May 2011
4 posts
Spain Day 1 and 2
My first, proper long holiday since Berlin last summer and what a start! Two hours delay in Singapore due to some mechanical failure, followed by problems with the door when we finally reached Heathrow which means walking down the narrow steps from the plane’s upper deck (where I was) to the lower deck lugging all the bleeding equipment. And because of the delay, we hit possibly the busiest...
April 2010
35 posts
Day 17 - Last day of the trip in the city of neon...
I haven’t been to vegas so I can’t compare but the Shanghainese love their neon. More so than Beijing and well pretty much every other country and city I’ve been to. It’s most apparent when sitting on Cloud 9 - the bar on the 87th floor of Grand Hyatt. The whole city, especially the bund, is on neon rampage.
Strobe lights run across bridges and roads, buildings form wave...
Day 16 - Push and shove
Hungry and tired, we decided to have a short nap while the changing to tires (as the tracks in China are different) were taking place in Inner Mongolia (which is under China’s control) at around 10.30pm last night.
By the time most of us woke up, dinner-less, it was 7.30am this morning and the view outside was a grey industrial town with rubbish strewn on the side of the street. Thankfully...
Day 15 - Come on choo choo train
We got up at some ungodly hour - well 5 - 5.30 which to me is torture - to take the trans-mongolian train to Beijing. We said farewells to our excellent guide Sukhe who dropped us off at the train station and made sure all the assortment of backpacks and groceries and wheelies are in our cabin proper.
Our cabin bunk mates are two nice Dutch tax lawyers (yup - can’t seem to get away from...
Day 14 - The coldest capital on earth
We woke up early after a slightly restful sleep - the fire got too warm for us in the evening and Ko Bu had to get up and douse it (in the process covering everything on our dining table with ash but we wouldn’t know this till the morning).
At around 10 took a tour in the Ger District with Troy, the guy who founded Rinky Dink, the tour company we are using during our stay here. He’s...
Day 13 - Horsing Around
We had a good night sleep perhaps thanks to copious amounts of beer drunk from a 2.5L plastic soft drink bottle!!!! Yup their local beer comes in that size. We’re thinking of grabbing one for our train journey tomorrow.
We said hearty thank yous to our host family around 10 and left to find some wild horses. But not before getting dressed in traditional Mongolian costumes called Del...
Day 12 - Bump and Grind
We woke up before 8am in the plains near Har Horin to find snow flakes falling from the sky, with a layer already forming on the ground.
The snow changed the whole landscape into a winter wonderland feel in an alien planet, much like Tatooine, especially since the outhouse, made of car parts and tin sheets, looks straight out of Star Wars.
We left the very lovely couple around 9+, even though...
Day 11 - We're in Heaven
This day was about exploring the sites near Har Horin, the anicient capital and formerly called Kharkhorum.
Our first stop was at the phallic rock - legend has it that a farmer whose 7 daughters were being wooed by the monks in nearby monasteries built it during the 17th century as a reminder to the monks of their vow of celibacy! Apparently it worked, but I wonder whether the daughters ever...
Day 10 - Bum notes
Most of today was spent on the road, hence the numb bums.
However we had some fantastic Mongolian music live at our ger, hence the notes.
We had some much-needed freshening up this morning when we got back to UB - showered, washed my hair, slathered ourselves in moisturising cream, etc etc etc. After running some errands - check mails, buy maps and batteries, get groceries - we headed out...
Day 8 and 9 - Into the wild (Part Deux)
We had no internet connection for the past two days, so I’m continuing my posting only now, when we’re back in UB for some much-needed showering time.
We left Terelj national park, crossed a section of the frozen Tuul River and entered into Kher Hentaii (pronounced Her Hentaii, the K is silent in Mongolian language) where the landscape changed from paved roads among mountains and...
Day 8 - Into the wild
For the first time in a week, I had a leisurely start. Woke up at 9, had breakfast and out into the wild.
Apparently where we are going has no connection… Let’s see later today!
We’ve already gone past paved roads and now it’s just earth lanes…
Day 7 - Oil of Ulan
We got into Ulan Batarr this morning before 11 and wow…. What can I say?
Mongolia IS amazing… And we’ve only been here for a day! We got wing seats on the plane - duds if you wanted to see the scenery, and well we did want to see that. From the glimpses we had, it was full of snow-capped mountain ranges interspersed with wide open spaces.
Then suddenly a city appears...
Day 6 - Beijing!!!!
We started the day early (7.30am) to get to the Great Wall before the great unwashed turned up :p. It was a good thing too, by the time we left (close to 1pm), the place was becoming very touristy!
We climbed the Great Wall from Mu Tian Yu, a place about 1.5 hr drive from our hostel. We went up by cable car (more of a ski lift than a cable car really) and trekked for about 3 hours. The sky was...
Day 5 - Up in the air
It’s another early start today - 8 am flight to Shanghai, followed by another flight to Beijing… spent around 12 hours in total in transit either being on the plane or twiddling our thumbs at the airports…
We had a whistle stop tour at Shanghai airport, which has some of the most confusing maps I’ve ever seen. We got lost a few times (not of our own fault, I’d like...
Day 3 - the Big Day and Day 4 - a time for...
Saturday (Day 3, 10th April) was the Big Day for the wedding couple - T & Matt. It was a big day for all the guests too, who flew in from different destinations and had a terrific party the night before…. apart from the bridal party, everyone had a very slow start to the day thanks to the endless flow of bubbles the night before.
Church wedding at Danang Cathedral was short (for a...
Day 2 - Le Belhamy Blur
These two days (Day 2 and Day 3) will be a bit of a blur I reckon…
Day 2 is the pre-wedding dinner. We started with bubbles at White Marble Bar in Hoi An (this beautiful former capital in Central Vietnam with lots of quaint, old houses and delicious food) followed by a sunset boat ride to Red Bridge restaurant (where they do fun cooking classes) for more drinks and then finally dinner.
...
Day 1 - Saigon rush
The holiday starts in Vietnam… sans Ko Bu (my cousin for those who don’t know - sob) and despite the early start (up at 5.30, double sob) and Bangkok going nuts (state of emergency declared last night, the Reds taking over my street and shopping centres in downtown Bangkok for the 5th day in a row, etc etc etc), it’s not been too bad.
It would’ve helped to get a taxi...
