Chiang Mai, Thailand

Chedi Luang Ruins. They're not sure if it was an earthquake or canon fire which caused the damage to the roof. The Japanese and UNESCO provided funds to help restore the site, but decided not to rebuild the top as they weren't sure what it looked like!

We took the overnight train to Chiang Mai, the capital of Northern Thailand. Its a really chilled out city near the mountains. There are plenty of opportunities to go trekking in the jungle, to see the hill tribes with long necks, go on elephant safaris and bamboo rafting trips, but since we had just come from nepal and were so spoilt with the scenery there, we thought we'd save some money here and so instead spent two days just relaxing and eating in town.

Chiang Mai is also a significant cultural site for Buddhism, with over 300 Temples in the city. Reena and I decided to see two of the main ones. With all the temples and monasteries we've been to since Nepal, the ones here here in Chiang Mai were by far the most peaceful and well kept of them all. I love the roofs of the temples here in Thailand. They're like Chinese roofs but with extra curls!

One of the Temples around Chedi Luang displaying the lovely curly roofs.

Inside one of the Temples around Wat Prah Singh

In the grounds of Wat Prah Singh

Sooo easy to do in Thailand! There were all of these signs attached to trees in the grounds of the Wat Prah Singh

Bangkok, Thailand

At the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew.

Bangkok is hot!! We arrived to 40 degree heat. Reena and I detest hot weather... if only we had read the Lonely Planet intro for Thailand, we would have realised that April is the hottest month of the year... We're going from one extreme to another. One good thing about leaving the snowy mountains behind is also getting rid of our winter gear. We've managed to offload 10kg from our backpacks making life a whole lot friendlier... not only that, we have more space now for shopping!

The food here is sooo good. I've stuffed myself with green curries, red curries, panang curries, pad thai, noodle soups, bbqs, fruit shakes, banana pancakes with chocolate!. The street vendors are so cheap in Bangkok too. Curry for 60p, pad thai for 30p, bbq sticks for 15p. I'm starting to get myself a little belly. Reena said to me the other day "Becky, your belly is starting to poke out... it never used to do that!" Ha! I've decided to stop ordering the extra bowl of rice. The portions here are tiny... I don't get it. You get a massive bowl of curry, and a tiny dome of rice... no way enough rice for the curry.

yum

Reena with some food from the street vendor in the background.

We skipped the infamous night scene in Bangkok, e.g. thai kickboxing and pingpong shows, it wasn't quite our scene... but we took a walk down the Khoa San Road which was just around the corner from where we were staying, a very busy place at night! There are loads of shops, bars, restaurants, neon lights, market stalls, etc... lots going on.

Reena and I on an evening out.

We took a day to see the main sights in Bangkok. Reena and I take so long to get up, get ready and have breakfast we end up walking around town in the midday sun. Its absolutely debilitating! Even when sitting in the shade the sweat just poured out. we saw a lot of westerners with clothes that looked like they'd walked through a water hose!

Monkeys surrounding Wat Phra Kaew

The reclining buddha at Wat Poh

We also found the Wat Poh School of Massage, the home of Thai Massage and got a 30 minute session. Theres a lot of pressing (really hard) and clicking of joints... I had to keep biting my lip for fear of either bursting out into laughter because it was tickling me, or for yelping "ouch!" because it hurt so much! If anyone reading this knows Romana, I have to say that her massage is much better than what I got here in Bangkok. If anyone is looking for a good masseuse in London just let me know!

Hong Kong and Macau

So we spent two days in Hong Kong and Macau. Both these cities had only been given back to China in the last decade, having previously been owned by European countries (Hong Kong, UK; Macau, Portugal). The influence of these European countries was very obvious and to me, very welcoming! It made me miss home lots. I dont have time at the moment to write lots, so I'll just caption a few photos:

We had arrived later than planned as our train was a little delayed. When we got to the hostel we were told that the dorm beds had therefore gone, but she had a room for us 'still cheap'. We were taken to our room (we had to leave the building, walk to another block and go up to the 17th floor), and it was this tiny room about 1.5m x 3.5m, with just one bed in! We couldn't be bothered to complain, and anyway it contained us both pretty well.

