TravelStream™ news feed for member risint on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/risint en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 26 Feb 2008 01:40:13 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/risint/travelblog-twr/1203752520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/risint/travelblog-twr/1203752520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/risint/travelblog-twr/1203752520/tpod.html Tue, 26 Feb 2008 01:40:13 -0500 One Year - One Big Trip! From South America to NZ/OZ to Malaysia to China in one year.

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Chengdu, China

Having arrived in Chengdu we decided to stay at Sim's Guesthouse which turns out to be great and most imnportantly... warm! Here we organised visiting the Giant Pandas nearby and they were fun to watch. Only a few places other than China have pandas and there are less than 1000 giant pandas in the world today. Apart from China, giant pandas have been loaned to USA, Japan, Thailand and Austria. We read an article which stated that China was being paid USD 1,000,000 for the 2 giant pandas on loan to the USA.The giant padnas we visited today had been bred in captivity and were having breakfast (bamboo) in the morning. We visited them early in the morning for their feeding as this is when they are the most active. Good fun to see and lots of photos were taken.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/risint/travelblog-twr/1203233880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/risint/travelblog-twr/1203233880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/risint/travelblog-twr/1203233880/tpod.html Sat, 23 Feb 2008 07:27:17 -0500 One Year - One Big Trip! From South America to NZ/OZ to Malaysia to China in one year.

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Lijiang, China

A little mention of Lijiang. Nice little town with an array of streams and wells passing through the cobbled streets. Apart from just wandering through the endless streets of the old town, we visited the famous Tiger Leaping (some say Jumping) Gorge for a one-day trek. This was great to do, although quite tiring on the way up from the gorge... a few steep ladders were good short-cuts but it wasn't wise to look down when on the ladder itself, especially as a few of the joints seemed a bit creaky! Great trek on the whole with a lot of photos (to be added) and rest-stops along the way. The other place we ventured to was the Black Dragon Pools a little walk from the old town where the water reflected the temples, bridges and snow-capped mountains surrounding the pool. Very picturesque.What Lijiang is also famous for is the Naxi minority tribe where they have many different customs and a language of hieroglyphs... I believe it's the oldest hieroglyph language still in practice. The Naxi priests (the Dongba) used this special language (now called Dongba) which looked like a derivative of Sanskrit and Chinese... couldn't quite recognise all the letters though!Probably the most amusing adventures around town were the trip to the temple overlooking the old town where out fortunes were read: apparently I'll live to 82, have 20 years of good luck from 2010-2030 (meanwhile 2008 and 2009 will be unlucky years!) have one wife and two sons. Great! After this fortune telling and a lot of bell ringing we both got buddha bracelets and a good-luck cloth for a car! An strange but nice experience. Also, we met the famous Dr Ho who is world famous for being a herbal healer/doctor and appeared in the Michael Palin "Himalayas" book. At 81 yrs old it seems there is proof that his herbs are good and he showed us numerous emails spanning the world ordering his special herbs for rhumatism to cancer... seems impressive that a lot of people have been treated successfully by him. Anyway, after getting a ssample of his "healthy tea" we left feeling pleased to have met the good doctor Ho.Well, it's off to Chengdu next where the Pandas are waiting for us...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/risint/travelblog-twr/1200296640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/risint/travelblog-twr/1200296640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/risint/travelblog-twr/1200296640/tpod.html Fri, 18 Jan 2008 03:37:12 -0500 One Year - One Big Trip! From South America to NZ/OZ to Malaysia to China in one year.

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Nha Trang, Vietnam

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Hoi An, Vietnam

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Mui Ne, Vietnam

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]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/risint/travelblog-twr/1198822740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/risint/travelblog-twr/1198822740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/risint/travelblog-twr/1198822740/tpod.html Thu, 03 Jan 2008 02:23:28 -0500 One Year - One Big Trip! From South America to NZ/OZ to Malaysia to China in one year.

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Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Hello, here are some photos from Phnom Penh!T.
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Siem Reap, Cambodia

So, we made it to Cambodia just in time for Christmas!Having left Bangkok at 8:30am by bus we arrived into Siem Reap at 7pm having travelled by bus, foot and taxi. A bumpy ride all round! It was so bumpy that when we got off the taxi at the hostel I had to rest for a few hours as my head was spinning around due to car-sickness... luckily I survived it though!Well, the next day (today) we did the Angkor Temples tour and were taken around a few temples and then watched the sun set over Angkor Wat. Fantastic and excited about the next two days ahead. Definitely the strangest Christmas Eve ever!However, tomorrow (Christmas Day) will be stranger still as I'll be waking up at 5am (a first on Christmas Day!) ready for the sunrise over Angkor followed by another mammoth temple trekking across Siem Reap.Signing off today and will write more and upload photos tomorrow..!! :-)............................................................ ...
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Trang, Thailand

Dear All, From Langkawi we got the boat to Satun (Thailand), and got the bus to Trang where we stayed for a few days before heading up to Krabi.T.PS: Sorry for lack of info here, as I've been a bit lazy writing the blog recently. Hope to improve this in the future! :-)
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Langkawi, Malaysia

Dear All, We went to Langkawi for a few days and enjoyed this tranquil island on route to Thailand.:-)
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Penang, Malaysia

So, we arrived in the bus station and got picked up by our host Rosalind and her flat-mate Kim Su and got driven straight to the flat where our room was all prepared for us. It was so nice and comfortable there we ended up staying for nearly a full week and were very kindly driven around Penang to the sights.The sights that spring to mind were the night markets (where we had 2 great guides to take us through the local cuisine) and the fruit farm (amazingly strage fruits!), the butterfly farm (never seen so many huge butterflies flying around... and so many just land on you!), spice plantation (great place but the mosquitos had a super feast on all 4 of us!), snake temple (under renovation but still a few poisonous dazed snakes lying around!), penang hill (stunning view over Penang and the cable car journey was an experience), dim-sum breakfast (Kim Su was the star here as she helped choose all the best dishes) an many many more things.The best thing about staying with Rosalind and Kim Su was that could take us to the local eateries and places where we would not have known to go on our own. On a few days we ventured into the main part of Penang called Georgetown ourselves and visited the Cheung Fatt Tze mansion (www.cheongfatttzemansion.com) and the Penang museum. Both great places to visit and the historic house was probably the most exciting.... although we didn't see the ghost! Also, we got the necessary Thai tourist visa for 60-days from the Thai embassy in Georgetown. Penang was good fun and after about 6 days we decided to head on to the island of Langkawi before crossing the border into Thailand.PS: One of the most bizarre sights was seeing a huge Tescos! We ventured in and laughed at the fact that there was a whole double aisle dedicated to rice and another double aisle for noodles. 15kg a bag would be have been enough for the remainder of our trip! Although tempted to take a photo in Tescos, we thought that was pretty sad, but wish we had in hindsight!Off to the ferry to Langkawi...
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