Lao Cai - Hanoi - Cat Ba Island - Ninh Binh - Hanoi Within minutes of entering Vietnam we had a Vietnamese friend. We met him as we were crossing the border from China & went on to spend the next few hours in a train station waiting room getting to know each other & eating noodles together. By the time the train had left for Hanoi we had another Vietnamese friend who we talked to on & off for the rest of the 10 or so hour journey. One day in Vietnam & we'd already spent more time talking to [View Full Entry]

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Kanding - Tagong - Litang - Xiang Cheng - Zhong Dian/Shangri La - Lijiang - Kunming Shangri La is generally recognised as being some kind of heaven on earth, a remote & hidden Himalayan paradise. No one really knows where it is, in fact most suspect that it doesn't really exist at all. It was perhaps made most famous by James Hilton's 1933 work of fiction 'Lost Horizon' - the book being largely based at a mysterious monastery hidden in the impenetrable depths of the Himalayan mountains. Various towns & regions in China, Tibet, India & Bhutan have all tried to [View Full Entry]

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Beijing - Xi'an - Chengdu - Leshan. We were planning to spend our first full day in Xi'an admiring the world famous Terracotta Army. Instead our day revolved around buying train tickets. We may have reached the 'tourist trail' but there's still plenty to keep us challenged. The highlight of the day's episode was perhaps when I found myself leading a solitary round of applause in the ticket queue (not the first time this has happened to me). I've tried hard to defend the Chinese - harping on about their tolerance for each other and so on, but at times you [View Full Entry]

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Beijing. Before I even begin I would like to stress that no matter what I go on to say here, I love Beijing. I think it's an amazing city - it's full of history, beauty & some decent Chinese people. Sadly the imminent arrival of the Olympics in 2008 mean that Beijing is undergoing a rather rapid & largely unrequired transformation. Almost every 'sight' has scaffolding on it somewhere & almost every intersting old street is being replaced by apartments & shopping centres. A sad by product of this is that tens of thousands of locals are being moved out of [View Full Entry]

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Guangzhou - Shanghai - (Tungxi) - Huang Shan - (Wuhan) - (Zhengzhou) - Deng Feng/Shao Lin - (Zhengzhou) - Beijing. Sometime last week we were in a train station waiting room, having waited around 10 hours for our train. A small child befriended us & I decided she was an ideal person to give a small bouncy jetball to play with. She had hours of fun & so did we as she threw the ball around the station. If anyone else had tried to retrieve the ball from the places she did they probably would have been arrested on the spot. [View Full Entry]

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Bangkok - Macau - (Zhu Hai) - Guangzhou - Yangshuo - Guangzhou Ni Hao - as a quick into I should point out that this was written a few weeks ago (around 23rd July). It's taken until now to find a place to add a few photos. Hence it predates the previous entry that I posted a few days ago. Ni Hao from Yangshuo. We are stuck in Yangshuo, which is a good place to be stuck. It may be the 'very hot & very wet' season, but it's also the Chinese summer holidays. Hence there are literally millions of Chinese [View Full Entry]

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Well actually that's not quite accurate. It's more a case of "Chinese people say no" China is an amazing place - a land of extreme contrast. Surrounding endless mammoth cities is lush empty countryside. The filthy rich mingle amongst the plain filthy. And for every one person who wants to befriend or help us there's hundreds who would rather walk away. Of course when people can't or won't help us it's generally because we can't communicate in the same language. However it can lead to some pretty frustrating situations. Today for example we wanted to book a train ticket from Zheng [View Full Entry]

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So it's time for us to do some real travelling. After seven weeks on Thai beaches we are about to move on to China. Just had the final green curry for awhile & tomorrow we fly to Macau. We seem to be seeing China on the news almost daily at the moment - either because there's more catastrophic floods or more news on the new rail link to Tibet. It seems that not only are we heading to China for the peak of the rains but also the heat. Apparently we have to expect to be living in a wet furnace [View Full Entry]

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Sawasdee khup! Greetings from Lamai Beach, Ko Samui, Thailand. Over three weeks have passed already. but to be honest there's not much to report on so far. Life for us currently loosely revolves (in no particular order) around the beach, green curry, dogs, the world cup, sudoku, more beach, lots of sunblock, the occasional long bus ride & the King of Thailand. Yes, life is good. Beautiful beach, almost endless sunshine & good food. We were planning to stay here a couple of days but we've just decided to extend again to about three weeks in this spot.... But back to [View Full Entry]

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People keep asking what we've been up to lately. The answer is packing. Packing boxes of stuff to store, stuff to ship, stuff to give away, stuff for the sake of being stuff. The last two 'post work' weeks have been filled with packing & very little else (other than a few more farewell do's). However it's all about to change. In nine hours we'll be on a plane. Oh how we are looking forward to a 10 hour layover in Sydney.... to make things worse the weather looks terrible too. At least there is Bangkok to look forward too 12 [View Full Entry]

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