Laos

So after a chilled out time in Pai, we had a long journey to get to Luang Prubang. We opted to take the slowboat, which took 3 days in total, over the option of a 17 hour bus. The boat was, as the name suggests slow, but really nice as we met a lot of people and could walk about, have a few beers etc. The boat was ridiculously packed, and on the first day we found it hard getting a seat. The second day we decided to sit in a raised open area, with no seats, but meant we could stretch our legs out.

NB honourable mention to Coolio the Cooler, who diligently kept our beers cold, asking for only a top up of ice now and again to achieve this.



The first day on the river. This picture implies that this boat was really motoring along, this is deceiving...



As the boat went past, all the kids from the little villages on the banks would run out to wave at the farangs on the boat. (Farangs = foreigners).



I know another sunset picture. They are nice though. This was at the end of the first day, just before we pulled into the port in the dark, and the mayhem ensued...



We reached Luang Prubang after 3 days travelling. It was a lovely cute little place, reminiscent of Hoi An. The 11.30 curfew was pretty annoying, especially with how strictly enforced it was. The waterfalls were beautiful, by far the best I’ve ever seen.



We decided that we wanted to get off the tourist route a little bit, so went south east, to a little town called Thakhek. There isn’t really much to do in Thakhek, apart from rent bikes and do ‘the loop’, a 500km motorcycle route.



Our first night on the loop was spent in a tiny village, with no restaurants, and only one small guesthouse. Cold temperatures meant fires, and Lao Lao whiskey were the order of the day.




During our first night on the loop, we realised that a ring had been built just across the ‘road’ (dirt path) from our guesthouse. At around 9pm, the villagers starting selling admission tickets to the homemade ring area they’d built, for 5000kip, around 40p.



As we left one of the caves, we came across lots of little vegetables patches along the river, basically allotments, Lao-style.

Next stop Vietnam, although annoyingly we had to go back to Vientiane to catch a bus, so 6 (which ended up being 10 due to a 4 hour break down) plus 24, all in 48 hours, lush...

Thailand Take 1

CHIANG MAI and PAI

We flew into Bangkok on the 20th, and as there isn’t much to do there, we preceded to get hammered for the first 2 nights. On the third night, we were sensible stayed in, and tried to catch up on sleep, however the hot, window-less room we were in had other ideas. Ridiculous heat meant neither of us slept a wink, so we decided to check into a nice hotel, with air con, a telly and a roof top pool, convenient as Spurs played Bremen that night as well. We moved on after we got our Vietnam visas, and headed to Chiang Mai.



On one of the days we went to the Tiger Kingdom, I say decided, the girls we were with organised everything for us, and we just paid! The Tiger Kingdom is a sanctuary for tigers, where all the profit made is put into tiger conservation, and to try and raise awareness. This was a pretty daunting experience, with all of us shitting it as soon as the tiger moved a paw suddenly! However after being exposed to people all their lives, and being well fed, they were very tame and weren’t too interested in eating us.



The next day, once again organised by the girls in our group, we went to have a day learning to ride and look after elephants. You could do a tour which included half an hour or so of elephant riding, but we wanted to do it properly. It was pretty hard trying to control an elephant while sitting just on its head, no saddle. At first it seemed like Mike got the worse deal, with his elephant seeming pretty crazy, but as we got into the trek, we realised that wasn’t the case. Mine did whatever it wanted regardless what I or the trainer said, then resorted to trying to hit with bamboo trees, and finally decided to try and break my camera by shooting it with water. (I have to confess the last 2 pictures weren’t taken by me….)



After having a pretty manic time in Chiang Mai, me and Mike decided to split from the group and head to Pai. Pai was the chilled out town we expected Chiang Mai to be. No clubs, just a few bars, and cute little restaurants. The second night we stayed in a tiny bamboo bungalow, directly next to the river. A cool experience, but it was not cool being woken up by Thai people at 5am, just for them to sit around, not even go anywhere or do anything! With all the fog in the morning, it did feel like waking up in Jurassic Park or something.



On one of the days in Pai we rented motorbikes to get around the surrounding area of the town, this was mainly so we could see the waterfalls, but quickly turned into just driving around for fun. Some of the waterfalls were cool, but there was no real swimming opportunities. Decided it was a good time to play about with some camera bits I got Hong Kong. Above being the result of a timer, self- portrait type thing, not sure if I like it….

