http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/D G/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from D G en-us Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:50:15 BST Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:50:15 BST For those interested I just bought myself a car today... soo excited about it.check out the pics athttpdanholt.noip.comalbum05 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Meath/blog-21665.html Well the time has come and the trip is over we depart from Venice in about 5hours time arriving in dublin late tonight. We have had a mighty finale to the trip with meeting Daniel and Co in Venice Aisling in Croatia and Venice and of course Gareths parents and Helen in Porec. Its been really great catching up with everyone and hope we didnt bore them with our travel stories. We were supposed t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Venice/blog-17842.html We arrived in Vienna at 4.30am in the morning checked out bags into a locker and headed down town. Its lovely walking around a city at this early hour noone about no traffic no tourists it was beautiful. But we had to kill a few too many hours until the Information Centre opened at 9am and we were pretty tired from the bus journey. But we made it ... well gareth slept in Starbucks for a cou http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Vienna-State/Vienna/blog-16708.html g'dayWe travelled from Latvia after some indecision whether we should stay in Vilnius a couple of nights but last minute decided to get on the overnight bus to Warsaw and from there straight to Krakow.. time and money running out fast Its driving me mad the way everyone is saying things are soo cheap... only 20euro well its a lot in NZ dollars for god sake.. maybe its time to start earning e http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Poland/Lesser-Poland/Krakow/blog-16159.html Hi everyone.. so we said goodbye to the folks and made our bus for Riga by about 30seconds as we slept in 'again' but we made it and 5 hours later arrived in Friendly Fun Franks Backpackers right in the Old town of Riga. We were greeted with a free beer and a loads of aussies watching the cricket in the common room. Had a quick walk around the old town and back to the backpackers for some more ch http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Latvia/Riga/blog-15800.html We arrived in Tallinn at 5.40am morning of the 25th after a nightmarish overnight bus journey from St. Petersburg. It wouldn't have been so bad except for the border crossing one for exiting Russia and one for entering Estonia. You think leaving a country would be easy crossing the border out of Russia was quite a big ordeal. 2am in the morning we all have to get off the bus take our rucksacksb http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Estonia/Tallinn/blog-14884.html hi everyone.just a quick update. Have spent the last 3 days in St Petersburg which is a fab city. We did some serious sightseeing on our first day and buggered ourselves for the rest so we've spent the rest of it just relaxing and have given up on monasteries palaces musuems etc.. We had some serious money issues yesterday as the ATM machine swallowed our bank card for no reason Everything afte http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Northwest/Saint-Petersburg/blog-14606.html Boarding our train at midnight tonight for St Petersburg.. our last overnight train in Russia. So have some time to kill and upload some photos. We did a tour of the KGB musuem on our first day which was really interesting.. very James Bond sort of stuff it was quite cool and we met an exchief from the KGB who was a bit of a character. It was probably one of the best tours we've done on the t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Northwest/Moscow/blog-14280.html hi everyone.thanks for all the comments again great to hear from u.Well we have made it to moscow after 65 hours on a train through siberia. the train ride has definitely been the highlight of this entire trip so far for us both it was really amazing lots of relaxing reading playing cards meeting ppl eating the the dining cart drinking lots of russian vodka of course. it was really great. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Northwest/Moscow/blog-14065.html Hi Everyone..Hopefully i can get some photos up today tomorrow on this Well we have done 2 border crossing in a couple of days spent some long hours on the train and we have reached the town of Irtuksk in Siberia. We stayed with a Russian family our host was a lady called Rita and her house was near Lake Baikal which is the largest fresh water lake in the world. Ate great seafood and the loca http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Irkutsk/blog-13527.html One last 'quick' entry from China Beijing has been amazing I could really spend weeks in this city... shopping is amazing esp. the markets. We went to see the Great Wall of course which was fantastic the part we went to was much less touristy than many other parts and wasn't restored. It was a quite a tough climb to go as far as u could go but we made it and it was so worth for the views. Oth http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-12664.html Hi everyone... Sorry i haven't got some pics up yet impossible to find a computer here with cdrom .. they are seriously paranoid about internet here its beginning to drive me mad.We arrived in Xian .. our last stop before Beijing. We spent 3 nights there which was great and finally back to good accomodation although we were just getting used to the monasteries says gareth. Our first day in http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shaanxi/Xi--an/blog-12440.html After our 2 nights in Chendu we travelled by bus to the town of Leshan to see the biggest Buddha in the world.. its carved into a cliff71m high overlooking 2 rivers. Its pretty cool although a hell of a treck up around it. After there we took the bus to Emie Shan where the sacred Buddiest mountain Mt Emie is. We stayed in a monastary in the village at the base of the mountain on our first night. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-11855.html After our trip from the Yangzi River we made our way to the Sichaun region of China. Our first stop was a big city 11million called Chengu. The main attraction here is the Panda santuary which we went on our second day.. it was so cool We got some great photos and camcorder footage of them they are soo cute. Mind u i dont think i'd get to close. I got bitten alive that morning by mosquito's http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-11804.html Hello Mango Hello Banana Hello Lychee ... this is what we've been hearing everyday since we arrived in china... everywhere u go. Women come up to u with baskets of fruit trying anything to sell them to u .. even when your sitting inside a pub. It can be quite annoying sometimes but amusing all the same. Our last update was from Yhanshou from there we took a sleeper train to a place called Yic http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Sichuan/Chengdu/blog-11484.html Hi guys.. This has become much more easier to update with fast internet here in China.Had the most fantastic day today in this beautiful town called Yangshou. Its a backpackers favourite and yes it is quite touristy but it is gorgeous. We went for a bike ride this morning for 4 hours through the countryside met some locals and saw ride paddies peanut trees and then went to this place called Moo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/Guilin/blog-11031.html Hi AllSorry we have been a bit slack updating this especially for Vietam internet there was so slow.We have a fantastic 2 weeks in Vietnam and travelled with a really good crew of people. Will update the Vietnam notes soon for those who want a read.We flew into Hong Adrienne and Tim and went our for some chinese dumplings and noodles. Day 2 we went to Victoria Peak on the tram and got a fab vie http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-10910.html Some photos from VietnamHi EveryoneWell we finally have arrived to the starting destination of our long trip home to Ireland. After a fantastic weekend in Canberra and some very sad goodbye we arrived safe and sound and still hungover in Saigon Vietnam. It was a big culture shock for us both... millions of ppl everyone and millions of motorbiks driving crazy ways on the streets. We went out on http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/blog-9280.html