Mo Han Temple. Spiral incense stick hang from the ceiling. It looked really pretty.

Hong Kong's light show.

View from the Star Ferry crossing from Hong Kong Island to Tsim Sha Tsui. The cloud never cleared up for the two days that we were there so we didn't take the trip up to Victoria Peak. The transport system in Hong Kong is great. They have an underground metro which is so easy to use, has air conditioning and is soo clean. The pedestrian crossings were so much safer too. The green man actually means 'you can walk without fear of getting hit by a car'. Every where else that I have travelled other than the UK, cars can still go through red lights as long as they are turning a corner. What nonsense!

We stayed in Tsim Sha Tsui. The place is littered with shops, restaurants, bars, etc. Its like a Chinese New York, and its so busy! The shopping centres are far superior to anything I've seen in the UK, but unfortunately everything was pretty much at UK prices.

To get to Southeast Asia we needed to fly directly there since our Chinese Visa's were taken away from us... and out of principle we didn't want to pay for a new one! Our flight to Bangkok departed from Macau, a city thats a 1hr boat ride away from Hong Kong. Macau is famous for its casinos...

The Wynn. Looks just like the one in Las Vegas, just not as grand.

One of the squares in Macau. It looks so European. I loved it! We got rained on quite badly in Macau so we had to make a mad dash around town to see the sights.

A pretty little street in Macau. Again, very European looking.

So at the moment we're in Bangkok and head north tonight on an overnight train to Chiang Mai... Keep you updated!

Beijing, China

View from the Lhasa to Beijing Train. We were still in Tibet when this photo was taken.

We made it to Beijing after a 48 hr train journey over the Tibetan Plateau and through the Chinese countryside. The construction of the railway was only completed last year and demand for tickets on the train (we heard) were difficult to come by, but we got hold of them no problem! Probably just a bit of marketing hype by the Chinese. The train was incredibly comfortable. We even had oxygen ports by our bedsides incase the altitude was causing us problems, but having already spent a week in Tibet it wasn't really an issue. I can easily see the problems that would arise travelling in the opposite direction though. So Reena and I occupied ourselves by sleeping, reading, eating, and creating 'maths homework' for each other...

Homework question 1:
The distance between Lhasa and Beijing is 4000km. Train A leaves Lhasa at 08:00 and travels towards Beijing at a speed of 160km/hr. Train B leaves Beijing at 10:00 and travels towards Lhasa at a speed of 60 km/hr. At what time do the two trains collide?

Homework question 2:
Lhasa is at an altitude of 3680m, Beijing at 40m. Assuming there is a steady slope between the two, at what altitude did the two trains collide?

Send your answers in! Yep Reena and I had quite a few hours to kill.

In China you'll constantly hear people snorting back the contents of their nasal passages, hack up the produce from their throat, then spit it out on the floor. Everyone seems to do it... women too. I found it hilarious that the train actually had to have signs to say no spitting, along side the no littering and no smoking sign!

The Forbidden City

We arrived to a friendly face. Roberto, a chap we met on the Everest Trek, offered us a place to crash for our stay in Beijing. We arrived at his dorms (he's currently studying Mandarin at a uni in Beijing), and dumped our gear. What we didn't realise was that security at his dorms got pretty tight in the evening. No visitors after 10pm. We got back the first night at about 10:30pm... The lady at the desk was all smiles, but no way was she letting us in. What were we going to do??! Obviously some of the boys at this dorm had figured this would be an issue early on and so moved themselves to the ground floor. The rest went like clockwork... Bryan (one of Roberto's mates) grabbed a French guy who happened to be walking down the corridor... the only word I understood of that conversation was fenetre... that guy slunk off... Reena and I snatched a quick glance at each other... Bryan then turned his attention to the lady at security. While she was being distracted, Roberto swept us off outside where another French bloke was opening his bathroom window. We very ungracefully heaved ourselves through this tiny window, snuck down the corridor and legged it up the stairs! They'd obviously done this before. I felt like some sort of naughty teenager getting up to no good!

