The streak of bad luck that had started in Bolivia didn't show any signs of letting up when I got to Ecuador. I hadn't been there 48hours before I was robbed by what I can only describe as a magician. I had my camera stolen and my purse emptied. I have absolutely no idea how they did it or when it happened. I can only guess that it happened on the bus during the 5 minutes that my bag was up above my head on the luggage rack. Put up there by a man that I later realised was only pretending [View Full Entry]

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After my tour of the mines in Potosi I had 41 hours to get to the airport in Santa Cruz. Loads of time I thought. I was going to take an afternoon bus to Sucre (3hrs) and then an overnight bus to Santa Cruz (15hrs) which would get me in with about 12 hours to spare. But the roads to Sucre were blocked by a protest and all of the buses had stopped running. So i booked myself onto an overnight bus to Cochabamba (10hrs) instead and from there I would take a bus to Santa Cruz (about 8hrs). I would [View Full Entry]

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If I felt posh when I took the Vistadome train up to Machu Picchu I felt like I had royal blood running through my veins when I boarded the Andean Explorer, an Orient Express train which took me from Cusco to Puno! It was a beautiful train, 1920´s decor, full of actual furniture as opposed to regular train tables and seats. I had a big comfy armchair to sit in and there was a gold lamp on my table! At the back of the train was a bar carriage and joined onto that an open air observation car. Mid morning we [View Full Entry]

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After the ordeal that was the Santa Cruz trek I spent four whole days in Huaraz doing nothing! I had the whole dorm room to myself because the protests in Lima (which you may have seen on the news?) where disrupting transport and stopping a lot of people from traveling. The uproar was basically because the Peruvian president's free market policies are only benefiting the business sector and multinational companies. Peru is currently in an economic boom (9% growth last year!) but the wealth has not been spread, prices are rising and the poor, who's pay has not risen are struggling. [View Full Entry]

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Well the last blog seems to have caused quite an uproar! So I will start by addressing all of the comments suggesting that this whole trip is in fact a hoax! Firstly to mum and dad, no the pictures were not fake and I am not in fact staying in some theme park in America! Secondly to Uncle Ged, no I am not in fact living in a bedsit in Manchester, working in Primark and photoshopping myself into pictures from the Internet! And lastly to Helen, yes that is actually me in the pictures and not some random! When the hair [View Full Entry]

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I left my hotel in Manila at 6am on the 17th of June. 47.5 hours later I arrived at my hostel in Rio de Janeiro! Or was is 36.5 hours later? From Manila I flew to Tokyo, from there to New York and then on to Sao Paulo from where I caught a bus to Rio and finally a taxi to the hostel. When i boarded my plane in Tokyo it was 8.20pm on the 17th. When i touched down in New York it was 8.15pm on the 17th! 5 mins before i was due to leave Tokyo! I wondered if [View Full Entry]

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After 2 nights at Alona beach on Pangloa Island (where we enjoyed the fresh seafood restaurants along the beach front, the bars, a massage from an old lady that was quite clearly senile and the company of a transsexual called Fiona - see pic on previous blog) we headed back to Cebu city for a couple of nights. Cebu and the Pacific Pensionne guest house has very much become our base here in the Visaya's - we've called in 3 or 4 times in between islands. Cebu city itself is the 2nd largest in the Philippines after Manila and Cebu island [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in the Philippines on May 18th and have spent the past 3 weeks island hoping around the Visaya's. We had heard a few bad stories about the Philippines before we came - terrible infrastructure, unreliable transport, dodgy planes, boats that sink, constant hassle from people trying to sell you stuff and rip you off and the really bad stuff like muggings, kidnappings, bombs.... But my experience here has only been positive and aside from a few minor points I don't have a bad word to say about the place. Everyone is extremely polite, shop doors are opened for us [View Full Entry]

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On May 5th we left Beijing for Hong Kong where we were meeting my mum and dad for 2 weeks. We were more than ready to leave that's for sure! Beijing had some fantastic sights to see and some great food to be eaten (if you could find it) but it was hard work and wasn't what i would call a holiday. of course the case would have been different if you went with lots of money, stayed in a nice hotel and went on private tours, or had your own private chauffeur and tour guide as one family we met [View Full Entry]

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And it is nowhere more obvious than in Beijing. Everything about it screams ‘I'm big, I’m important and I’m here, right here’. The buildings are HUGE, all of them, the roads are ridiculously wide and there is empty space everywhere. For those who are unfamilia with China it can seem to exude a my back garden is bigger than yours, I’m better than you kind of attitude. It’s loud, proud, and arrogant and is coming to take over the world! The same can be said of the people, they spit on the floor in front of you, they shout all the [View Full Entry]

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