Michty6
Mich Sneddon Joined: November 12th 2006
Logged in: September 24th 2011
Logged in: September 24th 2011
(SOME) PHOTOS http://s143.photobucket.com/albums/r141/michty6/
A collection of stories from some of the places I have visited.
Travel Blog Posts
Lake setting
Hangzhou (pronounced Huan-Joe) is another tourist hotspot just out of Shanghai. I went there with Em and her parents, Doug and Cheryl. The main attraction in Hangzhou is the massive lake right in the centre of town - the city was basically contructed around the Lake. From Shanghais mega massive Hongqiao railway station (it is like an airport rather than a railway station) it is only a short 300km/hr bullet train away. Luckily for us the weather was really good, so we started the day by taking a river cruise on the lake to take in the city and landscape. It is a really great area surrounded by peaks and pagodas. We went to this little island on the lake for a walk around to take in the scenery. Apparently the area was frequented by a ... read more
Box Tower
I went to Xian (pronounced She-Ann) with Em and her parents, Cheryl and Doug. I was a day behind them though, my flight being delayed because of a passport issue - but when I did eventually get on a flight it was worth it: the flight is uneventful with flat landscapes until you get near to Xian where this is this amazing mountain range outside the city - at one point it felt like I was about 300m from a mountain peak as we descended. It also takes about 10 min to fly over the city itself it is so vast, with a population of about 10m and, given the amount of development we saw across the city, it is growing fast. It was the capital of China and one of the biggest cities in the ... read more
Western Trail
I had been looking forward to visiting Huangshan (otherwise known as yellow mountains) for a long time - ever since we moved to Shanghai and the previous tennents of our flat told us about them (and we then subsequently googled them!). The easiest way to get there is by bus so Emily, Alex, Sam and I set off on the 5-6 hr journey late in the morning with the plan to arrive there and climb up the mountain in the early evening to stay up there overnight. The bus ride was interesting as you got closer to Huangshan you were driving down a neat little valley surrounded by hills and rice paddys. The hills and paddys are incredibly well maintained (like most gardens are across China) and covered in yellow flowers - I thought that this ... read more
Suzhou River
We went to Suzhou (pronounced Sue-Joe) with Emily's friend Sam and her boyfriend Alex. Suzhou (Sz) is one of a few 'small' towns (population 5.5m!) full of canal paths and referred to as the 'Venice of the East'. Certainly in the case of SZ this is a complete overstatement. To get to SZ you take a super high speed train they have in China known as the 'bullet train' due to the way the train is shaped. After going to the wrong station (not our 1st time doing this in China!) we were speedily on our way - the speed is actually displayed in the cabin, we hit 310km/hr on the way there and 332km/hr on the way back. I had never been on the bullet train before but thought it was pretty awesome. With no ... read more
Mekong Cruise
Our trip to Vietnam was cut short because of a visa problem, but I loved the few nights we had. We decided to take a boat from Phnom Penh down to and across the Vietnamese border. So we boated down the Mekong, not for the first time on this trip. The river on the Cambodian side was really dirty and narrow, surrounded by trees and forests; the Vietnamese side was much more wider and picturesque, with lots of cool 'floating villages' along the way. However, the Mekong cruise we did up at Luang Prabang in Laos was better. Arriving in a riverside town called Chau Doc, we decided to walk to the local bus station to catch a bus to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). HCMC is the unofficial capital of the south of Vietnam, most ... read more
Me jumping around AW
Em, Cecilia and I crossed the border into Cambodia on a long 14hr trip from Don Det, managing to avoid most of the border scams (which included a fake quarantine medical check!). We left Don Det in the morning and arrived in Siem Reap close to 1am. Siem Reap is a city nearby Angkor Wat (AW) or, more correctly, the Angkor Archeological site - while most people refer to the area as AW, it is just 1 temple of many. The 1st day we went out to the Angkor area about mid-day in a tuk tuk. Our 1st stop was straight to AW, after navigating the hordes of Cambodian kids aggressively trying to sell you anything under the sun! I was excited, however it was a bit of an anti-climax - when entering from the west ... read more
Pha That Luang, Vientiene
We travelled down to Vientiene, the capital city of Laos, in a group of 7 - Charlie, Nicky, Allen, Lindsay, Cecilia, Em and I. Vientiene is not what I expected for the capital (and easily the biggest) city in Laos: quiet, unexciting, expensive and not much to it really. I guess it is still developing though as there was construction everywhere. We arranged to meet up with the others later and Em and I set off for Pha That Luang, which is this massive golden centre piece to the city - it is in fact a religious statue. It was pretty cool, gleaming in the late afternoon sun, although we were too late to go inside. There were also some neat temple buildings around it. Actually on the way there we passed Patuxai which is a ... read more
Angkor ruins, Luang Prabang
I was excited to go to Laos. From anyone I had talked to who had travelled SE Asia it was always quoted as a highlight. It is supposed to be a small country, full of super friendly locals, still relatively untouched by tourism, full of rain-forests and natural wonders and it is also actually one of the 20 poorest countries in the world. Getting there was an epic journey, taking 21 hours from when we left Chang Mai. 13 hours of this were spent on what can only be described as the bus from hell. It was an overnight 'vip' bus with nothing vip about it whatsoever. It wasnt just full, in fact they brought out stools so people could sit in the aisles! There were babies on board (no idea what sort of person tortures ... read more
Wat Pho
We took the overnight train to Bangkok (BK) from Ko Phangan - it was a long day as we left KPN at around 12pm and arrived in BK at 6am, going sawnthaw-boat-bus-train. The overnight trains in Thailand are probably better than Malaysia. I randomly got chatting to a couple of Thai students (one of whom was called Ohme) and had a beer with them, which was both fun and strange since their English and ability to handle alcohol were both limited! I have been to BK (and Chang Mai) before - link. I wasnt particularly impressed with Khao San Rd the first time, but as it is the main backpacker area (thus cheap) and close to the main sights we stayed there in BK - Charondee guest house where we stayed was also nice, with the ... read more
Pranang Rocks and Beach
We left Singapore and flew up into a place called Hat Yai in south Thailand, before heading to a place on the coast called Krabi. The reason we took this route was because we left it really late to book our transport and all other (budget) flights were sold out. I have been to Thailand before and travelled quite extensively there (http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-190444.html and http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/blog-194691.html) but have never been to Krabi. It is a typical laid back beach port town in South West Thailand, really chilled out and I liked it. Krabi is the port to a number of islands so we went down to the pier and decided to jump across to a random one called Ko Pranang. It was a pretty small, rocky, hilly island with a nice stretch of beach. A lot of people ... read more
