Well, I'm in Thailand. Most of you know how much I love it already, and am heading to the beach tomorrow. Thais are good looking, especially the ones with dreads (but muy muy short). and the only thing pissing me off is that my cheap hotel has apparently given me bed bus. I have a spotty arm, but it's not contagious, so who cares? I'll get back to you when I'm bored. (December) [View Full Entry]

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Hello!!! I'm in Macau! Guilin was a nice place, and about 30 degrees, it's good to be warm, I find. I'd taken a soft sleeper, and it was lovely, I bunkered down for the full 30 hour journey with my noodles and oranges and slept for a good 20 of those hours. I think the Chinese people in my cabin thought I was ill, and so brought me hot water every now and again. Train down there arrived four hours late, so I drank some beers, didn't get bit by any mosquitoes (who, if I haven't mentioned, have been voraciously feasting [View Full Entry]

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The hard seat from Xiangfan to Chongqing arrived two hours late at 1pm. The 14 hour journey was the worst experience of my entire life, and I will never repeat it again. The seat I had was the aisle seat, so even though I wanted to sleep, I couldn't because I had nowhere to lean. Not that it would have been easier if I had had somewhere to lean. The lights stayed on ALL night, and loud women came round every hour all through the night to try and sell fruit or meals. There was a huge group of Chinese men [View Full Entry]

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So we departed the boat, and fortunately Hong had a map of the town, which showed that the train station was only 3k from the dock. My miles/kilometres conversion skills leave a bit to be desired but I think thats about one mile. Most of the other passengers were already sorted and got straight on their buses. The taxi drivers wanted to charge us 100Y for a mini-bus into town. We didn't want to pay that much for something that was so close, and there were no public buses. They were all bastards and were talking to each other telling each [View Full Entry]

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Day One We arrived for our cruise at about 6pm, even though we'd been told from 6 to 9pm. Typical Prompt Canadian stylee! We were given the option of upgrading for 600Y, but as we'd paid a small fortune anyway, we decided to stick with our balcony-less twin beds. The danger of a Drunk Terri falling overboard also influenced our decision somewhat. We ate noodles and had a rave to the class Chinese techno that came already uploaded onto Jacie's sexy new phone. My favourite was the gay-techno song about giving blow jobs to make friends. The homo's know how [View Full Entry]

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Me and Jacie arrived in Chongqing at about midday, four hours later than scheduled. We had been in the amazing soft sleeper carriage so we didn't mind at all (in fact, I was quite pleased, this was one of the cleanest places in China I'd been) The man in our cabin was hardly there and didn't snore at all (although I was earplugged and eye-masked up so he could have been performing cabaret for all I know, but I think he may have just been asleep) The Chinese girl had a cold and made snuffling noises all the time so as [View Full Entry]

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When I got back to Xi'an (I really like Xi'an, if I hadn't had plans, I would have stayed another week, it's a lovely city. Probably helped cos I met nice people and got a lions share of free drinks at various establishments, but it's a cool city too.) I had plans with Jacie to sail down the Yangtzhe river. I was planning to do it, but she'd already got information and prices and reservations, and if I went with her, it meant I had nothing to organise myself, I do hate to organise. It would also be better to do [View Full Entry]

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So I got a night train from Xi'an to Yan'an. It takes about 7 hours, on the train, but I didn't have a return ticket because it was full on the way back to Xi'an for the next night. I went to the train station at about 10.30pm, and was feeling the effects of last nights free drinks. Xi'an station was disgusting, with fruit and vegetable peelings and sunflower seeds everywhere all over the floor, which didn't help with the hangover. The fruit had started to putrify in the heat, so instead of sweeping it up, the cleaner was having to [View Full Entry]

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After my night train from Datong to Xi'an, there was free pick up by the hostel at the station at 9am. Best hostel in China by the way. As we were getting off, I met an English girl called Liz who had been on the same train as me, and we were sharing a room at the hostel. We went and got clean (we were both pretty gross) and I did laundry as I was down to my last outfit, again. It took a fair while, as we were pretty dirty, well, I was, anyway. Liz is one of those girls [View Full Entry]

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*Quick note: I'm really far behind on my writing (because I'm having a better time) so if I skip between present and past tense, it's because this all happened a few weeks ago* I got the train from Beijing to Datong, a tiny little place, that only has three hotels, and the only reason people go there is to visit the Yungang Grottos which are a taxi ride away. These caves (although they're not really caves at all, more walls with holes) were carved with huge Buddha's inside them in about 450 AD, and took 50 years. It took a combined [View Full Entry]

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