i have just arrived in sihanounville in cambodia, after a 3 month sojourn in thailand. arriving in bangkok at the end of october was a relief after my epic overland journey from england. the first week i spent enjoying the nightlife of bangkok, though it didnt go exactly to plan. i ended up spliting with my partner of 4 years, Ekk. my decision, though still not sure it was the right one! the next two weeks was spent on the TESOL course, which i passed. met some interesting people on the course. soon after the course finished i went up to [View Full Entry]

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GOT TO THAILAND AT LAST! I HAVE MANAGED TO UPLOAD PICS TO THE PREVIOUS BLOG AS WELL, SO TAKE A LOOK... i arrived in thailand, from pakxe in laos, this morning. about to take a 12 hour overnight train from here in the city of ubon ratchathani, in north east thailand, to bangkok. i went straight to the station to book the ticket when i arrived here. they only had 1ST CLASS AIR CON SLEEPER left, which is still only about 14 GB pounds, so just had to take that! spent 5 days in southern laos, id been to the north [View Full Entry]

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i have now reached the relative calm of the relaxed city of savannakhet in southern laos, having escaped the motorcycle (and other) madness that is vietnam, earlier today.. vietnam is, despite its smallish geographic area, the 11th most populous country in the world, and it feels like it, people everywhere!!! still it is the most enjoyable place so far on this trip. i spent 4 days in hanoi, good to find some good food. ie fresh baguettes, tropical fresh juice and cakes, after the relative culinary desert of most of my route thus far. everything was so cheap in vietnam, [View Full Entry]

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i am now in a hot and sultry hanoi, capital city of vietnam, having arrived this morning from a much colder beijing, via a 36 hour train journey. was glad i could view rural china from the comfort of my sleeper cabin rather than having to endure it for real! (ive done china before in 2004, and didnt like the experience much.... anything worth seeing is usually swarmed over by large uncouth domestic chinese tour groups, usually shouting and generally barging people about....!) vietnam is so much more saner, and relatively comprehensible to western minds. china seems to deperately want western [View Full Entry]

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i have finally got round to uploading some pics to my previous blogs, took me the best part of 2 hours in my ill state, on the fastest internet i could find, so take a look if you want! have been in UB a week now, will be leaving on the "direct" morning train on saturday to beijing. will have to stock up on some edible provisions for the whole journey this time (ie two lunches, 1 dinner and 1 breakfast..) had planned on leaving today so i would be in beijing in time to hit the nightlife for the weekend, [View Full Entry]

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now in mongolia, home to genghis khan! spoke to soon about the weather not being that bad in irkutsk, the next day was really siberian, well below zero and a biting wind that cuts right though all layers of clothing. lake baikal was a great sight, took the bus there on wednesday morning, about 1 hour from irkutsk. got out of the bus at the lakeside village and was taken aback by not only the view but how cold the wind was. my warm clothes and hat are just about ok for the urban streets of moscow but they were not [View Full Entry]

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well here i am in irkutsk, in the southern part of eastern Siberia. have now travelled further east than bangkok (just!) this is the nearest city to lake Baikal, the deepest and most ancient lake in the world (nearly 6000 feet deep). the lake is about 60kms from here. i plan to go there tommorrow. (it is a freshwater lake, with the only freshwater seals in the world....) this morning i arrived on the train, 76 hours, 3days / 4 nights, 5178kms and five time zones from moscow! moscow was somewhere i had always wanted to go. i had only really [View Full Entry]

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here i am in russia. left warsaw last thursday. it was interesting to visit, everything was reconstructed from ruins after wwII. the oldest parts were rebuilt in exactly the same style as before, though it is very hard to tell. despite the ketchup incident and a spat with a photo shop guy who accused my camera memory card of giving his computer a virus when i asked him to make a cd from it, it was an enjoyable city. it also has a brand new shopping mall that is probably the best ive seen design wise, and ive seen a few [View Full Entry]

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5 days into trip and this is my last night in warsaw. 1st night last saturday was in amsterdam, after an uneventful ferry from harwich. everywhere in amsterdam was really packed out, being a saturday night. i went to a couple of gay bars, didn't stay long in either as far too packed. also smoking in bars is still unfortnuately ok in the rest of europe it seems! caught an early train on sunday to berlin, extremely smooth and fast compared with crappy british trains, took just 7 hours... spent 2 nights in berlin, saw checkpoint charlie, the remaining bits of [View Full Entry]

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well the time has finally come to leave on my one way ticket to oblivion!!!. im setting off from harwich on saturday 8th september, travelling by train through northern europe, russia, mongolia, china, vietnam and cambodia to bangkok! don' t plan on coming back anytime soon, going to attempt to start a TEFL career, starting in Thailand. going to both a 2 week TESOL and a 4 week CELTA course in bangkok in next 6 months, with aim to start contract in May 2008. see how it pans out! aim to update this log regularly, hopefully every fortnight at least.... [View Full Entry]

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