The Passionate Traveler

Phi Phi Islands Phi Phi Island is a well known group of islands of Phuket, Thailand. This is a true tropical paradise! Coconut lines white sandy beaches and crystal clear, warm tropical water teeming with beautiful fish. The sea is normally as flat as a pancake. Just what the doctor ordered! A visit to Phi Phi island is a very popular day trip from Phuket. There is some amazing snorkeling around the islands in the crystal clear, warm water. Phi Phi island was one of the places which was very badly hit by the devastating tsunami. Today, there are Tsunami warning signs and directions to places of safety all over the island. Just goes to show, even paradise on earth can be destroyed, or severely disrupted by mother nature.  On a trip to Thailand, we (My wife Marie and her son Hardy) stayed for a few nights on Phi Phi Island at Phi Phi Island Village Resort. Not the cheapest accommodation on the island. In fact quite the opposite. By Thai standards, it was expensive, but boy ...

The use of gas in WW1 - I know my grandfather was gassed. Obviously none of these are my photos. I know that this is a travel blog. But I guess that it is my blog, and I am mostly doing this for me. So I will digress a bit. If you have been following my travel blog, you might have noticed that my second travel passion (apart from looking for animals, which is my first passion) is to visit battlefields and particularly the First World war battlefields. I have always been very interested in this. I know from discussions with my late father (Des Bragg) that my Grandfather ( Richard Bragg) was in the first world war. My grandfather passed away when my father was still at school, probably in the late 1930's. All that I knew about my Grandfather in the Great war was that he was at Arras and that he was gassed. Before a trip I did to France a few years ago, I wanted to try and find out a bit more about the history. I wanted to (and did) go to Arras in France, as all I knew was he was ...

Copacabana beach at night All work and no play! Not a good idea. So, between my week of work in Argentina and the two weeks work in Brazil, I took the week-end off in Rio de Jernero. I flew from BA in Argentina on Friday morning and landed in Rio around 11 in the morning. Before leaving home, I booked airport transfer in Rio. I had booked (what I thought) was a shuttle bus. It was quite expensive, but what can you do. I had selected the cheapest on line option. When I arrived in Rio, I could not find anything with my name on or any indication of shuttle bus. Oh well, spent about R500.00 but could not find anything. Decided to do one last sweep of arrivals and there was my name! Turns out I had booked a Limo service, so big black car arrived and off to my hotel. Driver was great. Could not speak English, but had a translation app on his phone. Nice drive from the airport into the beach area of Rio. Copacabana beach from the Orla hotel top deck Orla Hotel I had booked into ...

Lots of meat Dinner time again Brazil is definitely "Vegan Hell". But one person's Hell is another person's Heaven! The basic order of the day in Brazil is meat, meat and more meat. The standard and favourite eating out experience, it appears, is the Brazilian Barbecue. These are "eat as much as you like" situations and the meat just keeps on coming! In my previous trip to Brazil I was only treated to the Brazilian Barbecue twice and I was hoping that I would at least go to one of these interesting eating experiences on this trip.I went for this type of meal just about every day! I asked at one of the places how much meat they go through in a day and it was around 90 kg! My wife normally weighs me "in" after a trip. The first thing she does, is bring out the scale. This time when I go on the scale, it said one at a time please! I did pick up quite a few kilograms on this last trip. But boy, was it an eating experience. Of course my ever...

Display of life in the trenches at Canekkale In the first post on the Gallipoli battlefields,  I covered a bit of the history of the battle. In this post, I will give a bit more details on getting there and specific places visited on the tour. Most of the tours to the region also include a stop at the site of  the ruins of the city of Troy. This will be a separate post. Just too much to talk about from a short, packed 2 day tour. Remains of trench lines at Lone Pine  So, I was in Turkey where I was a guest speaker at a meeting arranged by a multinational vaccine producer. After the work part of the trip, I took a few days off in Istanbul. The normal pattern. Travel for work and then make the most of the weekends and a day or two of leave! I was staying in my normal hotel in Istanbul (there has been a few posts on Istanbul, where I have discussed the hotel). I had arranged my tour to Gallipoli through my trusty travel agent - Jessica Cameron (jessica.cameron@trav...