On our recent trip to Komodo National Park, Indonesia, Chris and I had a frustrating interaction with a park guide. It affected our overall experience of seeing an amazing creature in a remote area of the world in its natural habit. We had planned for months and travelled far just to see this animal, only to come away feeling cheated. My first instinct was to start telling people and warn them, on the off chance they too had the same thing planned. Not everyone feels this way, and we understand this. But we are passionate about travel and know some people save for years and take time off work in order to visit different areas of the world. We feel that if, by sharing our experiences, we can in some way assist others and help to possibly prevent frustrating or negative moments on a holiday, it may inspire others to explore this amazing planet. Maybe no one will read this, or if they do they may find it boring or unhelpful, but we figure that even if that happens it will serve as an epic journal of the amazing travels we have had and still hope to have. If you want to know more about our background continue reading below.

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Little more about us…

We both qualified as Veterinarians in 2010 from the only Veterinary school in South Africa, called Onderstepoort, situated north of Pretoria. We had spent 7 amazing years studying, partying, and living with friends. That all quickly faded away as reality set in and we started working for actual money. We had started dating in our final year and weren’t entirely sure of where things were going, so we decided to both try find jobs in Joburg and see what came of it.

I started working in a small animal practise – cats and dogs – and Chris landed pretty much a dream job working with mixed animals – cats, dogs, cows, horses, sheep, elephants, lions, giraffes – you name it!

We stayed in Joburg for 4 years and settled into developing our careers. Veterinary science in South Africa can become an all-consuming profession. Working weekends, bank holidays, being on call for weeks on end and getting minimal leave and fairly low pay for the hours put in. Don’t get me wrong, we had many epic travel adventures both local and international, some of which I hope to share with you in time, BUT we just found ourselves stressed, dreaming a little too much and feeling unsatisfied. We decided to make a change and applied for numerous jobs around the world, namely: China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia (they rejected me even before I applied) and Hong Kong.

So long story short…..a vet practice in Hong Kong came back to us with 2 jobs working at the same company but different clinics. It was a no brainer – they were willing to sponsor our work visa and help with registration with the Hong Kong veterinary board. We accepted and haven’t looked back (too much). We landed in HK in November 2014 with 92kg of luggage and our cat, Sweet-pea, in tow.

It was incredibly overwhelming at first, never having even visited this place we now called home! But we settled, made some friends, and we got used to being vets in a country where not everyone speaks English. Our hours are long, but working days are flexible and being part of a large company allowed us to swap days and re-arrange leave to suit us best. This November (2018) we will have been in Hong Kong for 4 years and will have spent 1 whole year of that travelling…some of our trips have been back home and to not so exotic places like the United Kingdom, but the majority have been Asia based.

Being animal and nature lovers, we are very conscious of the fact that we are slowly destroying the planet, and have realised that the opportunity to see some animals in their natural habitat or some natural phenomena is something not to be taken for granted. Being young, (somewhat) fit, and not really having anything tying us down (except for our cat and newly acquired birds – that story is for another day), we have managed to travel every 6-8 weeks. Many of these trips are based around seeing weird and wonderful animals and natural wonders. Think orangutan, proboscis monkey, pygmy elephant, chimpanzee, Komodo dragon, spinner dolphins, snow monsters…

We are very conscious of animal tourism and try avoid the interactions which lead to poor animal welfare and make the situation worse. Instead, we opt for experiences that we sometime have to work harder for (like trekking for 5 days in Sumatra to see Orangutans), and that sometimes don’t happen at all (traveling all the way to Egypt and the Red Sea to see Dugongs and then not seeing Dugongs). We have realised that nature guarantees nothing, however there is always an adventure to be had even in the mundane. Our job flexibility allows us to travel using annual leave and our days off duty, so our trips range anywhere between 5 to 14 days. We then head back to work to earn more money so we can do it all over again! We believe in fun adventures that are slightly more off the beaten trail than most, and aim to see amazing creatures in the most natural of habitats possible and in so doing minimise our impact and footprint.

 

I have never been a particularly funny person or good at creative writing, grammar or spelling, but if you bear with me/us, I hope to share our experiences…So, if you are keen and interested in what we have to say on a variety of things then stay tuned.