TravelStream™ news feed for member ladi_tom on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/ladi_tom en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:16:20 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227492180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227492180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227492180/tpod.html Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:16:20 -0500 South East Asia and China - there and back again, by Ladi and Tom

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Beijing, China

So there i was already in my last stop, the capital and current financial hub of the world. Beijing. Big, Bold and different to anythign i had seen so far. with so much to see and only 4 days it was gona be a squeeze!
so starting off i arrived,dumped my bags and met a pissed off italian who had, had all of his camera equipment stolen only the day before, (2000 euros worth to be precise!). so what better way to get over it than the infamous forbidden city. now even tho it was now a weekend ti was not a public holiday but you could be forgiven for thinking it was. trying to walk through the massive crowds of elderly Chinese people in groups with there lil red caps on following a flag was like a salmon swimming upstream! despite the place being vast. now it is damn impressive, an awesome piece of chinese architecture and you really get the feeling that this really was for the most important people of China. but after a couple hours or so you do feel it is a bit samey and you get a bit fo the 'temple' syndrome where every new building looks just the same as the last, so off we went to the Red square. apparently the biggest public square on earth but some reason smaller than i imagined, however the grand scale of the buildings and importance was nothing short of what i expected. having a bit of a wonder around beijing i set on doing the Summer palace the next day.

a bad start of 2 buses the wrong way didnt help to the 2 hour bus journey that it would originally have taken and higlights how serious traffic is in Beijing, to think it is this bad now makes you cringe as to how bad it will be in 50 years. put it this way, there is 3million vehicles in Beijing, and an extra 1000 cars being added every DAY!!!
the Summer Garden itself is really quite quaint and has pretty much the same numbers of tourists as the Forbidden city. expcept for on the high parts which deters most Chinese (they never will walk far if they dont have to!) it really is a full day effort but it confrimed that the tube was the definite means of transport afterwards.
so whipping out the tube maps we set off to see the olympic village as it was getting dark, to see it in both daylight and night time where it would be lit up. ...now this was built under a lot of controversy and apperently 50,000 people were rehoused/kicked out for it to be built, and man can you believe it! there is a massive area of just random park, statues and roads which all seem a little bit wasted, and considering that some of it was already in need of repair it makes you think what is this going to be used for in the future??? still it didnt make the stadiums any less impressive and they were even better at night. London is going to have to do something pretty novel to keep face as there is no way it can compete against it!!
anyways that night we had to sample some infamous Beijing food, and what better than Peking Duck! further showing us just how crap english food is!


So 3rd was my other highlight of my travels, the GREAT WALL!! with an early start and some 8km of hiking to be done it was every bit as impressive as i expected and more, much more. getting passed the rebuilt part of the wall, that is mainly used for tourists who do not want to walk far (mainly chinese, im not joking!) you really get a sense of how epic and ludicrous this wall is. 6400km long in all and goes through some crazy terrain such as insanely high and steep mountain tops, millions died building it and after all that they had to provide the manpower to guard it, but all in vain as it was constantly breached or guards were bribed. still makes for a bloody good walk though! i would love to walk the wall again, as it is truely a wonder of the world.something i think the pictures cant portrait well enough.

so last day travelling, what else to do but load up my bag with 'authentic replicas' and see the almighty cctv building, seeming to defy gravity in a daring new design of bulding.finally i made time to visit a park one last time to see the Chinese at their best, leisurely enjoying each others company in simple pleasures such as song, chess, dance or conversation. something that is seriously lacking back home.

so that was it travelling finished.6 countries, 1000's km, 300+ eat out meals, a couple of taxi fights and 3 empty bank accounts! loved it so much im off again in a couple years, but for longer and to new places. i dont regret much, if anything. and given the choice would love to visit China and Laos again, though China has the most appeal due to its shear scale and varying culutre.