Here's me climbing into that bathroom window...

Getting into Roberto's dorm was a massive nightmare for me. I'd get so nervous about it I'd start feeling sick at about 7pm every night! For the next couple of nights we were given room numbers of different guys who had agreed to help conspire our stay. They would have security knocking at their door at 10pm asking where we were! They'd let security into their room to prove that we had left... The only person at the desk that didn't mind us staying, and who let us in when we first arrived with all our bags, was a Chinese guy called Alan. I'd get an overwhelming sense of relief when I'd see his face at the counter... We bought him lots of goodies when we left!

So we were in Beijing for a total of four days. We got to see quite a bit of the sights - The Forbidden City, Tinanmen Square, The Summer Palace, The Great Wall of China and the Hutongs, which were all amazing to see. Most of all, I was just sooo glad to be back in civilisation again. There were shops, supermarkets, restaurants, cafes, subways, metros, buses - I didn't realise how much of a city girls I really was! I love Beijing. I could easily live in Beijing. I'd have to learn some Mandarin... but I reckon I could be quite happy there.

The Great Wall of China at Simatai. Reena and I thought we'd save some money by getting to this section of the wall ourselves with public transport. What should have taken us 2.5 hours, took us 6! Communication barriers are such an issue in China!

In the gardens at The Forbidden City

Wang Fu Jin Night Market. They have all sorts of weird and wonderful foods you can try.

Roberto went for the mini scorpion. He had two! Apparently they taste like the small bits of crisps you get at the end of the packet... hmm...

One thing I would like to whinge about though is trying to buy a train ticket. You would think it wouldn't take that much effort... You'd walk into a train station, find the ticket counter and buy the ticket. Oh no.... Reena and I wanted to buy a train ticket to Hanoi, Vietnam. We went to the ticket counter at the station. They then sent us to a bank to buy the ticket. We got to the bank... they sent us back to the train station. The train station insisted on the bank, but the bank were having none of it. We were then told to go to a hotel... We got to the 'Railway Hotel'... at this point we were more than a little frustrated having spent a couple of hours trying to buy these tickets. The girls at the hotel reception pointed back outside to an office. We got to the office, and it was padlocked up with a bike chain and no one in sight! We wasted a whole morning trying to buy something as simple as train tickets. In the end we bought tickets to Hong Kong. Communicating what we wanted was so difficult because of the language barrier. Beijing is holding the Olympic games next year... We wondered how many foreigners are going to end up frustrated like us trying to sort out simple things like booking train tickets. It seems Beijing still has some way to go to cope with the demands and strains that the Olympics will bring.

Tiananmen Square

At the Summer Palace we shared a pedalo boat with this old couple and what appeared to be their grandaughter. She was so cute! For 15 minutes while her grandparents were pedaling she sat on my lap, very well behaved and amused herself by talking and singing to herself!

Seven days in Tibet...

The Friendship Highway connecting Nepal with Tibet. We had a Toyota Landcruiser for the journey. There weren't any seatbelts in the back. I was a bit concerned about that!

So we finally arrived in Lhasa, Tibet after a five day drive. When we left Kathmandu, our tour operator said to us 'cos you're cute, you'll have the jeep!'. We didn't realise the significance of this statement until a few days into the tour. There were over 50 people on the tour, but not enough jeeps to accomodate us all. People had paid the same as us and even more, but were piled onto buses! Reena and I, and the two Icelandic girls that were travelling with us, were the only ones who got the jeep for the whole journey - and you needed a jeep too.. the road was unpaved for much of the way. We also got our own private guide for the trip, although he didn't always appear to know what he was talking about. There are some benefits to being girls!


