Blogs from Asia - page 13035

Yesterday was my cheapest day in India yet. Even if you include the bus ticket purchased the night before, I spent a grand total of 400 rupees total. This would include the 125 rupees for a 5 hour bus trip (where we got the pleasure of driving through a wildlife preserve and saw ELEPHANTS), 125 for the hotel (we chose the second place we checked out because the first place was too dirty-even for my new standards), 50 rupees for lunch, 20 for dinner...and a miscellaneous 30 rupees for a 7Up (the first I've had since I was 7), camera and entrance fee into a palace...and I'm sure I probably blew a few somewhere else. This means that for a grand total of under 9 dollars I travelled over 160 kilomaters, ate well, and saw basically ... read more

Dedicated to Jaspreet Laly - RIP!! Only 2 weeks previous both Matt and I were partying in Sway Bar, Central London, after passing our Final Medical Exams. Now our pathways met in Bangalore, where we had arranged to meet when in the UK. All was not easy when contacting Matt. He was based in a remote village 1 hours drive from Mysore, and had limited facilities with regards to internet access. The ever present mobile phone reception in India would have been ideal, yet i didn't have Matt's indian phone number, and the UK Mobile lines continually cause problems (no surprise). Eventually a late night phone call from Matt was received on Saturday night... he received my e-mail stating my presence in Bangalore, and was coming for a visit on Sunday. Matt arrived in Bangalore at ... read more

If there is one place both visitors and locals will tell you to go to in Vietnam it's Ha Long Bay. Over 3000 limestone and dolomite islets rise out of the of the tropical green waters on the Gulf of Tonkin. For about $60USD you can charter yourself a boat complete with three meals a day, a tour guide, a kayak for exploring, and sleeping quarters for the night. If you want to travel cheaply, you can join a tour for as little as $30(for two days). You can spends days exploring the deep grottoes and caves of the karsts, stalagmites hanging densely from inside their dark interiors. During the warm summer months, you can hang out on remote white sandy beaches, pet the Island monkeys or take diving leaps off the junks sails that cruise ... read more

So we headed back out into the real world once again…. After a 3 hour boat trip (advertised as 1 1/2 hours) and a short bus ride we arrived in Phuket Town, and have to admit that we were a bit disappointed. However, we thought we’d give the place a chance as we had only seen the harbour and a few streets. We got ourselves a room at a hotel called Rome Place, which was nice enough, pretty cheap with t.v., hot water, A/C, fridge and a balcony. We then headed out for a bite to eat and found the place a little bit more modern than on first impressions (shopping malls, neon light and much to Dan’s delight, a McDonalds!) but still nothing like how the Lonely Planet described it: ‘a stylish city of Sino-Portuguese ... read more

Well here I am at Singapore airport just waiting now to catch a 14hour flight to London.. Cant Wait! haha.. My flight to Singapore was one of the best I've been on, I had a window seat and absolutley no one sitting next to me! it was great! managed to check my luggage in without a problem despite the weight but had a twat at Immigration tell me my hand luggage was too heavy.. Went and bought another bag cos apparently you can take as many bags as you wont as long as their not over 7kgs.. Go figure, surely a heavy bag takes up less room than 50 bags but anyway... As soon as I got through Immigration I repacked it all back into my original hand luggage and not a problem.. Been a bitch ... read more