See What Tim Is Doing: The Long Road Home

LIFE ON KOH TAO, THAILAND – WEEK 2.5-5 OR 6 OR HOW EVER LONG IT WAS

The second half of my time in Thailand went much the same way as my first half, so this entry will be short and sweet. The days went much the same as the first half, train in the morning, sit by the beach all day then if didn't train in the morning, I would train in the afternoon, then at night it would be a meal somewhere (which was always epic no matter where we went) and a sneaky beer or 12. There were some different events of the second half though.

One night we went to the Swedes house up not he hills looking over Coral View armed with 5 fish and 2kgs of prawns costing about 10 pound for the lot, and our bikes and some balls for the slightly challenging ride up to their house. If I was to design a house that looked over the Thai sea, this house is exactly what I would of designed it like, open area, balconies everywhere, eternity pool, big entertaining area on the backyard,it was stunning. So we chilled with the Swedes, Gary cooked a monster feed with all our fresh seafood, we drank and watched the sun set and had a merry old time.

Becky, Ky, James, Caroline and myself also decided to do our Advanced Diving as well which was amazing! It ran over two days and we did five dives in total, and each dive we had to learn a new skill. Our first dive was a deep dive where we dove to 30m, which was incredible! Our second was a wreck dive around 26m deep. The wreck was an old warship with guns still intact! I really enjoyed the wreck diving and would love to do more of these, and possibly train to be able to dive inside the wrecks. The third dive was multi level and navigation which sounds pretty dull, but was actually rather interesting and helpful! and then the last two were my favourites, under water photography. It was a very fun two days out on the boat, diving, sitting in the sun, hanging out, could definitely get used to diving a lot!

After we did this course, we also did a few fun dives as del which was good fun, we always had amazing conditions and saw tons of marine life, but the one i am gutted about was a turtle that i swam right over not even knowing. I took a picture of an angel fish i was chasing and only later (weeks later) when I was looking over my photos I saw in the background a massive turtle just chilling on the bottom!

I kept up my boxing which was good and was really enjoying it even though it was 38+ every day. One of the guys we were hanging with a bit o the island had a fight one night, in the stadium not in the street! It was a very short fight, the other fighter came all guns blazing at Ben swinging huge haymakers, but Ben was smart and kept his distance and avoided most of the swinging arms and managed to get in close and deliver a few knees to his opponents face which ended the fight in the first round.

What else what else...I hired a bike again for another couple days at the end of my time, thought would go try and check out some more of the island before my time was up. Wasn't the most successful of adventures as most of the road i hadn't been on either lead to nowhere or they had been washed away from storms. But was still nice cruising around and got to see some more of the island.

Becky and Ky got wicked tattoos by Phu or Poo or not sure how to write it but it sounds like poo. He is a true talent! He specialises in bamboo tattoo and after seeing his work, I am going there for my next tattoo. His detail is amazing, he is super chill and friendly, he is an amazing drawer and with bamboo there's no need to stay out of the sun or saltwater. As soon as its done you can go swimming. I will be seeing Phu again sometime in the near future!

The boys also ventured on a day fish in trip, with high expectations after seeing loads of people turn up at the docks with huge fish. A day on a rickety old fishing boat, a mix of sun and storm, beers and snacks and absolutely no fish at all. We were out there for hours and between the 6 of us, there were two fish caught, and they would've been lucky to reach 20cm each. Not overly successful day but was a fun day!

Also one of the major highlights of the week was a day out at Coral View where we went snorkelling with the black tip reef sharks. Once you spotted one, you could see them easily! They were still pretty big, around 4-5ft and were not scary at all. Once you got within a few metres of them, they would swim away. Pretty surreal feeling swimming with them!

In-between all these events we did have a good few days of rancid weather where it stormed and we were confined to our rooms. Which was not ideal but didn't hurt, we got into playing poker on the balcony and was probably good for our skin to get out of the sun for a while!.

Our last major event was Halloween, and it was a good, rather messy night and a fun night to go out on. We had to rustle up some makeshift costumes from what we had, Ky and I put on our fluro singlets, I borrowed a pair of Becky's very small shorts and some arm bands made from footy socks, was interesting to say the least. Ben painted himself green and went as Hulk and Becky and Gary borrowed some banana leaves and made very good Tarzan and Jane outfits. We did the normal rounds of the bars, drinking, playing pool and saying our goodbyes to some of the people we met as we were leaving in two days time. It was a really nice, fun last night out in Kho Tao, and kind of sad knowing that our time on the island was done.

A couple of days later, Becky, Ky and myself packed our bags and started on the journey to Kuala Lumpur. The original plan was to go to Bangkok and do some shopping and then fly from there, but due to the floods, we had to re-route our plans and head straight to KL. So ferry to Kho Samui, then a little plan to KL, a few days in KL and then board my flight back to Sydney, the home I haven't been to for over 2 and a half years!

Boxing at Island Muay Thai

The view from the kitchen at the Swedes

Garry's fish

BBQ prawns

Dinner with the Swedes

Praying Mantis on our balcony

Sunset from our balcony

Ben on our successful fishing day

Fishing

My ride

Not the safest of routes

Typical day on Kho Tao

Ky enjoying being tattooed

Me and my trainer at Island Muay Thai

Diving with school of fish!

James, Caroline, Becky and me

Diving

Little fish

Another fish

Swimming with scars at Coral View

Halloween

Ky, Becky and me on Halloween

Dvd! Our pooch!

View from the Swedes

Swedes place

Inside the Swedes place

LIFE ON KOH TAO, THAILAND – WEEK 1-2.5

I had always planned to finish my trip with a month on the island of Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand. I had been there once before and loved it as it had everything you needed, but was minus the Starbucks and chains that have taken away the Thai charm of islands like Samui. My plan was to do my Open Water diving, and then spend a month training at the Muay Thai gym on the island and get into shape after four months of abusing my body and for my return home in more then two and a half years. Did this all go to plan, well pretty much, for the first couple of weeks at least.

So I stopped in Bangkok a couple of nights to get some bits and pieces and to sort my way to Koh Tao, and I ran into Becky and Ky who I had met in China months ago, and whom I also ran into randomly in Laos. I got a message from them on facebook the night before I arrived in Bangkok saying they were going to be there tomorrow, as was I, so we ended up meeting up and spending a few days in Bangkok, chilled a bit, shopped a bit and had one boozey night that ended up in towers being drank, racing Japanese guys in underpants, tattoos and the usual things that come along with a messy night in Bangkok.

The next day I rose to get money out of my account only to find my card was expired (according to the machine and several other machines I tried) although the expirey date on my card was 03/2012. Then I tried my other card, and realized I never got sent the pin, two down one to go. Then my other card which I know worked, didn’t have any money in it, and transferring money from Australia account to UK account takes days. So after an initial panic I spoke to HSBC Australia and they kindly let me know they cancelled my card as they thought I didn’t need it, no emails or calls to ask me this of course. But to make a long story short, I sorted it out in the end, although this entitled transferring money to a friend on Koh Taos Australian account and then taking it out of his account using a his card. Easy enough but still a pain in the arse. Anyways back to the story.

Becky and Ky decided they were going to head to Koh Tao as well and do their diving, so we all booked buses and got ready to leave on an overnight bus/ferry ride to the island. The bus trip was fine, nothing exciting to report, except when we got off at the ferry terminal, Ky looked in his wallet and they had taken over $200 from it while he was asleep, and then to rub salt into the wounds, they took 5 pouches of tobacco from his big backpack that was in the luggage compartment of the bus, which was actually locked up. We arrived to Koh Tao after a few hours on the ferry, booked into our diving which started the next day and then chilled on the beach for the afternoon.

Over the next few days we did our Open Water diving course and it was amazing. We only got to go to a depth of 18 meters but it was still amazing. We dove at some pretty impressive spots, saw some amazing fish and had a good time with our group and also the other group who started the same time as us, and we all ended up becoming good mates. We learnt all the skills like using all our equipment, underwater signals, what to do if we lose our regulator or goggles, safety and general knowledge about the underwater world. Being underwater is what I can imagine walking on the moon is like, and at one stage in our course we sank to the bottom and took off our fins and started doing super slow floating flips and karate kicks that were like slow montion kicks that sent both parties flying backwards. The fun wasn’t always under the water as well, chilling on the boat between dives was always a good laugh as well, especially when running backflips off the top of the boat were tried for the first time. The night time while diving were taken pretty easy as being hungover and diving was not good for many reasons, but we made up for it once our course was finished.

Over the next couple of weeks, the daily routines consisted of boxing in the morning or afternoon (hangover depending) hanging at the beach, eating food and then consuming a few drinks on the balcony of the Big Yellow House, our home for the month, with the new crew of friends we had, myself, Becky and Ky, Garry from Essex, the northern couple James and Caroline, team Sweden (Sofia and Emelie), Ben and Ying and then Yann aka Sanka the Frenchman. There were some special events and messy nights of the month.

One of the first would’ve been Caroline’s birthday bash which was a good night out, a good crew of 10 or so of us, all in fluro matching ‘I love Koh Tao’ singlets. It was a good, rather messy night that entitled beers, body shots, cutting shapes on the dance floor, beachside beers and a substantial hangover the next day!

Another was our choice to do our Advanced Diving course which was worth every penny. This courses teaches you underwater navigation, deep sea diving (30meters), using computers while diving, underwater photography and loads of other stuff. We did it at Big Blue where we did our Open Water as were stoked with them and our instructor Tosh was wicked so we wanted to do our advanced certificate with him. The course consisted of 5 dives, our first dive was a deep dive to just above 30meters where we swam around a naval shipwreck which was amazing. The boat was still intact as it wasn’t sunk too long ago, and still had the anchor chains, doors and large gun on both the front and back of the boat. Was an amazing experience, but at the same time was also rather eerie.

The other dives we did were amazing as well diving down to depths of around 30meters, seeing some pretty amazing sea life, tons of fish, crabs, shrimps, eels hard and soft coral and all while learning as well. Learning to navigate our way underwater, controlling our buoyancy, using dive computers and according to mine and Ky’s advanced diving cards, under water basket weaving. The advanced course was amazing! Definitely made me love diving even more then I already did! Being underwater and breathing like normal is a completely out of this world feeling!

Also another good day out was our first trip to another beach besides our local Sairee Beach. We hired mopeds and headed to Coral View, a beach over the other side of the island, which was stunning. The ride over there on a crappy moped was not the easiest, and I wasn’t even doubling anyone. A bumpy, rocky road and some hectic steep hills, but in the end was well worth it. An empty beach with pretty much just us there (James and Caroline, Ky and Becky, Team Sweden aka Sofia and Emelie and me and Canadian James). The water was stunning, so clear, the sand so white and the sun absolutely shining. The girls baked on the beach while the boys climbed a pretty unsafe rock to get a birdeye view of the area. A nice day out, which we have done again a few times since.

Another interesting night out was a random night out where we ended up at a Ladyboy Cabaret which as horrible as is sounds, was a really fun night. A lot fo them really do look like ladies, and man or woman, they were extremely entertaining, and at the end they got guys from the crowds, including myself, James and Ky, and take them backstage, dress them in wigs and bikinis and then take you out to dance for a song or two, which sounds weird and unenjoyable, ten or so western guys up on the stage, slightly drunk and dancing around in wigs, but it was a good laugh.

Towards the end of the first half of the time on the island, we all hired bikes again, but this time we hired them for four days, and we left the gutless mopeds out of the equation and opted for some bikes with grunt. James and Caroline, and Becky and Ky got monster quad bikes, Garry already had his bike, which was a cross between a mopeds and a trail bike so he was alright, and Ben and I got little 140 trailbikes which were amazing fun.

We took a ride out to Tanote Bay, another beach over the other side of the island with some amazing snorkeling, cleanest beaches I have seen, and a giant rock about 150m from the shore that you climb a rope up, then jump off the top into the crystal clear water that looks about 3m deep because it is so clean, but it really is close to 10! The day there was really chill, swimming, sunning, snorkeling and relaxing in the sunshine.

Then at the end of the day someone made the call to go to the viewpoint for sunset, which sounded like a great idea, which it was, just the road there was slightly challenging to say the least. Rocky, loose, bumpy but fun to hammer up on a bike, and well worth it. The view from the top was impressive! You could see the whole of Sairee Beach and right up the hill as well, and nothing was in your way to disturb your view. The hard ride up there was definitely worth it.

I think besides the normal beach days and chilling, they are the main events of the first couple of weeks that come to mind, there are probably more but all the weeks here on Koh Tao are moulding into one. But one thing is for sure, I absolutely love Koh Tao!

Diving

A turtle!

Daily fun

Caroline's birthday

Big Blue Diving School

Chilling for sunset

Our dive crew and instructor Tosh

The crew for Caroline's birthday

Tanote Bay

My gym

Coral View

James getting tattooed

Sunset at Sarree Beach

Shipwreck diving

Ky diving

Sunset

Little mantis on our balcony

simba aka Sandy!

Tanote Bay

Another terrible sunset

Sunset over Sarree Beach

VIETNAM PART 2 – HOI AN, HANOI AND HALONG BAY (15 - 26 SEPTEMBER)

So I wrote this whole entry but while cleaning up my laptop I deleted the word document and now I have to write it from memory, so like a few of the last entries, it will be more of a summary of the places.

Jordie and I left Nha Trang and headed north to Hoi An, a city known for its tailors that can make anything from a photo. This was about all we knew about Hoi An was that it was close to Da Nang, a city that housed a major air base used by both the South Vietnamese and United States air forces during the Vietnam War, and close to China Beach, a surf spot that soldiers used on their R&R. Hoi An is recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, so from that you can gather the city has some charm, a charm that is different to the rest of Vietnam; slower pace then everywhere else, cleaner, and even the buildings were completely different with an impressive French Colonial look.

We arrived and checked into a guesthouse recommended by someone we met and it was perfect, $5 a night for a room with aircon, bathroom and double bed, accommodation in Vietnam was proving to be the best value for money. Not wasting any time we went for a wander and quickly got lost, but it was no worry as the city moves at a slow, relaxed place and everyone is smiling. The first day we just chilled, ate some amazing soup, drank Vietnamise coffee and just relaxed.

Over the next six days (we stayed a little longer then expected, as it was an amazing town) we were pretty busy, but a good busy.

We got some clothes and shoes made which turned out amazing. For US$114 I had a pair of leather dress shoes and a pair of casual canvas shoes made custom to my feet, a big woolen duffle jacket, pair of chino pants, pair of chino shorts and a shirt made all custom fit. The quality was good and the gear looked good, so from now on I think I may fly there every new season and get clothes made! Its cheaper and better! Not only are the tailors good, but the markets themselves were good fun to wander through and buy some bits and bobs. Everything from souvenir t-shirts to home wares, through to weird and wonderful looking vegetables and meats of all kinds. The smell would sometimes get a little overpowering, but it was still a fun way to kill a couple of free hours.

We ate a lot, and at a variety of places over the week. We had one regular restaurant on the river we visited every day for a snack of fresh spring rolls, Vietnamese coffee and a good hour or so of people watching. We ate in the markets too, which was interesting but cheap and delicious. Normally we’d be sat on tiny plastic chair at a table with local Vietnamese people, given a bowl with some noodle soup and some mystery meat and then given a tea or coffee of some sort. A lot of people avoid eating at these kinds of stalls due to hygiene worries etc, but it is well worth doing and you won’t get sick, well we didn’t. But it was just a good experience sitting with the locals, watching the way they go their day-to-day lives, interacting with them as well (although many in these markets speak limited English).

We did get recommended one restaurant there which had no menu, you sat and they brought out the one thing they made, which to this day I still do not know how to explain, except for amazing.

