Just a quick note. I've tried three times over the past week and a half to put up photos from Laos, but it hasn't worked each time. When it has worked in the past, its annoyingly slow. So from now on I'm just going to put all of my photos up on facebook,where I can put much more up much more easily.
My Russia album is here:
http://standrews.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1292&id=263100090
My Mongolia Album is here:
http://standrews.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1295&id=263100090
My China album is here:
http://standrews.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1301&id=263100090
My Laos album is here:
http://standrews.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1322&id=263100090
And my Vietnam album is here,with more to come:
http://standrews.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1360&id=263100090
You need to be registered on facebook to see them. If by some small miracle I still know someone who isn't registered then do do now! Its a great website.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Vietnam
And so we have arrived in Vietnam. We're in Hanoi at the moment, and heading to Saigon this evening, hopefully. The trains south weren't running yesterday because of the flooding in the central coast, but apparently they're fine this evening, so all should be good.
Danny P just asked me if it's like China, the answer being no, its completely different. Hanoi, to be truthful, is not the prettiest city we've visited; it doesn't have the grandeur of, say, Shanghai or St. Petersburg. But the energy of the place is just amazing. Beijing felt sedate in comparison. People everywhere, walking, biking, selling or just eating. So much of life here is conducted on the streets, people eat breakfast, lunch and dinner on little plastic chairs and tables they drag out of their houses and shops, many buildings seem to be an odd combination of both, with offices doubling as living rooms or bed rooms just visible through a door at the back. Foot paths here pretty much don't exist. They are there,but most are either covered with the aforementioned miniature tables and chairs or with motorcycles and mopeds. Hanoi, a city of five million, has three million motorbikes, and it feels like more when you're crossing the street. This is an experience in and of itself. Its impossible to find a break in the traffic so you just have to wait for a gap on your side of the street and walk slowly across while bikes swerve around you. It was a bit nerve racking to begin with (the first time I stood next to some locals so I didn't get killed).
After two days we left Hanoi and took an organised trip down to Halong Bay for three days. The pictures on my facebook account do the grandeur of the place some justice, but not nearly enough. Halong Bay is filled with almost two thousand islands; fingers of rock, mostly over one hundred feet high, jutting almost vertically out of the ocean. On our first day we cruised around the bay for a few hours and then went to see a really impressive cave system, with one massive chamber beautifully lit. Afterwards we went kayaking for an hour. We cruised along for half an hour and then went through a small tunnel at the base of one of the cliffs, once we got through we realised we were in a fully enclosed little bay, with green covered walls of rock rising up around us in a wide circle, it was beautiful. On the second day we stayed on Cat Ba Island, the only inhabited island in Halong Bay, and spent the afternoon on a lovely beach.
The Halong trip was also lovely because we got more of an opportunity to talk to people than we've had in a while. We met a lovely couple in their fifties form the south of England, who were traveling for six months. Peter, the husband, had been a cabinet maker, a police officer, then worked in insurance,then restored antiques for a few years and is now a funeral director. We also met two American ladies who had just adopted two beautiful Vietnamese babies. It was so interesting to hear about the ordeals they had to go through and the description of being united with the baby you've been trying to adopt for the last fifteen months.
Anyway, suffice is to say, the trip is going well. In two days we'll be in Saigon and then we'll be on the beach for almost a week. Hopefully the typhoons will have cleared at that stage.
Danny P just asked me if it's like China, the answer being no, its completely different. Hanoi, to be truthful, is not the prettiest city we've visited; it doesn't have the grandeur of, say, Shanghai or St. Petersburg. But the energy of the place is just amazing. Beijing felt sedate in comparison. People everywhere, walking, biking, selling or just eating. So much of life here is conducted on the streets, people eat breakfast, lunch and dinner on little plastic chairs and tables they drag out of their houses and shops, many buildings seem to be an odd combination of both, with offices doubling as living rooms or bed rooms just visible through a door at the back. Foot paths here pretty much don't exist. They are there,but most are either covered with the aforementioned miniature tables and chairs or with motorcycles and mopeds. Hanoi, a city of five million, has three million motorbikes, and it feels like more when you're crossing the street. This is an experience in and of itself. Its impossible to find a break in the traffic so you just have to wait for a gap on your side of the street and walk slowly across while bikes swerve around you. It was a bit nerve racking to begin with (the first time I stood next to some locals so I didn't get killed).
