Paarl, Franschoek, Hermanus

For our two year wedding anniversary my wife and I went to three towns (Paarl, Franschoek and Hermanus). I really like Hermanus and Franschoek a lot. The nicest thing about this is that my wife was so cool to organize complimentary accommodation, breakfast and some complimentary lunches and dinners. (As we are on budget for our 2 year South East Asia plan).

First we went to Paarl.

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Above you can see a few pics from the place we stayed in in Paarl. (I should have added more pics of Paarl actually :-) )

Next we went for two nights in Franshoek.

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Franschoek is really a beautiful little town. It has lots of character and is definitely a place where you can kick back and relax. We stayed in two different places here. The place where we had lunch we saw one of Brittan’s Queens’ first cousin :) (Think it was Queen Elizabeth’s 1st cousin). We ate well, slept well, relaxed a LOT. I enjoyed the food, beds, scenery, company.

Next it was off to Hermanus.

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Hermanus is a very beautiful town. Not much to do but relax and take in the beauty of nature. We stayed in two nice places and ate great food. I enjoyed the walk next to the rocks and ocean the most.

Well – back to planning for what is to come…

Zanzibar Trip

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Our Zanzibar trip started off with a few rocky patches, but ended up being a very nice holiday.

Once we got new flight through Kenya Airlines (after Air Tanzania got grounded) we finally made it to Zanzibar. Zanzibar is a beautiful island. I likes the Eastern and Northern coast the most, but one must definitely visit Stone Town as well.

For me this was supposed to be a budget holiday and ended up being way more expensive than we had budgeted for. Most of our friends who have been there about 3yrs ago say it was very cheap when they were there. They could pay about $4.5 for a whole platter of seafood, whereas we would have paid about $20 for a decent platter. Taxi’s are very expensive and I would suggest you taking the local transport (if you want to budget). Accommodation was good, but no budget accommodation was really found. Anyways – enough of the costs :)

We really liked it. I loved the different sceneries in Stone Town. The tortoises on Prison Island. The relaxation in the East. The palm trees. The long beaches. The boats. Walking in the shallow waters while it rained. Swimming with dolphins. Chilling with my wife and family. Kendwa Rock. Even the cramped taxi ride with the locals :)

I think my most memorial time was swimming with the dolphins!! And sitting in the shallow waters in the rain the one day.

If you have the money to go to Zanzi – I would say have fun!

Some Catching Up

Wow – I haven’t written anything in this blog for ages – but I have not backed off on the idea :)

Obviously my wife and I know the possibility that we might not be able to travel in about 2 years’ time, but we trust that it will happen.

The first few months of saving didn’t go according to plan, but last month we saved more than we wanted to, so it will make up for some of the savings we lost. This month is also looking good with my wife helping a LOT with selling custom travelling in South Africa. So if things go on like this we should be able to go from a money perspective.

As a couple we are part of a very nice church and we love God’s people. One thing about being involved is that you never just want to pack up and go if it is not God’s timing, since then you can do more damage than good :) I know some people might not understand this, but we fully want to live like this. We want to look after Jesus’ bride and not harm her.

Currently we don’t feel that we will NOT be going, but we are open to the suggestion if we are not supposed to go, but until we receive any other news we will be saving up as if we are going.

Think I might send out another blog in a few minutes – just feel like writing today :)

Air Tanzania Grounded

We've had numerous problems with our holiday plans to Zanzibar, but we are still being positive and looking forward to it a LOT :)

About 1 month before we were supposed to depart from SA, we got the news that out flight on the 25th Dec '08 was canceled (thanks Air Tanzania). They also told us that the only other flight we could get was on the 27th. This cut our plans short by 2 days (not even mentioning our accommodation plans). We finally got a flight (through them) on the 24th. We changed our Kulula flights from CTN to JHB for the 24th, made extra accomodation plans and paid a deposit.

Monday the 15th Dec '08 we got the breaking news that it has been confirmed - Air Tanzania has been grounded and they can't book us any other flights. Read more here. We finally got flights through Kenya Air and will now depart on the 25th of Dec again. Only thing is we will now only be returning the 7th Jan '09... thus we had to change our return flights again :)

All is fine again now - thanks God! And I trust it will all be worth it in the end for some holiday fun in the Zanzi-sun....

Zanzibar

Well, I still get some interesting information on traveling.

It's really cool to see some people actually DO get back to you on forums. In the meantime - while waiting for this event (travel for 6 months in south east Asia) we decided to go to Zanzibar in December.

We will leave the 25th of December (our Christmas gifts to ourselves) and return on the 5th of January. It looks like a beautiful place. If you have any inputs about the place - lemme know. We still are looking into living in the north of Zanzibar as well - but for now we are only going to stay in the west.

Travel Forums

Hi there

Still very excited about our trip... currently just reading up in a lot of forums. Some people actually do get back to you and you find lots of cool tips. I will post some good forums here sometime soon - as soon as I know how the response is :)

I also found some sites on Visas and Country info... will add it here

Cheers

Budgeting

HI there.

Last night I started to work out the budget for our little trip of 6 months to the Far East. Once you start adding up you realize that you will have to safe up a LOT of money.

I realized that there will be:
1) Fixed once off amounts. (eg. Return flights, Visas, backpacks...)
2) Monthly expenses (eg. Life insurance, Bonds, other running costs remaining while we're gone)
3) Daily expenses (eg. Food, Accommodation, Travel... while we are there)

SO we put it all in a spreadsheet and realized it will take about 2.5 years to safe up for all the above mentioned expenses. :) Only problem - we can only start saving up next year August. Well - at least we estimate that in 3 years' time we will be able to travel the Far East for half a year.

I thought that we will need to become more travel wise - so I want to become part of some backpackers forums... any ideas?