The flight from Pakse (Laos), had been quite pleasant overall, there had been a bit of turbulence along the way, which at most had caused my coffee to leap over the cup rim and then belly flop onto my food tray. Luckily though, the stewardess was quick on hand with a cloth before it could take a further dive over the sides and onto my clean light coloured North Face trousers. As we circled before making our final approach into Siem Reap airport I could get my first glimpse of Cambodia. Surprisingly it looked quite green, not the dry dust [View Full Entry]

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I fell totally in love, what a great feeling it was, it gave me that euphoric feeling of true love found at last. Of course I'm talking metaphorically as my love was instantly with the country of Laos, the people, the culture and the religion. Imagine for one moment lush rolling green hills and valleys, sleepy towns and villages, beautiful Pagoda temples, buddhist monks strolling the streets in bright orange robes with umbrellas, local fisherman throwing their nets into the mighty Mekong river from small wooden boats and children playing and swimming along the banks and this is somewhere clos [View Full Entry]

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Firstly before I begin my blog a big thank you to Chris Brinkworth, all the pictures used are his after my camera was stolen, he has a site with video footage at www.chrisbrinkworth.com. You may even see a little of me at Halong Bay if not some of his footage and commentary is very funny and definitely worth some of your spare time if you want to get a little closer to the travel experience. Okay here we go, its going to be another novel so it may take you a couple days to print and read it at you leisure. [View Full Entry]

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Anyone thinking of travelling to Asia must be prepared for a little hardship and being a little uncomfortable at times its all part of the experience. Poor accomodation doesn't bother me very much as its only somewhere to sleep and the day is spent visiting temples and sights and the evening with a cool glass or two of local amber nectar. However here are a few amusing observations I thought I would share with you since I have arrived in SE Asia in general. "When you are sleeping do not smoking" or "Guests are not to sleep without telling us" announces [View Full Entry]

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When I left Shaghai for Hong Kong I thought 'just another city' and if its like all the others in China so far, dirty, busy and smoggy I'm going to hate it. The moment I arrived at the airport it was an instant love affair, a relationship I knew I was going to enjoy. The airport was large, clean and had an instant air of calmness, walking through customs took moments as did retrieving my rucksack. A very polite and smiling girl at the information desk spoke clear english and gave me advice on how to reach Kowloon from the airport. [View Full Entry]

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Dear all, its getting very hard to update my journals on-line in Asia. Connections are slow, they keep crashing and its taking me longer to update my blog due to the immense waste of time as these crashes occur. So here is an update or synopsis of what has happened since China. I travelled from South to North of Vietnam in just under a month through February. I was on the move after every 2 days and it took on average 24 hours on various modes of public transport to get to my next destination. Overall, I found Vietnam to be [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone, hope you are all well, sorry its taken so long for the next blog but hey I'm finally soaking up some sun in Laos after leaving Vietnam and hard at work on the tan, you know how hard traveling can be, busy busy busy. Anyway straight onto China, I left Tibet on the new train that opened just last year from Lhasa to Beijing and had booked a soft sleeper for the 48hr journey. I arrived at the station at 7.30am and had to fill in a form to say I didn't have a temperature or flu like symptoms, [View Full Entry]

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My journey to Tibet started by bus early in the morning, I had said my goodbyes to Subin and the boys the night before and sadly boarded a bus for the chinese boarder and the beginning of the Friendship Highway to Lhasa. The Friendship Highway crosses the Tibetan Plateau and takes around 5 days to reach Lhasa across the most barren and unhospitable landscapes. The winds blast across the flat plateaus and landscapes the flat land being no hinderance to these winds that pick up everything in their path thats not held into the ground. Sandstorms are common and literally come [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Nepal on November 2nd 2006 and leave on January 6th 2007 two months and also nearly 3 weeks longer than I had originally planned to stay. I don't know what I expected to find when I arrived in Nepal nor did I have any preconceived expectations, I simply came here to see the Himalayas. There was a reason I started my journey here first, I knew I was being drawn here but by what force and for what purpose I had no idea. After 2 months and 3 treks I can say that I have touched the surface [View Full Entry]

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Dear friends, firstly, a very Merry Christmas to you all and secondly, a happy and prosperous New Year and 2007 to you all. I hope you all ate, drank and were very merry for me and I hope Santa left some nice pressies under your trees and in your stockings. On December 29th I finished my third and final trek around the Himalaya and the Manaslu region, this region sits roughly in-between the Everest area and the Annapurna area. This journey, like the previous two, also had its share of joy, anxiety, companionship, spirituality, and a heart wrenching story of Tibetan [View Full Entry]

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