Photos: Japan

'Meiko', an apprentice Geisha

(Kyoto - 15/08/06)

Tokyo (13/08/06)

With Dan & Chris in Yakatori bar in Roppongi, Tokyo (17/08/06)

Kinka-ku ('The Golden Pavillion', Kyoto - 16/08/06)

Shibuya, Tokyo (13/08/06)

Konnichi-Wa Tokyo!

What a difference a day makes ...

... we arrived in Tokyo after travelling all day and fell in love with the place!
It's all so clean - people even carry around keyring ashtrays so they don't flick ash/cigarette butts on the floor - and the people are so friendly and nice! In fact this is the first place we've felt like making an effort to learn the basics of the language - i.e. more than just please, thank you and the bill please!

We spent our first two days wandering around town and feeling completely awestruck! First up was Shibuya where 'Lost in Translation' was filmed - all big screens, flashing lights, music blaring and people everywhere - overwhelming! Next up was Ginza, a little more subdued but equally awe-inspiring for Ali, not least because of all the designer shops ;-) The final destination was Akihabara, or electric city as it's more commonly known, something to keep Steve happy!

Tokyo is best described as modern/futuristic whilst still being traditional, hi-tech but low-fi, conventional but wacky - a city with many contradictions. It's also a city that is expensive! A place where paying £5 a beer is a bargain and the average cost of a melon is £10 - not somewhere to live if you have no money!!!

We stayed at Dan's apartment in Tamachi which was fab - made us feel a little less like travellers and more like normal people! It also kept Steve entertained as he could take pictures of the mono-rail at least twice a day! Dan and his colleague Chris also introduced us to the hedonistic lifestyle of an expat - more on that later!

First, a bit of culture!

We ventured out to Kyoto on an infamous bullet train - very quick and impressive, wish the Bromley - Victoria train was so reliable and quick!!! Kyoto, once you got out of the surprisingly modern train station and town centre, met our ideal of Japan. Lots of wooden buildings, lanterns, sliding doors, pagodas, temples and shrines - we even saw a few meiko (trainee geisha). In fact with 1800 temples, hundreds of shrines, historical buildings and neighbourhoods, japanese gardens, spas and cuisine, Kyoto boasts something for everyone!

We stayed at a traditional Ryokan (Japanese Inn) which was all sliding screens, mats on the floor and tiled sunken baths! It was so authentic that they even gave us slippers and kimonos to wear around the place and served afternoon tea whilst we were seated on cushions on the floor! The only bad thing about it was the 11pm curfew (and lack of air-conditioning)!!!

Out of 1800 temples we managed to see 7! Still we did choose the best 7, including Kinkaku - the golden pavillion, a wooden one with great views (forgotten the name!) and Sanjusangen-do - which is guarded by 1000 buddhas as well as the 1,000 armed buddha.

We also fitted in a couple of day trips from Tokyo, including Hakone/Mt Fuji. The guidebook said 'if the weather cooperated Hakone makes for a memorable day trip where you can enjoy toy trains, pirate ships, cable cars a volcanic springs ... Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate and we had our first rain since arriving in Japan! Still, we had a great day out despite not being able to see Mt Fuji - we especially enjoyed the black boiled eggs cooked in sulphuric gases at the volcanic springs!

We made it back to Tokyo that night just in time to head out for Yakitori (chicken/veggie skewers), Beer and Sake with Dan and Chris - the first time we'd seen Dan since arriving despite staying at his apartment for 5 nights already! The night was billed as a 'quiet' one in preparation for our big Friday night out (tomorrow) - hmmmm! Several sakes later, followed by drinks at 'Magumbos' and a great time was had by all - although we must have caught the 'beer scooter' home as neither of us remembered leaving the bar!

We had an early start planned for our final trip out of Tokyo, Nikko, which had been billed as the absolute must do from Tokyo ... Amazingly we made the train, despite the sore heads, the trouble getting out of bed, leaving the apartment with only 15 minutes to get to the train station and catch a train to Tokyo station, getting on the wrong train at Tokyo and then having to run for ours!

