If I dig straight down? (2)

Starting here:

Ending here:


If the Earth were a Sandwich Website

Map of Hong Kong

Click and drag to move around Hong Kong.

Here's a zoomed-in map of Lamma centred on Yung Shue Wan Ferry pier

Malaysian Borneo

Just been travelling around Sabah:



It's one of the states of Malaysian Borneo:



We flew to Kota Kinabalu stayed a few days and then went and climbed Mount Kinabalu - the highest mountain in SE Asia (4095m) The last 700m is just rock and the views from the top were spectacular. We also visited Sepilok Orang-Utan rehabilitation centre and got some good views of the Orang-Utans, and stayed for a few days in a camp called Uncle Tan's on the Kinabatangan River deep in the jungle, taking boat rides, jungle walks and just looking at everything around us.
The country is covered with Palm-Oil plantations and the amount of primary rainforest left is rapidly diminishing, but if you look at what we've done to our own environment we can hardly take the moral high ground on this issue. It is a shame because the biodiversity of the jungle is incredible. We also got a good luck at some rather strange Proboscis monkeys that live deep in the Kinabatangan Jungle.

Deforestation in the Kinabatangan

Here's some pictures of the palm oil plantations:



And a picture from the road as we drove along:




Here's a map of the whole area - it used to be primary tropical forest only a few years ago - click and drag to have a look around the area. No wonder the Orang-Utans are gradually becoming extinct. The bright areas are where the primary forest has been replaced by Oil Palm plantations - an introduced species from West Africa:



It turns out that the forest won't grow back (at least within the 30 years tested so far) - it's a climax vegetation and no-one can yet work out how to get it to regenerate so that they can have managed harvests of the wood (economically). The only thing that's changing is that as more of the forest is removed, the trees become more valuable and therefore it becomes more economical to invest in research to replace the forest rather than covering it in palm oil plantations. There's also other research into ways of converting Palm Oil into fuel so there's not a lot of hope for the wildlife unless a large enough, non fragmented area can be protected.

If I dig straight down?

It's always intrigued me the way we all say little phrases but often they're complete nonsense, and none of us realise that different people have a different answer to the same question. If you dig a hole straight down through the Earth, where do you really end up?

Americans say China
Canadians say China
Brits say Australia
Australians say China
Japanese say Brazil
Kiwis say England


Lamma people get to the border of Argentina and Bolivia


Here's the real answer: http://map.pequenopolis.com/

Visited Countries

Link to Map Tool

India Slideshow

We spent about 6 weeks travelling around Northern India, visiting Delhi, Leh, trekking for four weeks and then heading to Rajasthan:

Cheung Chau for Dragon boating

We ended up going on Craig's boat to Cheung Chau to watch the dragon boating festival. It's a cool place - one town of 40,000 people - in the middle of the island - on the only bit of flat land. The island is 13km west of Lamma and it feels very Chinese.

Craig stores his boat in Aberdeen, so we took the boat back and then got a ferry back to Lamma.

The festival concerns a man who drowned himself in protest against the government (hundreds of years ago) and each boat has a drummer who is there to scare away the fish and stop them eating the body. People were perched everywhere in the harbour watching all the races.

In the town we found some interesting food:

Myanmar Slideshow and Map

Easter 2006 we travelled around Myanmar, visiting Yangon (Rangoon), Kalaw, Inle Lake, Mandalay and Bagan. Despite the evil government we gave no money to them apart from their tax on our plane ticket and the occasional hotel tax. Many local people benefited from our visit.

Kenya

In November 2005 we took 61 students from our school to Kenya, we flew into Nairobi, visited Nukuru NP, Naivasha, Lake Baringo, Lake Bunyoni and the Masai Mara.

Indonesia

During the summer holiday of 2005 we spent 3 weeks travelling from Bali to the far end of Flores in Indonesia.

Gunung Rinjani trek slideshow and map

We spent 4 days climbing Gunung Rinjani - the active volcano that makes up most of the island of Lombok - the peak is 3700m and the views from the top were stunning.

