http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/CaraTrev/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from CaraTrev en-us Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:13:53 BST Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:13:53 BST Hong Kong at last our final Asian destination. HK is a big clean modern city with big modern buildings resulting in big prices. We paid 25 US for a prison cell for 2 the first night and then upgraded to a cheap hotel place for 55 or we could of stayed at the Holiday Inn for 200 but we have a budget. The transit system here is really good efficiently packing millions of people around on an http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Hong-Kong/Kowloon/blog-270383.html On to the great big city of Beijing...we took a sleeper train from Bautoa to Beijing which was about 13 hours. They didn't have any soft sleepers available so we got hard sleepers not totally sure how different they would be. The setup was pretty compact with 6 bunks in each little area three stacked on each side. I got a top bunk and Trevor got a middle bunk. While it was a little tight ge http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Beijing/blog-269440.html Okay what better to do after getting BBQed then go to the dessert right. Or maybe the desert...Well we have seen a lot on our trip but we haven't seen a desert so it looked appealing. Since our Yurt excursion didn't go as planned we were short on time. Unlike most of out trip we decided to go the quick expensive route instead of the relaxed local route. Our time was cut even shorter than planned http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Inner-Mongolia/Baotou/blog-268650.html I wish I could say the BBQ was a good experience.The first night we arrived in Hohhot at 10 pm. Having just missed the shuttle bus to town we tried our luck with the taxi cabs. Up to this point we avoided taxis because the LP book warns you that they they are the biggest ripoff artists out there. Knowing that we cautiously appoached the taxi. As soon as we got near the taxi there were 10 other http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Inner-Mongolia/Hohhot/blog-268646.html Well we spent the night in Yichang after our cruise up the Yangtze but it was fairly uneventful and not that interesting...until we left Yichang on a sleeper bus to Xi'an. First we get on and think it may be a pretty good deal since it's not too crowded and we each get a nifty little lounge type seatbed bedding included. The timing was better than the train as well so it seemed like a no b http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Hubei/Yichang/Three-Gorges-Dam/blog-268636.html After a long sleepless smokey and wild ride on the sleeper bus we made it to Xi'an bright and early with the sunrise. Groggily we made our way across the city to where the cheaper hotels and hostels are located. After checking several hotels which either were full or didn't have any discounted rates or didn't want to rent rooms to westerners we found the Xiangzimen Youth Hostel. They offere http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shaanxi/Xi--an/blog-267192.html The answer is....32 million I think it may be the largest city on the planet or we were told so by a couple locals and it is China's fastest growing city with the government pouring money into it for massive construction and design projects helped by the fact that it's close to the biggest dam in the world the three gorges dam dam it's all big. We flew in from Guilin and caught a shuttl http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Chongqing/Chongqing/blog-266385.html The drive to Yangshuo was beautiful Hundreds of karst peaks and then coming into town a lovely city nestled among all these peaks along the river. Definitely a breath of fresh air compared to Guilin and Shenzhen. We got off the bus and told the many hotel salespeople that we already had a place reserved and didn't need a room. We did end up walking in the complete opposite direction than we in http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Guangxi/Yangshuo/blog-265249.html Guilin is a small city of about 670000 people and pretty much seems to be shrouded in a constant gray fogcloud which makes it very humid. Walking around everything is wet even when it hasn't been raining and I don't just mean outside. As we were looking at hotels to find a place to stay we slipped and slid around the lobbies and hallways. We found a place to stay that was reasonable desp http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Guangxi/Longsheng/Pingan/blog-265239.html We landed in Shenzen on April 4th around 10pm with no hotel reservation. We wandered around the airport in search of some english signs and didn't find many and none that said anything about how to get to town. The airport was huge and empty kinda strange for a City of 10 million people. So we basically just observed everone to try to figure out the process. We tried to talk to some people but t http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Guangdong/Shenzhen/blog-265203.html Just a quick note mainly to let you know where we're at and where we're headed next. We've been in Bangkok for the past few days mainly for the purpose of picking up my wedding dress yay and to get a flight to China. We leave in the evening on April 4th to fly direct to Shenzhen where we will begin our China adventure. One thing we did new this time in the big city is spend a day at Siam Ci http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Thailand/Central/Bangkok/blog-262280.html After about an hour long bus ride we arrived in Phitsanulok a town convenient to hang out it because it's on the railway and also has very reasonable and nice accomodations. We decided this would be a good place to find a room with AC and maybe even a TV to spoil ourselves a little bit. After some searching we ended up in a place recommended by our guidebook called the Lithia Guesthouse. http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Thailand/North/Phitsanulok/blog-262271.html On the way to Sukhothai the bus passed through the old city where the Sukhothai Historical Park and all the interesting ruins is located. We debated getting off there but weren't really sure so we continued on to the new city bus station which is about 12 km away. We were greeted by the usual group of tuktuk drivers wanting our business and after hooking up with two other travelers we wo http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Thailand/North/Sukhothai/blog-261126.html Cooking dancing boxing zipping trekking rafting elephant riding and saving lives You can do all that and more in Chaing Mai We arrived by train at 800 AM and took the first day to get oriented find a place to stay find AC checkpoints and start looking at tour companies for all the many activities available here. The AC checkpoints were easy because all the maps show the 711 loca http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Thailand/North/Chiang-Mai/blog-259603.html In order to see the infamous monkey town of Lopburi we had to go a bit out of our way and take a bus from Kanchanaburi to Suphinburi which was a public regular bus meaning no AC and seats like on a school bus definitely not the tourist trail. Then from there we hopped on a bus to Lopburi this one was probably about 70 years old so was the driver though which made it a slow ride. Fortu http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Thailand/Central/Lopburi/blog-259601.html Another history lesson Back during WWII when Japan occupied most of southeast Asia they decided to build a connecting rail line between Thailand and Burma to provide a better supply route to their troops during the war. Since Japan took over the region they had over 60000 POWs from Australia Great Britain Holland and the US to use as slave labor to complete this very ambitious project in a http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Thailand/Central/Kanchanaburi/blog-258037.html Having no desire to ride a bus for 20 some hours down the winding mountains to the Thailand boarder we decided to get plane tickets. Sounds easy right not a chance in this Country. Loas is the is the least developed country we have ever seen well Cambodia and Boliva may have been worse but I never stuck around long enought to find out because bumpy dirt roads really don't appeal to me. It's hard http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/blog-257665.html Are all things you will find in abundance in The north east region of Loas.Before I explain the title I must warn fellow travelers about the 8 hour very windy road up to the high plains. It seem like the maxium road grade over here is a lot lower because we only gained maybe 3000 feet or so in 150 miles and it took 8 hours. Do the math we were going fairly slow because we were practically doing http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/East/Plain-of-Jars/blog-257362.html On March 10th we got a flight from Siem Reap to Luang Prabang Laos which was a quick 2 hour flight. Flying in was really beautiful as the scenery here is very different from anywhere we've been. After paying our dues to enter the country and we had to pay an exit fee out of Cambodia we got our visas and walked out of the airport to find a whole bunch of bored taxi and tuk tuk driver waiti http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/West/Luang-Prabang/blog-255772.html After a long bumpy ride to Siem Reap the taxi car stopped and transferred us over to a tuktuk. The tuktuks here are a bit different in that they are actually like little carriages hooked up to motorbikes. The bike tuk tuk driver drove us around looking at places to stay and we settled on a cheap guesthouse just outside the center of town. For those who don't know the currency here in Cambod http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Cambodia/North/Angkor/blog-253716.html