Croatia – Be Back Whenever

“A few of our favorite things …”

Now that the trip is coming to an end, we reflected over a gin and tonic about the good and the bad of the last 8 months. For what it’s worth …

Favorite “normal” places we visited – Seychelles (Mark); Split (Susan)
Favorite adventure – Rwanda trekking with gorillas
Least favorite “adventure” – hike across Le Curieuse Island in the Seychelles
Least favorite town – Bundi, India
Least favorite “things” during the trip – Food poisoning (Susan); Bad tour guide in Bundi and Kota

Best place for a drink

Beer in Serengeti
India Pacific train
Catamaran to MONA in Hobart
Beer while watching the total lunar eclipse from the rooftop in Bundi
Wine on the twilight sailing yacht in Fremantle

Best place we stayed (Other than with friends)

Meridien in the Seychelles with an oceanfront room
Sheraton in Koh Samui – best A/C of all!
Meridien in Koh Samui with a plunge pool

Worst Hotel – Bundi Vilas Halewi

Best Hotel Lounge – Bangkok Westin

Best flight – Munich to Bangkok in First Class on Thai Air

Worst travel day – Port Macquarie to Hobart – 4 hours of flying time turned into a 14 hour trip

Best restaurant

Steak at the Jail House Inn, Launceston
Mexican food at Terminal 21, Bangkok after 5 months of no Mexican food

Best restaurant view – Indique in Jodphur

Worst food – Colonel’s Retreat, Delhi – Susan’s food poisoning location!

Worst roads – India, hands down!

Rudest person on the trip – UK couple on the train in India

Weirdest person we ran into on the trip – the Indian guy who stared at us for 4 hours on the Indian train

“Glad it wasn’t me” event – Aileen not getting her luggage for 5 days on the safari

Great coincidence – Aileen didn’t have her phone charger and she used her phone to take pictures. Mark had his camera since he used his phone for pictures. He loaned Aileen the camera but didn’t have the charger for it. Annie from Tennessee had a charger that fit the camera! All was well in the photography world.

Unexpected experiences

Twilight sailing in Fremantle on a yacht and dinner at the Fresh Water Yacht Club
Seeing 2 kills in Serengeti by 3 lionesses. They killed 2 wildebeests
Landing in Mwanza, Tanzania, to clear immigration leaving Tanzania
Food Walks in Delhi and Jaipur

Little too close for comfort – the airline we flew in Tanzania crashed a plane into Ngorongoro Crater National Park just a few days after we used them

Illnesses – 4 colds (2 each) and 1 case of food poisoning and 1 sprained wrist

New friends and acquaintances

Avijet – Indian in Ranthambore NP from CA – works for EAS
Ana – met in Split – anesthesiologist from Singapore/Malaysia/Cambridge
Nora and Juhis – Finland met in Seychelles
Rob and Justin; Sonya and Graham – Australians met in Split
Peter from Melbourne via Rob and Justin
Gayle and Mark – Sydney
Margarida – Sydney Sheraton clerk from Portugal
Ben and Belinda – from Geneva – met in Golden Monkey trek
Uta – from Germany met in Tanzania
Ryan from Malta – met in Edinburgh
Clifford – from Madagascar – doing laundry in Bangkok
Suchin Shah – from South Carolina – sells RV’s
Per and Lise – from Norway
Debbie and Tim – from London

An All-day Trip to 6 Islands and the Blue Cave

We booked the 6 Island Excursion with Space Fun Troghir to go to the Blue Cave, Hvar City, and a few other places along the way.

We met at their booth along the Riva with Maja and 4 other people about 7:30 AM. Maja walked us to the boat, Moody Summer, that showed up from Troghir with a Finnish family on board – mom, dad, and 2 girls. The other passengers were a French couple, a video editor from UK (works for Technicolor), and a female psychologist from Mexico City. First stop was the Blue Cave on the island of Biševo after a 1.5 hour speed boat ride. The water was smooth but we both had to put on wind breakers.

This is the beginning of the off-season and we lucked out – no wait to transfer to the small boats to go into the Blue Cave. The wait can be 2-4 HOURS in the summer. The cave was beautiful and very quiet because only 3 boats were inside at one time. Unfortunately, the visit time is very controlled so we didn’t get a very long visit.

The underground entrance to Blue Cave and where the light enters to create the reflection.

Inside the Blue Cave. This is all natural light.

Keep reading for more pictures

17 Days in Split, Croatia

Ever heard of Split, Croatia? Could you find it on a map? Split is the second largest city in Croatia sitting on the Adriatic Sea with a population of about 178,000. The city is famous for Diocletian’s Palace built in the 4^th century AD. The most interesting thing is that the “Palace” still exists after numerous incarnations and people live in it with shops and restaurants built into it. Split also has a seaport so we’ve see cruise ships (Norwegian, Viking, Princess, and a few we’ve never heard of) almost every day. The itinerary seems to be to dock here in the morning and leave about 6 PM to move to the next port.

Part of the Diocletian Palace Walls. A few scenes of Game of Thrones were filmed here.

Houses are built into the Old Palace.

The town square of Split that was part of the Palace at some point.

Beaches are located about 4 blocks from our apartment, ranging from a small beach with sand and very shallow water to rockier ones with deeper water. A walkway goes on for several kilometers with ladders to get out of the water, deck chairs to rent for 50 kuna, bars and coffee bars and night clubs and boat docks. The clubs all seem to be closed now since mid-October is the end of the tourist season.

We had beautiful sunsets 14 days in a row.

Enjoying a beer with sunset. .5 L beer is about $3 US.

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