TravelStream™ news feed for member j3ssie on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/j3ssie en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 26 Sep 2006 09:28:46 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1157747700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1157747700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1157747700/tpod.html Tue, 26 Sep 2006 09:28:46 -0400 Trail of the Dragon

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Yangshuo, China

Today I didn't do anything exciting. I had a nice lie-in, sorted my packing out, and had a late breakfast, followed by a lazy lunch and a walk around town checking out the shops.

I went to the local supermarket and stocked up on snacks for our journey to Hong Kong. Later in the afternoon we took a minivan to the train station in Guilin, about an hour away. Giulin was quite a big city, busy roads and streets.

The station was just as big, and the trains consisting of many carriages. We boarded our train to Shenzhen at around 8pm. The compartments were cramped, consisting of 6 beds, top middle and bottom on two sides. Along the corridor were a few seats to sit on if you couldn't or didn't want to sit on your bed before bedtime.

We went to the canteen carriage which was spacious, and sat and ate food while watching a dubbed Korean soap opera, along with the train staff, who surprisingly seemed to spend most of their time watching TV with us.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1157428500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1157428500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1157428500/tpod.html Tue, 26 Sep 2006 09:26:28 -0400 Trail of the Dragon

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Longji, China

We left Chengyang early in a minivan to go to the Longji rice terraces. The road between Sanjiang and Longji was ... the bumpiest road in the world! Apparently the government have been building this road for the past two years, so it's in the middle of being constructed, but the progress is very, very slow. It was tortuous and very dusty; after almost 4 hours of being hauled out of our seats every other minute, we were glad to reach the rice terraces.

We stopped in a small town about an hour from the terraces to drop off our large baggage, and continued with our day packs. We met Farmer Tang, our local guide who was a sweet short man with a cute fragmented accent. He gave us fresh watermelon when we arrived, a refreshing treat after our horrible journey.

The road to the terraces was a mountain edge road, quite windy in places. The mountains were steeper with dense green forest on the upper slopes. The valley below revealed big boulders and rocks where I imagine a gushing river used to flow, now leaving a trickle of a stream.

We parked the van in the car park and walked about half an hour to the Yao village in the middle of the terraces. The Yao women don't cut their hair after marriage and wear it on top of their heads, they have the longest hair in China. The walk up to the village was uphill much of the way, pretty tough on the legs, chased by the Yao women persistently trying to sell their wares.

The view of the rice fields was pretty, with the step-like nature of the crops creating a pretty green pattern across the mountains. It was damp and misty, but you could see distant higher mountains through the clouds too.

We had an afternoon snack, and then chilled out around our guesthouse. Some of the others went on a mini-trek to one of the viewpoints, with Farmer Tang. I opted to leave it, in order to conserve some energy for tomorrow's trek.

We had a group dinner in the evening which was nice, although there seemed to be an excess of bugs around. They kept landing in the plates and getting stuck on the oil. We made an attempt to save one of the flies, but Angeline ended up pulling the legs off. Not good.

We tried to watch Kangaroo Jack, a movie with Dean Cain in it, but it was pretty poor and the quality wasn't great as it was on VCD. The others seemed to enjoy it and managed to see it all, I left before the end.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1157251560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1157251560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1157251560/tpod.html Tue, 26 Sep 2006 09:24:51 -0400 Trail of the Dragon

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Chengyang, China

Had a rough night as there were pesky mosquitoes in the hotel room which kept me up. It was also very hot despite the air conditioning which didn't seem to be making a difference, and I kept having to dive under the thick heavy duvet to escape the mosquito feeding frenzy.

Anyway, I got up late as we had a free morning. We had a lazy few hours in Liuzhou with brunch around 11am consisting (for me) of a plain bread sandwich and a coconut cake as I didn't fancy noodles or rice porridge. I also got a couple of bananas from a stall. The seller was shocked when I said I wanted only one, so she said to give her as much money as I wanted to give her for it. I gave her a couple of coins, to which she looked puzzled and shoved another banana in my hand while laughing gently at me. I only wanted one, not a whole bunch which is a strange concept to them. I guess bananas are pretty cheap here.

We left after lunch on a public bus for the four-hour journey to the Dong village in Chengyang, near the Wind and Rain bridge. It was very picturesque, we stayed in a wooden guesthouse which was basic but comfortable, surrounded by green hillsides and overlooking the bridge and river.

