October 31, 2011 – 9:53 pm
From 28th October to 5th November we crossed from Vietnam to Thailand via Laos, by bus. Places we stopped at: Buddhist monk-populated Savannakhet, and Pakse, from where we took a boat to a tiny village called Champasak on the Mekong river. This was a lovely place (probably my favourite of the whole trip) which was just a cycle ride away from Wat Pho — a less grand but very beautiful version of Cambodia’s Angkor Wat.
We also went kayaking, but the less said about that the better.
This is a bit of a naff picture of the Mekong, but it’s the only one I had.
October 27, 2011 – 8:03 am
October 25, 2011 – 1:42 pm
We spent a few days in Hanoi in the north. The original plan was to travel to Ho Chi Minh City in the south — it being the furthest point by rail that we could reach from London — but we realised we would then run out of time to get to Singapore. So we decided to go half way down the country to Dong Ha, where we stopped for a day to visit the amazing Vinh Moc tunnels, then cut across to Laos.
Looking back at my little journal, I thought it was hilarious that I wrote this when we arrived in Hanoi:
Then just three days later, this:
October 21, 2011 – 11:52 am
October 18, 2011 – 7:37 am
Here are some pictures from our trip through China, from 14th-24th October. We stopped at Beijing, Yangshuo and Nanning. I’d learned some Mandarin from CDs before we came, which meant that on the Chinese trains, instead of being completely misunderstood, I could be a comedy feature and be completely misunderstood.
Special memories: seeing someone flying a kite in Beijing with such a long line that you couldn’t see the kite; hiring bikes in Yangshuo then getting stuck on the wrong side of a river and getting rafted across by a bunch of old ladies; the train trip where we sat at the back in the special gobbing/smoking compartment.
October 13, 2011 – 8:03 am
October 10, 2011 – 8:19 am
On the train to Mongolia we met a Russian man who said he was a lama. He took an unhealthy interest in whether we had children, and told us we ought to. To help us along he drew me a picture of the sun and told me I must keep it close to my heart. I didn’t take his advice, which is perhaps why it took so long.
Like many tourists we stayed in a traditional ger in the national park and ate some unidentifiable meat. We also went for a horse ride. That was the third time in my life that I have sat on a horse, and also the last. (I said that the other two times, but this time I meant it.)
In this temple I was in the dog-house (as opposed to the god-house I suppose) by walking around it anticlockwise instead of clockwise.
October 5, 2011 – 9:11 am
October 4, 2011 – 8:15 am
We spent 4th-7th October on this island, which was a detour off the train line. It’s in the middle of Lake Baikal, which is the deepest lake in the world and supposedly contains 20% of the world’s freshwater.
(I decided to crop out the text on grounds of pointlessness, and just put some of the pictures up.)