Hong Kong

So we had two stupidly fast paced nights in Hong Kong, as we already had our flight booked, and hadn’t even planned to go to Hong Kong. So we visited islands that make up Hong Kong, and took the Peak tram. An old tram that goes up one of the hills/ mountains surrounding central Hong Kong, so you can see amazing views of Central, and the other Islands nearby.



A lot of the buildings were all lit up at night, which made them pretty impressive to see. Here’s an example.



So Hong Kong is a pretty interesting build of modern and traditional, a lot more in the 21st century than China. For example, spitting is not allowed, not even just in trains and restaurants, but outside as well! A breath of fresh air compared to China’s constant spitting. This picture almost perfectly sums up that idea. Two men, reading, one of which with a magnifying glass, who must have been about 80, while enjoy a cup of McDonalds coffee. Makes me chuckle every time I look at it.

Shanghai

So after a bit of a fuck up with trains, we had only 2 days in Shanghai, so it pretty much meant we were on the go the whole time.



Most of the time we spent trekking along the Bund, the main river in Shanghai.



A crazy place, which looked amazing at night.



On the river I was trying to teach a Finish guy some photography basics, tricky with my limited knowledge! While playing about during our crash course I took this shot of Nels, decided I liked it, so here it is.

Beijing

So we got into Beijing on the 8th. Was cool to see the trains being lifted up and having the wheels changed, due to different track widths in Mongolia and China. This border crossing was a bit more chilled, with no crazy market sellers or anything, and a free breakfast and lunch, score.



This was the street that we stayed on Beijing. A really cute little street, which was a nice mix of busyness and quietness. Beijing wasn't really as mental as I expected, with lots of it being quite traditional.



On the second day we headed to the Olympic Village, to check out the Birds Nest Stadium and the Water Cube. The whole area was very impressive, and it was clear a ridiculous amount had been spent on the development. This photo shows the criss-cross metal work that goes around the whole outside of the stadium. It was awesome inside as well.



Also all of the tourist sellers sell really weird stuff, like big massive kites. We tried to work out why they'd assumed thats what tourists wanted to buy... We came to no definitive conclusion, instead I just took pictures of them.



You guys are probably bored of seeing sunset photos, but I think this is a good one... Just outside of the Forbidden City, which was slightly boring, but the sunset wasn't!



So we spent 6 hours in total on a bus there and back, to the Great Wall, so could go to a section where there were hardly any tourists. I have to say we weren't disappointed, not quite the swamped tourist trap we had imagined before reaching Beijing. Also some of the sections weren't restored, and we stupidly steep, so it was nice to see the wall in its old state, rather than a renovated new version. The pictures don't really do the wall justice, literally as far as you can... Amazing place.



After trekking round the Forbidden City, which like I said was slightly boring, just lots of courtyards, we came across this park which extended up to the hill so you could see the whole of city. We could hear a saxophone being played the whole time we were in the park, so decided to track it down. It turned out to be a chinese guy just jamming out on his own, really nice to sit and listen to, while of course sneakily taking his picture....

Mongolia

We reached Mongolia on the 1st after a pretty manic train journey, with Chinese, Russian, and Mongolian sellers trying to smuggle their goods into every available space on the train. This included our cabin, so we were slightly worried when the customs officers came round, in case not everything had been taken out and moved along.
Ulan Bator was a very interesting place, definitely a cultural bridge between Russian and China, with real influences of both.



We organised a 3 day tour to go and stay with a nomadic family in a nearby national park, called Terelj National Park, meaning we had to be up and out at 9am. Myself and John, a new friend we had made in Ulan Ude, were in surprisingly good spirits after waking up at 3.45am to watch Spurs demolish Inter Milan. (A lovely result considering Tottenham's critics especially after the group stages draw had been made...)
Anyway back to the National Park! The scenery was amazing, rocks about 30/40m tall surrounding our camp. We spent the first day just wandering about, taking in the views and chatting to the family we were with.



The second day we went horse riding on some of the horses the family own. These were quite a bit smaller than horses in the uk, so we all looked pretty funny, withus all being reasonable tall lads! This was my horse, which I named Crouchy as he was rather unstable on his feet, and actually feel over onto his knees at one point, which I expertly managed to ride out.



So our group headed out for around 2 hours of horse riding. This was interesting as all of our horses seemed to really pick up speed at random points, which was slightly daunting the first time as none of us knew it was going to happen! Me, Mike and John set the pace the whole day!



At one point our guide, one of the sons in the family, decided to gallop off and leave us to our own devices, so he could come to the aid of a goat herder having a spot of trouble with some rebels in his herd. Made for a good picture with sunset in the background.