Nearby there were a few other villages, but we didn't venture out today. We had a group meal cooked by the owner's wife Mrs Wu; some of the others had a swim in the stream by the guesthouse, and we played a few card games before going to sleep. There were huge spiders around, and lots of flying insects. We didn't have air conditioning so it was warm, but at least we had mosquito nets.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1157147580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1157147580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1157147580/tpod.html Tue, 26 Sep 2006 09:19:24 -0400 Trail of the Dragon

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Liuzhou, China

We had an early start from our beautiful guesthouse to the local bus station, where we would continue our journey to Liuzhou. We were thinking we'd be travelling rough, as we had started using local public buses rather than private minivans, and we weren't sure of what the standard would be.

The first bus journey was about 2 hours, a normal standard coach, clean, air-conditioned and pretty OK. We stopped at the bus station to catch some lunch and change buses. And then the luxury began! This coach was like travelling business class on an aeroplane (OK, a bit extreme, but you get my drift). Large leather seats, two television screens in the aisle with Rush Hour 2 playing (albeit in Mandarin), and a 'bus hostess' serving water and newspapers! Crazy! But really nice, the journey was comfortable and went quickly. Before long we were in Liuzhou.

I was expecting it to be a small town, but it was in fact a small city with a population of 1.4 million people. It was quite developed and advanced. Our hotel was of a high standard, no pesky ants running around for a change!

We dumped our stuff and then went wandering. We spent ages in the Bank of China while one of our group exchanged some money. We then went to find an internet cafe, and went across the road to the 3rd floor of the Century Mart. It was a strange place, we took the lift at the side of the building, a bit run down and gloomy.

When we got out, we walked through an open but empty bowling alley, through a dimly lit corridor, to find a huge floor with rows and rows of computers in this so-called cafe. More of an internet restaurant! There were about four or five 'rooms', all open-plan, with loads of young girls and boys playing online games or watching movies, with their headsets on, so it was fairly quiet.

We had to get a User ID card to get started, luckily Angeline knew enough Mandarin to get us by. I wanted to upload some photos, but had to go into a separate 'USB' room where all the computers had USB access. Then it made sense, each room had a separate function - those for watching movies, those for gaming, those for uploads/downloads etc. So advanced and it was really cheap too! The Windows operating system was in Chinese characters though which made it a bit difficult. I tried to change the settings in Control Panel but got a bit lost so managed without.

The internet was really fast, even so 2 hours sped by and it hit evening time, time for dinner. We opted out of a group dinner, and decided to head down town to explore. The city was big and well-developed, with lots of neon lights and bright city stores, the locals all dressed up and ready to party.

We ate in an open food market, where they give you a 'hot pot' with a fish in it hidden amongst the vegetables, cooking on hot coals on your table. They also had loads of stalls of fresh fruit, vegetables and various meats, on skewers which they fry or barbeque (after coating in chilli sauce) and bring to your table. There wasn't a great deal of choice being vegetarian (in terms of getting a wholesome meal). I had a cake from the bakery and a chilli corn on the cob for dinner.

We walked around the main street after dinner, just taking a look around. We went into an upmarket bar which was mentioned in Lonely Planet and our local tour group guide. We weren't really dressed up for a night out, and soon left when they told us they had a minimum charge, having gone in and sat down amongst the dressy boys and girls feeling slightly out of place.

On the way home we stopped in an open air bar/restaurant place, and had a quick drink and a game of cards before reaching the hotel.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1156977360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1156977360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1156977360/tpod.html Tue, 26 Sep 2006 09:17:09 -0400 Trail of the Dragon

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Lang Son, Vietnam

We left Cat Ba island on a private, old-style wooden boat on the other side of the island to take a cruise around Halong Bay. It was beautiful. There were many limestone rock formations arising from the sea, turning the water around them green. The sea was calm and the sun was out, we were lucky with the weather as a storm had passed by overnight to leave clear blue skies.

We sailed for a couple of hours through the bay, absorbing the beauty around us. We stopped at a secluded beach while the others had a swim in the sea. Then the boat crew had prepared us a seafood lunch which we enjoyed while sailing on to the port town Bai Chi. A minibus awaited to take us on a 4-hour journey to Lang Son, a border town next to China.

We stopped on the way at a Humanities Centre, where disabled people are sponsored to make handicrafts which are then sold, all profits going directly to the people. The goods were well made and pretty, though a bit on the pricy side for cheapo backpackers like us.

We arrived in Lang Son in the early evening, expecting to find a ghost-like town similar to Lak Sao, but it turned out to be quite a developed, busy town. We ate at a local restaurant and went to a nearby open-air bar afterwards, where we soon grew tired of the strange music videos playing on the big screen, and randomly Charlie Chaplin and weird birthday songs.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1156818060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1156818060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1156818060/tpod.html Tue, 26 Sep 2006 08:43:56 -0400 Trail of the Dragon

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Halong Bay, Vietnam

We had an early start to leave Hanoi and head for Halong Bay, where we were going to stay on Cat Ba island. The bus ride was uneventful to the pier; we stopped on the way at a supermarket in a half-finished mall in the middle of nowhere. There were one or two empty shops on the ground floor, with a large supermarket on the first floor. You weren't allowed in with your bag, and had to store it in a locker before entering.