They brought out several plates, one with rice paper wraps, one with lettuce and cucumber, another with cabbage(?) and pineapple pieces, one with spring rolls, one with chicken and prok bbq skewers and then a bowl of sauce. Once everything is out on the table, one of the staff show you how its done. They grab a two rice paper sheets, put some lettuce and cucumber, then the cabbage like mix, then a spring roll, then a skewers, wrap it up and dip it into the sauce. Sounds weird and not to appetizing? Wrong, its frickon amazing! So amazing that we ended up eating there the last three nights in a row. The food was amazing, they kept bringing it till you were about to pop, good bear and to top it of the staff there were so friendly and they remembered you when you came back. An amazing dinner with a few beers only set you back less then $5.

Every night along the river-front they put out plastic chairs where you could go sit with locals or tourists and enjoy cold beers for less then $1, which was always a good way to wind down after a big day. Jordie and I frequented the river side quite a lot, but who wouldn’t, cheap beers, amazing location and fun people!

Besides eating, shopping and observing the day to day life of the locals, we got on a motorbike and did some exploring in the quest for waves. As the waves in Mui Ne were good, unfortunately the conditions for getting some good photos for the article weren’t, so we were hoping that we could find some waves to go with the bluebird days we were having.

Day one we got a bike and rode to the nearest beach, which was no more then a 5-10 minute ride away. This beach was beautiful, but flat as a tack. So we ventured further north to try and find China Beach where the soliders used to surf. We turned down a little sandy road off the main road and hit the beach, which was littered in Vietnamese fishing boats (which are like an oversized woven basket), white sand and crystal clear waters (some of the clearest I have ever seen), it was like paradise, only not many waves.

Jodie still went in for a paddle and got a few waves, but nothing outstanding. A little bummed, we were about to leave when a few local kids (maybe 6-8 years old) came over and didn’t speak a word of English, but within 2 minutes Jordie had them out in the water giving them a surfing lesson. Even though the language barrier was there, this didn’t stop the kids having an awesome time and the smiles and laughter on their face said it all. And to top it of, we got some amazing snaps of the kids on the board, in the water, having fun, so it turned out to be pretty good in the end. Oh and to top it off after their free surf lesson, they asked us for money. So to take photos of them and give them a surfing lesson, it cost us about $3 haha.

Day two was better then the first. Even more amazing conditions then the previous day, but this time there were some waves, nothing massive, but enough to get some good shots in.

That was the best day we had surfing easily, but even though the other days exploring were still great. One day we even drove to Da Nang (about 30km north of Hoi An which was good fun on one little motor bike, two people, board and gear) to search for more waves, but nothing much going on, except we saw some old airbase buildings and some old hangers, and on the beach near where we went in the water there was an old bunker right on the sand. No waves definitely didn’t mean no fun.

So our time in Hoi An eventually ended, although we weren’t too keen on leaving as we fell in love with the place, but it was time to move on as we had to head north as the date of our flights were fast approaching. So from Hoi An we headed straight north to Hanoi.

To eb completely honest, I don’t really have much to write about Hanoi, it’s not that it was bad, we just didn’t do much. It was a bit of a relaxing time. The city itself is pretty cool, with a nice big lake in the middle, some crazy shopping and a massive indoor market that was too overwhelming to explore.

There were a few highlights though to Hanoi, the lads we met on the bus brought a Vietnamese shuttlecock, which is like a spring with some plastic and some feathers on the end and you kick it around like a hacky sack. We took it one afternoon to the park and four of us started kicking it around (very badly) and within 20 minutes our four had grown close to 14, with locals coming in a joining us and helping us keep it up in the air. We played for ages and it was a good laugh, although we couldn’t really talk to each other we all laughed and played and had a good time.

We did have a nice messy night out one night which was unplanned but turned out to be good crack. We tagged along with a hostel pub crawl and got pretty messy and met some good people and had a laugh. Jordie and I also went to a fund raising gig for an English guy who came off his bike in Bangkok and is now paralyzed and to make matters worse he had no insurance, so they were raising money for him to pay for hospital bills etc. It was a good night, loads of ex-pats there (didn’t know there were so many in Hanoi) good music, drinks, food and a good time. And an interesting motorbike ride there and home, with me, Jordie and the driver all crammed onto on motorbike that could barely fit two people!

I did take a trip out to Halong Bay though, which was amazing and well worth it. Ha Long Bay has an area of around 1,553 km², including 1,960 islets, most of which are limestone, which makes it a pretty amazing sight to see.

We did a two day cruise which literally involved getting on a boat, chilling out on the top of the boat, taking in the breathtaking scenery, kayaking around the limestone peaks and then enjoying a few cold beers as the sun went down over the water. It was pretty special!

After the cruise though it was back to Hanoi for a day, then headed to Bangkok. Thailand, my last country before I head home!

Boats at night, Hoi An

Jordie eating breakfast with the locals, Hoi An

Young girls playing cards in the street, Hoi An

Locals getting their surf lesson, Hoi An

Jordie and the local kids, Hoi An

Surf lesson, Hoi An

The crew at our favourite restaurant with the staff, Hoi An

River at night, Hoi An

Jordie shredding, China Beach

Paradise, China Beach

Fishing boats, Hoi An

Roadside barber, Hoi An

Caves, Halong Bay

Halong Bay

Local fisherman, Halong Bay

Sunset, Halong Bay

Swimming at sunset, Halong Bay

Halong Bay

Vietnamese masks, Hanoi

Roadside BBQ pork buns, Hanoi

Three on a small bike, Hanoi

Beach side bunker, south of Da Nang

PART 1 – HO CHI MINH (SIAGON), MUI NE AND NHA TRANG (4 - 14 SEPTEMBER)

After a rather good bus ride where I had two seats to myself, I arrived in Ho Chi Minh around 7pm and with a very rough address where I was staying. Ho Chi Minh was a little different to what I expected and to what I was used to. It is a big, bright, bustling city that never sleeps. I gave a taxi driver my address, insisted on the meter so he couldn’t overcharge me and got in what was supposed to be a short 5 minutes drive. 15 minutes later though I was still in the cab, and I could tell was being taken for a sucker, and to alter my senses even more, I saw the cab driver play around with his meter and have it go very quickly from 50,000 to 480,000 with a swift bump of his hand on something underneath. So I asked him if we were nearby and he said yeah two minutes, and we drove past where we had already been and I said it to him and he said something along the lines of one way streets make hard, although all the roads we had been on were dual way.

I’d had enough and told him to pull over as he was taking the p*ss out of me and I saw him tinker with his meter and he laughed as though I was joking, and finally another minute or two of gradually getting more stern with him he pulled up at my address (which to this day I am not sure if it was even the right address) and pushed another button on the meter and it finished at 910,000 (nearly £30) which is a lot in Vietnam. I refused to pay him that as I knew he took me around the traps and he messed with his meter and he wasn’t opening the door. Lucky a tourist officer (kind of like a police officer without as much power but are there for the safety of tourists and for information etc) walked by and I started banging on the cab window saying he won’t let me out and is trying to rob me. Long story short, the cab driver I think got scared, told me it was now 91,000 (that his meter has an extra 0 on it for some reason) and opened my door, and the back door so could get my bag out, and then refused to give me my change from 100,000 which really is worth nothing but I wanted it out of principal. He quickly drove off before the tourist officer could take down his details and I was left on a random, but at least busy street, located a guesthouse, different to the one in my original plan but it did the trick.

Not impressed with Siagon already I was a bit sour and thought I would get out of here asap as I heard scams and robberies were common and last thing I wanted on a holiday was those kind of worries. Luckily while strolling the streets I randomly ran into Binks and Nat who I had hung out with in Laos and they had met some locals and we went and sat on plastic chairs on the street and drank beers with the locals and my thoughts on the place rose with the locals we were hanging with being super friendly and also Nat and Binks reassuring me that Vietnam was awesome. So we enjoyed some beers and laughs and general chat on the road side and eventually retired to bed, saying my byes to Nat and Binks as they were leaving the next day.

The next day I did was I do best, explore the city, try and find a post office to post some crap I had been lugging around for weeks that was getting annoying and checked out the market there that was supposed to be one of the best in South East Asia, but to tell the truth it was just like all the others which was still cool. Although I did have an amazing feed there which costs £3.50 and consisted of a bowl of Pho with prawns and 6 prawn rice paper rolls and a can of drinks. The best thing about these markets which I ate at a couple of times was that you didn’t have to order, they just gave you what they thought you wanted or would like, and it always worked out well. Second night I booked a trip to Chu Chi Tunnels and then hit the hay pretty early, as the tour was an early start.

The Chu Chi Tunnels were pretty interesting, and pretty amazing at the same time. How these people lived in these networks of tunnels amazed me, the sizes of the tunnels were tiny! One tunnel you could try get into was so small that I barely fit and had to raise my arms to get in. Another that is opened for you to crawl along is a couple of hundred meters long, is bigger then the majority of tunnels (but is still only about 75cm tall and wide and after crawling through the small section of the tunnel, you come out with a glossy shine on your skin courtesy of the instant sweat brought on from the heat of the tunnels.

Also interesting and disturbing at the same time were the traps and methods the Vietnamese used against their enemies which involved sharpened bamboo pits, hidden spike wheels and some other barbaric contraptions. The ventilation of the tunnels also impressed me, with the Vietnamese using termite mounds to disguise their ventilation holes, and also making chimney like tunnels that made the smoke raise far from where they were actually cooking. They even used to rub American soldiers clothes around the entries to the tunnels so the sniffer dogs would not pick up a foreign scent and think that there were Americans around, not Vietnamese, clever little fellas they were. I capped off the tour with what every good tour should finish with, shooting a few rounds of an M-16 at some targets on the open air shooting range.

That night was nice and relaxed, a couple of Americans I met on the tour (Jen & Jen) and also two Irish (Ian and Marian who I met in Laos) went for a couple of 30p beers on the little plastic table and chair set ups on the road side in town. These little set ups are everywhere and not only provide the cheapest beer in town, they are also much more enjoyable then the bars where beers were four times the price. You could sit there and people watch for hours, meet both locals and other travellers, enjoy cheap beer and food and just lap up the Vietnamese culture.

The next day I boarded a bus to Mui Ne, about a five hour bus ride away from the chaos of Siagon. I hadn’t heard many people go to Mui Ne, but I read it was a chilled out beach town that gets some small waves. That was all I had to hear, beach, chilled and waves.

The bus pulled up at a rather nice hotel and straight away was hussled inside and showed rooms, which were nice, but just a standard hotel style room. I wanted a little shack/bungalow that had water views, and this concrete jungle with not even a glimpse of the water wasn’t my cup of tea. So I literally crossed the road, went into the first little place I found and it was perfect. $8 a night for my own room with big bed, view out my window to the beach (which was only about 25m from my door as well) my own bathroom and wooden shack style walls.

Not wasting any time, I dumped my bag and headed down to the beach. Greeted by a Caribbean fella (Didier) who was smiling and super keen to chat with everyone, he ordered me a tea (like a mojito without the bicardi and some ginger, amazing!) and got chatting about where I was from and what I was doing etc and he told me about himself and how he came there for a holiday and ended up opening a kite boarding school. He then introduced me to Jordie who was another Australian (the first I think I have met since China) and we started chatting just about everything and anything and ended up grabbing a few beers and playing some pool. Turned out Jordie was writing an article for a new surfing magazine coming out and he had no photographer and wasn’t sure what he was going to do, so I put my hand up and assumed the role as his photographer, which was really good fun, challenging at times due to no zoom lens and having to stand in the water to shoot while avoiding the rain and waves, but was wicked fun.

I don’t really need to go on day by day of Mui Ne as it was all nearly the same thing, get up, swim or surf, eat, swim or surf, eat, maybe swim or surf depending on waves and then finish the night with some food, beers and pool. Sounds repetitive but it was just what I wanted, no need to have to do anything except chill, and getting back on a board after more then two years was hard, but still just as much fun as always! Planned to stay there three days, I think I ended up staying nearly a week and loved it. Weather wasn’t perfect but got some sun and got some rain, didn’t matter still loved the place.

Only down side to Mui Ne was their Red Dunes, which when you google image them, they look stunning! So I got up early one morning, got on my motorbike and rode there for sunset. I got there, it was cloudy so sunrise was shite, but to rub salt into the wounds, the dunes were extremely sub par. The photos of them were either taken years and years ago, or photoshopped to the max, or simply not those dunes. So pretty disappointed, the start of my one day seeing touristy stuff was not off to a good one, and it put me in a sour mood, so I just decided to skip the 20km ride to the White Dunes as I couldn’t be disappointed again and then have to ride a long way back to town. Unfortunately I was informed later that the white dunes were actually pretty impressive, oh well I’ll survive!

So a week passed in Mui Ne and decided it was time to make a move up north, so Jordie and I booked an overnight bus to Nha Trang, an overnight bus north of Mui Ne, but still on the coast so still time to get some sun and some time in the water, although there was no chance of waves here.

Spent day one exploring the beach, getting some sun and taking some shots and then got some amazing dinner and played pool, which had become a bit of a ritual and then retired to bed pretty early as the bus rides aren’t the most relaxing.

The next day we caught up with Sean, Kai and Danni, three Californians that we met in Mui Ne and we chilled with them, just caught up on bits and pieces I’d been putting off for a while, explored some more and relaxed at the beach. No sights to see here, just time to relax which is nice for a change. So far Vietnam had been pretty relaxed, until our third and final night in Nha Trang.

We all went out for dinner and then the others went to the pub for a few drinks while I went out and took some photos at night. I only took a few as I didn’t feel that comfortable walking around with big camera and tripod by myself in the dark as there is a lot of chatter about men (yep men) being mugged by kamikaze hookers, who ride up and steal whatever you have on them, some just ride and snatch, some pick pocket and some may even pull a knife on you.

So after snapping a few shots, I took my camera back to the hotel and met up with the others at the Red Apple and started what would turn out to be a pretty messy night. The night in bullet point went a little like this:

• Casual drinks at Red Apple with just the 5 of us

• Moved to another table and the group grows to 12+

• Tequila suicides and flaming Sambucas are ordered.

• Happy hour ending soon so every orders more then enough drinks

• Move to Oasis(?) another bar, play some pool and the cut some serious shapes on the dance floor that had no one on there until we showed up, Dj loved us

• Jordie and Sean have their way with the stripper pole

• Moved onto Ice Bar, which is a bar in a giant freezer pretty much and the furniture is made from blocks of ice. Order some hectic strong cocktails that we had never heard of before

• Free shots so made the most of them.

• Caused havoc in Ice Bar for a while

• Vietnamese guy comes in and says if the guys get nude for a minute they get free shots (cause everyone really needed it)

• Jordie and Sean are chased around by the Vietnamese guy who is smacking them with a rolled up newspaper. And then swaps the newspaper for a ice cold bottle of vodka.

• After the shots and dressing again, move down to Sailing Club, a big bar on the beach.

• Bouncer kindly points us away, no idea why

• Go onto the beach, Jordie attempting to run while undressing while hammered resulted in a few comical tumbles.

• Swimming in the water

• Some annoying Australia girl coming over and telling everyone to get out cause its to dangerous as rips are strong at this time, and then hammering in the fact she was Australian so she knows everything about the surf. Except she didn’t let us get a word in to realize she was talking to two Australians who I guarantee spent more time in the water then her (she wasn’t the most beach looking girl). And more to the point, everyone was in shin deep water in pretty much a bay with not even a ripple, so there was no rips, she was just one of the many giving Australians a bad name abroad.

• Walk home from beach, Sean taking one of the cyclos for a ride.

• Retire to bed, ready for an early wake up as we had a whole day boat tour planned the next day.

It was a fun night!

Our last day in Nha Trang and we did a boat tour which took us around a few island and to one of the most depressing aquariums I have ever seen in my life. The tanks were tanks, maybe a rock or two in there but that’s about it, some faded wallpaper on the back of the tanks with some rocks and coral on there. No much stimulation for the poor incarcerated animals.

Next stop was an area for snorkeling, but we heard the snorkeling was lame, so we decided to throw ourselves off the top of the boat into the crystal clear water instead (and really I think this was what the three of us boys were most looking forward to all day). Ate some nice local cuisine and chatted to the others on the boat.