USA - John Muir Trail map and slideshow

During the first four weeks of our summer holiday 2005 we trekked the 400km John Muir trail from Yosemite NP to Mt Whitney.

Laos Slideshow & Map

During the Easter holiday 2005 we wpent two weeks travelling around Laos - loved it. We flew into Ventianne and travelled to Van Vieng then up to Luang Prabang. From there we went North to Nong Khiaw and then to Mong Ngoi by boat and stayed in a cool hut by the side of the river.

New Zealand slideshow and map

Christmas 2004 we spent 20 days in New Zealand, flying to Christchurch on the South Island, visiting Mt Cook, Fox Glacier, Nelson, Abel Tasman NP. We then crossed by ferry from Picton to Wellington and then drove to Gisborne in the far North East where Isabelle went to school.

Cambodia

We came to Hong Kong In August 2004 and our first half term holiday gave us the chance to go to Cambodia. We flew in to Phnom Penh and travelled by boat up to Siem Reap near Angkor Wat. We spent 3 days there, cycling around all the temples, relaxing and exploring. The place was amazing - huge, and despite there being a few tourists it was easy to find places with absolutely no-one around.

Trans Africa - Dover to Nairobi

We left Dover in November 2002 and travelled in an overland truck via France, Spain, Morocco, Mauritani, Mali, Burkino Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, Ethipia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and eventually back to Kenya. We travelled just over 30,000km and we arrived in May 2003

Morocco & Western Sahara

We spent about 3 weeks in Morocco, mainly getting visas in Casablanca. We managed to visit Rabat, Fes, Marakesh,Volubilis and also crossed the Atlas to Todra gorge and some of the old mud towns, wild camping everywhere apart from the cities.



Due to the unreasonableness of the Mauritanian embassy in Rabat one of us had to take all the passports back to London and get the visas there as they refused to give group visas to people entering from the disputed territory of Western Sahara. We were lucky that the Morocooan army had recently stopped the convoy system for travelling through Western Sahara and once we had the visas we were free to drive down the coast in our own time.



The border between Western Sahara and Mauritania was only recently opened and the road was just sand, we needed a guide to avoid all the landmines dotted around the border and spent load of time sand matting wherever the sand got too deep. It was hard work.

Mauritania

After crossing into Mauritania we stopped in Nouadhibou where we visited a peninsula armed with our video camera - after playing around we were arrested and (having hidden all our money in our underwear) payed a small bribe to a slimey officer to get back to the truck. We then found a guide and travelled for 5 days throught the Sahara, crossing 60 miles of it on a beach at low tide (the only route through). Eventually we reached Nouakchott, relaxed on the beach watching the fishing boats and then drove inland down an amazing Japanese built road towards Nema. We planned to cross the border into Mali but some more dodgy customs officers decided to try and charge us $50 each for the pleasure of leaving Mauritania, on route to the border post we grabbed our passports off one of the soldiers ran back to the trucks and drove off into the desert towards Mali knowing full well that the border guards had no radio, no vehicle and no chance of catching us. Eventually we stopped at a village and realised we were in Mali.

Mali

Mali was wonderful - we headed for Bamako, saw Alpha Blondy play in the National Football Stadium, wandered around, and then drove up to Mopti. From there we got a boat down the Niger river to the amazing Mosque at Djenne and then headed North West to Dogon country. Here we trekked for 4 days along the Dogon escarpment staying on the roof of the chief's hut in each village. The Dogon people have lived on the edge of the Sahara since they fled the Muslims in the 9th century and are absolutely amazing. In the far North they're all Animist, and as you head South they become more Christian and Muslim. There are still human sacrifices in some of the villages (we avoided one, walking with some very scared villagers) and their lifestyle is fascinating, managing to exist in a small patch of land on top, in, and below the cliffs of the escarpment. They keep crocodiles, build amazing huts and still wear traditional costume when they can. The Mali government just leave them alone. Brilliant!!