Nikko itself was lovely, though we just weren't equipped to deal with it! We started badly, catching a bus to the temple area as we were too lazy to walk the 2 km - unfortunately we didn't check the bus destination and just followed the crowds ... a mistake we realised 4 km out of town so we had to walk all the way back again! Then when we did arrive at the temple area Steve realised we didn't have enough cash for our entry ticket so we had to traipse back to the station to find the nearest ATM - at leat 2 hours gone by this point! When we finally saw something it was actually worthwhile - more amazing temples mixed with great scenery!

And so our last night, which Dan had actually skived off work to prepare for - oh dear! We started well with a lovely Tepanaki meal and a couple of drinks - unfortunately it was all downhill again as soon as we got to Magumbos! It was made worse by the tradition of ringing the bell there - when you do, you have to buy everyone in the bar a shot, which a couple of people did that night!

A very, very big thank you to Dan for making our stay in Japan comfortable and memorable, as well as to Chris for letting us into the apartment, helping us out with everything, entertaining us and sharing the burden of expensing our entertainment! It was a pleasure hanging out with you both and we look forward to repeating the experience in London next summer!

Sayonara Asia !!!!

Photos: Hong Kong & China

Ali at 'The Peak'

(Hong Kong Island - 05/08/06)

We now know what 'Percival' is in Cantonese! (Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Island - 05/08/06)

The Great Wall of China

(Simatai - 10/08/06)

"That's Champion Brickwork!"

(Simatai - 10/08/06)

'The Hutongs'

(nr. Quianmen, Beijing - 11/08/06)

The Fobidden Palace

(Beijing - 08/08/06)

Ali at The Summer Palace

(Beijing - 09/08/06)

China Whites???

We wish!!!

Having pretty much spent the last 3 days in airports, we arrived in Beijing shattered and headed straight to bed - sightseeing can wait!

A new day, a new city - the first thing we noticed was that the constant drone of mopeds had been swapped for the dulcet tones of throat clearing and nose blowing - not pleasant! Steve slipped on a couple of 'pavement oysters' before realising what was going on!

Beijing is certainly different and probably our biggest culture shock so far, especially as English is not widely spoken. Our first chore was to organise a trip to Xi'an (Terracota Army) so off we headed to Beijing West Station (biggest train station in Asia). We very quickly realised this was not going to be an easy task - thousands of people, hundreds of platforms and not a word (or number) in Western text! Time for a travel agent and what better place than the Chinese International Travel Association - errrm ..... maybe if you can speak Chinese!!! After two days of traipsing around travel agents we found one that could speak English, unfortunately the train was now fully booked until the day after we left!!!

Beijing itself is best described as big fat buildings set amidst big fat roads - everything looks the same here so it was amazing that we managed to get around the city without too many problems - despite one helpful chap trying to convince us to cross the road and catch the number 44 bus to the station that we were standing outside ....!

It feels likes the whole city has been bulldozed and rebuilt to get ready for the 2008 olympics, a shame as they haven't done it very well! You can walk for 4 miles (which we did) without coming across a single cafe/bar/restaurant or even ice-cream van! There is no atmosphere here at all, and even the infamous bicycles have gone - we hardly saw any! There are still a few hutongs left (traditional working class neighbourhoods), but having wandered around a couple and witnessing the conditions, it is easy to understand why the chinese aren't sorry to see them gone. However, once they are the city will have lost all it's traditional identity.

We managed to eat pretty well, although more by luck than judgement as our choices were made by pointing at pictures and hoping for the best!!! And we were very lucky given that the chinese are renowned for eating anything with 4 legs! We spotted weasel on the menu, along with a few other strange items! They also don't like to waste anything - pigs intestines (fed with special foods just before their death) or fish head soup.... anyone?! Alternatively, how about whole roast piglet or fried duckling, complete with head obviously??? Ali has taken to making packed lunches to save us eating anything weird!!!

So the touristy stuff:

Tiananmen Square - much smaller than we imagined and flanked by the History Museum (whose exhibits and explanations change depending on the latest party line and therefore it is rarely open) and the 'Great Hall of the People'.

Mao's Mausoleum - actually we didn't bother with this as the queue was nearly a mile long!

Forbidden City - Disappointing as most of it was being renovated and surrounded by scaffolding. They did have a very impressive imperial coffee house there though - hadn't realised 'Starbucks' had been around so long ...

