Bagan; The very reason we planted Myanmar firmly on our list of not to be missed. Tempted by the huge plain of temples that were clouded in a thick mist of dust this place oozed magic, adventure and culture and was a place we were childly excited about. Arriving at the Bagan bus station at 4am with barely no sleep and then being harassed by taximen shouting $20 in your face was disorientating to say the least. After figuring out the distance to the town and pairing up with a French couple we managed to get the taxi ride to town for a total of $8 not before stopping at the toll to pay $20 each for the so called conservation fee. This is meant to go to the restoration of the sights, although it is ... read more

One place that has been on our Thailand must see list was Ayutthaya - An ancient capital up until the 18th century before it was burned and ransacked by the Burmese. It's about 2 hour train ride from Bangkok then a 2min boat ride from the mainland. After paying for our 3rd class tickets 20baht/40p each we briefly got talking to another British couple Harry and Jazz. Also at the start of their round the world trip, we soon realised we were taking similar trips. Once arriving in Ayutthaya, we paired up with this couple again and chatted excitedly about our previous/current trips and our lives back home as we set off to explore the site together. Across an area of 14 sq kilometres, this site contains a mixture of stupas, temples and headless buddhas. With ... read more

Next destination Osaka. Still getting to grips with the JR train system announcement boards we ended up getting on the local train instead of the express train. Turning a 90min journey into a 3 hour one! Great. After checking in, our hostel informed us that on Sundays they have a member of staff who takes guests for food and drinks in a Japanese tapas type place not too far. Everything on the menu is 300yen (£1.80) and the portions are good including the beer. She didn't have to tell us twice. We waited at the meet up point with 3 other hostel guests and were introduced to the craziest 64 year old Japanese man with the most infectious laugh. His name was Mr Yano and he loves a good drink (especially sake). Even though his English ... read more

Day 1 Tokyo/Kyoto Today we packed up our bags and rushed our way to the JR line at Tokyo station to make our way to Kyoto. Did we mention we were catching the bullet trains? These trains run up to a mega 275 mph compared to our 2hr Manchester to London trains running upto a mere 125mph. These are fast. Both excited about our ride, the 3hour journey went by in no time. Not before we got fantastic views of mount fuji. P got snap happy and took far too many pictures, while Chris took the time to edit some video blogs. The ride to kyoto was as to be expected smooth and effortless. Using our newly found offline map on our phone we successfully navigated our way to our new guesthouse for the next 3 ... read more

Day 3 Odaiba Yesterday evening we set ourselves a plan for an epic bike ride across the city taking in many different attractions and things we wanted to see. Knowing it would be difficult we knew we had to get up early. Leaving our hostel at 9am, we went to find the bike hire place marked on our maps. When we got there we were told they had ran out so instead they directed us to another place 15 minutes away. Same story again. No bikes. Looking across the city there were hundreds of bikes, either in use or parked up outside of apartments and shopping areas. We concluded that most locals must also hire these out too as it was insane how all the bikes were gone. We were instructed to come back another morning ... read more