell tower of a church which gave a spectacular view of the city, and stopping in various cafes and street side bars with tables set up on the sidewalks.

At one of these sidewalk tables we met a local brother and sister with her American husband who were having a round of ‘Micheladas’. It’s a Latin American drink, sort of similar to having a Caesar or a Red Rooster with breakfast. A rumoured hangover cure (or just a refreshing afternoon drink), it’s made by pouring a beer into the juice of one lemon, a dash of soya sauce, Worcestershire, and Tabasco, salt, pepper, and ice. Some insist on adding a shot of tequila as well. It won’t replace Caesars for us Canadians, but it’s a nice alternative when Clamato juice is scarce.

I’m also a fan of the local Nicaraguan rum, which I was introduced to on my previous trip to Costa Rica 7 years ago. It’s made in Chichigalapa (just outside of Leon, about 2 hours north of Granada) at the Flor de Caña distillery. We tried to arrange a tour but unfortunately it wasn’t open on Sunday, or wasn’t open for just the 2 of us. We’re not sure which. It was the last day we had available for a tour before we headed home, so we opted instead for a boat ride amongst the nearby islands on Lake Nicaragua.

We were driven around a maze of small islands and given a fairly lengthy lesson of Granada’s history by our guide. We stopped to roam an old fort and then floated around multi-million dollar homes owned by Nicaragua’s elite, stopping to feed a troop of monkeys that were rescued by a doctor who resides on a nearby island. At one point, we were given the option to go for a swim… but after seeing the amount of trash on the shores and viewing the framed jaws of the bull sharks that apparently still patrol the waters of Lake Nicaragua, we passed and stayed dry.

After 5 days in Granada, we boarded the Ticabus again to return to Costa Rica. Things began a little smoother with the bus arriving from Managua on-time around 1pm. We went through the border and arrived in Liberia around 7pm. We had some conflicting information on when the last bus to Tamarindo was, so we ended up waiting for 2 hours with a group of surfers who were also en-route to Tamarindo, before it became apparent we had missed the last bus. We arranged for a large van to drive all 9 of us (plus bags and surfboards) home. It was a tight fit in a slow van, but eventually we arrived home around 10pm. Only 9 hours this time… not bad! ;)

We’re happy to be back with the comforts of home and have since spent nearly everyday on the beach soaking up the sun. It’s unlikely we’ll need to do another visa run following the next 3 months since we’ll be moving on, but we will have to follow the same route once more when we make our transition to Honduras. Now that I’m in the know, I’ll be packing a few Micheladas to-go to ease the journey.

A few more Granada pictures:

Read the original article here: Nicaragua Visa Run from Tamarindo

Related posts:

1. Our ATV Tour from Tamarindo
2. From Tamarindo, Costa Rica to Roatan, Honduras
3. Week 56: Costa Rica and our “Casa del Surf”

Computer Gear

• HP HDX 16 Laptop
• Macbook Pro 15″
• Laptop Cooling Pad
• 2 iPod Touch mp3 players
• Skype headset
• 2 sets of ear-bud headphones
• 6 backup hard-drives
• DVD software backups
• Wireless router
• Various network & USB cables
• Various power cords
• Waterproof laptop bag
• Laptop Backpack

Camera Gear

• Canon D40 Camera
• CompactFlash card reader
• Ikelite underwater camera housing
• 2 underwater lens ports
• 4 camera lenses
• Cleaning kit
• Small tripod
• Speed-light
• Underwater strobe & battery pack
• Various battery chargers

Clothes
Mike:

• 2 pairs of reading glasses
• 2 pairs of sunglasses
• 1 pair of jeans
• 10 shirts
• 5 shorts
• 2 pairs of socks
• 5 boxer-shorts
• 1 pair of flip-flops
• 2 pairs of shoes
• 1 hoodie
• Hat

Kelly:

• 1 pairs of sunglasses
• 1 pair of jeans
• 12 shirts
• 3 sundresses
• 6 shorts
• 2 pairs of socks
• 1 pile of underwear
• 3 bikinis
• 3 pairs of shoes
• 2 pairs of flip-flops
• 1 sweater
• 1 hoodie
• 1 sarong
• various bits of jewelry

