http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Westie4044/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Westie4044 en-us Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:52:45 +0000 Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:52:45 +0000 Thursday 10th September to Tuesday 15th September 2009Blog writing being the long and tiresome business that it is I only do it cause I love you guys so much it's easy to get behind with updates. The week I spent between my time in the very south of Japan on the island of Yakushima and my arrival in the very north in Hokkaido was one week that I never really got the chance to document whilst http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Miyagi/Sendai/blog-455768.html November 2nd to November 6th 2009I cannot quite bring myself to believe that this is the very final day of this trip. The final day of actual tripness I mean I don't count tomorrow which will be a very long bus trip to Bangkok and my third and final night sleeping in the airport nor the day after which will consist of an even longer plane trip home. As always the whole things seems to have g http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/North/Siem-Reap/blog-451150.html What is it that makes you fall in love with a country With 4 weeks cut off my intended trip by my stupid Sandhurst precommissioning course I had had to abandon my plans to spend part of my trip in Laos and Cambodia and restrict myself to a 10 day whirlwind transit through the latter on my way back overland to Bangkok to fly home on the 7th. I had made this revision without too much angst as I http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Kampot/blog-450186.html Saturday 17th October 2009 Monday 26th October 2009Time was running out on my time in Vietnam with my visa due to expire on 27th October but before I left I decided I wanted a bit more of hill station goodness and a bit less humidity so altered my original itinerary to fit in Dalat in the central highlands. The 'city of eternal spring' it is the honeymoon capital of Vietnam and thus full http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-449337.html Saturday 10th October to Friday 16th OctoberHaving descended Fansipan cleansed ourselves with the vigour of the obsessivecompulsive at our hotel stuffed ourselves with cake and coffee and caught the night train back to Hanoi me and Coop was due to leave the north and start the long journey southwards down the coast of Vietnam following in the footsteps of many a backpacker before us. Our bus http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Hoi-An/blog-446363.html Sunday 4th October to Tuesday 6th October 2009Halong Bay is one of the premier tourist attractions of northern Vietnam. Meaning 'where the dragon descends into the sea' it is a bay covered in hundreds of limestone outcrops poking out of the water some small enough to support only a small sprig of greenery others large enough to double for Alex Garland's epononymous 'Beach'. The sea is warm the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Halong-Bay/blog-443682.html Sunday 27th September 2009 to Saturday 03rd October 2009My first impression of Vietnam and more specifically Hanoi was that of vibrancy. The city was teaming TEAMING with motorbikes which raced down narrow streets lined with crumbling mustardcoloured Frenchstyle houses and shops past tiny streetside food stalls surrounded by Vietnamese sitting on miniature stools like the ones you get in http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-443967.html Tueday 6th October to Friday 9th October 2009Because we are apparently masochists and full of destructive selfloathing me and Coop decided to punish ourselves for our three days of boaty bliss in Halong Bay by setting ourselves to climbing Vietnam's and we later discovered Indochina's highest mountain Fansipan. Having arrived back in Hanoi on Tuesday afternoon me still greyfaced and whimp http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Northwest/Sapa/blog-443677.html Friday 25th September 2009Ok think of the fattest most grotesquely ugly rugby forward you can imagine or maybe the referee from our Edinburgh match. Yes him. Now dress them in a thong. This is Japan's national hero. Now in their thong imagine this person bending down to touch their toes five times ass towards audience lift up their leg as high as possible so you get the full view of cellu http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/Asakusa/blog-439606.html Wednesday 16th September to Wednesday 23rd SeptemberThe home of indigenous peoples. The land of the gods. A geological textbook of volcanic landforms. The brewery of Japan. Home to it's last wilderness. Hokkaido can be described in many terms but all of them identify it's unique nature both in Japan and in this part of the world. The northernmost island of 'mainland' Japan it's climate is that http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Hokkaido/Abashiri/blog-440287.html Of all the places I had been slathering over in my faithful Lonely Planet before I came on the trip Yakushima was one of the top spots. A small island off the southern tip of the country it has long been held in reverence by the Japanese for its mystical atmosphere medicinal plants ancient cedar trees and above all it's mountains held to be the home of the Gods. Subtropical at sea level http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Kagoshima/Yakushima/blog-435100.html In my quest to reach Yakushima an island off the very southern tip of Japan I was making my way south through the archipelegio stopping off at Hiroshima and Kagoshima on the way. Both are entirely different cities but linked by one common factor explosibility. Hiroshima is of course synonomous with the atomic bomb dropped by the United States over the city to end the Second World War. Since http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Hiroshima/Hiroshima/blog-436995.html So having witnessed the urban insanity of Tokyo and the well just plain insanity of crowds at Mt Fuji I was off to Kyoto second city and cultural heart of Japan. If Tokyo is all that is shiny and new Kyoto is all that is traditional. Famed for its beautiful temples its gardens and Gion where the dwindling numbers of Geisha and Maiko still hold their tea ceremonies it is the Japan of 'Mem http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Kyoto/Kyoto/blog-436914.html As the popular Japanese saying goes The man who climbs Mt Fuji once is wise. The man who climbs Mt Fuji twice is a fking psychopath.Ok that isn't quite how it goes. But sometimes such language is just plain necessary. Please understand me I love hiking. I love trekking. It's one of my favourite things to do. What I have discovered I do NOT like is walking 3000m up a volcano in the middle o http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Shizuoka/Mt-Fuji/blog-432336.html Right. I apologise in advance for the exceeding hyperness of this blog. I'm not drunk I promise. I just frigging love this city. Also I apologise for any grammatical or spelling errors I am using a Japanese keyboard that has somehow been set to French and my touchtyping skills are proving... cumbersome.Anyway I suppose I should start at the beginning which is the city of fabled sin itself http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/Asakusa/blog-431345.html Well chaps here I am again back in Delhi four months later. It's 2.30pm and my taxi comes at 5.30 to take me to the airport arriving at London Heathrow at 6.45am tomorrow England time. Very very weird. I'd try and do something more exciting with my last few hours here but its Republic Day in India so all the shops are closed this sounds familiar... And anyway I'm sure you're all DYING t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/West-Bengal/Kolkata/blog-365679.html Look look I'm back on target Only a week between entries go me.First a short memo. To those lovely people who have been messaging me to ask for advice about travellingitineraries etc please please don't think I'm ignoring you. As I've said before travelblog doesn't allow me to respond to messages so if you want me to reply then please include your email addy and I will contact you that w http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/West-Bengal/Darjeeling/blog-364596.html Greetings from Kathmandu where the internet is only twice the price it was in India as compared to Pokhara where it was like 5 times the price and thus I feel justified in using it. Have a ridiculous amount to catch up on I see so will get to work as quickly as possibleAfter writing my last blog post I caught my train to Varanasi Hindu holy city extraordinare. Despite my fervent and fond t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Thamel/blog-360702.html Wow a shameful couple of weeks without updating. Apologies had some bad news from home which kind of shook me a bit plus various other malarkeys. Anyway think of this as a belated xmas treatSo the love affair with Manali and Himachal as a whole never really ended. The day after I wrote last I went on my governmentrun tourist trip up the Pavarti Valley which was excellent though frankly t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Punjab/Amritsar/blog-357255.html Ok I know that term is technically reserved for Tibet. But sadly I can't get into Tibet the Chinese seem to be reluctant to let people see how much they've advanced the standard of living there for some reason and anyway Himachal fits the description.Today I jumped off a 3000m high mountain above both the timber and the snow line. We glided over this incredible Himalayan valley for ages http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Himachal-Pradesh/Manali/blog-354412.html