liljohn400

Arriving in Bolivia, our first stop was Copacabana a small tourist town on the far side of Lake Titicaca, that apparently gave its name to the famous beach in Rio De Janiero. After getting off the bus we ended up wandering around for quite a while trying to work out where we could find a cheap place to stay. After a little time a local guy came up to us asking if we needed a room. We decided to follow him as he said it was only 10 Bolivanos each, about a pound! We got to a small dingy hotel with no one there, but the guy got us to wait and walked off looking for the owner. The owner arrived and told us the room was 15 not 10, we were about to take it ... read more

I've just spent most of the last 4 months in Toronto, in fact for more than 3 of those months I never even left Toronto's downtown. I was trying my best to save money and hibernate from the approaching winter. Like most largest cites in any country, Toronto has a bad reputation amongst most Canadians. Its known for being too big, and having bad traffic, and rude citizens, and although some of these factors can definately be counted as true, its not as bad as people make out. In fact my biggest problem with Toronto rather than Vancouver is that it had no real access to the outdoors, there are no big parks in the downtown, and the lake shore is mainly taken up with industrial and ugly buildings. On the plus side though, Toronto ... read more

I spent nearly 6 months in Vancouver and it was a pretty good 6 months despite the weather and rundown hostel I had to live in because it was all I could afford. Vancouver is one of those places that regularly tops lists as the worlds most livable city, and after a while here you can see why. Its only two downsides being the high cost of living, and the weather. For much of both March and April it rained almost every day. But despite that it still attracts people from not only all over Canada, but all over the world too. The two main draws have to be the great outdoors which surrounds the city to such an extent you can always feel your right in the middle of it, plus the diverse number ... read more

Its been a while since my last journal, well 4 months, but unlike my 5 months in Asia, its been a more sedate 4 months, I've been working most of the time, and lets face it, both Australia and New Zealand are hardly as exciting or different from home as Asia was. So going back about 4 months to late July, I was just leaving Bangkok, and SE Asia, from there, I flew to Singapore with a several hour stopover, before heading on to Sydney. I flew from Singapore to Sydney on one of those new Airbus double decker planes. It was huge, and equipped with the latest in entertainment systems, including 100s of movies available on demand and TV shows music and games. The flight was relatively smooth, but on our final decent, the plane ... read more

After leaving Delhi on Singapore airways overnight. I landed in Singapore in the morning, and immediately was reminded of the country's orderly and cleanliness. Singapore airport has to be rated as one of the best in the world, for ease of use and prettyness among other things. Since I was there last in 2002, they have expanded it to 3 terminals and all the new parts are in the same style as before with loads of water features and amazing architechture. From the airport I got the MRT into the central area to go and find my hostel. Of course compared to India, Singapore is at the opposite end of the scale, everyone looked affluent and well off, all the infrastructure not only worked but looked pristene and new. The MRT is abit like the new ... read more