We visited ex Portguese colony of Macau which is popular nowdays for the gambling oppertunities afforded by the large number of casinos located there. We intended to look more at the historical and architectural legacy left by the Portguaese but to be honest it was so hot and humid we spent most of our time taking refuge in any cool cafe we could find. We actually visited one of the newest casinos, the Sands. It looks fantastic from the outside, and the lobby is impressive, but once inside its quite disappointing. I suppose my idea of a casino stems from James [View Full Entry]

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Some photographs of our stay in Beijing now attached. [View Full Entry]

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I finally found an internet cafe with equipment and software enabling me to transfer photos from memory card to disks. As a consequence, I hope to upload some photos over the coming weeks. However, bear with me as I have not done this before and I may make a few errors before the procedure becomes automatic. I will not put up too many initially until I asertain how long it will take to upload each photograph. I will start with Hong Kong and go from there. Brendan. [View Full Entry]

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After China we went to Vietnam and started by spending a week in Hanoi, its capital. If you were a fan of the road runner cartoons you will enjoy Hanoi. Remember when the road runner kept coming up behind wily coyote and going "beep beep". In Hanoi be prepared to be wily coyote while the road runner will be played by thousands of moped riders. This is because there are tens of thousands of mopeds in Hanoi while a lot of the streets are extremely narrow, especially in the old town. As the pavements are also used to park the mopeds [View Full Entry]

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Before we came on the trip we debated on whether or not to bring a laptop with us. The consensus was no as we assumed that there would be plenty of internet cafes available to check mails etc. Most hotels we used in China had business centres attached and we were able to use their computers and printers. However, outside of these hotels it was often hard to find an internet cafe and when we did there was another problem. Printing. Or the lack thereof. This happened to us while staying in Yangshuo. Our hotel had a PC but no printer [View Full Entry]

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While in China we went on a number of tours to the great wall etc. I highly recommend them if only because it is a great chance to meet other travellers. As well as the main attractions you will also be brought to a few other "stops" as well, regardless of whether you want to go there or not. In China these tend to be porcelin and pearl factories and the tea ceremoney. I am one of those sad people who enjoy seeing how things are produced so I dont mind. However, bear in mind that what you see being produced [View Full Entry]

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China may be getting wealthier but not everybody is benefitting as you will discover if you stay in Yangshuo. Although the town is prosperous this is not necessarily so for the surrounding areas, which has many poor farmers. As a consequence you will be constantly approached by people trying to sell you something or just begging. The sellers are all trying to sell the same things i.e. postcards, memory cards, wooden toys, flowers, or fake watches. They will produce the first item, you will say no. They then produce the second item. You say no. They produce the thirs item and [View Full Entry]

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We went to a town called Yangshuo for several days to have a bit of a rest. This is situated in a famous scenic area but a big attraction was that it is also something of a westereners ghetto. There are plenty of bars and restaurants that cater to western tastes, serving things like burgers and pizzas and fried breakfasts. Having said that, most of the chefs etc are Chinese and seemed to have gotten their training from cookery books. In reality, this meant a lot of dishes sounding great on the menu but the actual dish bearing no resemblence to [View Full Entry]

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Living in the EU we have become a bit blaise about travel. On a whim you can go on the internet, purchase a plane ticket and fly immediately, sometimes without even having to change money. In China that is certainly not the case. To purchase tickets for internal flights we had to ptoduce our passports at the ticket office. To book an international flight we had to go to a special ticket office. At this point I must express my thanks to the staff in the Spring Travel Agency, Guilin. In our naiveity we went in and said that we wanted [View Full Entry]

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We have come across two cities with rivers which they used to their full potential, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The two waterfronts, especially at night, provided the best entertainment to be had anywhere. Rather like watching fish in a tank it was very soothing to just sit and watch the waterborne traffic flow back and forth. When I say traffic I do not mean yachts or a few small ferries. You saw yachts, ferries, fishing boats, junks, floating restaurants, tankers, dredgers, and everything in between. Hong Kong won on entertainment value as in addition to traffic moving along the river t [View Full Entry]

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