Blogs from Asia - page 15633

Hi, We arrived to Khatgal, a small village on a river, just a few km from lake Khovsgul, and said goodbye to our driver. We started to arrange a horse trekking trip for the following day. Somehow instead of splitting and enjoying the lake separately, we added two more people to our group, and hit the road with 9 riders, 3 guides, and 3 pack horses for all the bags, tents, food, etc. In the morning we bought some more food, loaded the horses, and then mounted our horses. When they gave us the horses the guide said that he needs a good rider for one of the horses, because "this horse likes to gallop". Of course I took it immediately. I felt it almost immediately. He just wanted to run all the time. I had ... read more

Hotel: Hotel Lile (Tbilisi, Georgia) $40 After a decent breakfast, a taxi driver arrived and we set off for Vardzia, the cave city. The landscape soon changed from rolling meadows to more mountainous terrain. The driver had agreed to take us to Vardzia and Akhaltsikhe (~50 miles) for $50. The road was in pretty bad shape for most of the trip, and our driver was flying along. Vardzia is a cave city located about 15 miles off the Akhalkalaki to Akhaltsikhe road, the royal city in the late 1100's consisted of over 700 caves carved into the cliffsides, supporting a population of tens of thousands. The caves are still inhabited by monks to this day. They are a good climb up from the valley below. There is a secret passageway carved through the rock that was ... read more

Day 4 (28 July 2005) We left Taipei to Taichung after saying goodbye to the not so perfect url=http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g1432365-d1441171-r48734727-Amigo_Hostel-Taipei_County.htmlAmigo Hostel in the afternon. Phui ~ I'm not going to stay there again even its for free. From Taipei Main Station, the Tze Chiang Express train took 2.5 hours to reach the city of TaiChung. With little difficulty, we managed to check into the Fuh Chun Hotel opposite the train station at a mere NT780 or S$40. Yes, it's aging but it's certainly clean and relatively well-maintained for the prices we paid for 2 nights. Taichung is probably another Taipei in the making. Plans are on the way to introduce a similar MRT system in the not so distant future. Without the MRT system, 2 of us felt that we had lost our legs as transport options ... read more

I wake up with a terrible cold and a running nose. Today's plan is to reach Nukus by air, but the plane does not leave until late in the afternoon. I decide to go sightseeing somewhere and inspect my new map, which has some nice colour photos of interesting places, and point the finger towards Kukeldosch Medressah near the Chor-Su bazar and metro station. The first step is actually reaching the metro, and I decide to give it a try on foot. Sure enough it doesn't take that long, but in doing so the heat has my skin soaked with water. Since I practised riding the metro with Shoista yesterday it turns out very easy for me to find the proper transfer point at Pachtakor and switch to the Uzbekistan line. However, my plan is foiled ... read more

This was our last leg of the Malaysia tour. Malacca, or Melaka depending on how you wanna spell it, is Malaysia's oldest city. I don't remember much of its history, though our tour guide spent about three hours explaining it. I had a cold and had energy sucked outta me. Anyway, it involves the Dutch and St. Francis and battles and other interesting stuff. ... read more