Next stop was another island, this one had nothing on it but was a pretty nice island. We just lazed in the sun and swam and chilled. Then after we got back on the boat and the crew put on a bit of a show and played some songs and got people from the crowd up onto the stage to sing some songs from their countries which was a good laugh. Then it was some more swimming in the ocean and a floating bar, so we jumped, swam, floated in tubes and drank some weird fruity wine concoction before boarding the boat again and setting sail back to the mainland, just in time to get our next overnight bus up to Hoi An.

Tasty snack in markets in Siagon

Chu Chi Tunnels

Little bit of traffic - Siagon

View from my room in Mui Ne

Beach out front in Mui Ne

Jordie getting some airtime

Red Dunes in Mui Ne

Sunrise over the beach in Mui Ne

Drying fish in Mui Ne

Jordie carving - Mui Ne

Artist shot - Mui Ne

Nha Trang

Roadside barber - Nha Trang

Nha Trang

Flowers - Nha Trang

Local fisherman - Nha Trang

Moon over Nha Trang Beach

Turtle - Nha Trang

Floating bar - Nha Trang

The crew chilling on island just off Nha Trang

Beers and plastic chairs - Siagon

Nude in the Ice Bar - Nha Trang

Sean taking cycle for a ride - Nha Trang

Crew on the boat trip - Nha Trang

Boat jumping - Nha Trang

Inside the Chu Chi Tunnels

CAMBODIAN SUMMARY – SIEM REAP, SIHANOUKVILLE AND PHNOM PENH (26 AUGUST – 4 SEPTEMBER)

So I got a little preoccupied in Cambodia updating everything that I forgot to write anything, so this will be a summary (as best I can remember) of Camdoia so may be a long one and will have a few more photos then normal.

After 37 hours and three buses, we finally made it to Siem Reap late at night and exhausted! Not to mention the sleeper leg of the bus we were given beds just big enough for one person, but actually had to fit two in there, so sharing with a stranger was interesting, and luckily I didn’t get a fat Cambodia fella, but I got a 6ft tall Canadian who when folded up into the bed, didn’t allow much room for myself, but I survived, but was exhausted so pretty much went straight to bed upon arrival in Siem Riep and ready for the next day.

Jonny, Emma and I took a walk around the town of Siem Reap after a nice sleep in, went shopping in the market there and got on some bikes and went riding around the town and up to Angkor Wat for sunset.

Angkor Wat at sunset was pretty impressive. The lake around the temple was still, reflections of the blue sky and the temple provided some amazing photos and then the light on the temple as the sunset was truly magnificent.

That night we chilled ate some interesting food, got fish pedicures (where the fish eat your feet, which tickles like hell at first and then once you are used to it actually feels really nice!) and got a semi early night as we planned to go to Angkor Wat for sunrise.

Sunrise didn’t happen, we got up early and it was pissing down with rain, so we went back to bed and slept till 11 and by then the sun was out and we got in a tuk tuk and headed back to explore more of the temples.

Angkor is the world’s largest sacred temple, spread over an area of more than 400 square kilometers and takes days to see every temple in the area. It is also one of the Wonder of the World. The most famous is Angkor Wat, which is seen on the Combodian Riel notes and also on their flag. The temple itself is pretty impressive and unlike many other temples I have seen. We spent a fair bit of time here even though we had seen a fair amount of it the previous day at sunset, but it was worth a second visit.

After we visited another two temples Angkor Thom and unfortunately I forget the other ones name, impressive but completely different look to that of Angkor Wat. Angkor Thom was like an open air maze of walls with carving and etches all along, and Buddha faces at the top of most of the pillars and at the tops of all the structures. The second was more like a set of ruins covered in moss, which gave you the feeling of being in the jungle somewhere, and also had crazy carving on all the walls.

The last temple we visited was Ta Prohm, made famous from the Tomb Raider film. I think this temple was up there as my favourite. Although not as big as the others, it has not been fixed up (although they were starting to fix some of it up while we were there). There were large stones that used to be part of the walls lying in piles covered in moss, sections of the temple fallen and crumbled and lying there untouched, and most impressive were the trees that are hundreds and thousands of years old growing over the buildings. Some were growing over the walls around the temple, some were growing on the walls of the temple itself, and some had even grown through the temple and broken through the roofs reaching for the sky. It felt very authentic and untouched, and looked really amazing!

Our final day in Siem Reap we shopped a bit more and just relaxed before a bus ride to Sihanoukville, which was another interesting bus trip. Dark roads, no streetlights, a big bus and rain, not a good mix for anywhere in the world, but Cambodian bus drivers are by far the craziest I have ever seen. We hurtled down the black roads at speeds of 100-120km/h, turning corners where you could barely even see there was a corner, and then the most eventful and terrifying part of the trip, launching off a speed bump going at least 100kms. The driver was maintaining his three figure speeds when all of a sudden the bus launches into the air, front wheels definitely lifting off the asphalt, and everyone lifting out of their chairs, and then lands with an all mighty crash as the front of the bus smashes into the road. The driver I think must of done this many times as he had no troubles controlling the bus as it landed from its flight. An hour or so later we change bus, surprise surprise, the other bus is screwed from its jumping antics. Luckily the second bus made it there although due to the drivers Daytona style driving, we were nearly two hours early and arrived at 5am instead of 7, which made finding accommodation a little harder as everywhere was closed. All was good we found somewhere and got a few hours shut eye before waking to explore Sihanoukville.

I didn’t know what to expect from Sihanoukville, all I knew that there was a beach and that was about it. When I rose in the morning, I went for a wander and quickly learned that the town was up and coming, but seemed that it was trying to develop too quickly. Building were spurting up everywhere, but the basic things like an actual road were missing, some buildings were small thatched roof huts that had tried updating quickly and cheaply, which made them loose a bit of their authenticity and charm. One local also told us that the town is going one of two ways, upmarket, clean and very touristy, or the complete opposite, still touristy but more of a red light style town, as apparently prostitution there is a big problem. If it goes the seedy way, it will be a shame as it does have some potential to be nice.

In saying all that though, the beaches are pretty nice. The first day I got a motorbike and went for a ride around the area and checked out some of the smaller quieter beaches and they were really nice. Clean beaches and water with no one there. The main beach though where all the bars and restaurants are though is clean, but you are constantly hassled by kids selling necklaces and bracelets, men selling sunglasses or women trying to cut your toe nails, which really does get a punish when you are trying to relax.

The food there is amazing! The three of us had dinner on the beach, literally two meters from the waters edge, and our dinners, consisting off BBQ meats and fish, salad and beers, and it cost US$3 each. And the mornings had the same deal, cheap eats on the waters edge, amazing!

One day in Sihanoukville we did a day tour out to some of the islands nearby which I had heard were amazing. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t the best, and our first stop was a little bay to go snorkelling, but the water was cloudy and really couldn’t see anything, so first stop wasn’t successful. The second stop was Bamboo Island, a pretty nice beach with not much there but clear blue water and white sand. We swam around and chilled there for a bit, ate a nice barracuda lunch and then a storm came in and we had to cut out trip short. The boat ride back was pretty sketchy. The boat we were in wasn’t the most stable of vessels. Powered by a makeshift motor from a car and a long pipe with a tiny propeller, there wasn’t much power to get us through the rough conditions, we felt like a sitting duck in the middle of the ocean. The waves were big and rocking the boat, the driver was driving parallel to the waves so the waves were hitting the boat side on and at times nearly tipping the boat. One poor Dutch girl was in tears and I think genuinely thought we were going to die. After an hour or so of a semi stressful boat trip we made it back to land safe and sound!

The rest of the time on Sihanoukville was spent trying to relax in between getting haggled by the kids on the beach to buy their bracelets etc, it was a shame the weather wasn’t all the amazing.

Last stop in Cambodia was Phnom Penh, a city with not many sights and beautiful attractions, but with a rich and dark history.

Day one we chilled as we got in late and had an early night in our sweatbox of a room! Day two was more productive; visiting S21 and the Killing Fields.

S21, now know as The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a former high school which was used as the notorious Security Prison by the Khmer Rouge communist regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979.

From the outside, it paints a pretty grim picture with barbwire and razor wire lining anywhere prisoners could possibly escape, and big grey, uninviting buildings inside. Once inside the complex, it only gets grimmer. There are many different kinds of rooms in S21, single person cells approximately 1m wide by 2m long, group cells containing more than 40 people lying in rows, head to toe and chained to each other, torture cells and solitary confinement cells that are about 75cm by 75cm, and the prisoners have to stand in them. And to make matters even more uncomfortable and unreasonable, the prisoners were giving an ammunition box and a plastic bottle and this was it, no pillows or blankets, just these two things. The bottle to pee in, the box to poop in, luxurious huh?

The things that happened here were barbaric and upsetting that people could do this to each other, and what makes it even worse they were Cambodians doing it to other Cambodians. There were even bloodstains in some of the cells! I could go on and on about this place as although it was extremely upsetting, disturbing and grim, it was extremely interesting and eye opening.

So we decided to continue the light hearted day and head to the Killing Fields after S21. The Killing Fields lived up to their name, with prisoners of S21 normally finding themselves here to meet their end. What used to be a Chinese cemetery became a cemetery for the victims of the Khmer Rouge with thousands of thousand of bodies buried here after being killing inhumanly. The soldiers didn’t want to waste bullets to

Kill the prisoners so they killed them using anything from a stone to an axe to a hammer to even using the sharps sides of palm trees to cut throats. The way they killed babies was easily the most disturbing fact I heard, they would either swing them against a tree while their mother watched, or one would throw the baby into the air while another soldier caught it on the bayonet at the end of his gun, then they would toss the babies into a mass grave nearby. It is sick and how people could physically do it still amazes me.

There were mass graves everywhere, not just in Phnom Penh, but they litter the whole of Cambodia and more are still appearing now. At the Killing Fields we visited, there were certain parts of the ground where you could see cloth, bones and even teeth still coming up from the ground. After a couple of hours here we decided that that was enough of grim Cambodia history for the day and ventured down to the night markets for a feed then a few beers and a nice chilled night, as Jonny and Em had to leave at midnight to go to Bangkok.

After saying my goodbyes to Jonny and Em, which was hard as I had spent over two weeks with them and they were really great people to travel with, I headed to my room, packed my bag and grabbed some sleep.

My last day in Cambodia, alone for the first time in weeks, I headed to one of the temples in the city which was beautiful, except half of it is not opened to vistors and they don’t tell you this until you get inside. And then I headed to the Russian market to pick up a few more bits and pieces before boarding my bus to Ho Chi Minh, a six or so hour bus ride away.

Tasty treats, Siem Reap

Sunset at Angkor Wat, Siem Reap

Sunset atAngkor Wat, Siem Reap

Angkor Wat, Siem Reap

Monkey in Angkor, Siem Reap

Baby monkey in Angkor, Siem Reap

Angkor, Siem Reap

Ta Prohm, Angkor, Siem Reap

Bamboo Island, Sihanoukville

Dog on Bamboo Island, Sihanoukville

Teeth coming up from the ground at Killing Fields, Phnom Penh

S21, Phnom Penh

Sunset in Phnom Penh

Little baby gecko, Phnom Penh

Flower, Phnom Penh

Temple, Phnom Penh

Chilling on the beach, Sihanoukville

Sunset, Sihanoukville

Special Jonny

Tasty treat

VANG VEING – SUCCESSFULLY SHAVING 10 YEARS OF PEOPLE LIVES (AUGUST 22-25)

We left Luang Prabang excited for the 6 hour mini bus ride to Vang Veing, know for its tubing antics that involves getting an inner tube from car or truck wheel, jumping in a river that has a strong current, floating down the river and stopping off at bars along the way to drink, dance and do rope swings and crazy slides, sounds safe? We didn’t even make it there before we were risking our lives.

A few hours from Luang Prabang, and we hit a stop in the road with a long line of traffic and we were told there had been a landslide, which for this time of year was normal, and we had passed several that had been cleared, so we weren’t too worried, until Jonny and I decided to go to see the extent of the slide. A 20 minute walk along the line of stationary traffic and we faced the landlside, which literally looked like half of the mountain was missing. An area about 25meters high and about 100meters long had slid from the rain and had taken out a large section of the road, along with some electricity poles and any hope of getting across in our van.

We waited around for several hours waiting to hear what was going on, and we heard mixed reports; three hours, by 5pm and then that the slide had actually happened several days ago, and days later we had clarification that the slide had actually happened several days before we got there.

Frustrated, extremely hot and ready to go insane, we had to do something, and along with the other 100 backpackers in the same situation, we decided to get our bags from our van, and follow in the footsteps of some people we saw scaling up the side of the slide and walking along the top to get to the other side.

Loaded with close to 30kgs of luggage, and some rain drops starting to fall, it was looking grim, but we had no choice, so we gathered a crew and scaled the muddy, slippery path up, sweating like mad, which made our feet even slipperier and made it to the top without anyone falling or getting lost along the way, then the rest was easier, although still felt slightly unsafe, walking across the top of a land slide and seeing the tractors below working to clear it all and seeing how big it really was, but we made it! Next problem was now finding someway to get to Vang Veing from the middle of nowhere!

Groups of backpackers were huddled all over the road trying to figure out what to do next, and we managed to find someone who was willing to take us there, for a price of course, which we managed to bargain down a bit to approximately £5 for a 2 hours ride, the catch, it was in the back of a little tipper style truck. So 14 of us piled our bags and bodies into the back of the truck, and were on our way.

Sounds pretty average, but in the end was a lot of fun. Jonny had a bottle of whisky so that got passed around the back of the truck, everyone was in high spirits and having a laugh and getting to know each other. Then we made a stop along the way and loaded up with some Beerlaos and snacks and were back on the road, up and down winding mountain roads and witnessing some of the most amazing scenery I have ever seen in my life! It was so mountainous, green, and just beautiful, and taking it in from the back of the truck was even better as there was nothing to disturb the view.

A couple of bumpy hours later and we finally made it to Vang Veing, found a guesthouse, showered and washed the caked on mud off our bodies and went for a bite. Within two steps of the front of our guesthouse we were met by a girl with a tray of shots, handing them out for free, so we indulged and went in, got some dinner and beers and met some more randoms and chilled for a few hours. The girls left and Jonny and I decided to go for a wander and see what else was going on, and ended up in one of the clubs for a few hours partying and dancing the night away.

First day tubing and we were pumped! All ready with our waterproof bags and money for the day, we hired our tubes and got a ride to the river, ready for a day or carnage. First bar kicked off with some casual beers, then quickly moved to beer pong and a bucket. Then next bar more buckets and dancing and the first of the rope swings. Swimming from the balcony of the bar into the water, brilliant fun. Next bar, the first slide which was fun but a little tame, still more buckets again of course and at this point everyone is well and truly merry! And I forgot to mention the way you get to these bars is you sit in your tube, float down the river and then guys in the bars throw bottles with ropes on them to you, you catch them and they pull you in to the bar.

The highlight of the day came from one of the later bars, that has a slide, funny enough called ‘The Death Slide’ which is a tiled slide, about 25meters long and at the end it shoot up like a ski jump, and is amazing fun! So we brought a bucket, got our stamp to let us use the slide, drank the bucket and climbed the stairs to the top, and from the top it looked even bigger. Girls and guys were all sliding down it, so we jumped on and had a go and it was soooo sweet! We were controlled at the start just sliding down like normal, but after gaining some more courage, head first sliding was happening, and then final slide for the day I decided to try a flip off the slide and luckily for me it worked out just as planned and got cheers and claps from all the spectators on the dock watching. So I left on a high note before I ended up hurting myself.