Olkhon Island + Ulan Ude

We decided to go and visit Olkhon Island, which is an island in the middle of Lake Baikal. If you imagine the Ibiza of Siberia you’re pretty much there....
We had a 6 hour journey to get there from Irkutsk, and this was a shot from the ferry we took to get to the island. It was a beautiful sunny day, which was a contrast to the overcast days we’d had recently.



One the second day we took a 4x4 tour round the middle, checking out the west, north and east coastlines. A guy in our group kindly let me use his 10-22mm lens, with this and a couple of other pictures being the result. If only I had a spare £500 quid knocking about to buy one....



This is another picture of the lake from the east coast, with this showing the full coast line. A very surreal place like nowhere else I’ve ever visited!


Ulan Ude was our next city, and was quite a quiet place. After the stress of trying to find our hostel for about 3 hours in sub zero temperatures we were just happy to have a bed for the night! The next day was spent visiting a monastery out of town, which was an impressive spectacle, more like a small town in the middle of nowhere.



This photo shows lots of ribbons tied to trees behind the monastery. Different coloured ribbons have different significance as offerings. Green represent thanks for grass, red is everlasting fire, and white is thanks for milk.



We got on our train heading towards Mongolia the day after, and this was the first journey where we started to see real changes in the scenery. This photo was taken just as we circled round the bottom of Lake Baikal.

Krasnoyarsk

One of our days in Krasnoyarsk was spent trekking round the Stolby Nature Reserve, about 22km in total, long old day. We bumped into a Russian guy and girl, who kindly offered to act as a make-shift tour guy. The nature reserve had these massive tall rock columns, and also loads of wild life.




Was quite weird trekking round a Nature reserve that has Wolves, Bears and Lynxs! Token picture of a cute Red Squirrel.



There were also some massive icicles that were beautiful. Interesting point, every year people in Russia are killed by falling icicles, so if you are here in winter, just watch out.



This is a picture of one of the rock formations. There were about 20 in total, all with names that seemed to vaguely reflect the appearance of the rock. This one in particular was called granddad, you can almost make out a face on the rock, if you squint...

Yekaterinburg

We found this bridge in the city centre, where there was a dam and the whole area had been renovated. Newly married couples appeared to engrave/write their names on the padlock and then lock it to the fence on the bridge. Interesting sight, seeing hundreds of padlocks all along the bridge. Ah, young love.



Also in the city centre was a rather random, but pretty professional, monument to the Beatles. There was a big silhouette, and other paintings dedicated to the band. The love you give is equal to the love you take.



The next day involved a trip to the zoo, mainly because we weren’t quite sure what else to do... We had been told that the zoo was “one of the most compact in Russia”. Not really what you want to hear about a zoo. The zoo was crazy, and had some of the rarest animals in the world, some of which I doubt I will ever see again in my life. Snow leopards, Amur Leopards, Jaguars, Panthers, White Bengal Tigers, Lynxs, etc. Surreal.



This is just a quick shot of the front of our train. The inside, luckily, isn’t as Soviet-block-looking as the outside, and is actually quite nice.

Mockba

We arrived safe and sound in Moscow. We explored alot of the city using the old, at first confusing, but eventually massively useful metro system. These trains got really busy any time after 4 oclock. Think we pissed off alot of commuters when rushing to get our first overnight train, due to hitting them with our backpacks.... opps.




This shows a panorama of Red Square, with St Basils Cathedral in the middle and the Lenin Mausoleum. The Cathedral is very beautiful, and very impressive. The Lenin Tomb is pretty weird, he looks just like a wax model, almost like the Russians could be playing a big joke on everyone... You have to go through massive security checks, and no cameras or bags are allowed in, yet the only fence next to the tomb is just a 2ft metal rope fence. Pretty sure if anyone really wanted to do anything, they could/would.



The sun actually came out on our second day in Moscow. The Cathedral looked even more impressive, with a background of clear blue sky.



Our first overnight train journey, probably something I'll never forget. Initially we met a great guy from Lebanon, who spoke both Russian and English, and wasn't shy with buying rounds of vodka! We also met a rather unsavoury character, who seemed cool at first. However it then came out that he had just been released from prison, on a murder charge... He then started demanded beer from us, as he was 'our guest', and became slightly more erratic. After that we quickly retreated to our compartment and waited out the journey while watching tv on the laptop, yeah culture. Alls well that ends well ay.

Day Zero

Bags packed, let's go....