Raymond's Travel Page
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| Travels Before Hong Kong
This section covers our travels prior to 2004 when we moved to Hong Kong. Life in Hong KongFrom 2004 to 2009 we lived in Hong Kong. In this section you can find articles and photos about our life in Hong Kong and travelogues of our many trips to mainland China. Travels After Hong Kong
This section will be about our travels since we retired back to Melbourne, Australia in 2009.
The Travel Bug
When I married at 23 I had never travelled outside Australia. My first trip overseas was on my honeymoon, when I went to Malaysia, to see my wife's family, to Singapore, to see my wife's sister and to Thailand, to see various things we had never seen before and never wish to see again.
When we returned we realised we would never be the same again. We had caught THE TRAVEL BUG. Over the years, as soon as the holidays came, we could never stay put. We had to be off travelling somewhere. We made trips to Indonesia, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Fiji, New Zealand, India, Nepal and Vietnam.
We had the extraordinary situation in my job where, after ten years, I could take long service leave on full pay, or double the time on half pay. This allowed us to take two extended holidays. In 1980 we went to Europe for the first time, for five months, zapping from one end to the other on Eurail passes, from the Fjords of Norway to the Greek Islands, via Yugoslavia, which has since fallen apart. Then in 1985 we did a five-month round-the-world trip, including six weeks in China and six weeks in the USA. On both occasions we dragged our two children along with us. In 1985, my parents also did a world trip, travelling in the other direction. We met up with them halfway round - in Paris.
Living in Singapore, we had a perfect base for exploring different regions of Thailand, as well as Laos and Cambodia. Although we prefer to travel independently we found it more economical (in terms of time and money) to take short package tours to Korea, Japan and China (Kunming). In the longer holidays we made trips to France, Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) and to Turkey.
In the early years we took lots of photos. We had more photos than we knew what to do with - cupboards full of albums and boxes full of memories. Now, of course, it can all be digitalised and kept on a disk, but we haven't yet caught up with all this new-fangled technology. Eventually I found that a good way to remember the details of our trips was to try to keep a journal, not always possible when you are frantically sightseeing until exhaustion sets in. I started doing so on one of our more relaxed trips - to Bali and Lombok.
Between the jobs in Singapore and Brunei we had a chance to travel for six months, to Europe, in particular Germany, Poland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, with stopovers in Bali and Thailand.
Living in Brunei, we found it hard to get away from Borneo, so we took the opportunity to explore Sarawak, including the island of Labuan, and Sabah. When my wife flew to Singapore to attend a wedding, I did a trip on my own to East Kalimantan. And when we finally returned to Australia we couldn't resist dropping in on Myanmar on the way back.
In 2003 we returned to Europe, where we spent most of our time in France, including a three-month stay in Paris and a trip through Spain and Morocco. Once again we took advantage of stop-overs to explore Sulawesi, on the way, and Southern Laos on the way back.
Then, in August 2004, we moved to in Hong Kong, where we lived in a hotel for two years, while I worked at Holm Glad College. This gave us the opportunity to travel in mainland China. So far we have visited Beihai, Yangshuo and Xiamen and a whole month trip to Xi'an and Sichuan in the summer holidays of 2005. Then it was Hainan Island during Chinese New Year. Then Guizhou Province, one of the most underdeveloped areas of China. The next trip was around the urban areas of Southern Guangdong. The last trip was back to Yangshuo to catch up on the touristy things we didn't do on our first two trips there.
We have just about had enough of exploring China, so our last trip was to Cebu in the Philippines. And we recently went back to Australia, where we had an unplanned trip to Perth.
We are here for another year, having changed schools and moved into an apartment - The Grandiose! Then it will be time to settle down and enjoy our grandchildren.
Before leaving Hong Kong we travelled to Davao and Mindanau in the Philippines and Taiwan.
Our first trip after retiring in Australia was back to Hong Kong to join the Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir on their first tour to Beijing. Then in June 2010, we had a two week holiday in Malaysia, thanks to a cheap fare sale with Air Asia.
Our next trip was to visit YouTube friend Lewdite and his wife in Montreal, Canada, and then, in 2011 we went to Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria.
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