And thus begun our experience of local buses. We took a six hour bus from Siem Reap to Kampong Cham. All the seats on the bus are assigned by number. Luckily we were placed near the front of the bus where the air conditioning was working really well. About one hour into the journey however, I was willing to be hotter higher up the bus to get away from the bus horn. The driver blasted the horn for 30 seconds any time a bike came into sight ahead of this and on the main roads this happened every few minutes. There [View Full Entry]

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(I remain in remarkable health. Still no sign of Swine Flu despite checks at all the boarders) I didn’t think it was possible to fall so completely in love with a country. From the moment I crossed over the boarder, Cambodia worked its magic on me. I was fascinated by the greeness of the fields and the little wooden shacks that formed the houses on the way to Siem Reap. My first impression, based soley on the reaction of seeing the shacks was that it was not only a poor country but a sad one. With very few cars on the [View Full Entry]

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After the reputation of the Bangkok airport, I've never been so impatient to get out of an airport. My bag seemed to take forever and customs officials extra suspicious. However since I am not begging for bail money, you can tell I got safely out of the airport. There were taxis waiting outside the airport, and I approached them clutching hold of the customer complaints slip I was given just in case the taxi driver was out to rob me. Need not have worried, he had no English and laughed at me the whole way to my backpacker hangout. The New [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone, I'm minus pictures at the minute. I am in Cambodia where the internet can be described as slower than a snail. Picture uploading attempts have failed at most every turn. However I shall share with you the story of some of the begging kids I've met: Meet the current bane of my life for various reasons including pity. As soon as I set foot on the beach at Shiounkville, they swarmed around me, trying to get you to buy bracelets and fruit. Now ignoring them doesn't get them to go away they keep pawing at you, saying how much [View Full Entry]

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I will maintain I am in a new country though I really don't know what Hong Kong is classified as anymore. I think I am in a new country because I went through arrival forms and swine flu test centre again. China I am pretty sure is claiming it as China but the residents still seem to see themselves as set apart. My first day and night in Hong Kong were also the last ones of the tour. I was kinda of sad to think we were all going off our different ways but I don't think any of us dwelt [View Full Entry]

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The Longji Terraces I've probably little to say about this place. There was nothing there but walking and lots of rice. We got off our transport around 2 in the afternooning to be confronted with a lot of baskets being waved in our faces before we even got off the bus. The local people were determined to make a bob or two by caryying our bags up to the guest house no matter how many times we said no. One man must have asked each of us ten times to take our bags! I was left with a deep urge to [View Full Entry]

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I've whined about the length of our trains on this trip but the one between Shanghai and Yangshou really takes the biscuit. It lasted 25 hours 30 mins . I have never been so glad to get off a train. Lucky us still had an hour and a half bus journey before we reached Yangshou. I haven't taken many photographs of the town itself though I have plenty of the surrounding areas. From the minute I arrived there I was disappointed with the town itself. It is very western. Bars and clubs line the streets with tourists shops crammed in between. [View Full Entry]

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Another overnight train, another day when we were greatful to get off the train and stretch our legs. We'd arrived in Shanghai. At 1pm we stepped out into the hustle and bustle of town life. The city never stops, the horns keep blaring and the traffic is a game of chicken. Pedestrian green lights and zebra crossings mean nothing to the Chinese. Shanghai is a city of skyscrapers, many of the shorter buildings are all but falling down even though there are still occupants in them. We briefly found some peace on the first day in the garden (the first one [View Full Entry]

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Besides the Warriors I knew very little about the ancient capital of Xi'an. It was all I wanted to see there really. However Zoey and I did take off in search of a museum and came up with something more interesting. I'll never know whether the museum was worthwhile visiting. We got there at about 11.20 in the morning and were faced with a long queue. We went to join it but we found that they only gave out 5000 (free) tickets a day. To anyone else travelling there, I would say you need to get up at the crack of [View Full Entry]

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I think my camera nearly fried today. Every step I took I was trying to take a good shot. It was incredible. There are no other words for these life size figures. Every single one of them is unique, sculptured after a soldier in the Emperor's army. They've only uncovered the tip of army, there are reckoned to be thousands more, still all in formation under the farmland. They reckon it will take years to uncover. There was a peasant uprising and the Warriors were put to torch over 2000 years ago, breaking them into pieces. It takes one archeologist 3 [View Full Entry]

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