Jingshan Park - Renowned for its views from the top - which were marred by yet more renovations! This was the site where an emperor commited suicide by hanging himself from a tree - the tree was later punished by his successors for its part in the suicide, by being mannacled with an iron chain!!

Beihai Park - Beautiful but a shame the giant pagoda, winter palace and dragon pavillion were closed for refurbishment ...

... are you spotting a theme yet?! It's a bit like going to Disney to find 80% of the rides closed but being charged the full admission and not being warned about the closures! The moral of this story is to visit a city after the Olympics are held there and not just before!!!

Summer Palace - very impressive and much more like we expected the Forbidden Palace to be. Easy to spend the day wandering the gardens, lakes, temples and pavillions - a beautiful but much ignored tourist attraction as a few km out of town.

Ming Tombs - errrm... took 3 hours to get here by bus; cost loads to get in; and was the biggest waste of space ever! Not even convinced they were the original tombs given the chinese tendancy to reconstruct everything!!! We spent an hour there, and that included stopping for lunch! Incidentally, you haven't experienced public transport overcrowding until you've been on a Beijing bus during rush hour - a 30 seater bus was crammed with at least 120 people! Ali managed to get a seat around halfway back which gave her an excellent vantage point to spot the local fashions - hot of the catwalk for men seems to be vests rolled up to look like a sports bra; boxer shorts; socks pulled up to the knees; and slippers (preferably purple)! Women are simpler as anything seems to go, as long as it's teamed with ankle stockings/pop socks!!!

Great Wall - we decided against visiting the closest parts of the wall at Badaling or Mutianyu as they've been so heavily reconstructed apparently there's not much of the original wall left. Instead we followed the advice of various tour guides and headed to Simatai around 3 hours drive from Beijing. We paid a 'man in a van' £6 each to drive us there, wait around for 4 hours then drive us back and it was the best £12 ever spent!

Simatai was amazing, we climbed to the fourteenth tower, at which point things were getting too dangerous to carry on, and the views were fabulous. They were only restricted by the clouds drifting through the towers - we climbed through and above the clouds at one point which was quite spectacular! This was definitely the highlight of our trip so far!

Tea House Theatre - A chinese cabaret with endless servings of tea and sweets, quite cool and we both had a great evening! The show featured Peking Opera - lots of symbols clanging and drums beating; chinese magic - ala Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee; the birdmen of Beijing - 2 old men making bird noises; geriatric comediens - the chinese chuckle brothers; some live music from a Celine Dion soundalike with her twangers; and topped with rythmic juggling and an acrobatic martial arts display - very crouching tiger / hidden dragon!

There's a couple of things that have to get a mention before we sign off from China - the first is the (empty) water bottle thieves! It seems that empty bottles of mineral water must fetch a premium as we've had a few stolen - the most memorable was someone walking into Starbucks and nicking the bottle from Ali's hands!!

We should also tell you about the payment system here. Everything has to be paid in advance which can be a little strange in restaurants as you have to pay before you actually see the meal! It all works by vouchers, so if you haven't paid enough in advance you can't order what you want!!!

Finally, the mosquitoes here are clearly insane, they've bitten Steve's armpits and feet - eeeuuuuch!!!

All in all China has been a great experience (in many ways!!!) and our final goodbye to it was someone throwing-up over the back of Ali's chair as our flight landed in Hong Kong - a fitting send-off!!!

Hong Kong (Ty)Fooey ... free the Hanoi five

And it's goodbye SE Asia and hello Hong Kong ... or so we thought!

It was all going so well until our 11am flight was called, and then cancelled due to Typhoon Prapiroon closing Hong Kong Airport! Vietnam Airlines/Cathay Pacific were actually pretty good, ferrying everyone to a nearby hotel in order to wait for the 12.30am flight. However, there was an earlier flight (7pm) and we were quite keen to leave Hanoi, so we teamed up with Mel, Jo and Toby from Sydney and stayed at the airport on the off-chance it would go...

Unfortunately it didn't and Hong Kong airport remained closed for another day but we did have the best time ever at an airport! After entertaining ourselves for a few hours crashing the business lounges, the five of us decided to share some Dalat - remember the valley of luuuurve?! - red wine (which at $5 a bottle was overpriced by at least $4).