It was surreal, there were many aisles full of organised, packaged food, but no people around shopping! Very strange. We quickly bought some snacks for the journey ahead, and left pronto.

At lunchtime we arrived at Hai Phong to catch the ferry to Cat Ba island. It wasn't the (relatively) luxury travel we were used to. It was a public boat, with no allocated seating and rows of cramped seats with the locals laying down all over the place. It was initially a struggle to find a seat, especially with all our backpacks and luggage with us. Not quite the comfort travel we'd been used to!

A woman at the front made some room for me to sit down, and moved her two small children out of the way to make room. That was kind of her, although the kids were jumping around next to me for quite a while. I thought, 'Great, pesky kids' but they soon settled down. It wasn't clean or comfortable, the annoying thing was that we had 3-4 hours to look forward to on the boat.

I went up to the front deck for a bit, but it wasn't great, so I went back to my seat and tried to drown out the reality by listening to my Ipod. It worked.

A little old Vietnamese lady came and sat next to me just before we had departed, she offered me some of her bread which was sweet of her. I declined, and she muttered something to her neighbour which was probably negative, but I guess I'll never know what she said. There was also a very cute puppy, probably no bigger than my hand, being looked after by the woman who first welcomed me and her two children. It couldn't walk properly, and occasionally made attempts to bark but failed. It was quite cute when they put it in a yellow plastic bag and carried it off the boat, although I'm sure there are some animal cruelty issues there.

As the ride got bumpier, I had another look outside. Sea! I quickly went outside; the view from the boat was lovely as we hit the bay, the ocean a beautiful green colour with limestone mountains in the distance. The sun was slowly coming down, and the water glistened behind us with small fishing boats and islands just visible in the distance.

Cat Ba island was very pretty, and there were many colourful boats in the harbour as we arrived. The main street looked pretty deserted on the waterfront, full of restaurants and bars, and a few massage parlours which were empty. It felt like we were in a ghost tourist resort, as there were so few people around. Turns out the high season had just finished.

We spent the afternoon on a nearby beach with the locals, and had a nice meal at a restaurant-bar place called Noble Place overlooking the harbour. It was all pretty chilled out after hectic Hanoi.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1156704360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1156704360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1156704360/tpod.html Tue, 26 Sep 2006 08:41:03 -0400 Trail of the Dragon

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Hanoi, Vietnam

We decided to visit the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh today, and got to an early start as apparently it shuts at 10.30. We said goodbye to a couple of our group members, as our trip consists of two tours, and the first half finished today. We got a cab to the mausoleum wherein the preserved body of the late president Ho Chi Minh lies.

We were pretty shocked to find a queue stretching from the Mausoleum to outside the compound and round the block. Probably 2 hours waiting time. So we were in two minds about carrying on, most of the people in the queue were locals, and there were several guards directing the queue along the way.

I saw a couple of Caucasian people join the queue half-way, and wondered why they had been let in. So I thought may be there was a separate place for tourists to get in. So we went up to the guard who asked us where we were from, to which I replied "London". And we were let in immediately! Then, just to be a little more cheeky, we jumped the queue further on as we were genuinely looking for a couple of the group who had left the hotel earlier and been standing in line for some time, so we tagged along to them. You have to be a bit pushy here.

We had to hand in our bags and cameras and phones, and it was all a bit push and shove. The guards were very serious. When we got inside the Mausoleum I got told off for talking, and for having my hand in my pocket. You then file in to the centre of the mausoleum, which has the body of Uncle Ho in a glass coffin, surrounded by some dark red petals, and a dim red light. Four soldiers guarded his body. We were ushered through quite quickly. People probably queued for about 2 hours for a 30-second experience. But the local people here seemed to take it quite seriously, he obviously was very highly respected here.

We made our way back to where we had dropped off our cameras and bags eventually, after walking a roundabout route and being told off a few times for walking the wrong way. It was a hot and humid day which made us tired, but it was a nice change to have no rain.

We went for a quick drink after the mausoleum experience to refresh ourselves and make a plan for the rest of the day. Angeline got mistaken again for a Vietnamese local! We took a cab to a place called Little Hanoi for lunch, quite a small but busy French-style cafe, with nice food in the Old Quarter.

We wandered around for a while afterwards, but the shopping wasn't very captivating so we soon left for the hotel to have a break. I had a sleep in the afternoon as I was knackered, probably the influence of the heat, and the concentration required to cross the road!

