"Welcome to my view of our world." K1W1's Profile

G'day everyone and welcome.

The following is a collection of my own travel experiences and as such, is an ongoing project. My current travels began when I 'retired' in April 2000, but it was back in the late 90's when I discovered just how good long term travelling can be. I took a couple of years off work to travel Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Consequently I have a lot of photos and tips to organise, which will take some time.
I hope you enjoy the site and with luck, you may find some of it useful.
The photo above was taken in 2005 at the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi, Thailand.
For more details on my current trip, see below.

BTW, my V.T. 'home' is where ever I am currently travelling and will change periodically. My real home is in Oamaru, New Zealand.

All photos, unless marked otherwise, were taken by me and are copyright. Please do not copy or reproduce without permission. Thanks

Mingun monk, Mandalay

'Should I stay or should I go ?'

The moral decision of whether to go to Burma has unfortunately prevented many from visiting. From my perspective, I found it easy to support the locals without paying into the govt agencies. The government isn't going to fall because of sanctions - it rarely does, especially when it gets substantial funds from other sources. The only ones who really suffer are the innocent locals.

When visiting Burma / Myanmar, you'll be stepping back in time, back to the days of the horse and cart, literally! The roads can be rough and travelling here is a real experience.

The Burmese were very welcoming, curious to learn about where I came from and what my home was like.

Tutankaman

During 2004 I spent about 8 months travelling through this often misunderstood part of the world. I was pleasantly surprised with the genuine friendliness of the people, especially as they had every reason to distrust westerners due to the circumstances in Iraq.
One of the big benefits is that I rarely had any problems with there being too many tourists, even in the traditionally busy spots. I also found that I could travel reasonably freely and independently through most of the M.E. - having a Kiwi passport obviously helped here.
Yemen and Syria were the highlights.
I left the M.E. with hundreds of new photos and a new appreciation for the desert, the people and their religion.

Tonsai Bay - Koh Phi Phi Don (Post tsunami)

For those who don't know, the Phi Phi island is open for business. This is despite the Thai government having officially closed it in December and not having done anything about since (at least until Oct '05), and the best anyone can do to help the locals now, is to come and visit.
I have been here volunteering with the clean up, along with many other travellers and consider myself very lucky to have seen Koh Phi Phi in it's most natural state since the development took over many years ago. The vibe is friendly and very positive.
The locals now need you to visit and enjoy their island with them.

The Golden Pavillion, Kyoto

Japan is not big on the tourist trail and most tourists here are Japanese. But for those lucky enough to see this country, they'll find there is much more to see and experience than just the latest electronics, tall skyscrapers, great sushi and war memorials.
Japan's history and culture is constantly in view, from the temples and shrines to the everyday Kimono clad women seen on the trains and streets. And if you can get a chance to watch the Sumo, don't miss it.

A huge ice arch in a sea of ice bergs

Antartica would have to be the most unique travel experience I've had to date. I've never been more excited about a trip anywhere, except possibly for my first ever trip abroad.
Antartica lived up to all my pre departure excitement and each and every day down there was unforgettable.
The continent is one of the last pristene pieces of earth left, and hopefully common sense will prevail when it comes to stopping Bush from drilling for oil there.

Bolivian Jaguar in Santa Cruz

My primary reason for joining VT was to share with my family and friends the photos of my trips while I am travelling, Unfortunately, scanning from my earlier trips take a while. The albums below will show some shots and I will have lots more once I get around to loading some digital watermarks.

I don't believe in wholesale post processing of photos and unless noted, all photos are untouched (except for watermarks and basic exposure).

All photos, unless marked otherwise, were taken by me and are copyright. Please do not copy or reproduce without permission. Thanks

The Great Wall of China

For those interested a brief summary of my current trip follows:

April 2000 - finished my job in London and set the ball rolling by revisiting French Polynesia (Tahiti) and the beautiful Cook Islands.
July - landed in Sth America to begin my second '2 year trip' and proceded to backpack around the continent for the next 10 months. This included an awesome trip to Antartica.
May 2001 - I flew up from Caracas to Europe for the summer, visiting Russia and Scandinavia.
October - Back to Sth America to visit the remaining countries which I had not included on my first visit. This included the Galapagos archipeligo.
June 2002 - I sailed across from Colombia to Panama to begin Central America. After Mexico I then flew to Cuba then back to Caracas.
November - I returned home to NZ via Colombia, Denmark and London (not very direct, I know!) for a much needed holiday.
Febuary 2003 - After 3 months of R & R at home, I am back on the road again and into my South East Asian trip, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.
June - To escape the monsoon season in Asia, I headed off to Europe and Scandinavia for a great summer and took in some sights in Italy, Malta, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden.
September - Time to move south again to avoid the winter and made my way back through the Baltics, through Belarus and into Ukraine.
November - Headed south to Turkey but after a couple of bombings in Istanbul, I grabbed my visas and continued to head south into the Middle East to some peace and quiet !!
July 2004 - After an 8 month tour of the M.E., it's time for another change - back to Sweden to sort out another Russian visa.
August - Headed back into Russia and this time completed the Trans Mongolian trip, slowly across Siberia to Lake Baikal, down into Mongolia and then finally into China.
October - Took the ferry over to check out South Korea and then another over to Japan.
December - On my way home again for Xmas via China, Macau, Thailand and Singapore.
April 2005 - A great Xmas and then I took the opportunity to travel through my own country - my favourite country.
May - Back to Singapore to continue where I left off in December. After checking out Malaysia, I stopped in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand for 3 days - and stayed for 4 months !, volunteering with the tsunami dive camp, recovering remains and debris from the bay.
October - After a quick trip down to dive Sipadan Island off the coast of Borneo, I returned to Thailand, then headed off to Myanmar for a very interesting 3 weeks.
November / December - Back to Thailand and Koh Phi Phi for another trip out to the world class dive sites, Hin Daeng / Hin Muang. Back to NZ for Xmas, and a summer of golfing.
April 2006 - Returned to Singapore, Malaysia and then Macau and Hong Kong to get another visa for China.
June - Checked out Taiwan and then headed for France, England, Sweden and Finland for a great European summer.
August - Back into Russia for a 3rd time - and this time completed the original Trans-Siberian across to Vladivostok, before dropping back down into China.
Sept - November - China and Tibet. This time with a 3 month visa to explore some off the beaten track sites - Tibet was absolutely stunning, which included a trip to Everest Base Camp.
December - Nepal for some more majestic Himalayan scenery.
January 2007 - Brought in the New Year in Delhi, then continued to backpack around and enjoy the subcontinent of India.
June - January 2011 - The travels continued incl. Libya, Tunisia and Iceland but came to a halt in Jan, when I rejoined the rat race.

Happy and safe travels everyone,

Pete