Blogs from Asia - page 14814

Because our bus had been late that morning going to the Great Wall we all got free beer that night. We also ended up trying Rice Wine, which is disgusting and not recommended to anyone!... read more

As a stopping off point on our way to China, it was pretty hard to fault Hong Kong. A fusion of British capitalism and Chinese culture, the city has skyscrapers and shopping malls that sit alongside Chinese temples and food markets, whilst down in the harbors, traditional Chinese Sampans (albeit now just for tourism) ply their trade alongside luxury private yachts. We took in most of the main sites in Hong Kong, although none of them seemed to have the impact of the great outdoors we experienced in Africa. We took the cross harbour ferry, we took a Sampan ride at Aberdeen harbour, we took an old tram through Central and we took the peak tram up to Hong Kong's highest point. The overwhelming feeling you get is that Hong Kong is still an incredibly dynamic ... read more

Trains, Thai Chi & Chinese Officials So I've promised never to fill out Dom's custom's forms for him again. After kindly filling out both our forms on the ferry from Hong Kong to mainland China, upon disembarkment our tour group were kept waiting over 15 minutes - whilst Dom was interrogated in a small room by very serious and scary looking officials for an inconsistency in his name on the paper work. Oh dear!! In my defense however, I have to say that I have never been the best of spellers and when you have 4 names with confusing Italian spelling, I can't blame the Chinese officals for giving Mr Domenico Giuseppe John Salomoni a once-over... ;) Following a one night stop off at Guangzhou, we boarded what would be the first of 6 sleeper ... read more

Last night I was so tired I fell asleep before writing. oops. My 11.5 hour flight was slightly painful, but smooth, and I survived with very few complaints. I did much better than I thought I would. They fed us pretty well, and we had personal movie screens and seven movies to choose from. That helped. When we arrived we got through customs quickly, got our JR passes activated and jumped on a train to Osaka. The train ride took about an hour, and I was getting really tired - but it was great getting to watch out the windows at all the houses and buildings and people. At the stations there were always a place holding a ton of bicycles. I enjoyed seeing the school girls in their uniforms and all the business men in ... read more

So this is where we ended up for my birthday. We were thinking somewhere south in Thailand or Cambodia but extending our stay in Asia 10 days meant we could take our trip thru Laos more casually. We ended up staying at an average guest house, but for US$12 you can’t complain. We were told nothing but to “get out of Vientaine, there’s nothing to see”, so we had no real expectations. We decided to stay for the main reason that we didn’t really want to be traveling on some scummy train/bus on my birthday. Gald we did cos we’ve both really like the place. Last night we had one of our best dinners yet in SE Asia. It was this really classy joint that served Indian, Thai, Laos, Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian and Western. We ate ... read more