Mark and Jans Blog on RealTravel

Beijing journal: Beijing

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 17:17:11 GMT

Friday 30/3 - Yangshuo to Guilin to Beijing

After spending most of Friday on the computer at the Yangshuo hotel - updating the blog and checking and sending emails - and having lunch cooked for us by our hotel proprietor, Lily, we heave on the backpacks at 3pm and walk with Lily to flag down the bus to Guilin... all okay apart from the fact that the driver decided to do a u-turn just before leaving Yangshuo and went back to the bus station, just in case he could pick up any more paying passengers, as you do! An uneventful bus ride except that Jan forgot to grab our "goodies-food bag" ...

Melbourne journal: Home Sweet Home

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 04:55:03 GMT

Please look at the "Singapore to Melbourne flight" entry for our photos.

Singapore City journal: Singapore to Melbourne Flight

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 04:52:56 GMT

Thursday 5/4

Departed Singapore 11.35pm - another smooth take-off. We are glad of the larger aircraft which is much quieter than some of the Air Asia and Chinese planes we've experienced in recent weeks... and not missing the bumpy and swerving landings! Mark decides to catch as much sleep as possible so gives the late night "supper" a miss, dons the eye shades and ear plugs and settles in for some slumber. Jan starts watching a film she's never heard of, "Notes on a Scandal" (Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett) and when home again is told it's proving to be a box office hit - okay, maybe ...

Beijing journal: Last Day in Beijing and Flight to Singapore

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 04:51:49 GMT

THURSDAY 5/4 - Beijing to Singapore

Up 7.30am for shower/breakfast/emails and glad to add one "donated" Great Wall picture on the blog - it's from Scott, a Queensland teacher, who we met on the Wall day trip. The pic "yak hat and all" is likely to generate a laugh or two. We head out for a final bit of sightseeing - the ancient Beijing Drum Tower used to announce the time - well before chronometers were invented - via a complicated series of drumming messages many years ago. These days the performance for the tourists every half hour is offered by a costumed troupe of five drummers, ...

Yangshuo journal: Guangxi Province

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 07:36:52 GMT

Guangxi Province

Wed 21/3 - Kunming to Nanning

This marks the start of Week 12 of our adventure, and we hum our theme song "On the road again...". We're up and out early from our Camellia Hotel room and at 6.50am we catch some brekkie from the dining room (since we've paid for it!) before our taxi to the airport and 8.30am departure. In the hotel foyer this morning were three young guys who'd looked like they'd slept there - perhaps they came in during the night - also two French women who've travelled the nine hours overnight on a bus from Lijiang, and they looked very tired - ...

Lijiang journal: Tiger Leaping Gorge Trek and Old Town Lijiang

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 07:29:03 GMT

Please check out trek photos under the "Yunnan Province" section of the blog...

TIGER LEAPING GORGE

Wed 14/3 - Three hour taxi ride with our Hong Kong/Chinese friends Grace and Summer (voluntary tour guides/interpreters!) via a mountainside Buddhist temple where we were privileged to meet an 89 year old monk writing beautiful calligraphy wall hangings (see the pic of Mark with this man - inter-faith dialogue is alive and well). He gifted us a scroll which may make it to a wall at Faraday sometime. One o'clock and we said our farewells at Qiatou (the south-west end of the Gorge) ...

Kunming journal: Yunnan Province

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 07:24:16 GMT

Yunnan Province

KUNMING (capital city of 4 million people)

Yes we've arrived safely in China, and so far going very well. We left Hanoi last Friday morning, walked about 1km to the Vietnam Airlines bus in the city - we were novelty viewing for most of the locals, to observe two "old" westerners with white hair, traipsing through their streets with backpacks loaded up to the hilt - locals don't seem to walk anywhere much, it's always on a motorbike or pushbike. Just US$2 each for the mini-bus ride to the airport for 11.10 flight - what fun, a queue a km long, in fact two queues, ...

Hoi An journal: Vietnam South to North - Part 2

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 07:13:05 GMT

Vietnam Travels - Part 2

Writing this Monday 26 February and trying to catch up a little on the blog!

A week ago we left Saigon (HCMC) for Mui Ne, a long stretch of beach resorts, guesthouses and hotels. The Lunar New Year (Tet) Festival stretches on and on in that accommodation and bus prices skyrocket at this time, and the longer this goes on, the better for businesses! We found a very comfy hotel room in Mui Ne for US$20/night and had 2 nights there. Didn't see too much of the famous sand-dunes though as we decided to knuckle down and sort out details for the rest of our ...

Hanoi journal: Vietnam - Part 3 - Hanoi - Halong Bay - Sapa - Hanoi

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 06:06:39 GMT

VIETNAM - Hanoi - Halong Bay - Sapa

Thursday 1/3 - Hue to Hanoi

The morning included a walk by the river, then we caved in to the craving of some more familiar food - a lovely pizza supreme at "Little Italy Restuarant". We pulled another 2 million dong from the ATM and Mark's wallet was again fat with all these notes. We palled up with Eva, a bright Belgian solo traveller from our hotel, and shared a 3 o'clock taxi to Hue train station (nice for Mark to have someone else do the price negotiating). 4pm and the train pulled in - we got on board with loads of French tourists with ...

