carlocol

Back down the bottom of the hill at Ping An, near Long Sheng, I boarded a minivan for Guilin, which happily deposited me at the train station, where I knew a couple of value hotels were located. (I actually ended up in a slightly more upmarket one, The Cairns hotel, for 206RMB. Still pretty cheap and a lovely room. It’s so nice to be in a room where few things are broken, and with a bit more space!) I didn’t do any sight seeing in Guilin, but just wandered around looking for a restaurant. There were plenty of people selling fruits on the footpath, including freshly cut watermelon. I love that sort of watermelon. It was only 1RMB for a big slice, so I had several! Later, when in some other tropical places in China, such ... read more

Monday 5 Sep ----------------------- I arranged to leave most of my belongings at the hostel while I went for a 2 day trip to ‘Tiger Leaping Gorge’ – reputed to be one of the deepest (or the deepest) gorges on Earth. This is about 2.5 hours by bus up in the mountains from Lijiang. We got there about 10:30AM, and started walking. My goal was about 4 to 6 hours of walking the first day to get to a nice guesthouse for the night. After a nice start through lovely fields of corn and sunflowers, and walking with some Chinese and German people, the track started heading uphill, and it started getting pretty hard work. It might have been the altitude but I wasn’t doing very well. It was also pretty warm. After maybe 2 hours ... read more

Wednesday 7 ============ I had a flight booked for 5:20PM to Chongqiang, and didn’t have much to do in the day. I chatted to 3 Chinese girls and a guy staying in the hostel. They were very friendly. At one point they went and got a whole heap of food and invited me to join them. The airport is 30km out of town. Flight was an hour late. I arrived in Chongqing 7:30, then had an ‘interesting’ ride into town. Firstly the roads looked positively first world. Big wide motorways, long tunnels, everything clean. But the taxi driver was terrible, blowing his horn, cutting people off etc. He wasn’t sure of the way to the hostel, fortunately I had the number, and he rang them to get directions. In the end I spotted the hostel first. ... read more

Wednesday 31 Aug ================ I caught a taxi to Phuket airport, then caught plane to Bangkok, arriving at the old airport at Don Meuang (rather than the new airport 'Suvannaphum'). Had a look around Sukhumwit rd in Bangkok - had trouble recognising many locations are there are so many new tall buildings there blocking old views. Thursday 1 Sep ============== I caught the 'sky train' over to the King Taksin bridge on the Chao Phraya river then caught a tourist boat up to the pier near the Grand Palace. that was a good and interesting little trip. I walked over to the Grand Palace - i wasn't intending to go in - I've seen it before - what I really wanted to check out was the touts who are reputed to infest the area, tricking tourists ... read more

Friday Aug 19 ============= Another early start. Riding the bike from Sanur to Kuta at 6 in the morning is very easy. But by the time we are driving the van down to Jimbaran at 7, roads are already getting very busy. Today the surf was smaller and a bit cleaner than yesterday, making it a lot easier - I got lots of waves, and some nice rides. (Got plenty of compliments from the teachers and other students!) Pro-surf school seems a good place to me. Everyone is very friendly. The place has a great location, has a restaurant, good pool, rooms etc. I often stuck around and had drinks and meals with the other students (most of whom were a good deal younger than me!) Saturday Aug 20 =============== I knew Kuta's surf would still ... read more