The final bar for the day, had another rope swing and probably the most dangerous thing I had seen that day, a big blow up rectangle that one person sat on the end and other people jumped on the other end and launched the person into the air and into the water. One of the girls we met got on the end and three of us decided to launch here, so we jumped and launched her but all smashed ourselves, knees jolted, hitting ribs and jaws, wasn’t really worth it, so that was the last of that activity. So we moved onto the rope swing and that soon claimed another one of us as a victim. Em swung off the swing all fine but when getting out of the water stepped on a tree stump it pierced her foot causing a mean wound on her foot and toe. So we decided we’d call it a day for the tubing and go home, wash up and get ready for partying that night. The night got pretty messy and to sum it up, we ate, drank, danced and woke up pretty dusty the next day, but decided to back it up and go tubing again.

A little dusty to start, but as soon as you get off the raft to the first bar, your head is tipped back and some shots are thrown straight down your throat, which I think actually sorted me out for the start of day two. Tubing also was much the same; drinking, dancing, rope swings and slides into the river, floating around getting hammered. I randomly ran into Becky and Ky who I met in Xi’an and hung out and partied with them a fair bit, which was good fun! It was another highly enjoyable day, but the main difference was the tube home.

We decided to tube the whole way back to town that many people do, and was told it was easy and took about 40 minutes. As we all enjoyed floating in our tubes, we decided this sounds like a delightful thing to do, so we had about 6 of us, floating down the river (it was also dark by now) and we were laughing having a merry old time until we ran into some people who were not as chilled as us. They were hammered drunk, sharing a tube and freaking about where we were going. Luckily they didn’t rub off on us too much, and when we adopted a couple of other people tubing back to town, we had a nice posse floating back to town signing some tunes, not worrying about what creatures could be below the murky waters or in the dark river banks, and in the end we ended up exactly where we wanted, although at times we thought the drunk Australian’s that were panicking were going to die, but the crew made it to town safe and sound.

Our last night was nothing massive but was a fun night. We had dinner in a chilled little roadside kitchen where the menu was very limited but the food was amazing! Then moved onto a shisha bar from some shisha, a few buckets and a game of 8’s that really got everyone sauced right back up. We then moved onto another bar just to sit back and chill, ordered a few more drinks and chatted with Ky and Becky who popped by and then as we were leaving, we saw a separate hand written menu that sold all kind of interesting treats like happy garlic bread, opium pancakes, bags of mushrooms and opium and then just in case you have a chronic smoking habit, they also sold 1kg bags of weed. We thought against it and headed back home for a semi decent nights sleep. As the next 30+ hours was going to be spent on buses to Cambodia…not fun! And with the track record with buses in Laos it doesn’t look good!

The landslide

Landslide

Muddy feet after the trek over the slide

View from the back of the truck

Cow

Night out at Oh La La

Frisbee game at Bar One

Muddy lad

In the back of the truck on our way to Vang Vieng

The tubing river

Day one on the river

Me, Jonny, Aiden and Ally

Beer pong

Buckets

Bar Two

Horrid scenery

Tubing

Q Bar

Mud wrestling

Twilight tubing

Me, Jonny and Em in the back of the truck

THE FIRST TASTE OF LAOS – LUANG PRABANG (19 – 22 AUGUST)

My first thoughts after crossing the Mekong River on a tiny wooden boat was that Laos seems kind of backwards, but not in a bad way. The houses, wooden huts, elevated a meter or two from the ground stilts, majority of roofs made from straw, a few from tin, chickens running freely in the yard, some even have a cow or two keeping the chickens company and all the people I saw, smiling.

Although their way of life looks extremely basic and possibly poor to some, they look happier then people I see driving Lambos and Porches with all the money in the world. I have been to some pretty poor places that are depressing and heart-breaking, this is definitely not one of them. Poor, yes. Depressing, no.

Not only did the people seem beautiful but the scenery was simply amazing too! The mountains are like nowhere I have ever seen before. So green with so many mountains stretching right out to the horizon and valleys and gorges in between. So this was making the bus trip easy, until it got dark and there was nothing to see, and then in literally the middle of nowhere, our bus breaks down. Never fear though, they have a spare fan belt and its changed and we are back up on the road in half an hour. Smooth sailing for about 20 minutes and then, bus pulls over again, this time in the middle of no where (more so then the last break down) and the news is bad, our bus isn’t going anywhere.

Different people gave us different reports, but they all seemed to lead to the same conclusion, we had to wait hours to get a new bus, at 1130pm, in the middle of nowhere. Luckily the bus was full of English speaking people including a couple of crazy Spanish guys who entertained the bus during this dark time, and not to mention the sky was filled with more stars then I have ever seen before, it was pretty amazing!

An hour had gone, and we were hungry, and thirsty, and with nothing in sight, not even a street lamp. Myself and Jonny, an English guy who I met on the boat to the Laos border, decided to go for a walk as there was word of some food and drinks place nearby. A little further then the 200m we were told, but eventually we found a place with literally a fridge with a few drinks, including beer that went down a treat, but they had nothing at all to eat. A building across the road though showed some hope, so we went over and it looked like a garage with a few tables in it, but they had more then finished for the night, but one of the Laos lads on the bus managed to sweet talk the lady into making a huge plate of fried rice and vegies for the 20+ people that now filled their garage looking restaurant. We ate and drank and decided to venture back to the bus and wait there, and on route to the bus the new bus drove past, so we loaded up the bus, got on and was back on our way over three hours later. There was one small problem; there was not enough seats on the bus, so some people had to sit on the floor for the next 10 hours.

We arrived to Luang Prabang though and found a nice little guesthouse and settled in, and I decided to go see what the town was all about. First impression: chilled, slow paced, beautiful. The Mekong River is right there, green hills in the background and no sign of a high rise!

I met back up with Jonny and Emma, the couple I had met on the boat to the border and were also on the eventful bus ride to Luang Prabang, and went for a wander in the night markets as I had heard they were pretty cool, and that they were. Paintings, home wares, slippers, shirts, books and loads of other cool things that you would actually consider buying unlike many of the other markets I have seen. We stumbled across a small alley that looked inviting and we headed down. Instantly we saw and smelt a wild array of foods, and at the end, we hit the jackpot, the BBQ meats and salad section. Full chickens or fish on skewers, ribs, chicken breast and legs, slabs of pork and just about anything you can BBQ. I ended up with a plate of all different kinds of salad, a full BBQ fish stuff with lemon grass and a big BeerLaos for roughly £3 and it was all amazing.

We ran into an Irish guy, Kevin, we met on the bus as well and decided to join him for a drink at Utopia, a bar consisting of shesha pipes, chilled out couch and sitting areas, a beach feel and of course what every good bar needs, a full sized beach volleyball court. Few beers later and the 1130pm curfew kicked in and we were being ushered out with only one place left to go, bowling.

Bowling was epic! 100+ people there, everyone pretty toasted and still drinking, laughing and bowling barefoot which I am sure is really not safe. We joined a lane with a few Australians, English and Dutch and played a game with them, drank, partied and had a sweet time! We finished off the night sitting by the river, drinking some more and just chatting and chilling. Good night, but not the best next day.

Awoke at 2pm thanks to the shutters that made my room pitch black, and really spent the day not doing much. Organised my next days activities and tried to sort my next moves for my trip. And then at night, headed again to the food market as the food was worth another visit!

My last full day in Luang Prabang and I had signed myself up to an Elephant course where you learn how to ride an elephant, wash them, feed them and general care and information about them. Doing all this was cool enough, but then when we arrived the location was purely stunning and just added to what was going to be an amazing day.

Within 30 minutes of being there, we had learnt a few basic commands and how to get up on the elephants. And then once we had a basic understanding of that, we were up and onto the elephants all by ourselves. We rode them around, got used to them and then got on a boat and went to ride some other elephants through the jungle. This time we got on the chairs on the back of the elephants, but within 10 minutes I was down on the neck riding my elephant through thick mud, heavy trees and water deeper then I am tall. It was wicked!

Then lunch time and after lunch we crossed back over the river to my favourite part of the day, bath time. We got down to our swimwear and got on our elephants and they trudged into the water with the mahouts and us on their backs. Elephants love the water! Going right under, spraying water, splashing around, all while we were on their backs. We scrubbed them and washed them and it was a really cool thing to do, and they were liked dogs in a way, you find a spot they love (my elephant loved getting behind his ears washed) and they are powerless and hypnotised. I want a pet elephant!

Bath time done and was the last part of the day trip, down to a waterfall, 15 minutes boat ride away. We arrived and the waterfall was mental. Not tall like previous ones I had seen, but wide and raging! Laos has had a lot of rainfall and this had caused the waterfall to be flowing over where is normally dry, and flowing at a angry pace. The bars had water gushing past where you would normally stand to order, walkways over the river were under water and the cement tables and chairs were just about underwater. I think this made it more impressive in the end as it just seemed angry and a bit out of control!

I decided to cap off my day with of course, another trip to the night market for some dinner. Although I got there a little later then wanting to as the guy at the guesthouse insisted I have a beer or two with him before I go, there was still plenty of fish to go around and I had my way with a huge serving of salad and BBQ fish and washed it down with a tasty BeerLao and retired home, ready for our minivan to Vang Vieng the next day, which could be an interesting trip due to all the recent landslides…We’ll see how it goes.

Working on the broken down bus

Local ice cream seller

View from top of monument in middle of the city

BBQ fish

Scarves and wraps

Amazing shakes stand

Flattened pigs head

Night food market

Liquor with snakes inside

Elephant

Getting on for the first time

Feeding my elephant

One of my favourite picture of the elephants

Elephant

Water flowing over the walkway

On the way to bowling

The crew bowling

Tuk tuk driving

Bath time

View from the roadside

THE START OF SOUTH-EAST ASIA – CHIANG MAI (15 - 18 AUGUST)

I forgot to write this entry at the time so it will be briefer then my others.

After a 6-hour wait in Bangkok airport I finally made it to Chiang Mai and it was a relief to be in some fresh air after being imprisoned in the very average domestic Bangkok airport. It was latish so I took it easy and planned my next day, ate some dinner, chilled and got some well-needed rest after the madness of Hong Kong.

My first full day I wandered the streets and markets (like I seem to do a lot of my first day) to try get some new sunglasses and see what tasty street food I could get my hands on. Still plenty of time left in the day and I headed to Tiger Kingdom where I heard you were able to get in a play with tigers. For less then £20, I was driven there and back (30 minutes there and same back) put in a pen with 8 little baby tigers (approximately 3-6 months old) for around 20 minutes and had two people in there taking photos for me. It was awesome! They were so soft and cute and had massive paws and just so damn cool! I only played with one or two at a time, as they got pretty crazy when they were in bigger groups. Some of them were sleeping through and others were bouncing around, wrestling and having a good time. I got to cuddle them, rough and tumble with some, lie on some and just sit back and chill with some. It was a really cool thing to do! Night time I went to night markets and got some food and went home early as had a full day planned the following day.

A ride on elephant, a trek to a waterfall and swimming hole and then white water rafting down a river, that was my action packed second day. Elephant riding to be honest, I didn’t like too much as the elephants didn’t look happy and the mahouts didn’t look like they treated them with much love, they were just workers rather then sweet animals. The trek was only a couple of hours but through some pretty heavy bush and jungle area and crossing rivers on sketchy logs and climbing up muddy hills was pretty cool, and then washing off all the sweat and dirt in a freshwater swimming hole with a waterfall pounding down right behind you was pretty special. But the highlight of the day was definitely the white water rafting. Although the rapids were not crazy, there was still some pretty hairy parts that proved to be highly entertaining, and not to mention the scenery down the river was pretty spectacular.

That night I went and watched a Muay Thai fight with one of the guys and girls I met on the adventure day. In all honesty, it wasn’t the best fight night I have been to. Too many westerners with no idea or respect for the culture or the sport, who were just there to tick the box of seeing a Muay Thai fight in Thailand. The fights were ok, nothing too amazing but still entertaining, and the first fight was two kids who would of lucky to of been 6, which was pretty funny as the gloves were the size of their heads, and one fight that was for pure entertainment which had 6 or 7 guys in the ring, blindfolded and trying to hammer each other. This was hilarious, and the referee even copped a few blows from the blindfolded battlers.

And that was about it for Chiang Mai, I got up the next day and boarded my bus bound for Laos.

Me and my new friend

Staring contest

Little tiger

Temple

Lights at the night market

Soap carving

Elephant treking

Elephant

Blindfold boxing

Creepy hands at White Temple

Our boats from Thailand to Laos

White Temple

SCREW SIGHTSEEING…LETS GET DRUNK! HONG KONG (AUGUST 10–15)

The overnight bus from Yangshou to Shenzen was great, I slept nearly the whole way so I arrived semi fresh and ready to get into Hong Kong. I followed the sea of people and made my way to the border crossings, first passing through China and then into Hong Kong, which was relatively quick and painless. Next mission was navigating my way to Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island, which again, was pretty easy. Several train changes but the Hong Kong MTR is extremely user friendly, and I was in Wan Chai ready to see Wooders!

I met up with Wooders and went and had some breakfast (Hong Kong noodles) and we chilled and caught up on the last few years, and then he had to go back to work for a few hours, so I jumped in the van with him and he dropped me at a shopping centre so I could shop and explore until he got back home later. So my day was spent cruising around Hong Kong, doing some shopping at malls and markets and wandered around the crazy streets.

Then came night time and the carnage of my first night in Hong Kong. Few beers at the apartment to prepare, and then a short walk from Josh’s place to an area kind of like Kings Cross, a red light style district with clubs and pubs everywhere. I met a few of Josh’s friends and we drank and partied with them all night, visited a few places, some nice, some pretty dingy but still as equally enjoyable, but one things for sure, we put away some booze!

On the 4am walk home, it got back to 16 year old youth antics, riding trolleys, lying on piles of boxes and having them all give way and end up face down on the street, adopting a street sign and taking it home and who knows what else. So, successful first night in Hong Kong, with an amazing hangover the next day!

Another noodle breakfast (wasn’t sure how I felt about noodles for breakfast before Hong Kong, but now I love them!) and Josh took me on a ferry over the harbour and showed my around the areas of Hong Kong for the afternoon and found some more markets. We chilled here and ended up getting some dinner at a little street side restaurant where the seating is all on the street. The food was epic, prawns, vegetables, oyster pancake (amazing!) and loads of tasty treats!

Friday was a bit of a day of doing a few bits and pieces while Josh was working, had to post some bits and pieces and get organised. So that was my exciting morning. Then after lunch Jeremy came and got me and took me to a few markets, for a feed of Hong Kong street meat that was amazing, and then we saw the new Harry Potter movie. The cinema itself was really cool as well, less then 50 seats and each chair was like a giant couch! Then headed back to the apartment to get ready for a feed with some friends of Josh’s at Mr Wong’s, a little restaurant where you sit in a little alley at the side of the restaurant/kitchen on fold up tables and plastic chairs, and where you pay £5 for all you can eat and drink. The food isn’t mind blowing amazing, but its still pretty good and I had no trouble stuffing myself and drinking some beers. Also learnt a very valuable life lesson, how to open a beer using a chopstick.

Saturday and possibly the most fun day I have had of my trip so far. It started early, leaving the apartment and on a bus by 830am, lucky we were semi controlled on the all you can drink the previous night. Arrived at our destination, a dock on the other side of Hong Kong waiting for our boat. 930am and it was already 30+.

The boat arrives and around 25-30 people (70% Chinese/Hong Kong 30% western) get on board and we set sail for somewhere quiet and clean and about an hour later (and technically in Chinese waters) we stopped, drop anchor and get ready for a day of swimming, throwing ourselves off the top of the boat, wakeboarding and of course, some drinking. All of this is included when you pay for the ‘junk boat’, all the booze you can drink, all the food you can eat and all boating activities.

