After 60 out of 72 hours in either an airport or on an aeroplane, I landed in Montreal, Quebec exhausted, sick and glad to be back on Canadian soil. Of course, coming into Canada is never simple for me. Every time I have entered this country through an airport I have been searched. This time was no different, and while everyone else passes through the final check unscathed, I now just go straight for the side door where the room lined with one-way mirrors and filled with searching counters exists. Surprisingly the people who actually do the searching are always [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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I had quite a bit of trouble deciding what the title of this udpate should be as my time in Nepal has varied greatly. After a month in the country I am not really sure what my opinion of it is, or where it ranks in the growing list of places I've been to. I have started to realize though just how many factors may influence your experience in a country: where you are coming from, how much money you have, how long you have been away for, and all the little individual experiences that you have whilst there. For [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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After leaving the polluted cities of Xi'an, Pingyao and Datong I arrived at the just as polluted city Beijing - capital of China and home to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Arriving close to 6am with a huge backpack and no idea where I was going - I had to get the cab drivers to call Colin for directions - left me as an easy target for the wily cab drivers. Or so they thought. After debating with several different drivers, telling a few to f#$k off and even bartering with a couple BEFORE they knew where I was going I [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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I've spent the last week now in a city that is impressive but does not offer a lot for the average tourist like myself. It's big, it's modern and very western. A chinese girl that I met in Yangshuo said that if you want to witness the last 5000 years of China you go to Xi'an, if you want to witness the last 1000 years you go to Beijing and for the last century or so, visit Shanghai. It was not too long ago that Shanghai was just a simple fishing village with large areas of swamp land catoring to fishermen [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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The Company has split, for good or for evil I do not know. Jason, James and Trevor went off to Laos on what should have been a horrible bus ride while our two brief female companions Erin, and Koren took off to Beijing. Two good ol Canadian kids Graham and R.J. were the last to leave Hanoi, and after taking them to finish a rack of ribs - at the end of which the manager gave us all a free beer - they took off for Laos. Unfortunately due to sheer lazyness and an unwillingness to pay extra money I had [View Full Entry]

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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, [View Full Entry]

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