Thanks for reading :)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227490140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227490140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227490140/tpod.html Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:56:52 -0500 South East Asia and China - there and back again, by Ladi and Tom

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Xi'an, Shaanxi, China

so i had moved on from Chengdu, Sichuan, a province i enjoyed as much as Yunnan and they were both my favourites. so i arrived in Xi'an after another night train, and man was it didfferent, freaking cold and even wetter! bearing in mind i onyl ever had shorts the whole time i travelled i was starting to feel the down side of keeping my bags light! still i made the most of it and settled in and randomly bumped into a familair ozzy face, which was welcomed and enjoyed another decent hostel with a good bunch of people in. so the first day was struck off by the weather, but the next day i tackled the ancient city walls which take about 100 min steady bike ride around, v.big and v cool and is a good way to tsee the city tho the remaining architecture is few and far between. having said that the most interesting part is the muslim quarter which serves up some pretty awsome cheap food, and dirt cheap 'replica' goods like North face. which is near impossible to resist :). the city has a much better feel to it than most of the big skyscraper laden cities of the East but this didnt make the numbers of people any less, and man was it hard to get on (or off) a bus! bearing in mind that i couldnt be anywhere near standing upright on the downstairs parts of the buses! so journeys weren't all that fun!!!

be almost obliged to go see the terracta warriors i did so and was wondering why some were saying the were disappointed. if you want sheer visual grandeur and awe, then you are looking in the wrong place but if you can appreciate what was done at the time it was built, and the circumstances it was found its pretty amazing. especially considering there is still more being found and dug up.

Xi'an is worth a look if you are nearby and i would say if your not too ignorant you will appreciate the pilgrimage to the Terractoa warriors.Anyways, a night out here and there and some further mulling around meant it was time for my last stop. Beijing.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227408180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227408180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227408180/tpod.html Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:28:31 -0500 South East Asia and China - there and back again, by Ladi and Tom

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Leshan, Sichuan, China

heading off with a Bristonian to Leshan we set off to see the world biggest seated Buddha, 72 metres tall, carved out of the mountain after on emans passion turned into an obsession and was eventually finished after he died by the towns folk! Leshan is tiny enough but busy because of this tourist attraction and it doenst fail to impress. apprently ques during the just passed chinese holiday were 3 hours long but for us it was only 20mins so we were able to get our tourist photos without too many people in the frame! it really is HUGE and how it is not the biggest buddha in the world i have no idea! surrounded by some quaint little temples and things we headed off to the base of
Mt. Emei Shan.

tempted by staying at the middle of the mountain we were soon put off once we heard the prices and so opted to stick round at the bottom and get the early 5.30 am bus up to the top. a good choice as the mountain was almost completely covered in fog! unfortunately we missed the sunrise but then it was something you could only see if you shelled out the £400 or so to stay right at the top on the only 5 star hotel. still, it didnt matter as the top of the mountain was bloody awesome! coming out of the fog on a cable car you are suddenly hit by sunlight and the fog below is an entire blanket of cloud, which makes it feel like a different world all together. having not seen much blue sky, let alone absolutley clear blue sky this was really welcomed depsite it being only few degrees, hence the extra stares as i wore shorts! the entire mountain is covered in Buddhist temples and maintains some of the prettiest in China, more so at the top where there is a giant golden statue of 4 elephants. add to thsi the couple of peaks in the distance that poke through the cloud and seem totally unconnected but each with a single Buddhist temple makes an ever better photo opportunity!

Emei shan is truely stunning and maybe we were lucky with the weather in terms of the view at the top, as it makes it feel almost sterotypically heavenly with the blanket of cloud and blue skies! further down the mountain we wondered round taking in the blend of woodland and architecture and unfortunatley tourist stalls every 10 feet along with the occasional violent, and frisky monkeys. grose little things!

so another great experience that makes me love China even more, and the food was still bloody good too, tho a lot spicer in this province! that said i was off to Xi'an, the ancient capital.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227405420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227405420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227405420/tpod.html Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:27:51 -0500 South East Asia and China - there and back again, by Ladi and Tom

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Chengdu, Sichuan, China

leaving the ozzy guys for my flight to Chengdu i was alone for only the duration of the flight before meeting a couple more ozzy guys who also turned out to be good travel buddys for a few more days! who also spoke mandarin, or enough at least, so things were just going strength to strength!.
settling into what turned out to be my favourite hostel in terms of all round amazing-ness 'sims' hostel was a haven in which to see the rest of the Chinese holiday out. it is a big hostel, brand new and had everyhting you could want plus a great bunch of other people that i met.

