leonandjill

Tuesday 8th March Narith is waiting for us as promised and he speeds us off on his tuk tuk towards the Ankor Watt Museum, a temple styled building which holds many artifacts and treasures uncovered from the Ankor region in the North of Cambodia. Theres beggars loitering around the entrance and we just about got past without to much fuss as they are quite persistent. We walked around the large halls of the Museum looking at the many different types of jewellery, ornaments and statues, some of which date back from as far as 2000bc. There's lots of information about the Ankor region and its temples which helps us to grasp a little bit about the origins and history of the area as we will be visiting Ankor later on this week. Its quite a small ... read more

Friday 4th March We have arrived in Ho Chi Min City after a short flight from Ha Noi. Somehow we've managed to board a local bus which spins us towards District One. We are unsure of where we have to get off so we just bail out any old place and hailed a taxi to our hostel. With luck we are only five minutes away and already it feels much nicer here than it did in Ha Noi. Its cleaner for starters and theres more space between the buildings and lots of parks and green areas. I suppose in a way it helps that the suns out and its very warm so by now we are sweating heaps with the backpacks on as we walk the remaining couple of hundred yards to the Saigon Sports hotel. ... read more

Monday 28th February Once we're picked up from the hostel its not long before we leave the city behind and into the country towards Halong Bay which is four hours away by mini bus. It was a good chance to take in some Vietnamese countryside and its not long before we spot large Ox, farmers and lots of rice paddy fields along the way. We stopped once for a short break and then drove another two hours before we finallly arrive at the Coastal City of Halong, within minutes we are ushered onto a small boat that would taxi us out to our large sail boat called the Oriental Sails. Its quite a nice boat and better than we expected. Its got a large restaurant on the middle floor with a bar, a viewing deck up ... read more

Thursday 24th February We've organiased a tour via the hostel which see's us sharing a pick up truck with two french families of two adults and two children. One mum speaks good enough english to have a conversation with so we manage to get by via her translating for us. Our first stop was just out of town at a Butterfly farm whish was pretty poor as we seen two butterflies as we walked through the netted enclosure. There's an Orchard farm next door which was marginally better so we walked around the rows of flowers and made our way back the truck where we waited from the frenchies to come back. We're all back inside the truck and tanking it down the motorway towards our next stop which was a visit to the The Chiang ... read more

Wednesday 26th February We began our day late in the afternoon and set off on a walk towards the Bund area of Shanghai in the crisp and sun shiny weather. Walking towards the river we stopped at the impressive Garden Bridge Bridge which crosses the Huangpu River and already we are getting fantastic views of the Pudong Financial district in the distance. The city is bisected by the Huangpu River, a tributary of the Yangtze. The historic centre of the city, the Puxi area, is located on the western side of the Huangpu, while the newly developed Pudong, containing the central financial district Lujiazui, was developed on the eastern bank. Shanghai has recorded double-digit growth for 15 consecutive years to become the center of finance and trade in new China and is now aiming to be ... read more