Its a fake lake - spot the dam? But it was still stunning. It was the first mass of water we'd seen in ages.

Again we've been surviving at high altitude. The Tibetan Plateau altitude is between 3000m - 4000m, with passes over 5000m. Its cold, oxygen is scarce, food unappealing, hot showers elusive, I'm craving civilisation at sea level - can you tell?!! For most of the drive Tibet appeared to be such a desolate, barren landscape. There was very little vegetation, and if there was it was a dirty yellow brown colour and no larger than a small shrub. If I had to stay much longer in this area of the world I'm sure I'd get depressed. I was dreaming of the lush, green of England. I wouldn't have even minded Hyde Park!


Apparently China is famous for communal toilets. I have now offically shared my first communal wee with a stranger! If you look close enough you can see the poo splaterring in the left hole in the floor. I tried to avoid that one!

Saying that though I've been very pleasantly surprised by Lhasa - there are parks and trees here. Yay! There are countless shops and supermarkets.  The streets are also much cleaner here, the sun shines and there are plenty more sights to see.


Potala Palace


Climbing up to the Palace


View over Lhasa from the Jokhang Temple - see the green?!


More green!

Religion is a big deal in Tibet. We've visited many Monasteries and Temples. The more I hear about Bhuddism the more convoluted it becomes. I didn't realise there are hundreds of Bhuddas. When you visit the Monasteries there are thousands of statues and paintings, some of which are pretty scary looking. I kept thinking that one of these sites would be briliant for a horror movie. At the Kumbum Chorten in Gyantse there were these little rooms that you'd walk into. There'd be no light, and as you walk in you are faced by this frightening creature that send a chill down your back. It reminded me of the scene in sixth sense when the boy is walking up the staircase to the little boxed off room where he hears the voice calling him. I was always petrified that the door would slam shut behind me locking me in with the creepy statue! I'd always make sure Reena went in first!!


Tashinlungpo Monastery. This building contained the dead preserved body of the 10th Panchen Lama. You couldn't see it though. It was hidden inside a big gold box. They have sooo much gold here in Tibet.


The Kumbum Chorten in Gyantse. You were able to walk around every tier.


Two of the four Kings that guard the entrances to the Temples and Monasteries.


Three old ladies at the Drepung Monastery that told our guide off cos he was taking us round the wrong way. They presently took us round the right way!



We went to the Sera Monastery today and saw these monks. They were debating about which of the four religions of Tibet are the best. I think this is one of the highlights of the Tibet tour. I could have watched them all day!


These two made me giggle!


Solveig and Inga, the two Icelandic girls we travelled with.

We leave tomorrow... We managed to book our tickets for the train to Beijing. It should take about two days to get there.

Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Well... The Good, The Bad and The Ugly


The Good



So we arrived in at our 'Jungle Lagoon Lodge' just after lunch and settled into our new place. It looked pretty nice - just like a little villa with lots of 'jungle' noises outside. A very pleasant change to the noises of Thamel. The lodge was a little deserted. There were only three of us there... Tourism in the area has been hit by recent maoist activity (a nepali communism group), but we were assured by our guide that the UN had visited, by invitation, and locked up all their guns in a container just down the road. Any attempted attack on the container and the UN's alarm would go off. Hmmm....

Over the next day or two we went on an elephant back safari, which was a lot fun! We saw a baby rhino, two species of deer, crocodiles, peacocks, jungle cockerels, kingfishers, hundreds of butterflies and alarming host of insects. I wont delve into too much detail since the Everest Trek report totaled about four pages in MS Word - yep it really was that much!! I'll just let the photos speak this time...


A baby rhino


A spotted deer


Our elephant Sonakali, 'Goldlady'. 41 years of age.


On the canoe. It took a lot of coordination to strike this pose. Every little movement made the boat tip so much. We were petrified of falling out. Wait til you see what was in the water!


