And so...weve spent most of the past few weeks in china! What a culture shock. China was always going to be a voyage into the unknown as we decided whilst out here to go and have a look at it and so had no proper guide book or map! The map thing was solved pretty soon by our belgian mate Ben who told us about this incredibly detailed web site with directions, decriptions of towns and even an altitude graph! (www.pazu.com) However everything else has been a bit of a struggle due to lack of phrase book and inability to read [View Full Entry]

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Jen again: Where were we? Oh yeah...heading from Chiang Mai to Chiang rai in thailand. Chiang Rai is mainly a one night stop or a base for other trips, and its geared up for wealthy travellers so all the restaurants on the main street are a huge rip off...anyway its got everything we needed to refresh and get ready for the next country; Laos. There is a pretty good night bazaar though, and one of the temples has a large green buddha; a replica of the one in bangkok which originated in chiang rai. It wasnt far from Chiang Rai to [View Full Entry]

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Jen; hello everyone at home, and all around the world! welcome to the third part of our travels around the world by bike. This time from south east asia, well, thailand so far.... we arrived in bangkok on th 20th feb, tired but having experienced a fuss free flight courtesy of etihad (they have a great film selection), and located the bikes quickly, found a large taxi easily, and located the hotel with no problems despite my hastily scrawled address for it! It became quickly apparent that bangkok it a huge sweaty busy largely modern city...but not without its charms. Our [View Full Entry]

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Top of the pips Slamdunking into the top 16 quite literally pipatootahonkatastic! As this is the national sport of Peru and Bolivia here are my all time top 16 toots..honks...pips...blasts... 16 The I´m coming past watch out 15 I´m overtaking get out of my way...even if i dont have right of way 14 The someones overtaking me id better honk in case he hasn´t seen me 13 The constant honk every 20 seconds because im a combi (mini cab) looking for fare 12 The ´oh look someone crossing the rd 1/2 mile away´ honk 11 [View Full Entry]

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...loved this place ...had so much magic to it..please find a picture medley!! there maybe a couple of pages. [View Full Entry]

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Stotty; So eventually across the Border into one of the poorest countries in South America as per previous post and we were on our way North. We knew from friends and other blogs that it was tough going in southern Bolivia all on tracks. We worked out that we had 200 miles to do until the first aspfalto rd near Potosi and the way the villages worked out for accomodation we would do this in 4 days. seemed surreal leaving the frenetic pace of Villazon, straight out of town and it was forgotten already as we were back on the bleak [View Full Entry]

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Jen; having been thouroughly gringoed and fed trout to my eye balls we were ready to leave the tourist hot spot that is copacabana!! Not that i didnt like it. Its just that it doesnt really feel like much of a travelling experience when youre surrounded by english and american backpackers! We expected 5 fairly tough days riding to get to cusco the next tourist hotspot, and the first day was nearly 60 miles from Copacabana to Ilave, a town where we thought there would be some kind of accomodation. It was only 10 miles to the peruvian border from copa [View Full Entry]

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just thought i´d put some random pictures up of Argy Bargy for a flava...cos ive got time and a decent amout of connection speed and for those of you who cant be arsed in reading the blog can just look at the pictures like when you were a little child! Yeah its just like reading hello! mag...please note there are 3 pages of photo fun for your pleasure.. [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone, its Jenny here writing with relative leisure since were stuck for now at the argentine border town of La Quaica. Apparently theres some kind of protest on the Bolivian side so we'll try to get across tomorrow morning and see what happens....... Anyway back to Cafayate. Our route from cafayate to salta happened to be through a canyon with lots of spectacular rock formation en route. These included the ampitheatre and "the devils throat", both formed by long gone waterfalls. Bit of (rock) climbing was needed in order to see the devils throat but it was definately worth it. [View Full Entry]

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Well it seems a long time since we wrote and so long away...we have done so much since..and the internet connection is sooooooo slow over here so its quite a slog to update this...but here goes. I think it was 4 months ago we last wrote in Jachal !!. This town is on Ruta 40, a 4500 kilometre road stretching the length of West Argentina from The tip of patagonia and up to the Altiplano of the Border with Boliva. This road (sometimes track) would form the basis for the next part of our journey up to the Bolivian Border. We [View Full Entry]

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