http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/DougRattray/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from DougRattray en-us Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:45:00 +0000 Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:45:00 +0000 The first day of Chines New Year started well We said goodbye to Mr Stephen from the KL Chinatown2 hotel and loaded our hungover heads into the minivans that would take us to Port Dickson which should only be 2 hours away but because Port Dickson is the nearest beach resort to KL the Chinese new year tourist traffic put us back by another few hours. The hotel we stayed in was quite full of peop http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/blog-370395.html After 3 days on the beach in Krabi it was time to get back to city life with two nights on the Island of Penang and another two in Kuala Lumpar or KL as the locals like to call it. Penang is a fairly small island of the Northwest coast of Malaysia. The population of Malaysia is mainly Muslim and because of that the cost of Alcohol is roughly 3 times that of Thailand actually about the same pri http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Penang/George-Town/blog-368654.html Due to the tour I booked down to Singapore being cancelled I booked another one with Intrepid that was very similar although it did mean that I would go Back to Kao Sok National Park for a couple of nights see previous blog.So my last tour started with another overnight train down to Surat Thani then a minibus over to the park. Since I had so much fun last time I convinced everyone we should http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South-West-Thailand/Krabi/blog-367485.html We arrived back in Bangkok bus station without any real plans on what we were going to do for the last few nights before Pam flew back. We decided on the Patpong area because someone had recommended it and it was close to the skytrain route. Patpong is quite a touristy area famous for it's night market pole dancing bars and ping pong shows. Since we only had a couple of days before Pam flew ho http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-363953.html We arrived on a very wet Koh Samui around lunchtime on New Year's Eve and as we looked out the windows of the bus we could see rivers of rain pouring down the road. The prospect of spending New Years Eve on a wet beach wasn't really getting us in the spirit.Our rooms on Koh Samui where basically a terraced version of the bungalows we had in the jungle although the mosquito count was a lot higher http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Southern-Thailand/blog-362592.html After our Chang Mai trekking experience we headed back to Bangkok before we stated the second part of the tour to Southern Thailand. We had the majority of 2 days free so first off we went for a well deserved massage then a spot of lunch before we said goodbye to Clare and Taryn who were heading down to Phuket for a few days of sun. That evening we met up with the new group and guide who from th http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South-West-Thailand/Khao-Sok-NP/blog-362578.html After a somewhat difficult nightrsquos sleep aboard the overnight train to Chang Mai we arrived at the hotel around 730am. We had decided to do a Thai cookery class which involved a trip to the local market to buy all the ingredients then to the cookery school and we were shown how to cook phad thai green curry tam yum soup and sesame prawn toast. The class was a lot more fun than I was expe http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/North-West-Thailand/Chiang-Mai/blog-358889.html Sorry itrsquos been a while since my last blog itrsquos all been a bit hectic since Pam arrived and we started the Thailand Unplugged tour.Like I said in my last post I had a week to fill before Pam arrived so I headed down to Ko Sumui for a little bit time on the beach. Ko Phangan is an amazing almost Paradise like island that is host to the infamous full moon party because of this 5 days http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-357767.html It took most of the day to get from Battambang to Bangkok via a fairly painless border crossing Irsquod heard it could take a couple of hours go get across but we seemed to get through in around half an hour.We dumped our bags in the hotel and headed down to the infamous Ko San road for our last night together as a group. The Ko San road is exactly what I expected it to be hawkers selling e http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-354633.html After talking to a few people I was a little worried about Battambang one guy called it the whore house of Cambodia and judging by the initial drive through the city and the hotel we stayed in it looked like they might have been right.Turns out they were wrong we had another moped tour organised similar to the one we had done in Hue. The tour visited small out of town family run operations tha http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/North/Battambang/blog-353893.html Not long after arriving in Siem Reap we were loaded on the bust and taken to our first temple to watch the sunset. After a 20 minute walk to the top of a hill it became apparent that sunsets are a popular pastime in Siem Reap. There was easily 1000 people standing on anything they could to get a better view of what admittedly was an amazing sunset.I wish I could say the same about the sunrise ov http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/North/Siem-Reap/blog-353765.html To be honest my first impressions of Cambodia werenrsquot that great. We caught a public bus from Saigon n to Phnom Penh during which the driver made friends with a six year old Dutch kid and thought hersquod like to play with the PA system. One hour of Dutch nursery rhymes later I was ready to wrap the chord round his neck. We stepped off the bus into a throng of tucktuck drivers each http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Phnom-Penh/blog-352660.html We took a quick one hour flight down from Hoi An to Ho Chi Minh City. As I stepped of the plane it felt like opening the oven door. The heat and humidity here are unbelievable. It soon dawned on me that I need to get used to it because in the next two months itrsquos only going to get hotter.I had heard the there was quite a difference between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam's largest cit http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-351777.html I don't really have a lot to say about Hoi An it's basically about six or seven streets of tailors souvenir shops bars and cafes. The Tailors are really cheap and I think everyone in the group had at least one thing made some of the girls had about 500 worth of clothes and shoes made up. I only got a couple of pairs of lightweight trousers with legs that zip off.Since I wasn't running around http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Hoi-An/blog-351070.html We took an overnight train down to Hu we had 4 berth cabins which felt a little like a prison cell although quite comfortable I could have done without the 7am wakeup song that was blasted over the PA system.The main part of Hu is within a citadel which was home to all the Emperors from 1802. We visited the inner imperial part of the citadel on the first day. It is quite an impressive complex http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/North-Central-Coast/Hue/blog-349654.html My first real day with the Intrepid tour started with a breakfast at a restaurant staffed by street kids sort of like Jamie Oliver's one but without all the media attention and backing. The service was really nice and the food was gorgeous. Saying that all the food in Vietnam is gorgeous you could give a newspaper to a Vietnamese chef and you'd be tempted to lick the plate.An hour later we w http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Halong-Bay/blog-349584.html Crossing a road in Hanoi Wait until the road you are going to cross is mostly mopeds and fewer cars. Take a deep breath and step off the curb avoiding the river of god knows what in the gutter Keep a constant pace don't speed up or slow down no matter what happens just let the traffic deal with you. Arrive at the other side and change your underwear. I arrived in Hanoi from a very brief http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-348333.html I met some Australians in Hiroshima who informed me that there was a Universal Studios in Osaka and that it had a proper full on Jaws ride. After the emotional rollercoaster that I had been through at the ABomb Museum and the Peace Park I jumped on an early train over there.I was a little disappointed with park although I had just visited the same place in Hollywood which had updated a lot of http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Osaka/blog-347482.html I spent my first night in Hiroshima drinking in the hostel with three Austrailians that I was sharing a room with. We got a bottle of Saki between us because none of them had tried it before. I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy another. We spent the night playing games. They showed me Uno and I showed them Othello.Hiroshima seems like quite a cool city there's a lot going on and it seem http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Hiroshima/Hiroshima/blog-346200.html Kyoto's home to Temples Shrines Gisha's Parks blah blah blah. When I arrived in kyoto I only had one thing on my mind Monkeys. There is a monkey sanctuarypark in the Arishiyama area of town. It takes about 20 minutes to climb up a quite a steep hill to the park. At the top of the hill you get ushered into the resting area where there is a cage on one side from which you can feed the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Kyoto/blog-345436.html