So one of the great things about traveling is the people you meet and the friends you make along the way. During our first “backpacking” trip to Thailand in 2010, we were lucky enough to meet Stefan and Breda. Our friendship started on a boat – a scuba liveaboard that is. It was 5 days of  ”eat, sleep, dive”. Repeat. 4 times a day. For 5 days. We were able to chill in Bangkok together for a day (during protests!) before we parted ways.

Fast forward 2.5 years! While we’ve kept in touch online, we made a last minute booking from our hostel room in Addis Abbas to fly to Dubai for the last week of our travel. Getting our visa on such short notice was tough – we weren’t sure we would even get it in time. But thankfully we did and we enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect with our friends in their current home/city.

No trip to Dubai is complete without visiting the largest mall in the work – Dubai Mall. I don’t normally enjoy shopping (and hence malls) but Dubai Mall had one particular attraction that I had to admit was pretty cool – the Dubai Aquarium and Under Water Zoo. It is simply amazing! The main acrylic viewing panel is the largest in the world, the tank holds approximately 10 million liters of water and it is home to over 33,000 marine animals!

I spent quite a bit of time just watching the scene unfold in the aquarium (Natisha was happy to leave me there while she shopped!). I particularly enjoy watching sharks – and I counted maybe 8-10 sharks. When I discovered that you can actually arrange to go “diving” inside the aquarium, I knew I had dive it. I managed to persuade Stefan to join me (this was not a very affordable diving experience!) and we had an amazing dive. Completely different than diving in the ocean. What made it spectacular? Well those 8-10 sharks I counted – hah! During our dive briefing, we were informed that there were 80 sharks. 80 sharks!!!

Unfortunately, I was not allowed to bring my underwater camera with me despite my Divemaster rating – because of the number of sharks and the electronics of the camera, a separate (and very expensive) underwater course in their tank in required. But Natisha managed to pull herself away from her shopping to take the following pics which definitely show a different perspective than most underwater diving shots.

Below is a preview of our first week’ish in Africa, spent hiking Kilimanjaro. 8 days, 8 frames.

More coming soon, I promise

And now here I am writing it all over again.

At the moment Natisha and I are still here in Richmond, BC. Yesterday we made a visit to the travel clinic to be injected with a live virus, yellow fever vaccine. In the world, there are generally two places you need to be vaccinated for yellow fever, South America, and Africa.

And Africa it is. East Africa to be exact! And we leave in 14 days. Scratch that 13. With a handful of weddings to edit still on our plate, NOT to mention we are moving out of our apartment completely this time, we have a stack of things to do (which is why this blog post better be short)!

Our plan is to travel for 2.5 months throughout Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia. And we start with bang, hiking up Kilimanjaro with our friend Adam and his dad. We return back to Canada in December into Toronto for a few weeks prior to coming back to Vancouver for New Years.

Because a blog post is never complete with any images, I leave you with a few from our trek to Everest Base Camp last year in October.

A selection of photos from nearly four weeks here in Puerto Galera, Mindoro Oriental, Philippines. Amish is doing his divemaster course and generally spends a great deal of his time below sea level. But it’s beautiful here both above and below the water. We have had a chance to visit Ponderossa and the acclaimed Verde Island. Amish has been busy with his training, and I’ve been busy too, with my projects, contract work and photography post-production. So it’s not all beach and relaxation. Amish and I have yet to actually go to beach and go for a quick dip in the ocean – by the time we get around to beach, we prefer to sit and drink a Red Horse and watch the sun set on the day.

It’s definitely been a while since our last update. We are doing well – we are just crazy busy.

After our last update in Mongolia, we travelled up north where we spent a couple days on horseback to visit the Tsaatan reindeer herders. We then travelled to China via the Trans-Mongolian train – we spent a few days touring Beijing, hiking the Great Wall of China, and eating far too many delicious dumplings. We then flew via Hong Kong to Kathmandu, Nepal where we succeeded in trekking to Everest Base Camp situated at a lofty 5300 meters. And we finally had our first helicopter ride – an evacuation charter after heavy fog and weather had us stranded at Lukla following our trek.

We returned home to Canada in early November and have been perched at our desks since. Well nearly. We had the opportunity to photograph an amazing weddding in Cancun, Mexico – after all the cold weather in Mongolia and Nepal, we welcomed the heat and sun. We took a few days to rest in Cozumel and enjoy a bit of a proper “holiday” and do some scuba diving around the Great Maya Barrier Reef. But we are both back at the computers now, furiously working on projects and photos, thinking about our next trip.

We had planed to leave in mid December to visit New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Fiji. But we didn’t luck out with airfares – the price for a flight to New Zealand alone was well beyond what we were willing to spend. Our travel is only possible because we manage to travel on a budget that is comparable (if not less) than what it costs us to live in Vancouver. This is partly what makes travel in Asia so enticing – say compared to the high costs of travel in Europe.

So instead of the South Pacific we’re off to the Philippines – again! I learned to dive 7 years ago, and my love for the ocean keeps growing. So I’ve decided to take the PADI Divemaster course, after recently completing the rescue diver course earlier last year in the Philippines. It will be a bit of a working “holiday” for both of us. My Divemaster course will be a one-month internship, which will mean a lot of grunt work and lots of diving. And Natisha has a couple of projects – creative and technical – that she will be working on while I’m busy with my course. Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to get some more photos up here on the blog! So as usual, stay tuned!