Yes those are crocodiles and yes in the river that our canoe was in! Daddy: I can hear you tutting and saying 'what a stupid girl'. I know!


At a elephant breeding centre




The Bad

As you all know I didn't really get much sleep in the Everest Region. Well I thought getting down to 80m above sea level would really do the trick, but I was very much mistaken! During the first night I was stirred from a deep sleep by a feeling of my bed moving. The previous few nights my bed was attached to Reena's, and I'd often find one of her legs sprawled across my bed somehow or another so I didn't think more of it. Then I suddenly heard a scrambling noise across the room and felt another bed shudder. At this point I was awake enough to realise that Reena's bed was a good metre away from my own. With a rush of adrenaline I screamed Reena's name, grabbed for my torch, sat up quick and started scanning around the room with a beam of light. Looking down the side of my bed I could see a trail of food coming from the unfinished dinner on the coffee table, and on closer inspection found some rice on my head board... What in the world... in a jungle lagoon lodge.. would be running all over my bed and make it shudder so much?!? We told the guide the day after about the incident - he seemed not to bother, neither did any of the workers at the lodge. His idea of living with the wild was 'well its only a little leech, let it suck my blood and have a feed. Its better than walking into any temple and giving an offering'. No sympathy for the two city girls with a wild animal in their room at night!

The next night, I simply couldn't sleep. We had pulled out beds away from the walls, hung up our food in plastic bags inside our wardrobe. I was armed with a torch wrapped around one wrist and a camera in the other, I wish I'd had a little pellet gun. Sure enough, the scratching began and we got full glimpse of our midnight guest - it was filthy rat! check it out!! Look at its dirty great long tail!!!



I actually was awake a lot of the night - Reena managed to get some sleep - I think mainly cos it didn't like her bed. It liked mine! It took me two and a half hours to get this shot. It took me a while to get over the gasp and flinch reflex every time it poked its head out, which would cause it to scuttle away... only to return 15 minutes later... I fell asleep eventually, but I obviously hadn't pulled my bed away far enough from the wall cos it made the jump, crash landed on the floor. Reena sat up and screamed as it ran up the curtains! I dunno how we made it through the night. We were supposed to go birdwatching at 6:30 that morning. I told Reena I wouldn't make it since I had spent the night rat watching. I spent the morning catching up on some sleep.



The Ugly

My immune system has taken a bit of a bashing this week. Although I didn't get any of the immediate symptoms of altitude sickness like headache, nausea, nose bleed, frothing at the mouth, etc... I really think that the lack of oxygen for 10 days hit my immune system pretty bad. Its taking me ages to shake off this cough and cold. The night before we left for Chitwan (a six hour bus ride) I was developing a fever, which turned out to be a rather nasty bout of diarrhoea the next morning... I didn't enjoy that bus ride one bit. Once we got to the lodge, and I managed to drag myself to the dinner table, my eyes started to swell up... I look like something out of a medical textbook (only, I'll give you also the happy ending 24 hours later).




A happy ending!

Reena had such a blase attitude about it all, which kept me from fretting too much. 'Yep I know you're hacking half your lungs out, and your guts are exploding themselves on you, and your eyes are about to weld shut, but you'll be alright!' Im sure if I had started bleeding to death she would have raised the alarm! (only kidding reena, you looked after me great, and no I don't want to drink any more water!) If only to settle the nerves of my parents - I'm much better now, thanks to the marvels of modern medicine and the resilience of the amazingly engineered human body. I was drugged up literally to the eyeballs with painkillers, antibiotics, antihistamines, steroids, and other invading pathogens. At least the mosquitoes left me alone! I'm usually a rather tasty morsel for those creatures. Reena got bitten though... Does insect repellent actually make any difference?!

Anyway... We're off to Tibet tomorrow - back to the cold and high altitude. In two days we'll be back up to 5140m. We should hit Lhasa in one week's time, during which we'll get another view of Everest. Hopefully something a little more substantial this time!