http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Dexta/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Dexta en-us Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:40:57 +0000 Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:40:57 +0000 power is about to cut so this is all for now more soon...................... http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Kerala/blog-378465.html ooooooooom http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/blog-369206.html i am going to make this the shortest blog yet as i have been extremely relaxed to say the least recently with concern to blogging and would rather do short ones than not at all. after a week in Kathmandu the hotel owner told me that there were 3 ozzie girls doing a package trip that included rafting safari and a short trek into the Himalayas which happened to be the exact part of my trek that i http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/blog-368657.html i had cut the trekking short to go to Kapils house for the Doshain festival the most important Hindu festival of the year and after stopping briefly in Pokarha to get some money we were on the hunt for a bus to Aabukhairaini where we would spend the night as it was now too late to make it to Gorkha. after haggling with various conductors we ended up getting a good price and climbed to the roof http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/blog-353014.html we set off for the village of Yak Kharka situated an hour or so past the village that people used to stop in but that had suffered servere landslides and according to kapil was still not safe. we stopped in upper Manang and i bought a very ornate Gourkha knife with a hand made sheaf that was apparently from Tibet. it seemed everything was from Tibet according to the stool owners they were obviou http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Himalayas/blog-347465.html after arriving in Kathmandu from the herendous 24 hour journey over the worst roads ive ever endured i soon met up with a guy from my hotel Kapil that i thought worked there who showed me where a couple of shops i needed to find were. we got to talking and i was telling him that i was thinking about doing some trekking and it turned out that he was a trekking guide. so after a few beers that http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Himalayas/blog-347452.html i apologise for my lack of recent blogging but with power cuts being a regular occurance and also spending too much time on skype email and facebook my blog has been neglected. this will cover my 23 weeks in India and i will try to also do my Himalayan blog as soon as poss. Chapter 2 i boarded the plane in Bangkok with no guide book and not having even ever read a thing about Calcutta but http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Uttar-Pradesh/Varanasi/blog-326598.html Ok i know its been a while since i last blogged but if i'm honest its beggining to become a little bit of a chore i will do my best to keep u updated tho.i had heard that Hoi An was a little expensive but luckily i bumped into a moto driver who took me to a hotel that was only 7 and clean i checked in and went for a wander around the old quarter. Hoi An is a world heriage site and is therefore http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-321240.html Ok i'm gonna make this blog short as there hasnt really been much goin on in all honesty. Mui Ne is a one road town that hugs a never ending strip of beach an average one at that with a sea full of jellyfish. i spent my first day takin it really easy at my hotel on the beach met up with an English guy and girl that i spent a bit of time with mainly Gav the guy. he had spent the last 3 months i http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/blog-314516.html 4 hours from Can Tho right next to the Cambodian border is the small market town of Chau Doc. extending from the centre of town is a 4km long road that leads to Sam Mountain a place of much spiritual importance to the towns people. for on this mountain there are countless temples with more being built well at least one that i saw it was also the location of a funeral of a friend of someone i m http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Chau-Doc/blog-311353.html Peace............. this is the defning word to sum up my time in Can Tho. i had left Ben Tre at 8am for a 4 hour hour bus journey where once again i had the pleasant fortune of having a Vietnemese person learning English to sit next to me and spark up conversation all be it limited. nonetheless due to these encounters i can now already speak more Vietnemese in less than 2 weeks than i knew after http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Can-Tho/blog-309855.html Usually the place i am writing about is able to be found in a pull down menu that travelblog.org provide however on this occasion 'The Mekong River Delta' is as far as i could list as Ben Tre is not an option due to its remoteness. i was lead here purely by fate for the fact that my passport was sent off for the purpose of extending my Vietnemese visa and the two Brazilians i had met informed me http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-309062.html The first few days in Saigon i spent doing the usuall bits and pieces the Co Chi Tunnels that Jon failed to rise from his pit for after a rather heavy night out where he returned to the hotel with a large exaust burn on his leg from a motor bike driver that was giving him a lift to god knows wherei was woken by Sarah telling me the coach was outside waiting lept out of bed just about bru http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-308552.html Sihanoukville another place that encourages all night benders and and countless days of beach bumming in fact it not only encourages it it demands it the beaches here are not bad serendipity being busier than victory beach where u can relax in the sun relatively untroubled by the countless children selling various souvenirs and such persistent is not a strong enough word here although the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Sihanoukville/blog-307188.html we spent a couple of days here the main purpose was obviously to see the temples for those who dont know they are one of the wonders of the world and also where the film Tombraider was set. me and the boys hired a tuk tuk for the day for 10 i dont know anyone else who got it this cheap but the Isrealy boys i was travelling with especially Chen never payed full price for anything in fact the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/North/Siem-Reap/blog-305087.html Ok i am now in vietnam but havnt yet written about Cambodia this is partly due to excessive smoking and also finding the time whilst travelling with others but mainly the latter LOL. as i am so far behind i wont write too much or i will never catch up.so me and the boys endured a 10 hour or so bus to Phenom Penh with 2 English girls from Birmingham Bromsgrove called Kate and Jess and took the ad http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Phnom-Penh/blog-305038.html i arrived at the jetty on the mainland after catchin a mini van from Vientienne and changing at Pakse this change was where the problem started. it worked out that when we changed minivans my bag was loaded first but i was last to get on and ended up not havin a seat instead of unloading 10 other bags to get to mine it made more sense to just jump in the other minivan and collect my bag at the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/South/Si-Phan-Don/blog-302137.html easy everyone ive been a bit lax with my blogging of late this is probably partly due to acquiring a large bag of herbs for free after only being in Laos for around 2 hours so apologies........ LOL. i am now in the capital Vientienne waiting for my vietnamese visa which should be arriving tomorrow although at the moment i have no passport and only a phone number to call to retrieve it and my vis http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/North/blog-294851.html What to say about Pai i have the feeling that Pai may be in a transitional period slowly mutating from quiet mountain town to tainted tourist web. its only saving grace is that no matter what big businesses may or hopefully may not build here the landscape still remains breathtaking. Pai has a kind of hippie feel with various 'new age' style characters wandering around amongst the tourists whic http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/North-West-Thailand/Pai/blog-289805.html Chang Mai is infinitely more chilled than Bangkok in every aspect although its a city it retains the culture of a small town in many ways and hasn't yet been completely jaded by an influx of tourists however things are changing and it could well be merely a matter of time before its added as another stop on the Thai tourist highway. at the moment the balance is acceptable so if your planning to http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/North-West-Thailand/Chiang-Mai/blog-287681.html