It was a good day! The day literally consisted of the above things for about 10 hours! The food was good, the beer was cold and the wakeboarding was epic fun. Josh doing a backflip off the top of the boat in a weird blow up tube was a hilarious site to see, me attempting some sort of spin, flip manoeuvre on the wakeboard that didn’t quite go to plan was apparently an interesting thing to see as well. All in all it was such a fun day and the people one the boat (95% we didn’t know) were great fun to hang out with. This was the last kind of thing I was expecting to do in Hong Kong, jump on a boat, cruise out to a little bay that had no one around or a building in site, rolling green mountains and to spend the day drinking in the sun on the boat.

That wasn’t the end of the day though, we arrived back to the apartment around 9pm had showers, another beer and then got ready to head to Lan Kwai Fong an area full of pubs, clubs and people! We met up Craig and Ramona, who I met in Jiuzhaigou, and headed to one of the bars where straight up was a round of potent jelly shots and a beer chaser. The night followed much of the same pattern, drinking, talking, bit of dancing and also meeting more random people, Hong Kong locals and people abroad. The night didn’t get too out of hand, we were still merry but the hangover the next day was not too paralysing.

Just as quickly as it had started, my time in Hong Kong was already near an end, and I was on my last day. What better way to start the day then to fill our slightly seedy stomachs with some Yum Cha! We ordered a lot, including chicken feet which Josh said I had to try, but lucky for me they never turned up, which was probably a good thing as we struggling to finish the mountain of food we had!

Stomachs full, the next part of the hangover cure, a trip to the beach. Yep, Hong Kong has proper beaches, I didn’t expect this but it was a welcome surprise. We arrived at the beach, got ourselves an umbrella and got set up amongst the hundreds of other beach goers. The beach was pretty nice, rather clean considering how close it was to the city centre, nice hills and mountains around and most of all refreshing water and warm sand. There was BBQ set ups with BBQ’d meats and corn readily available, ice creams, drinks and surf boards (although there was no surf) all just as easy to get your hands on. Hours went by and we swam, slept, ate and just chilled in the sun. It was a great, relaxing finish to the alcohol fuelled 5 days! Hong Kong is a wicked city! Really, really liked it! Has a little something for everyone!

A big thanks to Josh as well, the kid knows how to show you a good time! Looked after me, showed me around and was a wicked host! Thanks mate and see you back in Sydney at Christmas time.

Things learnt in Hong Kong

• None of the buildings have floors containing the number 4 (eg 4,14, 24 etc) as the word for 4 means death

• How to open a beer with a chopstick

Fully

Getting gnarly

Wooders wipeout

Wooders floater

Cutty on the wake

Sunset

Sunset on the way home

Sunset one side, and this crazy full moon the other

One of Hong Kong's beaches

Before it got out of hand

The rampage home

Random umbrella and sign adoption

Dinner at Mr Wong's

Getting lesson on opening beer with chop stick

Me, Jacki, Jez and Josh

Jelly shots in Lan Kwai Fong

Wooders and Wen fighting

Me, Jezza and Wooders

Delicious bubble tea

Yum Cha goodness!

Some of the crew from the junk boat

LAST STOP – YANGSHOU (AUGUST 6-9)

The last leg of my China adventure, and couldn’t of picked a more ideal spot to finish. Yangshuo is a small town (for China) with a population of approximately 300,000 people (yep that’s a small Chinese town) and located on the Li River in China’s Guangxi provence, with towering peaks surrounding the town.

After taking the bamboo raft from Guilin to Yangshuo, it was already a good start to my visit. We arrived in the town and I quickly located a taxi and was off to my hostel, which is located a little out of town (15 minute walk) but is perched up on a hill overlooking some rice paddies with a backdrop of huge mountain that reach for the sky. Nice, relaxed and out of the hustle and bustle of Chinese tour groups and their microphone-wielding guides.

Free of my bags, I took a stroll along the Li River and into town to see what was going on and what Yangshuo had to offer. The town itself was smaller, no high rises and not a town I could see 300,00 people fitting in, but it was nice and I was glad to not be confronted by skyscrapers battling with mountains on the horizon. The only down side of the town, thousand of Chinese tour groups. All with group flags, matching hats and shirts and guides with microphone packs turned up 10 notches higher then needed. So I explored, ate some food, got my bearings of the city and checked out some shops and bars then retired home pretty early as I wanted to be up early the next day.

Day two I got myself a bike and a map and set out on a journey north along one of the smaller rivers and away from the crowds. I have discovered that 90% Chinese people don’t like straying from the main area or main tourist attractions so it made it easy to escape the crowds with a bike.

I rode in total for over 7 hours in 30+ weather (first case of decent sunburn) and it was an amazing day. Although nothing amazing happened, it was just really amazing to ride along the river, with amazing scenery surrounding me. Riding through small towns that all stopped and watched as the white guy rode past, kids in the small villages would stop me and laugh and jump around me. I had to dodge a few rouge water buffalos cruising down the dirt road as well. I don’t know exactly how to explain it but it was just a really different kind of experience. Seeing how basic some people live, and how content they are with it. Seeing 80+ year olds carrying heaving baskets of wheat and vegetables without breaking a sweat, it was just really interesting to see, and the backdrop to all this the whole time was towering mountains and peaks, amazing!

At one point as well I could not cross the river as there was no bridges, so I jumped on a bamboo raft and was taken down river and across to the other side (with bike and all on the raft) and then the raft man insisted I join him on his break to eat lychees and drink tea which was pretty cool!

I decided I would visit Moon Hill as well on my way back into town, and about 10 minutes from Moon Hill, the clouds opened and the rain fell in giant, cold, hard drops that started as a few drops, and quickly turned into heavy down poor. I took refuge under a giant tree for 15 minutes and was still getting wet, so I gave up, rode home in the rain and on the way home took a sweet tumble on my bike in front of a large group of Chinese people which must of looked hilarious as my bike slid from underneath me and I continued to slide for another 4 metres along the ground as well. Don’t worry though mum I am fine, it was an extremely smooth, slippery bit of road so I lost next to no skin and rode away with nothing hurt but my dignity.

The following day, I braved the bike again (this time in dry conditions) and made the choice to try return back to Moon Hill in the morning before my afternoon cooking course, and more so, before the hordes of Chinese tour groups! I soon realised that getting to the top of Moon Hill consisted of climbing over 800 steep marble steps in 37 degree weather, and this was something the Chinese are too keen on, if the bus doesn’t take them there, they don’t seem to want to go, which in a way was perfect as the path was near empty.

I was already sweating like mad before I even started the climb, and it was only getting hotter, so this was not going to be the most enjoyable task, but still I got on my way and began the climb.

The actual climb up was nothing overly spectacular, it was pretty, but the vegetation was thick and you could not see how high you actually were, which was good in a way as when you make it to the top and saw the view, it was more rewarding.

Ascending the mountain took less then an hour and when I got to just about the top, there was a path to the right and a sign saying no passengers for the path to the left, but I read in the book at the hostel, to ignore the sign and go to the path on the left, so of course being alone, I took the path on the left, which soon disappeared and was more like a tiny break in the trees that I followed for another 15 minutes and finally got to the opening, and what a view. I was literally on the very top of Moon Hill, with a very, very long way down. Even though it was of course, like every other day in China, hazy, the view was still epic. I could see hill and mountains as far as the horizon. If it was a clear day, I think the view would’ve been one of the best I have ever seen!

The afternoon I had signed up to do a Chinese cooking course in a little house next to the Li River. The course started with a trip to the local market, which is split, into two parts, fruit and vegetables, and meat and spices. The fruit and vegetable was fruit and vegetable, but the vegetables were pretty interesting as a lot of them I had never seen before! But the meat section, that was a whole new world. The were tubs with live eels, frogs, crayfish, turtles and fish at the beginning of the hall, and then it got a little more grim, with cages of ducks and chickens in the middle, and then along the back wall, freshly slaughtered chicken and ducks (and I mean freshly slaughtered) and then tables of beef and pork, and then in the corner the most sickening thing I have ever seen, was cages of dogs, and two dogs hanging (dead of course) from hooks on display for whoever felt like some fresh dog for their dinner. Yeah it was messed up and made me feel a little off.

Luckily though our course did not involved cooking any dog! We started off cooking an eggplant starter, which had eggplant, garlic, ginger, chilli, oyster sauce and spring onions, and it was delicious. Followed by steamed stuffed tofu ball, mushroom and pumpkin flower. These two were the starters. And the mains were beer fish (which turned out spectacular) and then chicken and cashews (one of your favourites Gem) and then a side of chilli bok choy salad. And if I do say so myself, they all turned out fantastic, I just hope I can pull them all off just as well when I cook them at home!

My final day in China, and an early start, 7:20am bus to the Dragon Backbone Rice Terraces. I have seen pictures of these and they look stunning! Although I was a little sceptical to book it as the hazy weather has not been a photos best friend since I have been here but I thought even still, I have to go check them out.

In total, the outing took 12 hours! Not what I expected (as the tour book said it was from 7am till 330pm, not 7 till 7. The drives were pretty average three hour trips there and same back. We stopped in some random long-haired village and were pretty much told we had to see this show otherwise we had to wait outside for an hour, I wish I had of picked to wait outside as the show was less then enjoyable. Then bus again to park entrance, then had to walk a million stairs to get to the restaurant that served very average food for a highly inflated price. And then finally around 130pm we were finally able to go and see the rice fields were went there for. And luckily the rice fields were pretty amazing, even with the hazy conditions they still made it worth the crappy start to the day.

The rice fields cover a huge area of the mountain town, and they are easy to spot. They cover the mountainside like a bright green, patterned rug, and go for as far as the eye can see. Each season gives the fields a different look. In summer they are bright green, in autumn they turn a golden colour, in winter they are covered in a blanket of snow, and in spring they shine from the sunny skies and clear days reflecting off the water.

And that was my last outing for China. Returned back to the hostel, relaxed, ate some dinner and then got ready to board my overnight sleeper bus to Hong Kong!

Some more things learnt while in China:

• TsingTao (China’s local beer) is the beer sponsor of the NBA

• Everyday Chinese people really do eat dog

• 70% of tourism in China are Chinese

• Chinese people do not travel alone, they are always travelling in tour groups/organised tours.

• China is hot

Overall my time in China was an amazing experience. It was unlike anywhere I have ever travelled before, in many ways. The big cities were intense, but still had a lot of hidden charms about them and providing some good times and some amazing food.

The more rural areas though were definitely my favourite though. Jiuzhaigou and Yangshou were my favourites. The scenery and the people were beautiful and I could definitely go back. The only thing I would change would be the time of year I go, I would definitely visit in autumn, cooler weather, cleaner skies and trees changing colours. (which would make for amazing photos).

Mainland China you were amazing, now for my next stop, Hong Kong!

Taste of home

West Street

Fresh Fruit

Yulong Bridge

Bamboo raft at Yulong Bridge

Yanghsou

Rice fields

View from the top of Moon Hill

I climbed to the very top of that and

the view (above) was epic

Eels

Blue eggs?

Steamed vegetable in the cooking class

Beer fish we learnt to make

View while eating our dinner

Little kid at Longji Rice Fields

Me at Longji Rice Fields

Sunset over the Li River

Bamboo rafts on the Li River

Longji Rice Fields

THE BEGINNING OF THE END – GUILIN (AUGUST 3-6)

The thought of spending 24 hours on a train to get from Chengdu to Guilin just didn’t tickle my fancy, so I treated myself and decided to fly, which in the end didn’t work out too much more expensive then the marathon train trip.

So from rainy Chengdu, which was a welcome break from the 30+ weather I had all trip, I was back to 36+ weather in Guilin. It was hot, humid and hard work. My hostel was not far from the bus station where the airport shuttle stopped, but navigating the streets with 30kgs of bags in weather pushing 37 was not appealing, so I grabbed a cab and took the easy option.

The rest of the afternoon, like most of my first days was spent exploring on foot and getting to know the town and just checking out some sights that were around, including several lakes and of course, the Li River.

That night I decided to venture to the night markets (have seen my fair share of markets this trip) and this didn’t exactly go to plan. I pointed to my desired destination and the taxi driver spoke to me, of course in Chinese, and the conversation was going nowhere, and eventually we were on our way. Soon after, we arrived at the hotel that was near the markets, I paid, left the cab and soon realised that there must have been more then one Austrian Hotel. So, I was lost and equipped only with an extremely basic map, which soon proved useless. I wandered the area for over an hour and a half, thinking I was making ground and knew where I was, only to have my hopes shattered when I realised, I still had no idea where I was. Sweaty and frustrated, I finally hailed a motorbike cab and pointed to somewhere else near the markets, and we were off, zipping in and out of traffic, hopefully to the correct destination this time.

Second time around, success. I was where I wanted to be finally! So I strolled through the markets, looking at what good and bad things were on offer. Brought a piece of watermelon the size of my head for about 25p and met some locals who were really nice, spoke good English and invited me to sit at their table outside and have a beer with them as they had just finished their meal. Now I have heard horror stories about people being asked for a drink or tea etc and getting locked in a room and forced to pay hundreds of pounds to get out, but I thought I was safe here, as if they dropped a bill on me, I could just run as I was outside. In the end, no bill, no problems. They were just a nice bunch of people who just wanted some foreign company.

Day two, I decided to be brave a get a bike and ride the city. Now if you have ever been to China, if not, then pictures thousands of Chinese drivers on the road, no real road rules and no patience, and times it by three and you might be close to the chaos of their roads. Although it looks like hell, it actually wasn’t too bad, I just followed the read of other Chinese people and in the end, I figured out how it all works and I had a great time!

First stop was the Seven Stars Park, which is just a smaller sized park containing lakes, bridges, temples and also a cave full of stalactites and stalagmites illuminated by fluorescent lights. I strolled around the park, sweating like mad as the weather again, in it’s high 30’s, took photos of some wild monkeys until one charged me just as I was about to take a photo and I visited the cave that contained the stalactite and stalagmite lightshow. The cave was pretty cool, but the pictures on the brochure I think may have been from the Reed Flute Cave, which was my next stop on my bike riding adventure.

Back on the road again and time for quick lunch pit stop. Tried to find a dumpling restaurant that had been raved about my lonely planet and also a few travellers I met in the hostel, but couldn’t. Instead I ended up choosing a restaurant with chickens, ducks and geese hanging from hooks in the window. Was it a good move? Oh yeah. For the equivalent of £1.15, I received a plate loaded with rice, tofu, goose, chicken, soup, some weird salad, chilli cabbage salad and of course some tea. The cheapest meal I have had so far (besides some 10p street meat kebabs).

Reed Flutes Cave was my intending destination, instead I ended up riding non-stop for nearly three hours around in a big circle trying to find the cave, and of course, I never found it. I gave up and decided to just ride around the city, explore some more parks and the river side, and then head back to the hostel in time for the all you can eat BBQ. So the night was filled with meeting new people (again more Dutch! They are everywhere in China), playing a new card game ‘Phase 10” with some Spanish and of course some Dutch, drinking a few beers and just having a nice low key but fun night.

I decided to head to Yangshou, and instead of getting there by the conventional method of a bus, I opted for a trip on a three-hour bamboo raft trip down the Li River, which is said to have some of the most amazing scenery in China. And they didn’t lie. Huge peaks coming out of nowhere, mountains covered in greenery, buffalo swimming at the waters edge and score of bamboo rafts floating down the Li River, it was picturesque. Like The Great Wall, it was a bit hazy which was a real shame as if it was a clear day, the pictures would be absolutely mind blowing. So I am hoping for a nice clear morning one of the days I am here so I can go for a nice early morning ride and get some quality snaps. I have a feeling Yangshou is going to be a great finish to the China leg of my trip.

Clouds on the way

Inside Seven Stars Cave

Monkey

Steps to no where

Simba the hostel dog

Delicious street meat

Chinese people can sleep anywhere

Our vessel

Sailing on the bamboo boat along the Li River

Tasty treat

Corn flavoured candy

Pineapple beer?

Guilin from the air

CHENGDU ROUND 2 (AUGUST 1-3)

This felt like a more successful trip to Chengdu, not sure if it was due to being in a better hostel and meeting people or if it was that I did more while there, either way, this time around was more enjoyable then the first.