Dive Gear

• 2 sets of fins
• 2 sets of booties
• 2 rash guards
• 2 dive masks
• 2 dive computers/watches w/mini compass
• 2 metal ‘pokey’ sticks
• Retractable 40m spool
• Dive buoy
• Fin bag
• Dive charts
• Dive log books
• Dive light (broken) :(
• Dry bag
• Large dive duffel bag

Misc

• Passport Folder w/travel documentation and backups of IDs and cards
• Kelly’s purse and wallet
• Mike’s wallet
• Waterproof wallet
• Multi-tool/Swiss Army Knife
• Small backpack for day trips
• 2 toiletries bags
• Unlocked GSM cellphone and charger
• Portable alarm clock
• 8 books
• Resistance bands for work outs
• Small first aid kit
• Small flashlight
• Baggage locks
• Padlock
• Pacsafe (wire mesh to wrap and lock around bags)
• 2 towels
• Padded neck cushion
• Inflatable neck cushion
• Deck of cards
• A pair of dice
• Bottle opener
• Lighter
• Various shampoo, deodorant, lotions, sunblock, toothpaste, etc
• Hair clippers/shaving kit
• Nail clippers
• Tweezers
• Bug repellent
• Tylenol
• 2 toothbrushes
• 3 months of contact lenses
• Plastic bag of receipts for tax time
• Laundry Bag
• 4 mesh bags
• Notebooks and a few pens
• Electrical tape
• Various electrical plug adapters
• 2 huge rolling bags with shoulder straps to pack it all in

No matter how much stuff we get rid of from our bags, we consistently repurchase the same items in the next country we visit. So we’ve pretty much decided to stop culling the inventory unless it no longer fits into the bags or one of us develops serious lower back issues.

Read the original article here: The Long Term Travel Gear List

Related posts:

1. Malaysia and Canada travel budgets
2. Philippines, Thailand, and Bali travel budgets
3. Friendships and long-term travel

What it cost us to live for 2 months in Malaysia:

And this brings the grand total for our year in Southeast Asia to roughly $51,000. We didn’t travel too cheaply. We always stayed in decent accommodations. We always ate well and partied often. This also includes around 170 scuba dives (approximately $6000) for the two of us combined and about $3000 in computers, parts, and peripherals.

Back in Canada we were prepared for a costly month, running around to see family in various cities and catching up with all our friends. We had a few big nights out, and stocked up on all the clothing and travel essentials we’ll need for the coming year. We only spent 4 nights in hotels, staying with family and mooching off them where we could. ;) Also, a big thanks to Rod who let us stay in his place for a couple weeks while he was away in Amsterdam. It was much appreciated! We probably would have had to spend another $2000 on hotels or an executive apartment otherwise.

What it cost us to live for 1 month in Canada:

I don’t know that our Canada budget is a realistic gauge of an average cost of traveling in Canada. We spent a lot stocking up on supplies for the next 6 months in Costa Rica. We were eating in a lot of nice restaurants when catching up with people or in meetings. A lot of time was spent in coffee shops using the WiFi. A few lattes a day is an extra $10-20 a day we’re not accustomed to anymore. But, it is the cost of doing what we do. Thankfully we were able to curb some of the costs by staying with family and friends.

Read the original article here: Malaysia and Canada travel budgets

Related posts:

1. Philippines, Thailand, and Bali travel budgets
2. Week 41: From Bali to Malaysia
3. The Long Term Travel Gear List

So a while back, John from JetSetCitizen.com asked us if we’d like to do an interview with him about our nomadic travel lifestyle. We took him up on it and the resulting interview was just posted.

Have a look here: Interview with Nomadic Couple, Kelly Hale and Mike Schimanowsky

Thanks John! It really made us think about our lifestyle, traveling as a couple and how that impacts our journey and relationship.

Read the original article here: Interviewed by JetSetCitizen.com

Related posts:

1. Nomadic Professionals – Interviewed by The Professional Hobo