so first day i started with some much needed horizontal chilling and loafing around to recover from the gorge, followed by a night out at the entertaining Chinese opera, (not as it sounds) then straight onto the night clubs, a first for me in China.straight away you realise how different China is in the clubs.for one thing it takes 10 mins to get a beer at the bar, which actually gets delivered from out the back but this is because the chinese ttend to grab a seat and several bottles of spirits between a big group and stay there! although not the biggest drinkers ever there kindness even when drunk is in abundance and many of them were inviting us to drink with them and play a dice game (like english spoof) despite not being able to communicate a word between each other! even with some suprisingly good dance music they still managed to squeeze in their beloved karaoke with professional singers every few songs, most of which have the odd english word or phrase such as 'IIIIIII LLLLLLOOOOOOOOVVEEEE YOOOOOOOOOOU!' which is something we can all join in on :)
that said some of the Chinese there almost dont know how to embrace it, looking like they dont know what they should be doing but a few dice and sharing of drinks soon sorts that out!

with a suprisingly hangover free morning many thanks to green tea and whiskey, i still managed to miss my panda reaserch base tour, so that was rescheduled and a bike trip was had around Chengdu. myself and a kiwi visited the Cities park and were the only western people amongst many 1000's of Chinese and all the while laughing at Chinglish (Chinese-English) signs and gettin repeatedly lost!
so the next day i woke up on time to see the pandas and i wasnt disappointed, we caught them v.early at feeding time which is the only time they arent sleeping apparently. they are just the cutest darn things you are ever likely to see and when i saw 5 babies snuggled up in a crib together it makes you wana grab one and make a runner! still they offer to let you have a photo taken with an adult for the extremely steep price of £30 and £100 to hold an infant panda (tho this was not an option that day) and i was tempted but was soon put off when i saw the crowds queing up to take their turn!

the red pandas are up against winning hearts as they are positioned after the giant panda baby enclosure so they dont get the attention they deserve, with some looking at them in disgust as they showed their teeth, which is quite funny!

with that under my belt, i looked to travel south for a two day tipr to Leshan to the giant Buddha and to MT. Emei Shan.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227403020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227403020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227403020/tpod.html Sat, 22 Nov 2008 22:57:27 -0500 South East Asia and China - there and back again, by Ladi and Tom

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tiger leaping gorge, Yunnan, China

A major highlight of the entire time travelling for me. one of the deepest gorges in the world, and relatively untouched, despite plans to flood the enitre thing in order to build another three gorges size dam, an absolute travesty if it ever were to go ahead but luckliy it has been shelved, for the time being at least.it gets its name as apprently the gorge is so close in places that a tiger allegedly once jumped across it to escape hunters........having been there i think this must be amajor case of chinese whispers on someone was on some serious Yuanan marijuana! you could fly a fleet of 747's down it without much trouble! the walk is ment for 2-3 days of trekking and due to the time restrictions we were on we decided to gun for two days, now still being the Chinese holiday we had a late start thanks to some major faffing around by the bus drivers, traffic and some familiar toilet stops in places where crappy souvenirs are sold in abundance!

however once you start the walk you know you are in for something special, throughout the entire first day the walk just builds up to an incredible, and i mean incredible visual experience, troubled only by the faint sound of the far below river crashing on through the gorge. within the first hour the natuaral born couch potatoes started straggling behind with a huff and a puff whilst we marched ever wide eyed as we got further up and further on. not having had a place booked, and some crazy australian woman telling us everywhere is booked and it was mental to go up there (apparently she lives ther and says it to everyone!) we carried on anyways. i think its the sheer scale of the mountains that are the most impressive, on the opposite side of the gorge the sheer drop cliff faces are adorned with 100ft waterfalls and occasionally hidden by rolling clouds and then forever echoing sound of a thunder clap. we trecked all up hill for 6 hours or so and didnt end up using donkeys unlike most of the chinese that did decide to walk it, and were ment with an incredibly strong smell of marijuana. now Dali had its fair share but its is surreal to come into the poulations of say several houses with 7ft tall marijuana plants growing everywhere! this was to be our home for the night and what i would say as just too good to be true (not because of the marijuana parents!). the view from this place was just something you cant portrait well enough in words and even with a mass of backpackers there it made most sit and stare in silent awe. thats no lie. that said of few were attempting to smoke the surrounding marijuana but these were people there for all the wrong reasons.

