El Tigre

When I last left off my time in Nepal was coming to a quick close. I was looking forward to two nights in London to catch up with Mike (central america) and Liam (uganda) over a few pints of bitter and a sunday roast or yorkshire pudding. However my time in London was cut to one night, not even twelve hours, by an unexpected 24 hour delay in Delhi! So what does one do with a full day in India? Well I guess that depends on your situation! It all started in the wee hours of the morning on the 25th as I had just finished jostling and shoving my way through one the many chaotic 'line-ups' all but hindering the employee staff from getting anything done. In truth, I guess it started when I ... read more

It's funny how things just seem to work out when you're travelling. When I arrived in Lhasa I quickly began trying to figure out how I was going to make it to Kathmandu through Tibet. In any other country this would not be a problem, but Tibet is a police state and you need special permission to go anywhere and everywhere. Without it, and even sometimes with that permission, the local buses will not sell you a ticket. Most people are forced to take a tour from 4 to 6 days. I ran into an Irish couple who were booking a tour. After talking about it with the tour agent we went down to discuss what we would do. I was hesitant to book with only three people as it would cost too much. Just ... read more

With great joy and anticipation for what lie ahead, my time in Shanghai came to an end and I was off to an area loaded with Chinese history. Once again public transportation was the same: people shove and push their way to get on trains no matter how much time you have before the scheduled departure, people were amazed to see a foreigner sitting with them, and tickets onward were almost impossible to secure. While I had only planned to visit Xi'an for a few days before heading straight to Beijing to rendezvous with Colin, it ended up that I had to take many shorter trips north and west stopping in a couple more towns before the rest of China went back to work and seats became available on transportation headed into the capital. In retrospect ... read more

Ni Hao China! Delving into the depths of my memory I have tried to recall all the Mandarin that I learned from Ms. Chan back in the Hillcrest days. Damn but I wish I had paid more attention because the only thing I remember is how to say hello, goodbye, thank you, my name is Ryan and the numbers 1 through 7. For the first time since our days in Mexico English is useful only in rare occasions and I have no clue what the hell anyone is saying. In situations like these I am glad to have learned from the best at communicating with hand signals, gestures and poiting to words in a book: Jordan. Booking buses or train tickets I have resorted to just saying the name of the city, which thankfully is the ... read more

The rest of our time in Nha Trang went really well and after two cold - the water was 25 degrees - but good dives we set off on our first night bus in quite some time to the town of Hoi An. It's been just over two weeks now that we've been traveling through Vietnam and while I've been happy with how much we've been doing in that time I've felt like I could have spent at least another week in every city we've been too so far. This country just simply continues to grow on me. The only problem, and one that is inevitable almost anywhere one goes to are the touts that try and capture you in your hazzy state in the mornings after long, sleepless night buses. After one such night bus ... read more