Blogs from Asia - page 15580

Hello!!! Here's the news for yesterday: Yesterday, I spent most of the day lying in bed in a ridiculous amount of pain. I stared out the window for a long time, and as I watched an old woman with a bandage on her leg begging for change, I thought about how lucky I am to be sick and, at least in this country, affluent. Health care IS free here, but still, I thought about all the people in the world that have had shingles (or much, much worse) that couldn't lie around in a nice, warm bed and relax. Even though shingles seriously sucks, I could be in a lot worse places, and I started feeling very thankful for my situation and my life. The gratitude gave me access to feeling very peaceful. The weather outside ... read more

In some places the waves were mysteriously selective. Two houses stand while the one between is gone. In other places entire neighborhoods have been erased. A wall stands here, a kitchen sink over there; a spiral staircase leads nowhere. And where have the former occupants gone? In Sri Lanka alone 40,000 stories ended terribly that day. In many cases even the people who might have been left behind to remember those stories were washed away too. Total erasure. The survivors occupy tents and temporary huts provided by Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, UNICEF, and others. What would it have been like to be one of the first people to arrive on the scene? It must have been an unthinkable landscape of death and misery. Even now there are white flags along the road indicating that people ... read more

Nach der Insel Ko Samet bin ich wieder nach Bangkok zurueck um meine Tour Richtung Cambodia ueber die erschreckende Grenze Poipet nach Battambang zu starten. Diese Reise hatte es echt in sich. Stundenlanger aufenthalt vor der Grenze, da ich einen organisierten Bus bis zur Grenze genommen habe (wuerde ich keinem empfehlen). Danach an der Grenze angekommen musste ich mich in dem Chaos aus Schlammigen Strassen und merkwuerdigen Gestalten, die einen auf irgendwelche Trucks zerren wollten von denen man nicht wusste ob sie auch da nakommen wo ich hin wollte. Das Auffinden des Taxistandes machte mich dann sehr Gluecklich. Battambang war bisher fuer mich die schoenste Stadt auf meiner Reise. Echt herrlich um zu entspannend in einer Stadt, die durch die Koloniezeit noch so franzoesich geblieben ist und man glaubt das hier die Zeit stehen geblieben ist. ... read more

Hi again, Lhasa, "the ground of the gods" in Tibetan, is a very special city. It has a strong spiritual feeling, full of temples, monks, pilgrims, etc. And right above it all roams the Potala palace, the house of the Dalai Lamas that is currently a huge museum. This enormous structure is amazing, and when I entered the city and saw it for the first time I really missed a heart beat. It also has a long history, and is the heart of the struggle between the Tibetans and the "liberating" Chinese. I don't want to go into too much detail regarding the China-Tibet situation, because it is hard to know the facts as a visitor. It is always easy to lean towards the weak and demand the liberation of the conquered country. But there are ... read more

180rmb/night got me a spacious top floor back corner room in a three star hotel overlooking lush green Fushan park. Complete with complimentary teas, a shower cap, a bubble bath and a sauna to keep me entertained while the electrical storm pelted the city centre just outside my ridiculously large aquarium windows. I hadn't planned on Shaoxing but exiting from Huangzhou's bus station, having just arrived from small-city Tunxi and its quaint surrounding villages, I felt put off by the crowds and the thought that any kind of sightseeing in the area was going to be a pre-packaged sorta deal, myself just a cog in an endless chain of tourists filing around Xi Hu, reacting as prescribed to the many wondrous pavilions and temples and nearby tea plantations. Had it been the low season... Shaoxin was ... read more