with a tight schedule ahead of us (flights and trains to catch) we got up at first light and were the first to set off on our way. this was rather pleasant not to see anyone except for the occasional goat hearder who you know has walked these paths everyday for many years,making you feel a bit humbled and not daring to moan about blisters!
having heard from others that we could reach a far town after the end of the trail with another two hours brisk pace we soon learned this turned out to be not so true. and despite walking on roads and walking on some serious blisters (thanks to the downhill of the second day) we found ourselves 2 hours away from the last bus in the town that was all too small in the distance! finally after flagging down a car and some bartering we got a lift as close as we could get to the town. although this helped we were still a good hour trek from the town, with a boat trip across a rvier. with only mins to spare we managed to get there and the bus came and picked us up.(thanks to our handy mandarin speaking ozzy!)
a bloody great rush and majopr attack on the feet that had not been in shoes for 4 months but was all the while well worth it, the part that we did treck on through was also beautiful in its own right as the gorge slowly opened up to massive open sweeping grassland that is all very Tibet-ish! this was something i felt most of the tourists missed out on but who was i to complain!

welcoming sitting down i flew onto Chengdu, avoiding 32 hours of buses and trains aaaaahh with an hour flight, aaaaaaaaaah!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227401700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227401700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1227401700/tpod.html Sat, 22 Nov 2008 22:40:57 -0500 South East Asia and China - there and back again, by Ladi and Tom

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Kunming, Yunnan, China

i know i have been back home for month or so now but if i never finish this blog now then i never will!

so on from the insanely beautiful Yangshou i moved onto Kunming, as a stop off for the looooong journey to the much more smaller and remote Dali. metting up with a couple of ozzy guys we spent only half a day in Kunming and although it is a major city of the south west its still just seemed like a big dirty city to me, so onward to Dali.

luckily for me one the ozzy guys had been living in China for 3 years so it was like having a free guide, cant complain cos it made me relax a bit more, so after a nights train journey we rocked up in mountain/valley town of Dali, an awesome sight as the town is backed by the massive forest covered mountains and spread with almost endless rows of fields to a large lake. Dali is renowned for being a bit of a backpacker haven and there seemed to be one major reason why, marijuana! Yunnan is the only province in China where it is legal to grow it, but only for medicinal purposes, the thing is China is a big place and Westerners do love their weed so you kind of got this chilled out, stoner vibe from the backpackers there. luckily this doesnt make it seem too touristy and meant that i was able to enjoy the stunning countryside (by bike) and try the truely delicious Yunnan food, which was actually my favourite in the whole of China.
you almost feel guilty having so much awesome food for so little money without being able to tip (its offensive) but you soon forget it and order more!
although it is a popular destination many expats have set up here and now call it home, mainly starting up restaurants or hostels which makes it easy to find a place even in the middle of the Chinese holiday! which was much to our relief as we didnt have anywhere booked and were told repeatedly we would not find somewhere, just goes to show ignorance is bliss! with a saddle sore ass, we moved on up to Lijiang, as we prepared for the tiger leaping gorge trek.

Lijiang is a strange place, once again beautiful, simialr to Dali buit with an old quarter which has some stunning architecture and streets but it is, and in true Chinese fashion completely ruined at night by clubs and bars pounding out, and i mean pounding music in a despreate attempt to draw in customers! club music will compete with acoustic sets side by side and they all seem to play at the loudest allowable volume. top this off with the biggest number of tourists for the year at that point and it just seems crazy. think of it as christmas shopping x 5 and that the idea you get of the number of people! Lijiang is one of Chinas most popular places to visit so it was no suprise to see it like this. i would like to go back at a quieter period but it was more of stop off before our trip to the Tiger leaping gorge the next day. bring it on!!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1224641520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1224641520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1224641520/tpod.html Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:47:13 -0400 South East Asia and China - there and back again, by Ladi and Tom

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Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang, China

having had such a poor start i was glad to turn up at Guilin in the wee hours of the morning to find a hostel that finally had some people i could talk to! luckily for me i met a great bunch of folks from here on out through China and Guilin was really the first time i started really enjoying it and taking in the culuture (and food in large amounts!)