For Canadians, getting the visa is the first step. In order to get a visa you need to get an invitation letter from a tour company in Mongolia. We managed to get a letter through one of the guesthouses in Ulaanbaatar, however we had to make a booking with them as well. Only problem was that they only had availability for the day AFTER we arrived. No problem, we’ll find a guesthouse when we arrive.

Or so we thought.

After flying into the Chinggis Khan Airport, we grabbed our bags and walked out into the terminal area. With no Tugrik in hand (Mongolian currency) we withdrew some from one of the ATM’s (which there are now plenty of all over Mongolia that work with Canadian debit cards even though the guidebook suggests otherwise).

By this point the terminal was empty, and the only people staring at us were overzealous taxi drivers. With a help of one local, we managed to explain to a taxi driver that we were looking for a guesthouse to stay at. We had tried several via email/phone while in Hong Kong, but got no responses. The payphones in the airport did not work at all and I had yet to get a prepaid SIM (which are cheaply purchased for around $7CDN for a SIM and a bunch of minutes).

We piled in the unmarked taxi and proceeded to visit 5 different guesthouses over the next hour. Yes, all of the guesthouses were completely packed, but luckily by nightfall, we managed to find a room at a guesthouse.

The next day we moved over to another guesthouse where we met with Sarah and Riyad who are from NYC and are currently traveling for one year. We decided they would be great companions to join us on our 9 day adventure through the Gobi and Central Mongolia, but we pushed our trip forward a few days as they wrestled with the Russian Embassy to get their transit visa.

In the meantime we visited some of the sights of Ulaanbaatar, braved the insane traffic crossing streets as pedestrians, and headed out to Terelj National Park for our first night out of Ulaanbaatar and a our first night in a ger.

Sleep:

Khongor Guesthouse and Expeditions // Not the swankiest guesthouse, but it’s clean, affordable and popular with independent travellers - many taking the Trans-Siberian Railway. But best of all are the staff which are friendly and very helpful. We booked our Gobi tour with them and were really happy with our experience.

Eat:

Veranda // If you are craving some wine, Italian food, and relaxing ambiance, head to this restaurant next to Choijin Lama Museum.

Michele’s French Bakery // We were missing our homemade lattes when we stumbled on this cafe, which offers great espresso and fresh croissants and other French baked fare.

Nomin Supermarket // This grocery store is conveniently located on the ground floor of the State Department Store, great for picking up food prior to tours and train rides.

Do & See:

Zaisan Memorial // A short climb up stairs to this Soviet-era memorial. It’s a shame about the balloon game vendors at the top of the memorial, but the view of the city is beautiful – aim for sunset if you can. We caught bus #7 heading south on Chingis Orgon Road across from the National Library for 400 Tugriks – Zaisan is the last stop of the bus line.

Naran Tuul // We headed to the “Black Market” (which is not an illegal market – the term black market is used differently in Mongolia) to pick up some riding boots for our planned horseback journey in northern Mongolia. The market is huge – it sells everything including new and used clothing, shoes, fabric, furniture, dels (Mongolian coats), stoves, etc. It’s a great way to see the hustle and bustle of the city residents. You should keep an eye on your belongings and bags, because like most places in Ulaanbaatar, pickpockets abound. We tried to catch a metered taxi to this market, but after some difficulty (taxis that refused to turn on the meter), we ended up waiting for a bus #23. Buses in Ulaanbaatar are frequent – you rarely have to wait for more than a couple mins for the popular routes. Naran Tuul is the last stop of the route for #23. Follow the locals on the bus to the entrance of the market where there is a nominal 50 Tugrik entrance fee.

Sukhbaatar Square // This iconic outdoor square is the major landmark for most travellers; it is home to a large Chinggis Khan statue, features WiFi (oddly enough), and is centrally located close to restaurants, sights, and museums.

Location: Beijing, China // Great Wall of China (Jinshanling)
Date: Oct 18th 2011, 12:28pm

We are currently finishing up our 3.5 weeks travelling through Mongolia. Unlike our previous trips, access to WiFi is limited to the capital city, Ulaanbaatar. And Mongolia is really a country where you need to get out of the big city to experience what it has to offer.

Here is a sneak peak of our travel through the Gobi and Central Mongolia. We covered over 2200kms during 9 days in a Russian 4×4 van – amazing landscapes and people, bumpy, dirt roads, constant engine fumes all set to a soundtrack of Mongolian folk songs and our guide’s selection of trance/progressive house music. Oh, and there was one shower. Yes. One shower. No internet. But plenty of vodka! And perhaps some karaoke.

Tomorrow morning, we will head to Beijing via the Trans-Mongolian railway – a 30 hour journey. Provided we can find some Wifi in China (although no facebook! yeah google+!), you can look forward to sneak peaks from Ulaanbaatar, Terelj, and Northern Mongolia travels.

Location: Ulan Bator, Mongolia // after 6 days in the taiga it’s laundry day
Date: Oct 11th 2011, 8:52pm