http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Lynn-and-Dez/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Lynn and Dez en-us Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:06:49 +0000 Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:06:49 +0000 It's 624am Vancouver time and we've been up since 430. This will not be our most coherent blog entry ever. It will however be our last.Back in Van ... sigh. Such an overwhelming mix of emotions. Relief regret over having to end our travels excitement we both have A LOT on our plates now that we're home dread we both have A LOT on our plates now that we're home ... hey wait ... a http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Hong-Kong/Hong-Kong-Island/blog-417130.html So our unabashed love for Cambodians was tempered slightly by the tourismoverdrive touts of Siem Reap and Sihanoukville for whom the word no actually means no but if you grab my foot yell at me guilt trip me and pester me for twenty minutes I might then say yes. Whilst attempting to relax on smooth white sandy beaches caressed by crystal clear turquoise water the constant aggressive an http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Sihanoukville/blog-414060.html So we've learned a valuable lesson about longterm backpacking on this tripLeave something BIG for the end.It's been just a hair over four and a half months that we've been away and we've only got about three weeks left. Lynn and I decided to shave about 4 days from our trip so that she could make a little side trip home to Ontario before having to get back to work. As fate would have it just http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/North/Siem-Reap/blog-409738.html Sometimes we feel old. Or rather not so much old as not as young. It becomes more and more apparent when we sustain injuries like from landing in water from great heights at odd angles or perhaps from overindulging in alcohol and then try to recover quickly. When you're nineteen for instance and you launch yourself off of a forty foot platform to swing gracefully over a river releasin http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vang-Vieng/blog-404766.html It's good to be proper traveling again. Vietnam sees us back in a more tradional exoticcheapbackpacker situation that is a welcome change from both the relaxing bliss of Bali and the hohum feelings we got from Singapore. We were a little on guard because alot of the travelers we'd met who'd been through Vietnam spoke of how much the touts hassle you and how they'd been taken for rides or rob http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Hoi-An/blog-401916.html Bali.Oh gosh what to say ... Well I suppose it seems fair to say we've basically stopped being backpackers for the last ten days. Barely fifteen minutes from the airport we settled into the beachsurfparty hub of this tiny Indonesian island and haven't really moved since. We have a swimup bar people ... There was nothing we could do Anyway Kuta the name of the beachy area we're at http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Singapore/Little-India/blog-398305.html More than a little unexpected we ended spending over a week in Ko Lanta with Laura and Thale her daughter of almost two. We watched kids movies Bambi is still quality viewing cooked lovely dinners and lounged around beaches and swimming pools as much as possible as a bizarro four person and one dog pseudo family unit. Not the kind of thing you anticipate doing while backpacking through As http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Wilayah-Persekutuan/Kuala-Lumpur/blog-394829.html How's this for a warm welcome ...We were finally getting out of Kathmandu and making a break for Bangkok Thailand en route to some Thai beaches. Kathmandu's whole wegotpowerfor4hoursaday thing was getting real old. Sitting in the airport restaurant having a nice breakfast to burn the last of our rupees and what comes on the tele behind us The BBC news.Thailand has broken out into mas http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South-West-Thailand/Ko-Lanta/blog-392731.html Kathmandu. It's got one of those super exotic sounding names like Titikaka tee hee or Kuala Lumpur that just screams adventure. It's also one of those places that has the most mixed reaction from foreigners that Lynn or I have ever encountered. Some people absolutely love the place hailing it's wondrous sights and barely contained chaos while others see it as a barely functioning cesspool http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Thamel/blog-389846.html There were many titles we could have gone with for this week's blog entry. Joom joom Jagat Good Power 24 hour and Holy Cow Those Are REALLY Big Mountains just to name a few. We decided on this one because we think it hits the heart of our experience in the Annapurna Sanctuary. Explanation below.First though a warning this will be long. If you're at work and this is your coffee brea http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Pokhara/blog-387833.html In a way nothing has happened since we last wrote well almost nothing but we'll get to that. The truth is that something so vastly wonderful has happened that the complexion of our trip has been altered completely. We left India. So that seems a loaded statement and to be sure we say it with a grain of salt but India can be a hard place to travel and we were so totally relieved to have le http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Pokhara/blog-384622.html There are two very distinct types of people in India with regards to the working population. The first put us to shame in that they often do jobs that we consider dangerous or unsavory and they perform their task reasonably well for more hours than seems humanly possible. Local bus drivers are a good example. They drive pathetically old vehicles over terrible roads for as many as twentytothi http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Rajasthan/Udaipur/blog-382460.html Ah India ...The following blog entry will be a little longer than the others so far. And not just because it's been a while since we last wrote. No this entry will exceed the usual parameters of short and sweet because we're in India and the damn place just seems to demand greater attention.Ah IndiaFirst off we promised to answer why it is we're even India already rather than Tibet or Nep http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Rajasthan/Jaipur/blog-380455.html Confucius talked a lot about the cultivated man. Education music poetry correct moral attitudes and proper filial piety all figured into his ideal human being. He went to great lengths to expound and cement his ideals into his pupils such that the reading of Confucius can get really painfully boring.For the most part he wasted his time.What follows is a biased unfair and very limited ac http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Sichuan/Chengdu/blog-378123.html So the blog entry is going to say that we're in Chengdu China. That isn't entirely correct. More accurate would be to say that as we write this we're actually in the Paharganj district of Delhi India.Long story. We'll get to it.After Beijing we decided to stop in Xi'an for the Terracotta Soldiers and some good old fashion air pollution. Ten years ago I Dez hated Xi'an with an unmitigated http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Sichuan/Chengdu/blog-378102.html How do you do You love me I love you Won't you take me by the hand cause I wanna be your friendThe above lyrics are to an Ace of Base or Aqua style pop song that encapsulates just how little the Chinese REALLY know of the English language.Beijing. North capitol. ... It's changed a bit in the last ten years.We could talk about the laundry list of historically significant tourist sights w http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-375787.html Beijing. The political and cultural heart of modern day China.This is our first major stop since Shanghai where we plan to spend at least a week checking things out and wow what a welcome. Our family friend Lee Jin Bei lives here and evidently does well for himself as a businessman. I say this because Jin Bei with whom we were planning on staying with during our time here decided instead t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-374418.html Without doubt the most sublime way to overcome the jetlag and cultureshock of a ten thousand kilometer journey is to be utterly pampered by a loved one ... Massages fantastic meals a warm bed a flatscreen tv and metro passes. Dad layed it on thick playing the uberhost and it was lovely.As a result a full week into our trip and the whole sixmonthepicjourney thing still hadn't hit us. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-371087.html