Guilin was a welcome break fro, the previous intimidating mega cities and was blessed with some pretty awsome surrounding scenery. both the li river karsk mountains south and the rice terraces north, besdies the various lakes and rock formations within the city. so first stop was to see the rice terraces, home to the Longsheng people where long hair and bum pinching seems to be all the rage with the women!....actually its tradition which made it even more of a contrast to the rest of China. the rice terraces were a beautiful site to behold despite the expected mass of chinese tourists, some who employed the services of men to carry them up the slopes like some sort of adonis! (its a tough job and the charge by the kilo!) that is one funny thing about the chinese, is that the poor and mostly the elderly seem to be fit, even super fit at times yet the slightly younger chinese who have chance to enjoy the recent changes in China seem to be the complete opposite and jump at the chance to save energy. wheethr its driving right up to the front door of a club and parking your car, using an electric buggy to get around sub-urban parks, or buliding escalators on the outside of builidings for 20 steps there seems to be a big difference!
so anyway there i was in the rice terraces, about to watch a performance by the local long haired girls, not yet married so not allowed to show off their hair. and the request for 2 english speaking guys to go on stage was announced, being 1 of only 2 english speaking guys i had to oblige and soon found myself in a mock marriage of the Longsheng people! to start off i had to choose a wife, not wanting to offend those i didnt choose, i picked the smallest for comical value and was then dressed up accordingly. the ceremony was then started an i had to unveil my 'wife' dance around a bit and unfortunately sing a love song to her in front of the crowd of 50 odd people (they manage to get karaoke in everywhere!). now i hate singing, i mean hate it and so when i forced to do this the only song i could think of in my panicky state was probably not too appropriate.....luckily most of the chinese tourists could not understand english so were not offended my Marvin Gayes, 'lets get it on' but didnt it make me any less embarassed!!...so the ceremony was finished off with some rice wine drinking and the girl jumping on my back for some reason. all the while i was having my ass constantly pinched by the girls behind (its polite apparently) which just added up be to one random and unexpected experience!!!

phew, sorry ladi!

having broken two alarm clocks already i managed to miss my Li River cruise to Yangshou a small town), apparently a highlight of China and voted one of the 10 ten most beautiful places in the world by MSN recently....however this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. arriving in Yangshou by bus i put by bags down and headed off cycling around frantically around the surrounding rivers and countryside. having being recommended a bamboo raft trip on the river next to Yangshou that was smaller and quieter than the Li River i set off for it later most. an hours hard cycling and i was at the start of a stunning little village, where small bamboo rafts journey were sold, right smack bang in the karsk scenery. luckily for me it was 5pm and i was the only person on the river and managed to have the entire hour and a half river cruise undisturbed, alone and totally silent. my trusty bamboo boat man slowly worked us down the river in the most stunning and relaxing moment of my life, seriously. i think the pictures speak for themselves and make me feel lucky that i missed my intial Li river cruise that is filled with bamboo and diesel engined boats and was a major complaint of everyone i spoke to.

with that under my belt, i headed back and got ready for a cooking course the next day. like the thai cooking course i did it started with a trip to the market, but this one was different......aside from the usual meats there was the delicous option of dog, two dogs...well actually one and a half, its a bit surreal to see that especially when they still look like they are running!....deciding not to grab myself a leg of dog i did the cooking course in the stunning karsk surroundings and was amazed to find how simple and delicous it was to make (like the thai food). with a full stomach and a complete opinion reversal of China i moved onto Kunming!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1221541620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1221541620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1221541620/tpod.html Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:34:17 -0400 South East Asia and China - there and back again, by Ladi and Tom

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Bangkok, Thailand

leaving the delights of Laos we were soon heading off to thailand's capital, Bangkok. the world famous city of sin!