After the enjoyable 10 hour bus ride back from Jiuzhaigou, I was wrecked and ready for bed, but had to decide my plan of attack for the next week, was I going to Guilin a day early, or was I sticking to the original plan, but in the end I didn’t decide anything and went to dinner with the Belgian I met on the train from Xi’an to Chengdu earlier in the week. We decided to try out one of Sichuan’s famous hot pots. We had no idea what to order, what anything was (due to the Chinese menu) or even how a hot pot worked. So we pointed and hoped for the best. A hot pot is kind of like a Mongolian BBQ in a way, except you don’t have a grill to cook your food on, you have a hotpot, which is chillies, spices, oils in a broth like liquid that heats up and you cook your meat or vegetables in it. The results of our point and order method turned out rather well; potatoes, mushrooms, some vegetable that was delicious although to this day I still am not sure what it was, some tender beef pieces and a mountain of beef that was sliced like bacon, and the broth/cooking liquid we had was spicy, but extremely tasty! By the end of the dinner we were masters at cooking the meat to perfection and left with a state of accomplishment, and a full belly.

7am start the next day and another two and a half hour bus ride (too many buses in the space of 5 days!) to the town of Emei. Mount Emei Shan is a large area that is home to monasteries, monkeys and some amazing scenery. It is also home to one of the highest, if not the highest monastery located on a mountain top at over 3000m high. My original plan was to get here, and embark on a hike that would take over 6 hours (a combination of hiking and chairlifts) and this was the reason for my early start. Some bad news greeted me when I brought my ticket, a couple had just come from the top and they said it wasn’t worth it as the cloud was so thick up there that they couldn’t see three meters in front of them, so change of plans. I grabbed a map and decided to opt for a different, lower route that included a few temples, monasteries and the largest eco monkey zone in the area.

So I hiked, climbed, walked and at times ran around the area for around five hours, which seems like a long time, but in those five hours I only managed to see about 20% (if that) of the park. It is impossible to see the whole park in a day and now when I look back at it; I wish I stayed in one of the monasteries on the mountain so I could’ve explored more of the mountain and made it to the top for sunrise, which is supposed to be breath taking.

The highlight of the day was definitely the monkeys. They are so cheeky and clever, and not one bit scared of humans. On the footpaths through the monkey zone there were people with bamboo poles to hit them away, and there was even a few old men with slingshots to shoot them with, sounds a bit cruel but they were definitely a necessity.

At first I was looking at the monkeys in awe and snapped away taking pictures of the cute little creatures, but within three minutes I saw why the guards of the tourists were there. When I read in Lonely Planet, they advise not to have any food visible as they will try to steal it from you, I thought this was a bit of overkill, but no they weren’t lying. A man next to me had a milk smoothie bottle in the side of his bag, and the biggest monkey I saw there chased him down, snatched the bottle straight from his bag and climbed onto a rock, opened the bottle and drank it like a human. And there were more instances like this too, several people losing their water bottles, a lady getting her sandwich stolen right from her hands and even one guy losing the sunscreen from the side of his bag. They were terrors. All their thieving ways aside though, they were still very cute and I got some amazing shots of them too.

So I arrived back to the hostel 13 hours after leaving, so I was wrecked. I caught up with a Brazilian and Australian that I met the previous day, had a few drinks and was in bed nice and early, ready for a serious sleep in, something I hadn’t had for weeks!

I woke the next day to pouring rain, which couldn’t of been more perfect! So the day was spent in bed, lazing around watching Kill Bill 1 & 2 and finally sorting myself out and booking myself a way to get to my next stop, Guilin.

Incense out the from of a temple at Mount Emei Shan

Candles at Mount Emei Shan

Mount Emei Shan

Turtles at Mount Emei Shan

Mount Emei Shan

Moss covered statue at Mount Emei Shan

Monkey at Mount Emei Shan

Monkey on someones head at Mount Emei Shan

Eating some corn

One of the many paths at Mount Emei Shan

Mount Emei Shan

THE FRESH AIR I NEEDED – JIUZHAIGOU (JULY 29 – AUGUST 1)

This was the China I was expecting. Within a couple hours out of the city, we were greeted with huge rolling mountains and fresh water rivers. Finally out of the grey smoggy cities. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the cities but I was ready for some fresh air.

The bus ride unfortunately wasn’t as easy going as the previous train trip. I was the only English speaking person on the bus, which meant everybody looked at me every time the bus stopped and I got off, and also I was jammed into the back right hand seat with next to no leg room. It was a fun 10-hour ride…

Blue skies, rolling green mountains, Tibetan prayer flags and the honking of taxi horns greeted me as I stepped off the bus. This was what I was looking for (minus the horns). It was already 7pm so I jumped in a cab, found my hostel (which was an amazing Tibetan style house. All wood, colourful, characteristic and complete with luxurious squat toilets) and sat down with a beer to plan my next day. While I was planning my day I met a couple who were two of the other 5 guests at the hostel and turned out we were in the same room, so we chatted and got on well and decided we would all head to the national park together in the morning.

630am rolls around and we poke our heads out the window…rain. Not happy. So went back to bed and thought we’ll sleep in and go tomorrow. After another few hours sleep we got eat breakfast and the sun comes out and I decide I am still going up (the park entrance is around £30, so getting there and only spending 6 hours in there may of seemed like a waste to some, but the sun was shining and I wasn’t going to miss it). Ramona and Craig decided to join and we ventured into the Jiuzhaigou National Park.

The Jiuzhaigou National Park is UNESCO listed and it deserves it. The park is home to some amazing waterfalls and easily the bluest water I have ever seen. The park itself is massive, covering approximately 720km² and also has several Tibetan villages inside the park. They say you can spend two days inside here and I don’t doubt that you could. From the park entrance to the top of the paths it is close to 30kms, so that’s a lot of walking to cover in a day.

We spent the whole day walking and taking photos, barely stopping for food or water to toilet breaks as we wanted to cram as much of the park in as possible while the weather was still shining. And that we did, although we didn’t exactly get out of the park at 6pm like we were supposed to, but ended up walking three quarters of the way back down the mountain as the buses had finished and we missed them. It wasn’t until we met a sweet Tibetan monk, who shared his extremely tasty sweets with us, and he let us know that a bus would be coming in twenty minutes that would take us to the entrance to the park. So we sat by the road with the monks, took some photos of them, enjoyed the beautiful scenery, with a village at the base of the mountain to our left, and then one of Jiuzhaigou’s many blue lakes to our right, it really was stunning. But the bus turned up and we were whisked back to our hostel and ready for some dinner.

One of the staff members walked us down to a local restaurant, read the menu out to us (as it was all Chinese) and took our order, if it wasn’t for him who knows what we would’ve ended up with. The food we did end up with was amazing. Plates of vegetables, corn, eggplant/aubergine, peppers, beans, some weird stuff that tastes good but we still don’t know what it was. Then followed a big bowl of chilli beef and tofu and then the final icing on the cake was a whole fish, which was divine! It would have to have been the best tasting fish I have had in a very long time, possibly ever! I don’t know how to describe it except amazing! We got through just about all the food (the fist was nothing but bones) and left with full bellies and tired legs from miles and miles of walking.

The next day the plan was horse riding in the mountains, as we had seen majority of the park and couldn’t justify spending another £30 to see the little bits we didn’t see the day before. Again though we woke to some pretty sub standard weather, cold and rain. So of course we slept in.

After lunch the weather cleared a bit and the three of us ended up going horse riding with some Chinese who were staying at the hostel and also a few of the staff from the hostel. It was pretty amazing.

We arrived after a ten-minute drive up a dirt road and waiting for us were the guys in charge of the horses, and then some really cute old Tibetan folk who looked like they’d never seen a white person before. They were so sweet though. They were only too happy to pose for photos with us and keen to see how they scrubbed up in the photos, and then ask for more photos to be taken. They really were beautiful, friendly people with faces that just had so much character.

So the photo shoot with the elders was done and we were given our horses and ready to go riding.

We rode for a couple of hours and saw some breath taking views of the mountains and the city below, as well as all the trees and greenery around us on the ride. We stopped off at an old religious shrine in the middle of the bush that was pretty special, and saw some extremely large, old trees that were apparently important to the Tibetan folk. It was a really fun little outing. Meeting some locals who had lived there their whole lives, and some who were not much older then us, seeing some untouched scenery and also learning a little more about the Tibetan way of life.

We decided to cap off our day with a trip to a Chinese/Tibetan Opera in the night time. At first I thought mmm I really am not into opera, but I am so glad I went. Bright colours, crazy costumes and some really spectacular dancing (although some of it was a little weird) and not much opera style singing were on show. I would’ve classed it more as a musical then an opera, but that’s besides the point, it was an amazing show and it topped of a good few days in Jiuzhaigou.

Now for another 10-hour bus ride back to Chengdu for a couple of days before heading to Guilin and Yangshou. My time in China really is flying by!

Our first view Jiuzhaigou National Park

Me in the park

Tibetan Prayer Flags

TIbetan house

More prayer flags

A waterfall in Jiuzhaigou National Park

Another waterfall

Me and a waterfall

Amazing water

Pathway in Jiuzhaigou National Park

Amazing blue water

Our new monk friend

Our fish for dinner

One of the Tibetan locals

And another one

Me and one of the locals

Me and my horse

Chinese/Tibetan Opera

Our hostel

Me and my horse

The left over fish

On the road to Jiuzhaigou

Jiuzhaigou National Park

CHENGDU ROUND 1

A 16-hour train from Xi’an to Chengdu was not something I was looking forward to. And to rub salt into the wounds, I had no luck getting a cab to the train station so I had to walk for about 30-40 minutes with my heavy packs on in 30+ weather. By the time I arrived at the station, I was wet with sweat, frustrated and to make matters worse, I couldn’t find where my train was leaving from.

But of course it all worked out and I found my train, located my bed and got settled in for the long journey that was sure to be unpleasant.

To my surprise the journey actually wasn’t that bad. I was lucky enough to have probably the only other English speaking person on the carriage, possibly the train, in the bunk below mine. So the first 4 hours was ok, we just chatted and laughed at the Chinese and their weird and wonderful ways, tried the Chinese version of two-minute noodles and pissed of the lady across from us cause we were talking and laughing. So really it was a painless train trip thank god!

Chengdu is China’s fourth largest city and I didn’t know this before I got there. I was hoping for a bit of a smaller, slower town then Beijing and Xi’an, but I was wrong. It was just like the others, busy, smoggy and mental. So I checked in and literally chilled out that afternoon and night and organised the next parts of my adventure as I didn’t want to be stuck here an extra day like I was in Xi’an.

As the city seemed like the others, I wanted to make sure I had something planned for the next day as wandering around the city didn’t really interest me as there didn’t seem to be much here, so I booked myself on an outing to the Panda Breeding Centre.

The Panda zoo I will call it was pretty damn cool. Although it was absolutely bucketing down rain, it was still a fun day out. The zoo focuses purely on breeding pandas as from what I learnt, this is not an easy task. So there were enclosures containing pandas of all ages, from the nursery to teen pandas and then the big old ones. Even though the rain kept a lot of the pandas inside which made snapping photos difficult due to the thousand Asian flashes bouncing off the glass, a few of the furry fellas were outside in the rain which meant I got at least a few good pics.

That afternoon was spent booking the rest of my china trip so I got everything in that I wanted to as I already have had to leave off a few places as time just wouldn’t allow it, and organising my 10-hour bus to Jiuzhaigou, one place I was not going to miss.

I will be back to Chengdu again as this is the only place the bus leaves to go to Jiuzhaigou, so I will plan some more adventures then and avoid the smoggy city.

Panda at Chengdu Panda Base

Pandas at Chengdu Panda Base

Panda at Chengdu Panda Base

HOT AND SWEATY XI'AN (JULY 23-26)

After the not so bad 15-hour bus ride, I arrived in Xi’an…well kind of. The bus pulled over at the side of a motorway and the driver came up and told me this was my stop. So I took as his word as he knew better then I did, gathered my gear and got off along with about 10 other people. My first thought, where the f**k am I and where is the main city. I was literally on the side of a motorway with the nothing around except a closed petrol station. I waited for bout 10 minutes hoping a taxi would turn up. None did. So I decided to start walking in the same direction as the others who got off my bus, and felt like I was walking on a road to nowhere. I started worrying, not sure how I would get to my hostel. It was about 530am and already muggy as hell. So what did I do, probably something I shouldn’t of, but I was desperate.

A small white van pulled up next to me, and I noticed the girl who was in the bed next to mine was in the front seat, and an older lady around 50 in the drivers seat and they started talking to me in Chinese, which obviously I had no idea what they were saying. After gesturing and trying sign language, showing them my address, we were getting nowhere, and the only thing I could gather was they were saying get in. Half was saying you’re an idiot, the other half was saying it two Chinese women, how much trouble can you really get into. We drove for a while and through very desolate areas and I was at times thinking that I had made the wrong choice. 20 minutes or so go past and I saw nothing that looked remotely like a town, and then out of nowhere, main roads! Relief flooded my body. The lady pulled over, got me a cab and gave the driver the address and I was off (after paying her the equivalent of 50p) and finally I arrive at the hostel. Check in and they let me into the room straight away where I was able to sleep for a good few hours.

So day one wasn’t overly productive. I just cruised around town and familiarised myself with Xi’an, which is like a smaller Beijing. I walked down to the city walls (Xi’an city walls are the most complete ones that have survived in China, as well being one of the largest ancient military defensive systems in the world) and the south gate into the city, checked out some really cool traditional Chinese street markets, ate some street meat, checked out the Muslim Quarter which was really interesting too and then retired to bed after a few beers and some pool.

Day two, the Terracotta Warriors, my main reason for heading to Xi’an. They were only discovered in 1974 when a farmer was digging for water and at a depth of only 1.5m, he found a head of one of the warriors. And since then until now, they are still uncovering more and more tombs filled with warriors. At present they have three open to the public, and a fourth one that has recently been found.

We started at number three, and wasn’t too exciting as this site is still being worked on and pieces of warriors are getting found every day and eventually, they will all be found and put together.

Number two, little more exciting with a few complete warriors and horses as well as a lot more pieces. And then number one, amazing! Over 2000 complete warriors stand in the pit, all in line, and no two are the same. Was pretty amazing! The emperor constructed the army to protect him (although I still don’t know how he thought a bunch of statues would do that) but then again he did die from eating too much mercury. So Terracotta Warriors, really really cool!

That night I met up with a few people I met on the tour and we had a few quiet beers, that turned into a 330am finish, but was a fun but chilled night. So that meant the next day I slept in a lot, which was actually pretty nice. Although in the afternoon I did go for a ride with Ky, an English fella I met on the tour, and we rode around the city wall, which was pretty cool, and not too hot considering it was high 30’s at lunchtime.

That night we all decided to go out for dinner to the Muslim Quarter and it was unreal. Between the four of us we had three fish, 20 lamb kebabs, two plates of vegetables, a bowl of weird stuff, two bowls of soup and 6 big bottles of beers and two bottles of water and it cost us £4.50 each for everything! And it was all amazing food! Then we wandered the streets of the quarter looking at all the interesting things on offer there, retired to a bar and chilled over a few beers.

I had to stay in Xi’an a day extra then I wanted due to no trains, but tonight I get a 15 hour train to Chengdu which is further south again. Activities for down there include going to see the pandas, horse trekking in Songpan, going to Leshan and Emei and then who knows what else? Will wait and see.

