EC-Rider Travels

Another 6am start for me as I had chosen to join the rather scary ‘birders’ on their walk. So quick breakfast and in the zodiac by seven and over to the Masoala National Park. Created in 1997, this is Madagascar’s largest protected area covering 2,300 square kilometres of rainforest and 100 square kilometres of marine…

Today was our first proper adventure day. With an early start and laden with a long list of things we had to take, from snorkels and fins to life-jackets and the all important, Ships ID card. This had to be swiped every time we left or arrived on the boat and very easy to leave…

By the morning we had arrived in Toamasina, Madagascar’s main port and second largest city, to be greeted by some wonderful pink ladies dancing for us. It was a tricky decision today as we wanted to do both excursions, but in the end we all decided to go to the Ivolonia Zoological park to see…

Today was spent at sea and if we thought this meant ‘at leisure’ we could not have been more wrong – we had an action packed schedule of talks and even Ship Pilates or Shiplates (seated) with former ballet dancer, Wendy. Our day started with a talk by Daniel Austen about Madagascar. Daniel is a…

A little concerned that we might feel a little queasy on our overnight journey, Lucinda and I took a sea sickness pill and slept SO well – in fact struggled to wake up all day – not sure we will be doing that again. When we eventually woke, we were coming into Port Est of…

With Noble Caledonia and the ‘Ladies’: Mum, Lucinda Baxter, Felicity Clark (Flee) and her lovely friend Flavia Gale. Thursday 10/Friday 11 May – Mauritius Emirates flew us safely and painlessly to Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport (luckily we did not have to pronounce it!) on the south coast of Mauritius (some more comfortably than others!),…

Potatoes originated in Peru and they have over 3,000 varieties The Peruvian alpaca business was started by an Englishman Finland is the biggest, per capita drinker of coffee All tea comes from the just two varieties of tea plants You cannot walk around naked in your home in Singapore India is the second biggest exporter…

Sadly it was still hazy, so the 5.30 sunrise was not quite what it might have been, still I needed to get up as I had voted to go kayaking with the boys, so off we went at 7.15 to nearby Hang Loun island. I was kayaking with Ha and it has to be said…

Thick mist again this morning, which we all prayed might lift and the sun come out before we reached Halong Bay, the highlight of our trip. Carol wore her glamorous Chanel glasses all the way to encourage it. We had a four hour journey, north, in our little bus which gave us a chance to…

Some of the boys headed off for an early cycle ride with Mr Nga’s son, but us gals and John chose a quiet morning by the pool. It was sadly another overcast day, but we headed down there all the same to find a nice man cleaning it. Yesterday when we swam, we thought it…