upon arrival we headed straight for Koh Sahn road, the centre of backpackers and sex tourists! obviously we were only there as backpackers but straight away it is apparent how big the sex industry is in these parts. everywhere you look you have the nauseating sight of old western men (and a lot young too) having silent dinners and unromantic shopping sprees which you know the girls have done a hundred times before. its incredible that despite being such a busy area that the sex tourists seem to show no shame or embarassment whatsoever! the street and surrounding area is electric with activity and you can prety much buy anything from t-shirts, to degrees and police i.d's!!!

one thing u notice with the 'trans-genders' is that lot of it is not related to the sex industry and is a life choice for a lot of people. everywhere you go you get served by ladyboys working in resteraunts, banks, shops and thailand is th first naton to have transgender toilets built in schools.

so after a few hours getting settled we headed of to the Chatuchak weekend market which is host to no less than 9000 stalls sellin all sorts. we ended up spending 5 hours wondering these stalls much to toms dissapproval :) , but soon found that even that wasn't enough time to see it all (had to return before ladi's departure!). unlike the stalls of vietnam there was almost something new at every one so u soon find yourself having the luxury of being shopped to exhaustion. however you could always find time for the animal section which had ltierally 100's of puppies kittens and squirrels on leashes?! some of which were dressed up minature outfits but it does make you wonder what happens to the ones that dont get sold (120,000 stray dogs in Bangkok alone).


that done with we headed over to one of Bangkoks massive shopping malls (yes more shopping) and gawped at the top of the range electronics and lambourghini's (yes they have a deallership inside!) only to go and chill out with a movie in the 20 screen cinema and imax on top.

the next day we decided that we had to get our tourist trek on and see the other delights of Bangkok, mainly the royal bildings and temples. china town turned out to be not much of a sigh but our taxi trip from chin atown to the grand palace turned out to be a lot more of an eye opener! this 5 minute journey ended up being a 40 minute 100mph detour as an extorionist taxi driver (yes another one!) insisted we only had to pay 40 baht but continued till he got the meter up to nearly 200 baht. depsite constant complaints the guy used the language barrier to his advantage but having experienced this before we got wise to it and sussed out an exit strategy once we finally stopped. by popping the doors slightly open we managed to avoid being locked in and walked quickly away form the taxi after only paying 40 baht and was expectedly followed by the driver. now this all happened ouside the grand palace which is the thai equivelant of buckignham palace so nothing much was going to happen but after a shoves from tom (wish they could have been punches!) and some imagniative language on both sides along with a crowd we managed to scare the guy of with threats of the police, (even though the tourist police were on his side!). a small victory for us and he ended up spending more money on bridge tolls than we gave him so slept soundly but all the while it keeps you on ur toes. it is definitely not unheard of so with that behind us we haeded into the grand palace!

the grand palace is grand in every sense of the word and is the most impressive tmeple we had seen. saying that we had preety much had our fill on temples so decided not see anymore during our during our short remaining time in thailand!

with ladi's time nearing an end we headed for the heavenly tropical beaches of koh tao, koh phangan and koh phi phi :)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1222940220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1222940220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1222940220/tpod.html Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:05:55 -0400 South East Asia and China - there and back again, by Ladi and Tom

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Shenzhen, Guangdong, China

So here i was, one swift flight and i was in China, late, and feeling pretty shit. in fact i felt like i could have passed out on the way to the airport and despite taking what medication i could was pretty sure i had caught a water born virus that exists only in the northern Thai rivers (hmmm suspicous!) and had flu like symptoms. what better way to start a new country than to be in a hotel where no one speaks English, is 15km away from the city centre and to have asian flu!

the first 4 days of China were not happy ones, the illness was pretty miserable and meant i was bed bound watching crappy chinese tv which doesn't make sense at all and is interrupted constantly by random advertising and a serious amount of repetition. in fact in some cases the same footage would be shown just after it had been aired so watching 4 sets of table tennis ended up being 7 sets of table tennis! (i later heard from a woman who works for the BBC that only one man controls the output of 21 channels hence the mistakes) still the hilariously, and appropriately named CCTV was all i had for mindless entertainment as i got better. in between this i had numerous knocks at the door with staff wondering why i wasnt leaving my room, who were convinced i knew chinese or at least how to read it so plenty of phrasebook and dictionary action was needed!