Gate into the market

Local trinkets

Start of the Muslim Quarter

Terracotta Warriors

Xi'an City Wall

Smog

Our fish at the Muslim Quarter

Prawns at the Muslim Quarter

Feet at Muslim Quarter

Dried fruits at Muslim Quarter

Caramel blown animals

Muslim Quarter

Xi'an Bell Tower

Beers with the Brits and Italians

ENROUTE TO XI'AN (JULY 22)

Not a long post here but one I thought posting a photo of. After getting taken on a joy ride around the city by my cabbie who I am sure just wanted a bigger fare (which was still only £3.50 for about 30 minutes) but I was already running late and fretting I was going to miss my bus. I arrived at the bus station about 30 minues before my bus but was told you need to be there an hour before which wasn’t true luckily. And still not knowing what kind of bus I would be on, expecting a crappy bus like the one we got to The Great Wall which would be hell. I was amazed when I stepped onto the bus and saw everyone has a little bed! It’s amazing! This 15 hour trip isn’t going to be too bad at all, catch up on some sleep!

Sleeper bus

A WHOLE NEW WORLD...BEIJING (JULY 18-22)

From the beautiful streets and clean air of Russia, to the humid heat and smoggy skies of China, it was like entering a whole new world. I arrived late at night and as soon as I stepped foot outside I was hit with a whole new level of humidity. 1130pm and temperature would still have been in the high 20’s, although if I didn’t have a watch, I could’ve easily thought it was a lot earlier then that, as the city lights reflecting off the hazy smog of Beijing illuminated the sky like it was early afternoon.

Easily enough I located a cab, gave him the address and we were on the way. Hitting speeds in excess of 120km/h and swerving in and out of traffic like Colin Mackray, I wasn’t actually sure if I was going to make it there in one piece, but the taxi ride was the least of my worries.

We arrived at my street and it was dark, unlit and looked like a Chinese ghetto, so of course I got out of the cab and wandering in hoping eventually I would be greeted with my hostel, but no. I walked through the street and made it through safe, although one chicken was stalking me, and I came to a fork in the road, hooked a right and hoped for the best. Walked down and saw the HI Hostel light and relief flooded my body. Happy and relieved I go in and check in, except I wasn’t actually booked at this hostel. I rummaged through my paperwork and found my reservation, and of course they were right, I didn’t have a reservation there and in fact my hostel was just up the road another 100m. So up I go to my hostel, am greeted by super friendly staff (even though its about 1am now) taken to my room and shown my bed. So I dumped my bag and went and had a beer in the bar, felt like I deserved it.

Day two and ready to explore Beijing. My first  idea was head to the camera market and check out some new camera lenses. I did my research, jotted it on a map and got on the subway. Getting to the station proved no problem, but finding the camera market was not so easy, I walk in one direction for about 25 minutes which I was sure was the right way, but couldn’t find the market. So backtracked and tried the other way, not there either, so hour or so wasted and I was back to where I started. So went back to hostel, checked again and was actually about 200m from where I walked the first time. So I repeated the process and walked another 200m and found the market. Hundreds of camera shops, hundreds of lenses, camera, tripods, bags and everything camera related, I was overwhelmed. Had a look around, jotted some models down to do some background research on them (as no one spoke a word of English so asking about the lens was out of the question) and decided to leave before I bought something that I probably didn’t need.

It was only about 3pm by the time I was finished and I knew Beijing had a lot to do so I decided to leave the research till later tonight and I stayed out and explored and went to the Silk Markets which was insane. Busy, colourful and just epic! Everything form rip off clothing and sunglasses, bags and wallets, pearls, souvenirs, junk and food. It was fun just wandering around looking at how amazingly close the knock offs are to the real thing. I only brought some sungless, a near perfect pair of rip off Ray Bans for about £3, which I have already lost. The night I just chilled in the bar, learnt how to make dumplings and met a cool American guy, Christian, I had a few beers with.

The next day was tourist day and Christian joined me. We headed off first to Summer Palace, which was just insane. It was like a paradise escape in the heart of a bustling city. The area itself if huge with a giant lake in the middle, loads of amazing buildings and just a beautiful place. Probably the highlight of Beijing.

Next on the list was The Forbidden City, for almost five hundred years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government. The city was huge (720,000 m²) and just seemed to keep going. It was only opened to the public in 1925 and the thousands of years before that, if a 'commoner' tried to walk the grounds of the city without the Emperor's permission, they were killed, a slow and painful death. Bit over the top I thought. Not as nice as Summer Palace but it was still amazing and to think how many years ago it was built, it truly was mind-boggling! Something else that was mind-boggling about The Forbidden City was the amount of tourists, and 95% were Chinese. I have never seen so many people in one area. It was bedlam! And I got my first taste of Chinese paparazzi, with several people taking photos of me. Two school girls came up to me and asked if they could have their photos with me, which was weird but I got in there and threw the peace sign up with them and it seemed to make their day. She also asked if she could touch my hair which was odd, but then again a lot of things in China are odd.

Directly across the road was Tiananmen Square which was cool but to me it was just a big square with some cool little gardens in there and loads of tourists.  When they do the marches and celebrations there I think it would be amazing though.

That night was mellow, had a few beers and went and ate some amazing duck, then retired to bed, ready for a big day at the Great Wall of China the next day.

730am start was not good. I hadn’t slept in till after 8 for a long time, so each day was getting harder and harder. The bus to the wall was about an hour and a half, and was not the most comfortable of buses, but we made it there. Except there was one scare along the way when the bus just stopped and wouldn’t start again for five minutes, and everyone was thinking the same thing…shit. But it started again and eventually we were there.

A chairlift took us up to the top and placed us right onto the wall, and it was unreal. I have seen it in pictures and on tv, but seeing it in real life was just next level. It was like a snake that just winded through the mountains as far as the eye could see. I don’t know how to explain it in words, but it was just mind blowing and to think how many years ago this was made, and how long it took to make, and that it was made in the days before cranes, machines and trucks. The section we went to had 23 watch towers, some which you could climb for even higher views of the walls, and 3kms one way and 1km the other way off accessible wall to explore. The 1km section was like climbing a mountain, it was so steep and some of the steps were about 2ft high, but once at the top of that it was pretty cool (although by the time I got to the top I was drenched in sweat) The other 3km had loads more watch towers and at the end towers, provided a pretty amazing view of the wall. Only downside of the day was it was really hazy and the photos didn’t turn out too good. Oh and also the way down wasn’t the chairlift, but a bobsled track which was amazing, except the Chinese are as bad on a bobsled as they are on the road. (Sorry to any of my Asian friends)

I met a group of Irish travellers on the wall trip and that night we decided to check out the Dong Hua Men Night markets which are known for selling all kinds of weird food, especially insects. Scorpions, spiders, roaches, grasshoppers’ just to name a few, and other odd meats such as snake, shark and some sort of very small dinosaur looking bird. We strolled through the markets seeing what we could possible stomach, so we went for some shark and some snake. Both were really easy to keep down, one tasted like fish fingers and the other just like a tough piece of meat. So we stepped it up a bit and got some seahorse, which we felt bad for doing as sea horse are so cute, but we ate them anyways. Then next one the menu we thought need to get something a bit more extreme, so we picked a skewer of scorpions and thought ok we’ll get these and that’ll be it. We picked our skewer (one that we made sure they were dead as half of them were still moving on the skewers) and the guy fried it up and we munched in, and it was actually ok, just tasted like a piece of little pork crackle. So we ticked a few of the weird foods of the to do list.

Next destination, Xi’an for a couple of days, a 15 hour bus ride away…lets see how that goes!

Things learnt in Beijing

• They eat weird foods

• Chinese people believe that if they want to cool down, they don’t need to take their shirts off, they

  just expose their stomach and as long as their stomach and their head are exposed then they will

  cool down.

• They spit everywhere and its accepted and normal

• They love getting photos with people with blonde hair, really white skin or attractive olive

  skinned girls.

• The Great Wall is truly amazing

• Street meat is a tasty treat

View from plane to China, somewhere in
the middle of Russia

Just having a nap

Summer Palace

Painted roof in Summer Palace

Summer Palace

Summer Palace

Me at Summer Palace

Me and Christian at the Garden of Harmonious Interest in Summer Palace

Summer Palace

Me and Christian inside the Forbidden City

Pea flavoured ice cream...was not good

Forbidden City

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China

Donkey

Scorpions at Dong Hua Men Night Market

Dong Hua Men Night Market

Interesting eats at Dong Hua Men Night Market

Eating a seahorse at Dong Hua Men Night Market

Me and Simon about to eat scorpions

Our tasty duck

The Garden of Harmonious Interest in Summer Palace

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE...MOSCOW (JULY 15-18)

St Petersburg surprised me, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from Moscow. Was it going to be the same as St Petersburg, or was I in for a completely different kind of city?

We left St Petersburg which we had all fallen in love with and boarded our overnight train to Moscow. We had a little trouble when buying our tickets, but again we had a visit from a travel fairy and she saved the day and us make our purchase. So we had our tickets, found our big, soviet looking train, located our carriage and got on board. We all had small beds that were not long enough to lay to full extent, it was 28 degrees with no air conditioning or windows and we were the only foreigners on the train. Sounds bad? Well to be fair once we got going it wasn’t to bad, had an amazing sunset out the windows (at about 1230am) and then slept and woke up in Moscow.

Arrival in Moscow and we were all wondering what is it going to be like. Wishing for something like St Petersburg but at the same time hoping for a new city for adventures. Upon exiting the train station we were greeted with the city that is Moscow. Big, loud, grey and intimidating, not quite the same as St Petersburg. So we got a cab, paid way too much but we got to our hostel safe and sound.

Over the days we were here, we literally did the same thing, walk for hours, look at amazing sites and take in the city. Although it wasn’t the same as St Petersburg, it was still just as fun.

We saw Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and it was stunning, ventured to a park that was home to a bunch of old, abandoned carnival rides, wandered through random streets, saw the Kremlin, Red Square and St Basil’s Cathedral which were all just as amazing as the pictures in books, and rode the extremely confusing metro. Also we were lucky enough to get into Lennin’s tomb and see his body, which was creepy, but cool. And nearly forgot we also went to Izmaylovo Market, which are the biggest open air markets in Europe. They sold everything there, Russian matryoshka/babushk dolls, fur hats, wolf skin (complete with head and feet), old postcards and money, army helmets, soviet style cameras, war memorabilia and every kind of tourist trinket ever made. Then a separate section of the market was a giant flea market and the crap people were selling was mind-boggling. I don’t know how they think that someone might want to buy their old handkerchief or placemat, but they do and they literally will try to sell anything. But what they lack for in their products, they make up for with their character. Some friendly, smiling and posing for the camera, while others have faces that tell a story of a hard life and hide at first sign of a camera. The markets we definitely worth the visit!

Although the city itself may not of been as pretty as St Petersburg, it still had its charms, beautiful attractions and Red Square is amazing (especially at 2am when there is no one there!).

After abusing my body (and bank balance) for majority of my trip so far, I decided Moscow was going to be a bit quieter and I would only go out once, so I avoided heading out until Saturday night, which we had planned to be a decent night out, and that it was. The night kicked off at a bar near our hostel where we got 3.3l tubes of beer and got to work on them, as well a sheesha (which the guy asked if we wanted anything special in there to make us feel funny and dizzy, but for our safety we declined). The crew started with 5, and soon became 10, with a decent mix of nationalities; Australian, Danish, Irish, German, Brazilian and French. The night was going fast and before we knew it, it was midnight and we had heard that getting into clubs after midnight could be a problem, but we thought give it a try and see what happens. Luckily we got there and had no problem getting in, as well as the midnight lock outs they also have ‘face control’ which literally means if they don’t like the look of you or how you are dressed then you wont get in.

We enter Propaganda to be greeted with loud music, crazy lights and hundred of people partying. The night was a typical night of dancing, drinking etc but the one highlight for me was waiting at the bar with Tom (Danish guy) and a big, bald Russian coming up and putting me under his arm around me and telling me we must have a drink together. So me, Tom, Divok (not sure if that was his name but its what it sounded like) and two of his girlfriends lined up some vodka, threw them back and got our beers and were about to leave. Then he was like 'no you can’t leave, not yet' and we thought sh*t, have we got ourselves into a situation now, is this guy a pimp and now he wants us to take his girls, or is he going to rack up a massive bill and then leave it with us? Luckily our quick panic was washed down with another shot and we realised that Divok was just a nice guy, interested in us (as he had never met either an Australian or Dane) and wanted to show us a good night in Moscow, oh and the girls weren’t hookers, it was his girlfriend and his sister. We drank with him for a substantial amount of time and had more vodka then I care to remember, and when we decided to call it a night, we asked him how much we owed him for our share of the bill, and his reply “nothing, you paid for it with your company. I have a lot of money and I had a lot of fun, so you not pay me, your money is no good here” so we hugged it out said our goodbyes, scraped Ben (one of the other guys in the group) off the ground and got into a cab home, feeling already worse for wear. So jumped into bed around 430-5am and fell asleep instantly, unlike Tom who apparently got naked in his room, did some sort of dance around the room and then took a pee on someones bag and fell asleep, and had no recollection of it the next morning.

So Russia is now over, which is sad but at the same time exciting as tomorrow I will be in Beijing, a city I expect to be the polar opposite of Russia. Russia has been amazing. After hearing horror stories of people getting mugged, police pulling them up and wanting bribes, border crossing nightmares, getting ripped off and all the kind of jazz, I was half expecting at least something bad to happen, but it didn’t. I felt just as safe as any other city I have been to. If anyone is considering going to Russia, do it. Don’t be put off by these stories, the cities are amazing, the people are lovely (although knowing a little Russian definitely helped) and it is just an amazing place! I love Russia!

Things learnt in Moscow, Russia:

• Russians still believe heavily in chivalry. Girls expect doors to be opened for

them, be allowed in first to places, chairs pulled out etc.

• Moscow was not always the capital of Russia, it was, then it was moved to St

Petersburg and then back to Moscow in 1918.

• The metro is not the easiest to navigate

• Moscow has more billionaires living in its streets than any other city on earth

Ferris Wheel

Love locks (when people get married they write the name and date

on a lock and lock it to these tree like sculptures on a bridge

A more crowded lot of locks

Matryoshka dolls at Izmaylovo Markets

Jimmy and the hat man at Izmaylovo Markets

Matryoshka doll

Russian character at Izmaylovo Flea Market

Old cameras at Izmaylovo Market (was hard not to buy any)

Street meat at Izmaylovo Markets

Guard at the Kremlin who looked 16

Russian babe

Russian stud

The boys in Red Square

Me in Red Square

Jimmy's amazing tan mark

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

Car with Kremlin in the background

Historical Museum in Red Square

St Basils Cathedral

One of Moscow's metro stations

The calm before the storm

High rolling

Jimmy and Ryan and our train

Moscow sunset

Just cruising

St Basils Cathedral

POSSIBLY MY NEW FAVOURITE CITY - ST PETERSBURG (JULY 10-14)

I really didn’t know what to expect from St Petersburg, or Russia in general. I was thinking it was going to be rather grey and soviet, cold and bleek, inhabited with unfriendly people and not tourist friendly. I couldn’t have been further from the truth.

After reading and hearing from many sources that Russians could be rude and unhelpful, we were slightly worried as once we were off the bus in St Petersburg, we had no idea where to go. All we were equipped with was a crappy google maps print out only covering about a 200m radius of our hostel and some basic Russian. Luckily though, a travel angel appeared and guided us on our way to the metro and enlightened us with directions to where we were headed. Without her it may have been a lot worse. This was the first of many friendly Russians we met.

We arrived at the hostel without too much drama, and checked in but couldn’t get into our room as it was 5am and the people were obviously still asleep. So the three of us had to curl up on the couch and try add some extra hours to the 2 we got on the bus.

Eventually we rose from our broken slumber and decided time to explore. So we loaded up with our cameras, rubles and photocopies of our passports and set out to be tourists. We walked for about 20 minutes down Nevsky Prospect, the main thoroughfare of St Petersburg, and were amazed. Beautiful buildings, clean streets and weather in the high 20’s. We literally spent the whole day wandering the streets, taking in the scenery and visiting a few historical sites. And not to mention enjoying the bluebird weather!

