Blogs from Asia - page 3

Pleasing to report that this time the brochures did not lead us up the dusty bumpy path in search of a pipe dream, and there are, in fact, a heap of elephants in Udawalawe National Park. First item on the agenda today was a cooking class, which actually consisted of us sitting and watching Geoff cook. They clearly read my brief! But he did a great job of curried dhal, which we then enjoyed for breakfast. The call of the airconditionined car had us almost breaking into a sprint from the tent, and we all looked as though we’d run a marathon by the time we got there! Drove like maniacs to the Elephant Transit Home where they take abandoned young to raise before putting them back in to the park. The babies live in the ... read more

Left the Sanco Inn Hotel at 8:30 and had plenty of time to buy coffee/ matcha lattes and buns before boarding our Shinkansen bullet train to Hiroshima which left on time as usual at 9:12. It was a very comfortable 90 minute trip. Hotel Flex was an easy 10 minute walk from the station. We again took advantage of the luggage forwarding service, but this time sending all three of our big bags and packing everything into backpacks. This time, Krissy used her bigger backpack and I used the backpack that normally attaches to my Osprey suitcase. It worked quite well, I carried the heavier pack on my back and the second one on my front. We were able to leave our bags at the hotel as we were too early to check in. We then ... read more

After Hiroshima, my plans were a bit fuzzy, but I headed to Takayama in the Gifu prefecture, to use it as the base for a few places I wanted to visit. Takayama is the largest city by area in Japan, but less populated as it sits in the mountainous Gifu region (Takayama means Tall Mountain). I arrived on the day there was the Spring Takayama Festival (Sanno Matsuri). It is the annual festival of the Hie Shrine to celebrate the arrival of spring, where 11 festival floats (Yatai) are taken through the city. Volunteers gather dressed up in traditional Japanese attire including Kamishimo (traditional Edo period Samurai outfits). Accompanying the procession are Shishimai (lion dance) performers, and the lively, reverberating gongs of Tokeiraku performers, who wear traditional robes decorated with the vibrant image of spirited fighting ... read more

Out the door this morning at 8:25 to catch the 9:09 train to Saga Arashiyama Station to connect to the Sagano Romantic train. Since we left earlier than planned I thought we could get the earlier train, but after getting coffee and entering the station we had to walk quite a long way to get to our platform. We were at the front of the line as we were there 20 minutes early. We reached Saga Station around 9:30 and the Romantic Train station was right next door, so bought a few more items at Lawson for breakfast. We were booked for the 10:02 train which left right on time as usual. It's only a short 25 minute ride but we did enjoy it. It basically follows the Hozugawa River valley gorge and we could see ... read more

We’ve cracked it, reached the zenith of turtle. First was the Philippines where we saw one and jumped in after it, next was Lord Howe where we snorkelled around them while they were feeding, next Hawaii where we watched them topsy turvy and swum with with them as they moseyed along. But we have now encountered world’s friendliest and least law-abiding turtles. Unlike the Americans and Australians, they apparently had no idea of this 5m distance rule, and quite liked to get up close and personal. So we were ... read more