We left you just prior to our exit of Cambodia. Now, most of the roads in Cambodia are decent, not western good, but better than Laos, with the exception of the road from Siem Reip to the Thai border which is just god aweful. This is one of the major roads in the country and yet for the most part is simply a mud bank in between paddy feilds. Add a sucession of huge lorries and larger quantities of rain and you get a couple feet deep in red mud with bikes, vans and all sorts careening all over the road, [View Full Entry]

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I've had this song in my head for days... We spent a little longer in Saigon and (to our surprise) were sad to go; it was a nice city, with much less hussel and bussel than Hanoi with nice coffee shops and things to see - including the embalmed body of Ho Chi Min, neither of us have ever seen a dead communist leader before. We also picked up a very nice watch each that were supposed to sell for $10,000+ but we got $35 each. We weren't happy about it, but we then got on a bus to Phnom Peng, [View Full Entry]

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Hanoi is hard to descibe: the roads are almost impossible to cross because of the unrelenting weight of traffic driving on both sides of the road in both directions; there are people constantly, constantly shouting at you to but their stuff (which gets very dull very quickly); the drivers are compulsed to use their horn whenever there is any justification, which results in an almost never ending din of car horns; and everything happens on the pavement: cooking, eating, showering, selling, buying, sharpening your machete, welding gates etc. It is very very overwhelming, unfortunately words cann [View Full Entry]

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Luang Prabang is a slightly strange city. It's a UNISCO world heritage site (which should put it on a level with the Fjordlands of NZ and the prehistoric jungle of Australia, among others) and we had and still do hear really good things about it but it really didn't do it for us. Don't get me wrong it was a nice enough little town, but that was about it, we spent the end of the first day recovering, the second wandering around the city looking at the various wats (buddhist temples) and the national museum (in the old royal palace), which [View Full Entry]

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After the hussel and bussel of Bangkok we were very glad to get out of the major cities and into the smaller hippy town of Chaing Mai. We've been fairly lazy compared to the pace we attempted to see everything in previous places. Chaing Mai is a relaxed place full of coffee shops, vegetarian restaurants, book shops and massage places. We managed to pick up a couple books on the pol-pot regieme and the second Indo-China war (its fun fun fun with us!) went on a Thai cooking course - we make the best Thai food EVER now - and spent [View Full Entry]

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So, i believe we left you just prior to us getting on the train to Bangkok. Although i've never been on a 'sleeper' train before (it took 23 hours or so) apparently for Alice it brought back memories of a European holidays. There's not a great deal to report from it other than we ended up chatting to an American guy called Zack who was sat opposite to us. He was a real nice guy and when we pulled into Bangkok feeling very much over-whelmed he sorted out a tuk-tuk (a nippy 3 wheeled taxi) and took us to a cheap [View Full Entry]

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The Jungle So you left us about to get on the boat to go into the jungle, and we did just that. We were taken two hours up the river to a small village on the outskirts of the Taman Negara Nationalo park (and home of tigers, elephants, tapiers and other delightful beasts) where we stayed in a varirty of disgusting hostels that i shall not bother you with the details of. On our first day we went for a quick investigation into the jungle, along a canopy walkway among other things. And although it was nice to walk around the [View Full Entry]

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The flight from Auckland to Hong Kong was pretty uneventful. I was glad to leave the cold and sorry to leave my friends knowing i'll almost certainly never see them again. I arrived in HK airport at bout 7am and spent the next 8 hours (before Alice arrived) totally over-whelmed at the number of people and only venturing out of the corner where my pack was to my 'happy snacks' at the booths. It was, to state the obvious, fantastic to see Alice again and after the hugs and greeting we got on a 45min coach into HK central. Hong Kong [View Full Entry]

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So, blog #32, 10 months and a hair's breadth in New Zealand, and i leave this evening for asia. Pretty exciting, no? But before i get to that... Richard, Sean and I left Levin and drove to Napier where we experienced the best weather any of us had seen in quite some time; we pottered and the guys looked around the town. The we drove on to Taupo and Richard and I ended up spending the night at the Tauhara meditation centre (a place i've wwoofed at before). It was really cool to say goodbye to everyone (again) and i spent [View Full Entry]

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How i failed to use this classic greenday track as a title is a mystery to me especially as it was the first song i ever learned on bass and i've got something in the region of 170/180 hitches since i've been here. Anyway, So Richard, myself and his friend Sean spent a few days in Auckland. An otherwise pleasant time was punctuated by rain, rain and rain. Auckland is a nice enough place but there are few cities where you can have a good time for very cheap in the rain. But the guys came to Kahikatea so see my [View Full Entry]

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