In the evening, we met the new group to start the second part of the tour. Except there weren't any new group members, just myself and Angeline, and a couple of people from our original group. We were a bit apprehensive at starting the next two weeks with so few people, as we had got used to the old group all having a laugh together.

We went for a Chinese meal at a place called the IndoChina restaurant, the atmosphere was solemn I felt, as we slowly got used to our new leader. After dinner, we went to a glum, quiet bar for a drink, befitting our mood, with a pianist playing soft music in the background.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1155782940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1155782940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1155782940/tpod.html Tue, 26 Sep 2006 08:37:54 -0400 Trail of the Dragon

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Chiang Khong, Thailand

We left early today to travel to the border town of Chiang Khong. We took two minivans and the whole journey was approximately 7 hours. We had regular breaks along the way. First was a pitstop for refreshments, we came across a shop selling a variety of packaged nuts in the middle of nowhere! How random!

We then stopped an hour later at a white temple which is being constructed by a Thai man and funded by himself. He is painting all of the murals by himself. There were some strange pictures and figurines in and around the temple, quite bizarre really. We had lunch near the temple and and continued our journey - I tried an omelette this time which was a nice change!

Last stop was the hilltribe museum which was about the 6 various tribes that inhabit the northern Thai mountainsides.

We arrived in Chiang Khong in the late afternoon. We stayed in a traditional wooden guest house with beautiful views over the river Mekong looking across to Laos. We wandered along the main street where there were a few scattered shops and food stalls, but in general it was a really quiet town. After dinner we got caught in another rain storm on the way home, a fine way to end a day of mainly travelling.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1155696600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1155696600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1155696600/tpod.html Tue, 26 Sep 2006 08:32:21 -0400 Trail of the Dragon

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Chiang Mai, Thailand

This morning I awoke on the train and opened the cabin curtains to a beautiful scene. It was like it was out of the film Apocalypse Now; a carpet of lush green mountainous jungle, a misty haze of cloud over the tops of the trees, and the beaming sun occasionally breaking through the overcast sky like a bright lighthouse in the distance - just wonderful.

The train ride was 13 hours overnight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, I didn't get a great night's sleep but it was fairly comfortable. Chiang Mai is almost like a smaller version of Bangkok - developed, clean but less busy. It is also situated against the backdrop of the jungle and mountains not too far away, so it's quite special. We disembarked at Chiang Mai station and went to a random hotel for breakfast before dumping our stuff at our actual guest house (People Place).

We took a minivan up along the mountainside, where we decided to try an elephant ride which was fantastic. Our elephant was called Caffan, she was 24 years old and a bit crazy! Angeline decided to feed her sugar cane on the trek - I think she had a sugar rush and started climbing the mountain sides and literally jogging along the steep cliff side - then she got a bit moody and wanted more sugar cane ... she was quite cute really.

Some of the guys decided to proceed after that with bamboo rafting, glad I didn't go as I'm not a strong swimmer (if at all), and Angeline fell in! I didn't see it, but I'm sure it would've been a classic. The rest of us went to the end point of the rafting to wait for the others. It was peaceful as we sat in a 'bamboo' shelter and rested.

We went to a local market for lunch. It was an open plan market with many stalls of various cooked foods and also raw fruit and vegetables. I didn't have any lunch as it was too hot to eat; that, and much of the food seemed weird and composed of various bits of different animals and insects, either intentionally or otherwise.

We returned to our guesthouse for a pit stop and shower, and then left late afternoon to see the monks pray up in the mountain temple which is 600 years old. We climbed 108 steps to the temple to see the daily 6pm monk ceremony. We were rewarded with a fantastic view over the city, really spectacular as the sun gradually set.

We arrived back in the main town for a group dinner in Chiang Mai night market which was open plan and very busy. Soon after finishing, it began pouring down with rain, washing away our shopping spree plans. We thought we'd persist anyway, and tried to go to a few clothes stalls, but got pretty soaked as the rain was torrential, and the puddles large. So we called it a night.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1158004440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1158004440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/j3ssie/far_east_2006/1158004440/tpod.html Tue, 26 Sep 2006 08:00:59 -0400 Trail of the Dragon

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London, United Kingdom

After a long weary journey, I reached home. Back in London. And while I had been keen to stop travelling as it was getting tiring, as soon as we landed I wanted to go back and roam the rest of Asia. The dull, grey streets of London just don't compare to the vibrancy of South-East Asia, the charming people, the nature and the beautiful scenery.

Four weeks across four countries. Although the food side was difficult at times (being vegetarian and fussy), I loved the whole experience, and already miss the colours and culture, and the interesting people I encountered.
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