3 or 4 bottles later and suddenly vodka shots (only duty free we ever bought that didn't even make the plane!) seemed a good idea! The next thing you know we've roped in Mr Vogue and Mr Prada from Milan (business class lovies), and a Taiwanese business man and his secretary (who'd never tried vodka before) and a great time was had by all!

27 hours (and a few tantrums) later we finally took off from Hanoi to the sound of passengers' cheers! Unfortunately that meant arriving at our 'hotel' at 10.30pm and leaving for Beijing at 3pm the next day ... giving us a whole 4 hours of sightseeing time!


The views coming onto Hong Kong Island were breathtaking with amazing high rise buildings all around, all with great (if not feng shui) designs. We got the funnicular to the top of the peak which offered some fantastic views and photo opportunities, as did the Star Ferry to Kowloon and back a little bit later.

Buildings and spectacular views aside, Hong Kong seemed a pretty strange place - it definitely had a veneer of sophistication and glamour. However, once you scratched the surface it was just (to steal the name of a popular cafe) 'same, same but different' to the rest of Asia! This was especially evident by our 'hotel' (tiniest room you've ever seen - our understairs cupboard at home was bigger!) charging us for the night we missed for failing to notify them we weren't coming, despite us calling them, sending 2 emails and getting the airline to call - robbin' b*stards (Steve's catchphrase since we left England)!

Although we hear it has gone downhill somewhat since the Brits left ...

Photos: North Vietnam

Taking the cow for a river cruise (Nr. Hanoi, Vietnam - 01/08/06)













Sun lounger on the deck of our 'Deluxe' Junk (Halong Bay, Vietnam - 30/07/06)














Floating Village (Halong Bay, Vietnam - 30/07/06)










At 8am on a boat in the middle of nowhere, Ali still manages to find a shop, whilst 'politely' informing the skipper that in UK he'd be locked up for the state of the boat!
(Halong Bay, Vietnam - 31/07/06)















Relaxing by the Hoan Kien lake (Central Hanoi, Vietnam - 01/08/06)
















B-52 wreckage at the Miltary History Museum (Hanoi, Vietnam - 01/08/06)

Why does it always rain on me ...

 

... is it because we left the beach and went to HaNoi?!

 

We left Nha Trang on Vietnam Airways' oldest, smallest, noisiest plane via DaNang to HaNoi - our only option as all the trains and buses were fully booked!   This set the tone for our day as we arrived in HaNoi around 9pm where it was pouring with rain to find we'd listened to the lying planet and inadvertantly booked ourselves into the "HaNoi Hilton"!   Despite being given the best room in this all expense spared hotel (a room which overlooked the busiest/noisiest street in the world!), the place was filthy and falling down - we were terrified to switch the lights on in case we electrocuted ourselves!!!   Ali slept (badly) on top of the bed fully clothed and neither of us wanted to use the bathroom!

 

A new day and a new start, we checked out of our "hotel" at 7am following some expert story telling about bumping into friends and going to stay with them for a few days (too tired to argue!).   We found a lovely hotel near the lake by the old city, which is so new we were the first guests - and after some excellent bartering from Ali we got for the same price as the last place!!! We later discovered this second hotel was owned by the same woman as the first - oops!!!

 

The rain still hasn't stopped - we were told that today is actually "crossed lover's day" when the world's broken-hearted lover's cry and their tears become rain.   They must have been very sad as the rain lasted 5 days!!!  We have been forced to abandon all sense of style and buy ponchos to fit in with the locals and keep dry!

 

HaNoi, despite the rain, is a nice place - it seems to have embraced tourism without conforming to it so is still very authentic.   The old city is made up of 36 narrow, busy streets which are named after what used to be sold there - eg "Silk" St, "Spice" St, "Tin" St etc.   Some of the streets still sell their original wares, however most seem to have changed - unless they really do translate to "souvenier" st, "flip-flop" st, "fake electrics" st or "things nobody could ever possibly want or need" st!   Steve is still looking for "cheap beer" st! 

