Category: Asia

  • ‘Living’ on Koh Phangan

    ‘Living’ on Koh Phangan

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    I left Chumphon early with the intention of catching a train to Surat Thani and a boat to the Islands North of there, Koh Phangan. However, I missed the train and so caught a minibus instead! I arrived in Surat Thani and waited for an hour to catch the last boat to the Island. Watching…

  • Bike riding in Chumphon

    Bike riding in Chumphon

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    I left Prachuap on a local train, the journey was 3 hours and cost roughly 80p. I was sat next to a couple of elderly women, with bright red teeth stained with betel nut. They each had a handbag with a plastic bag liner and were spitting their red as saliva into it every few…

  • Perfection in Prachuap

    Perfection in Prachuap

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    I left Phetchaburi for Prachuap via minibus and had the intention of blogging on my journey, however I quickly realised that I had left my notebooks back at Mayom hostel. I messaged Roong on Facebook and amazingly she was able to ‘post’ them to me on the next minibus leaving Phetchaburi. After arriving I checked…

  • Wildlife spotting in Phetchaburi

    Wildlife spotting in Phetchaburi

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    Steve and I left Bangkok on a minibus to Phetburi where we checked into Mayom hostel. The owner there, Roong, was a lovely person. The hostel was new and really pretty, we were almost the first people to stay here! We rented a scooter and drove to the national monument on top of a hill…

  • Bangkok with Ben

    Bangkok with Ben

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    Steve and I flew back to Bangkok. And with Steve staying only a few days before going to Indonesia, Paul going to Chiang Mai before home and Steffi staying in Yangon for his Chinese visa, it was to be the end of the gang… I planned to be in Bangkok on these dates to coincide…

  • City living in Yangon

    City living in Yangon

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    Yangon used to be the capital of Myanmar until a few years ago when the government, paranoid about naval invasion, decided to build a new city from scratch in the centre of the country. We never went to Nay Pi Taw, and I had heard from other travellers we were right not to as it’s…

  • Ancient temples in Bagan

    Ancient temples in Bagan

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    From the over night bus, we arrived in Bagan very early and straight off the bus we were surrounded by taxi drivers wishing to take us to the town. After some tough negotiation, which started a fight between some of the drivers… We finally got to town. We checked into winner guest house was slept…

  • Wet season on Inle Lake; Nguanshwe

    Wet season on Inle Lake; Nguanshwe

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    We took an overnight bus from Hsipaw to Nguanshwe. A little different from most other overnight buses, the buses in Myanmar were not sleeper buses, so getting to sleep sitting upright is not ideal. Luckily for me I can usually sleep anywhere, so it wasn’t so bad… the guys took sleeping pills to cope, which…

  • Trekking in Hsipaw

    Trekking in Hsipaw

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    From Mandalay we took the tourist bus to Hsipaw, a village in the north with great access to the minority mountain people of Myanmar such as Shan, Karen and Palaung people. We arrived late in the evening and booked a trekking tour through the hostel to a Palaung village. The trek started at 6am the…

  • Making friends in Mandalay, Myanmar

    Making friends in Mandalay, Myanmar

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    The gang, reduced now to just the boys and I, flew with AirAsia from Bangkok to Mandalay in the morning and walked from the bus transfer point to garden guesthouse. It was already afternoon so we ate at a local Chinese restaurant and showered before heading out to watch the sunset at Mandalay Hill; a…