After two days we left Hanoi and took an organised trip down to Halong Bay for three days. The pictures on my facebook account do the grandeur of the place some justice, but not nearly enough. Halong Bay is filled with almost two thousand islands; fingers of rock, mostly over one hundred feet high, jutting almost vertically out of the ocean. On our first day we cruised around the bay for a few hours and then went to see a really impressive cave system, with one massive chamber beautifully lit. Afterwards we went kayaking for an hour. We cruised along for half an hour and then went through a small tunnel at the base of one of the cliffs, once we got through we realised we were in a fully enclosed little bay, with green covered walls of rock rising up around us in a wide circle, it was beautiful. On the second day we stayed on Cat Ba Island, the only inhabited island in Halong Bay, and spent the afternoon on a lovely beach.
The Halong trip was also lovely because we got more of an opportunity to talk to people than we've had in a while. We met a lovely couple in their fifties form the south of England, who were traveling for six months. Peter, the husband, had been a cabinet maker, a police officer, then worked in insurance,then restored antiques for a few years and is now a funeral director. We also met two American ladies who had just adopted two beautiful Vietnamese babies. It was so interesting to hear about the ordeals they had to go through and the description of being united with the baby you've been trying to adopt for the last fifteen months.
Anyway, suffice is to say, the trip is going well. In two days we'll be in Saigon and then we'll be on the beach for almost a week. Hopefully the typhoons will have cleared at that stage.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Laos
My mother has rightly rapped me on the knuckles for not updating in a while, so here I am. To be honest, the reason why I didn't update, at least in Kunming anyway, was because it was just a bit boring; it had a lovely park and the hostel handily had a pool table and cheap internet, but besides that the only interesting thing to happen was someone swipping my jeans off the washing line (bastards).
But Laos, to be fair, has been much more interesting. After a horrible overnight bus we arrived into Luang Prabang after night fall so just had dinner and went to bed, but I got up fairly early the next morning and just had a wander around. The place really is amazing. Most of the town is located on a penninsula formed by the joining of two rivers, its surrounded on all sides by hills covered in jungle and its dotted with really ornate Buddhist temples, with lots of orange clad Buddhist monks wandering around. Its also a real tourist hub also though, so many here; every third building is either a travel agents, a restaurant or a shop selling silk and paper products. So I spent a few days looking at museums and temples ( not Dim's thing really) and one day we went on a package day tour riding elephants, swimming at a local waterfall and kayaking, which was probably one of the most memorable days of my trip so far, so much fun. The waterfall especially was very cool, so idyllic, if a little chilly. Unfortunately we got rain our last few days, but its really bright at the moment so all is good.
The day before yesterday we moved down to Vientiane, the capital, which unfortunately lacks a lot of the charm that Luang Prabang had, so we spent yesterday be the side of a pool swimming and trying to de-farmer our tans. Today we're going to look at concrete replica Arc de Triumph in the centre of the city, and tomorrow we leave for Vietnam. We're getting an overnight, non-sleeper, 22 hour bus, so Im really dreading the journey. You'll find out in a week if I survive intact.
x
But Laos, to be fair, has been much more interesting. After a horrible overnight bus we arrived into Luang Prabang after night fall so just had dinner and went to bed, but I got up fairly early the next morning and just had a wander around. The place really is amazing. Most of the town is located on a penninsula formed by the joining of two rivers, its surrounded on all sides by hills covered in jungle and its dotted with really ornate Buddhist temples, with lots of orange clad Buddhist monks wandering around. Its also a real tourist hub also though, so many here; every third building is either a travel agents, a restaurant or a shop selling silk and paper products. So I spent a few days looking at museums and temples ( not Dim's thing really) and one day we went on a package day tour riding elephants, swimming at a local waterfall and kayaking, which was probably one of the most memorable days of my trip so far, so much fun. The waterfall especially was very cool, so idyllic, if a little chilly. Unfortunately we got rain our last few days, but its really bright at the moment so all is good.
The day before yesterday we moved down to Vientiane, the capital, which unfortunately lacks a lot of the charm that Luang Prabang had, so we spent yesterday be the side of a pool swimming and trying to de-farmer our tans. Today we're going to look at concrete replica Arc de Triumph in the centre of the city, and tomorrow we leave for Vietnam. We're getting an overnight, non-sleeper, 22 hour bus, so Im really dreading the journey. You'll find out in a week if I survive intact.
x
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