 

Our hotel is just overlooking Hoan Kiem Lake (the lake of the restored sword) which is a really nice place to watch the world go by.   Legend has it that Emperor Le Loi's sword was taken into the lake by the giant golden turtle following his victory over the Ming Chinese, and that the sword will be returned when the people need it most (hmmm - sure we've heard a similar story about Excalibur!).   We're not entirely convinced, as we saw a turtle but he wasn't golden and didn't carry a sword!

 

There's not a great deal to do or see in HaNoi.  We visited Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum where you are forced to shuffle at a set pace passed the body without speaking, stopping, smiling, breathing etc!   All very strange but worth seeing just for the reaction of the locals to his body.  We did want to see his palace whilst we were there but for some reason the Vietnamese authorities thought the Venezualan president's visit was more important than ours so it was closed!

 

We went into the HCM Museum instead (mainly to escape the rain) which is basically a room dedicated to photos of him visiting China, as well as a few pairs of slippers he used to wear whilst relaxing with a paper - the biggest waste of 20p ever!!!   Next up was the Military History Museum, once again full of very one-sided propoganda.  It's very sad to see the wreckage of planes and tanks though, together with graphic descriptions of how their occupants were killed by the vietnamese 'heroes'!?!?

 

Our final stop on the city tour was the HaNoi Hilton - no not our first hotel but the Hoa Lo Prison which housed political prisoners during the french occupation and US Airmen during the Vietnam war. Not really much to say about it as it doesn't take too much imagination to know what it was like!

 

We also did a couple of tours outside of the city - the first of which was HaLong Bay (or Bay of the Descending Dragon) which we were really looking forward to as it's made up of 3,000 islands and caves which you sail around aboard a deluxe chinese junk eating seafood banquets and sleeping in luxury air-conditioned rooms for 2 days ....

 

Things started well, though it was still raining, and then we arrived at our boat ... deluxe junk my a**e, heap of junk more like!   Completely different to the one we booked, the boat was just awful: cockroaches in the bedrooms; filthy smelly bathrooms; broken deck-chairs; etc - we could go on but frankly it'd reawaken the nightmare!   Our lunchtime seafood banquet consisted of one plate of cucumber, one plate of chips, 12 tiny prawns, deep fried fish goujons and boiled rice - between 6 people!!!  The dinner banquet was even smaller.   They also ran out of drinking water at 3pm on the first day so nothing to drink but coke, and to top it all off the staff anchored up at 6pm in the middle of nowhere cause they wanted to watch Vietnam play volleyball!   Fortunately China won the match ...

 

After two days of this we then had to climb over five other boats, in the rain and carrying rucksacks, to get off. Once back in HaNoi we went back to the tour agency (Handspan / Sinh Cafe - the largest in Vietnam) to request a refund due to the mis-selling of the trip, especially as we found out that everyone else on the boat payed half what we did.   We eventually got one after 2 hours of arguing, we have however now been barred from going on any of their tours for life and the guide's parting comment was that he hoped we had a really bad experience in Vietnam - erm think he missed the point that we already had!!!

 

On our last day here the rain finally stopped so we decided to visit the Perfume Pagoda - through a different tour company obviously!!!   The Perfume Pagoda is a series of shrines and temples built amongst the limestone caves at the top of the mountain of the perfume traces (so called because of the scent of the flowers in the forest).   The caves and temples can only be reached after an hour long trip on a rowing boat over flooded farmland (where people still live and farm), followed by an hour long trek up the mountain (and the same back).   It is considered one of the most beautiful spots in Vietnam which is probably true, however our enjoyment was somewhat marred by the fact the sun decided to make a reappearance catching us unawares!   2 hours on a rowing boat, plus 2 hours trekking up/down mountains with no shade or sunscreen can only mean one thing ... Steve now looks like he's wearing a white hairy chest t-shirt!!!

 

And so it's goodbye SE Asia and we are a little sad as on the whole it's been a great experience.  We've seen some spectacular sights and met some lovely people.   The food has been fab, especially the green curries, beef pho (noodle soup), fresh spring rolls, watermelon juices and banana/mango rice crackers.  We managed to avoid Thit Cay (Dog) and "Happy" food though!

 

Both Vietnam and Cambodia are beautiful countries with masses of potential, we just hope that the locals realise tourism will only continue boosting their economies (and pockets) if they offer a good experience as nobody wants to visit a country that is constantly trying to rip you off.