The first site we saw was the Russian Museum, an old, huge building home to the largest depository of fine art in Russia. Then we made our way down to the impressive Hermitage, which it is said that if you spent a minute looking at every piece of art in there, you will be in there for 11 years. Then we headed to St Isaac’s Cathedral, climbed to the top for an amazing view of St Petersburg, and then checked out the inside of the cathedral which was like nothing I had ever seen before, especially the 11tonne pillars (which actually weren’t that big, they were made from some crazy heavy marble). And then my favourite site for the day was The Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood (interesting name I know). This building was amazing; it was what I had expected to see in Russia. Colourful, drop shaped roofs, detailed architecture and just an overall impressive structure, which of course now there are a million photos of. Inside was just as impressive with the whole inside of the church was covered with mosaic artwork that would of taken years to do. Besides these few we also saw a bunch of other buildings and sites, but if I went on listing them all you would get bored. So we ventured back to the hostel, chilled and got some much deserved rest and an early night.

The next two days I may as well tie into one paragraph as they were similar days. We spent the days literally walking 10-15kms around the city just taking it in, people watching, being tourists and falling in love with the city. On day two we planned on doing a boat tour around the rivers and canals. Didn’t go too well and we missed the boat and then the other trip we were going to do was full. So fail on that part. In the end it probably worked out better as day two there were two one hour periods where it poured, and not just your everyday bearable rain, but hardcore pouring rain that caused us to take refuge in one of St Petersburg’s many archways. So day two was not to successful but still enjoyable. Day three we did the boat tour originally planned, except James got the tours mixed up and we went on one that we didn’t really want to, and had a speaker blasting Russian at us the whole time so we couldn’t hear our headsets, but still was nice chilling on a boat cruising round St Petersburg…hard life! Then the afternoon checked out some more sights (including an extremely long hour or so walk to see one building, The Holy Trinity Cathedral) ate some Russian pancakes (which really are just the same as crepes) and a sneaky beer or two.

Jimmy and I out front of The Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood

The roof of The Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood

The Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood

Inside St Isaac's Cathedral (each green pillar is 11 tonne)

The Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood

The Hermitage

The Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood

The Hermitage

St Isaac's Cathedral

Nevsky Prospekt

Statue of Alexander (I think)

A monkey wearing clothes

Holy Trinity Cathedral

Hermitage

Another impressive building

Nighttime antics from nights two and three were rather enjoyable nights. Night 2 we were just having a few beers at our hostel and were thinking of maybe going for a quiet drink somewhere so we were fresh for a big Wednesday night, but this plan soon turned to sh*t. Our hostel receptionist finished at ten and decided she wanted to go for a drink and we all thought oh why night, few quiet beers with the Russian can’t hurt. The few quiet beers turned into an impromptu pub crawl and vodka shots. First bar we went to looked so sketchy, in a little back alley and a tiny door saying Feelin' Good. There was barely anyone in there, but we soon made friends with a table full of Russians who were only too happy to share some conversation, and vodka, with us. One guy who was in the army (and took a liking to Ryan) provided some entertainment and good stories.

Then the next bar we moved onto, Mishka Bar was a tiny little bar just of Nevsky Prospekt and were greeted with some random vodka shots to kick start the night. This also kick started the dance floor and soon enough the group was regulating the dance floor and were making friends with the locals. A break dance battle between a Swedish and a Russian guy was one of many highlights to Mishka Bar. Final stop for the night was some random little bar that was really intimate and rather cool. I only stayed there for a bit as my exhaustion had kicked in and I called it a night around 3am.

Night three, a very good night. It kicked off at the hostel with a few beers and then a few drinking games, followed by some vodka of course. Heading to Mishka again just for some free shots and a beer. Then we moved onto another pub/club not far away, and again, more free shots. The night started getting messy from then on in. This club/bar was pretty chilled but we met a fair few people and a couple of birthday girls, who James quickly stole their limelight and claimed it was his birthday too, which it wasn’t, and I think maybe even managed to get a free drink from too. So we drank and chatted (and James bit) with our new friends and then encouraged them to join our posse and come party with us. The next venue (which from memory was the last one) was fun. Multi level club/pub, old soviet feeling to it, exposed staircases, rough cement walls and filled with Russians. So we all got drinking and within 30 minutes, we all seemed to disappear and go our own ways. I met random locals, male and female all who were really nice and interested in where I came from, my travels etc. They told me their stories I told them mine, by the end of it I had a bunch of new best mates. Again we tore up the dance floor, dancing to English tunes and also some Russian tracks too. The Russians loved our enthusiastic dancing to their songs, and our attempt to sing along, even though we had no clue what was going on. Ordering my drinks in Russian paid off, with the bartender thinking it was cool that I tried to learn Russian and gave me a beer for free. Think I called it a night around 430am and it was broad daylight. The sun literally never goes down, it starts getting dark around midnight and then is completely light again by 3am, its mental and really confusing when you’ve had a few.
.

11:45pm and still daylight

Shots to start the night

The gang

Me, Ben and Sushu being special

The Scots and James biting the Scot

Now James biting a Russian

The gang

Shots

The Brazillian, the Scot, the Australian and

the Russian, very multicultural

Our final day in St Petersburg a few of us ventured via hydrofoil to Peterhof Palace, which was amazing. Over the top? Just a little, but still it is an amazing palace! The grounds were immaculate, the location (on the water) was beautiful, and the palace and its 532 fountains were truly amazing! Hopefully the photos can do it some justice! We spent the whole day exploring the grounds, soaking up some sunshine and aweing at the Palace. The ride home though was not so enjoyable.

We missed the hydrofoil and didn’t want to wait another hour for one, so we opted for getting a cab to the metro and then getting the metro back to our hostel. So we found cabs easy enough and we heard the station was only 2kms away, so after we were in the cab for 5 minutes we started questioning where we were actually going. We drove for ages, and at times we were in the quietest, sketchiest looking areas I think I have ever seen, and the thought crossed my mind, we are going to be taken somewhere and robbed, and I wasn’t the only one thinking it. Our driver looked like an army reject, and the driver of the other cab had jail tattoos and reeked of vodka, so we had definitely chosen two legit looking lads. So our journey continued dipping in and out of suburban Russia, Russian ghettos and Russian motorways, and with some erratic driving, we were all thinking ‘where the f**k are we going’. After more then 30 minutes, he finally pulled over, and to our delight in a busy street right out the front of the metro, and then we realized our instructions we gave him were wrong, we said metro, and should of said train. Oh well what can ya do, we’re all alive and well.

So next stop, Moscow. Have an overnight train from St Petersburg leaving at 1140pm and arriving around 6am. A sleeper train with Russians…should be interesting.

Things learnt in St Petersburg, Russia:

• It doesn’t get dark there

• Smoking indoors is still allowed

• All the girls there wear stilettos, all the time, and can even navigate cobblestone roads

   and gravel with them on

• Russia apparently celebrates New Years twice a year

• Vodka really does taste better in Russia

• The roof of The Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood is painted by hand, and holds around

   5,000-6,000 at one time and is the tallest Eastern Orthodox church in the world and currently

   the largest operating Orthodox Church in the world.

• The Russian word "sad" has nothing to do with emotion or mood. It is the word for "garden”.

• Russia's Cyrillic alphabet contains 33 letters, 2 of which have no sound, but the 2 with no

   sound do have names and are important for grammar.

• There are over 100 nationalities throughout Russia

• People on the metro stand facing you and really close which is slightly akward.

• You can’t drink the water

• That I love Russia

Peterhof Palace

Peterhof Palace

Peterhof Palace

Red Squirrel

One of many fountains in Peterhof Palace

A building within the grounds of Peterhof Palace

A Russian lady admiring the sea

RIGA 1 - TIM 0 (JULY 8-10)

My plans were simple, check in, eat, shower and early night in preparation for the arrival of James and Ryan on Saturday. But that plan was derailed from the word go. Arrived fine, went to check in and when trying to check in, realised that I hadn’t actually booked! Was no problems they had room so got a bed no problems. Phase two, food, was completed no problems. But then the final goal, early night, this was thrown out the window.

Happy hour at the hostel began and the 1Lat beers (roughly £1.20) were going down way too smooth and before I knew it I had signed myself up to the pub crawl, and the mayhem began…

I would love to give you a detailed rundown of the night, but unfortunately my memory took a vacation last night. But the things I do remember…

• Drinking a lot of beers and shots

• Drinking rum (one of my most hated drinks)

• Two mojitos for 3Lats

• Sun never really setting

• Catching up with Jake, Jaryd and Sean

• On the way home at some ungodly hour of the morning, Jarrod (hostel owner from Yarrawarrah) decided he wanted to go swimming so stripped down and jumped off the bridge (prob 10m high) into the river, and then had to climb onto a boat to get out of the river due to no stairs or ladders. And all was going swimmingly until he got out of the water and the police turned up. After heated conversation, Latvian from one side and English from the other, as you can probably guess it went really well and Jarrod ended up getting arrested, not exactly sure what for still but don’t worry, he is ok and not locked up.

• Waking up at 2pm with a hangover that easily rates in my top 5 hangovers of all time

Day two, nothing to report here as most of the time was spent sleeping and meeting up with Jimmy and Ryan.

Final day was nice and chilled after a decent nights sleep. The sun was beaming and the shorts were out, so we decided to take a walk around town and get home food and make a nice lunch.

So we headed down to the water and housed in 5 old zeppelin hangers were the local markets selling everything from seafood to fresh produce to knock off clothing. I had my heart set on a nice piece of salmon that I had seen on a previous adventure to Riga with some nice fresh salad. Following the inviting aroma of fish, we made it into the hanger that housed all the seafood stalls and instantly were greeted with chunks of rich orange salmon. Picking a piece was a challenge as we had no idea of the cost, so thought we would go in the middle, and the end result I got a 400g slab of salmon for approx. £3.50 and then picked up garlic, lemon, lettuce, onion, avocado, cheese and cucumber for another 80p. Nice cheap lunch. A Brazilian we met picked up a kilo of chicken hearts for a traditional Brazilian dish for £1.50 and James got a 1kg bag of sea salt for £1 (even though we needed only a pinch). Lunch..success.

Now where am I? I have no idea. En route to St Petersburg, Russia on a 12 hour bus journey. Sounds painful, but really it isn’t. Another bus with free coffee, wi-fi, big comfy seats and a 99% ratio of non-English speakers. If all goes to plan I should be in St Petersburg around 7am. If you don’t hear from me in a few days, maybe start to worry that the Russian border guards didn’t except my bribe and I am now a resident of a Russian gaol.

Mum I am joking I will be fine.

Things learnt in Lativa

• The sun doesn't really set, which when mixed with alcohol causes extreme confusion

• Latvia's main export is wood

• My body does not agree with rum

• Latvia has a 60/40 split of Latvians/Russians

• I need a wide angle lens, anyone want to buy my a birthday/christmas present?

Salmon at the markets

My slab of salmon

Old Town

Drinking with hostel people

Jarrod and a very tall man

Me, Jake and Sean

Me, Elina and Jarrod.

Jarrod the owner of the hostel and Elina one of his workers

Soviet style building

LOVELY LITHUANIA (JULY 4-8)

So stop one is complete, Vilnius Lithuania, and a good start to the journey! Vilnius is a small town, consisting of Old Town and New Town, which are just that, old and new. New town, boring and all new buildings, really isn’t much different to any other city. Old town though is a different story, cobblestone roads, impressive churches, outdoor cafes and a laid back vibe about it.

As mentioned in last post the Lithuanian’s had a public holiday on Wednesday which is an annual holiday to celebrate the crowning of the King 800 years ago, from what I could gather it was like our Australia Day. Every year they get dressed up in all their medieval/traditional outfits and there’s a festival in the park with handicrafts, music, singing, dancing, eating traditional foods and drinking beer, which was delicious (particularly the honey brew). So we ventured down to there, wandered around for a bit, checked it out, watched some signing and dancing, although we had no idea what was going on, and ate and drank. Until the blue skies disappeared and they were replaced with black clouds that of course, pissed down with rain pretty much instantly. Umbrellaless, jumperless and raincoatless, we had no choice but to take refuge in a port-a-loo for 30 minutes while the storm passed. Not the finest 30 minutes in Vilnius.

Majority of my time was spent exploring the Old Town, learning about Vilnius and its history (which is really rather impressive for a little country) trying to communicate with people who spoke no English, taking photos and eating traditional foods (including pigs ears and zepplins).

Two highlights of the trip were the visit to Trakai Castle, an old castle about 30kms from Vilnius that is situated on a small island surround by breath taking lakes and scenery, and also a visit to the Museum of Genocide Victims which was the absolute polar opposite to the Trakai Castle. Dark, disturbing, but extremely interesting. Housed in the former KGB Headquarters, it guides you through the dark period from about 1940-1991 and gives you insights into the KGB and Soviet Union and just how much of animals they were and how badly the Lithuanian people were treated. Shows you methods used to spy on people, thoughts and beliefs and the extreme actions they would take to get their targets! And then to top of the heart-warming experience, you finish off in the basement floor where you see the torture cells, the horrible condition of housing cells and to top it off , the execution room. Sounds grim, and it was, but at the same time extremely interesting and well worth it!

Now the nightlife in Vilnius, I had heard good things about it and its occupants, and at first I thought I had been fed false information, but once it hits midnight, the town comes alive and everyone is ready to go. During my visit I had two large nights and they were both equally enjoyable. Lots of drinking, cutting shapes on the dance floor and meeting new people. Everyone in Vilnius loves a good party, girls, guys, young and old were all on the floor, shots are encouraged and partying either side of the public holiday is highly encouraged.

All in all, Vilnius is a town full of charm, beautiful people, cheap food and booze and good times. Now en-route from Lithuania to Latvia, and the bus has wi-fi! Going to make the trip go very quick!

Things learnt in Lithuania…

• Lithuania was the first country to break from the USSR in 1990

• Lithuanian girls are good dancers

• Lithuanian guys are terrible dancers

• If you dance like you are having an epileptic fit, you are considered a good dancer and will be
surrounded by a large group of male and female Lithuanians and be invited to dance on the podium.

• Lithuanians all have amazing ice blue eye, both male and female

• Lithuania is the only country in the world having national perfume

• Lithuania is the oldest and the largest Baltic State

• A Lithuanian company plans to set up a holiday resort in the Maldives run entirely by blondes

Traditional hand made bowl

Segway Police

Vilnius Castle

One of many churches in Vilnius

Another church in Vilnius

Shooting crossbows in Trakai Castle

Danny shooting crossbows in Trakai Castle

Trakai Castle

A dish known as Mens Pleasure (the pieces near the fork are pigs ears)

Vilnius Old Town

Bridge with padlocks of love (each padlock has two names on it

and it locked to the bridge as a sign of eternal love)

Yet another church in Lithuania

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

Well the day has come and the London dream is now over. It was an amazing two years of my life, I met many good people, had a lot of fun and got to see parts of the world I never dreamt of. I will miss London and all of you there, let’s hope that they change the visa laws again for the 13^th time in two years again and I am allowed back to the motherland.

Thanks too for all those who attended International Mojito Day too, was a perfect send off! A good day for all attendees, and also for the off licenses of Shoreditch, with their highest Bacardi sales ever. A few snaps of the day are below, a complete album will be put on facebook sometime soon.

So The Long Road Home has commenced and in case anyone was worried/wondering, I made it to Lithuania safe and sound, sleep deprived, but in one piece. Haven’t done much here yet, went for a wander but tomorrow it will all commence, and with a public holiday on Wednesday, tomorrow night should provide some good times.

Things learnt so far…

• Do not pack bags/boxes while under the influence of alcohol…You will forget to send favourite
clothes/items home. And you will forget to pack things you may need along the road… like a jumper!

• Luton is a rubbish airport

• WizzAir’s legroom space is the smallest on any airline. If you are over 5’10, I would highly advise
against flying with them

• Trying to speak broken Russian to a Lithuanian is not a good idea.