it soon became apparent that China was a place where people like to stare, not just look but really STARE like you have an upside down face or soemthing!! i found this out as i went for a walk around the hotel area and was managing to distract entire resteraunts of people from their food to witness the strange white giant that was walking the streets! still having felt a bit better i headed into central Shenzen where i was looking to get a train across to Hong Kong....adding to the bad luck i found out on the border that my visa (although very awkward to get) would not let me back into china if i went to hong kong - gutted! hong kong is part of china but on a different visa, however being british i can get 6 months visa on arrival, but was not allowed back to China??!! - Retarded system i know but meant i was unable to meet a coursemate as planned which just added salt to the wound. admittedly i should have checked before getting my visa but because of the olympics very much doubted i would have got one, and have yet to meet anyone who did get one during the olympics.

i ditched Shenzen rather quickly, as it is just one massive city of skyscrapers, highways, manufacturing and smog and has not much to offer unless you are buying wholesale. so i headed up to Guangzhou and laid my bags in the chepest hotel my guide book could recommend!

Guangzhou was another huge city and you start to get an idea how big China is, especially with the dense population in the cities. but at least had some parks and old temple like buildings to keep me amused. still the area i was in was not foreigner filled at all, in fact i didnt see any fellow travellers at all since i had entered china 4 days ago so it was a rather lonely and not too enjoyable time to start off with. besides being by myself it and not reading or speaking much Chinese i was not encouraged to try out the alienating and rather intimidating chinese canteens and menus so off i went to Guilin.

the Chinese people are very different to the the people of south east asia, and generally stare, speak v.loudly but all the while are still very friendly and seem to manage to create jobs for everything! (shop staff sometimes outnumber the customers by like 2:1!!) having given up trying to learn mandarin, (was a bit late) i got my night train to Guilin.
i met some nice chinese guys on the train the night journey and my time in China started to get better and took a rapid improvement once i reached Guilin!......but thats on the next blog,

PS photos and more will be up soon but some pc's are rather restriciting here and wont lket me download the necessary photo software!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1222938780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1222938780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ladi_tom/1/1222938780/tpod.html Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:36:38 -0400 South East Asia and China - there and back again, by Ladi and Tom

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Ayutthaya, Thailand

rocking up to Ayatthaya after another horrible 'sleeper' bus journey i set my bags down to another chilled out town tho a lot bigger than rather bigger than Chiang Mai but still relatively untouched by Western tourism. having only a couples day i rented bicycles for both of them and saw the that the city had to offer. the city (not dont think high rise buildings) was a stronghold years ago to Mongol invaders because of the multiple water ways that provided a natural barrier. even tho they Thai's eventually lost it to the mongols many of the Wats, and buddhist shrines survived, tho most with their heads cut off (the most holy part). So within the waterways their is an impressive abundance of buddhist buildings to admire as well as some well kept parks and rivers which just make it an oh so peaceful place to chill out and read a book or something, and a good way to end a tour of thailand

after a couple days cycling i was pretty wacked i thought i would take advantage of a legendary Thai massage. Thailands most popular job must be a masseuse, anywhere you go there is numerous parlours offering all sorts from reflexology, to um....full body and beyond, massages. still amongst it all there are some decent massages to be had. having my back twinging i thought it was best to ask the local restaurant owner where the best place was to get a legitimate massage. so after much debate between him and his family he offered to take me to the best massge parlour in town by bike (howe kind!...) unfortunately for me it turned out to be the ONLY massage parlour that actually had a massuer and not a masseuse, who seemed a little bit too keen to give me a massage!! having taken a free ride and the resteraunt already tell him what i wanted i couldnt just walk away or lie my way out of it. so reluctantly i had the massage which although very good was spoilt by advances from the massur who seemed to take a liking to me - shit! after quickly letting him kno that i was happily in a relationship with a GIRL, he got the picture and carried on professionally, phew!.... that over and done with i set off the next morning to Bangkok for one last night before flying to China for my final one month.
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