Blogs from Asia - page 14331

Nearing the end of my 4 month Holiday....I decided to rough it out in the Himalayas in Ladakh....I made an itenary of a jeep safari cum trek to discover the barren beauty of Ladakh....alas i found the 21 day period was not enough to see it all in this paradise created my man and god together.... We (a group of people who met in Delhi) set out from Delhi to Manali in a bus driven by an enthusiastic Sardarji.... man now was this guy the Schumacher of Volvo buses. Thankfully I slept most of the way in the overnight journey….but whenever my eyes were open the man was nearly on another vehicle…like this poor Innova, who must’ve had a sleepless night on a near death experience. Amidst lots of Punjabi numbers we reached Manali at 9 ... read more

Vrijdag 11 augustus Lanzhou is de hoofdstad van de provincie Gansu. Dit is een zeer grote provincie, bijna 1700 km lang maar in het midden is de provincie amper 100 km breed. Daar ligt ten zuiden een ontoegankelijke bergketen en ten noorden de woestijn. Alle handelroutes die in het verleden tussen China en het westen ontstonden liepen door deze smalle corridor, de Hexi corridor genoemd. Via deze handelsroutes (de Zijderoute genoemd) transporteerden men zijde, thee en porselein richting het barbaarse westen en kruiden, glas en dergelijke in de andere richting. Het spreekt vanzelf dat deze rijkdommen rovers aantrokken: langs deze wegen ontstonden allerhande goed beveiligde overnachtingplaatsen voor de handelskaravanen waarvoor men uiteraard goed moest betalen. Wie de Hexi corridor beheerste, bezat een onmetelijke bron van inkomsten die nooit opdroogde zolang de zijderoute de han... read more

Today's class consisted of a cultural differences discussion. It started out with our teacher asking us why we chose to come to China. I sometimes do not think the Chinese realize how important their country is to the rest of the world. But I am sure a lot of Americans do not realize how important China is to our country either. Our discussion then led to more differences between the Chinese and American cultures. Our teacher proceeded to tell us about Chinese women and how Chinese men are the happiest in the world because Chinese women do everything they want. Apparently plastic surgery is becoming very popular here, I have even seen advertisements for it on the bus! They want to have more pronounced noses and eye lids and narrower faces. I have noticed that even ... read more

Originally I had planned to visit Vietnam this week, however because of difficulties with getting a Visa (meaning, my travel agent just didn't get one) I found myself with a week of no job, no house and no committments. I decided to head to South Korea. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip. I noticed some similiarities between South Korea and Japan.....mostly in touristy desintations. It could have been the overwhelming numbers of Japanese tourists that did it for me. After hitting up a few palaces and museums, I took to the streets to find the "everyday" Seoul. I had intended to take the ferry from Japan to Pusan....although it would have been really cool, and I hope to do it someday, it really cost the same as flying and took way longer. I chose the easy route ... read more

Hi everyone, I know I promised an epic, but given the feedback I have had on how unpopular epics are I will try to cut down on the words for you all....instead...I have increased the number of pictures! :-) This visit up north was to help kick-start a project evaluation on a disaster management project in Hongsa, Sayabouli province. We flew to Luang Prabang, then the car picked us up and we begun our 5 hour drive to Hongsa. Normally it is about a 3 hour drive, and has been known to be done in 2 hours, but that was in the dry season. Unfortunately the dry season is not right now and we found ourselves on a dirt road going over mountains all along the way. Remember that road I talked about in a past ... read more