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) journal: Vietnam South to North - Part 1

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:28:24 GMT

Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh City

Sun - 11 Feb - Our flight in from Siem Reap in Cambodia with Vietnam Airlines was thankfully smooth and uneventful and, having prebooked our hotel, it was fun to walk out of the terminal and look for our name on a big placard for the hotel taxi transfer as arranged. Makes you feel really special! We're staying at the Yellow House Hotel, www.yellowhousevn.com

A good clean budget-end hotel, and it's great to come "home" to the comfort of our airconditioned room after the hot and steamy climate here in HCMC.

We found a local independent ...

Bangkok journal: Bangkok

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 13:05:48 GMT

Krabi to Phuket to Bangkok

Krabi to Phuket - a sequence of river/ocean craft with fun (precarious) transfers on the water got us to Phuket - with plenty of evidence of the tsunami damage even after two years. Pretty sobering when we realisek the density of population so close to the coastline in these parts.

Our accomm'n worked out fine with a local hotel and friendly tourist agent willing to assist tired travellers. Resorted to mainstream pizza that night - safe and familiar after a big day of travel.

The taxi connection the next morning actually arrived spot on time and ...

Siem Reap journal: Siem Reap - Angkor Archeological Park Area

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 23:40:54 GMT

Siem Reap - Angkor Archaeological Park Area

Wed 7/2 - We had the morning in the Kompong Thom area with another Church World Service site visit and meeting the village development committee.

Then onto our first encounter with the amazing archaeological features of this area - Sambor Prei Kuk ruins from the 7th century, about 1500 years old. We farewell Vannick (CWS) at the hotel where we take a private taxi for the 2 hour drive north to Siem Reap. While we'd hired the back seat at US$12, the driver squeezed 3 extra passengers into the front of the Toyota sedan - as you do! We ...

Chiang Mai Province journal: Chiang Mai - Chiang Rai

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:22:59 GMT

Chiang Mai - Chiang Rai

Having booked the YHA option on the train with help from a local and her free mobile call, we enjoyed the free transfer from "Mac" in the red pickup van. Settled in and did some internet (free and slow, and we later discovered that half the emails went into a black hole!) - walked downtown to the night markets and had what seemed like a nice chicken masala (Mark) and daal (Jan). Tuk-tuk home about 9.00pm only to become far too familiar with the toilet and bathroom, with both of us emptying our stomachs over and over (too much information!!).

Tuesday 30/1 - ...

Kanchanaburi journal: Kanchanaburi - River Kwai

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 08:41:44 GMT

A big thankyou for emails and comments via the blog site while we're travelling - it's good to feel we are in touch with friends and family so please keep up the contact!

Updating our travels....

Kanchanaburi - River Kwai Area

Happy Australia Day spent on the train journey - we started quite early from our Bangkok hotel to make it to the railway station to buy our A$3.60 tickets for the 7.45am to Kanchanaburi. A delightful surprise waiting at the platform was a young couple from Finland (Mika and Vilja) who we'd palled up with on the riverboat coming back from the jungle in ...

Krabi journal: Krabi, Koh Jum, Phuket - South Thailand

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 21:53:13 GMT

Southern Thailand

Exhausting bus journey last Friday 19th - 4.30am start for 5.00am "air conditioned mini-bus" (more like cramped Kombi, dodgy seats and little "air" - welcome to Thailand!!) :-)

Border crossing into Thailand - 1 1/4 hrs queue in heat - supposed to pay 1 ringgit "bribe" to officer in booth, somehow he didn't challenge me when I didn't have the money -maybe my (Jan) white hair means he should respect his elders? I think Mark ended up paying, mainly because the bus driver was getting cranky at the long delay... A VERY long day, from the 5.00am pickup at hotel, then ...

Penang journal: Taman Negara Nat Park, Cameron Highlands, Penang etc

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 04:18:34 GMT

Taman Negara National Park - Wed 10 to Fri 12 Jan

and Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands - from Fri 12 Jan for few days - Left KL for a 3 day/2 night "package" at the NPark (north-east of KL) by coach which left conveniently just outside our Swiss Inn Hotel in Chinatown. Arrived at the place to then catch a small boat and take the 3 hour journey up the river to the NP headquarters and our accommodation site. The river trip was welcome in that we had a great breeze in our faces and hair so we were considerably cooler an dmore comfortable, especially when it started to rain and we needed to ...

Kuala Lumpur journal: Kuala Lumpur

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 18:31:16 GMT

KL - as at Sunday night 7 January -

Both travelling well, coping with steamy humidity and heat, continuing to praise God for airconditioning!!

Yesterday had a good easy journey from Singapore to KL by "economy" bus - airconditioned, reclining seats, comfortable - A$20 each for 6 hour journey, not bad! Border crossings from Singapore through to Malaysia - intro to Malaysia on the side of the road monkeys running everywhere...

Haggled with a taxi driver when we arrived - short ride to our hotel which is comfortable. After we settled in we struck upon an invite to a private ...

Singapore City journal: Singapore

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 05:25:16 GMT

Singapore - Friday 5 January

Another interesting day visiting some of the historic sites - old parliament house and supreme court, river areas, business district, then to Chinatown. Had a pray in the Armenian church and visited a hindu temple and Presbyterian church in Little India with dynamic outreach to Tamil folk. Got good value out of our EzyLink train/bus travel - oh that Melbourne's public transport was that accessible! Nepalese meal tonight - not Jan's favourite but nice enough. This afternoon took a train and bus to Changi Prison Museum and Chapel and spent about 2 hours ...