Cambodia 2. Kampot: Spring Festival 2018

After the chaos and noise of the big city I was ready for some relaxing and chilling, both had been promised in abundance in Kampot. I had been advised to book a few nights in one of the riverside bungalows that lined the river to take advantage of the quiet. I found a place online with good reviews that looked beautiful. I knew it was a little way out of town but I wasn't to bothered by that. I read on one of the reviews that the riverside bungalows were worth paying the extra $2, which took my total a night to a whopping $7 a night.

I was shown into a room next to the bar which had a little wooden bridge to get to the door so I was immediately apprehensive about where I was going to be sleeping for the next few nights. Once inside though, WOW! I had a huge bed with a mosquito net hanging from the rafters, a mosquito net that I would soon grow to hate, which was about a meter from double glass doors that lead onto my own private balcony on the river.

From the balcony there was a ladder so that I didn't have to walk the extra ten paces to get to the public ladder in the bar. I was straight in the river! I swam in the mornings before breakfast, I jumped in every time I got too hot (which was all the damn time), I jumped in before bed and every time in between. I was on my own, so whenever I wanted to get in, I did.

When I wasn't swimming, I was lounging on my deck with my book or waving at the boat tours that sped past every now and again. It was bliss!

After the first day I started to get a little cabin fever. The rest of the bungalows were all booked out by one big our group of Chinese families. I was reluctant to put myself into the 'oh look a foreigner' situations that pretty much always go with being around Chinese families, especially those with grandparents. The owner was also having a little trouble with their way of doing things and so spent a lot of time checking up on me and making sure I was OK. He invited me back o his house for a home cooked meal, lovingly prepared by his Cambodian wife. I jumped at the invite as so far, I hadn't really found any local food that I was particularly taken with. We went back to their balcony only to be presented with a huge full English breakfast complete with sausages, bacon, potatoes, mushrooms and eggs (plus more). Her theory was that, as I don't live in England I must miss the breakfasts. I won't lie, I do miss the breakfasts and this was a particularly good one, it just wasn't what I was expecting. Not that that stopped me really enjoying the feast.

Just down the road from the bungalows was a small railway bridge which gets used about twice a week for deliveries. It turned out to be a great place to catch the sunset and was also a short cut into the town about 2 miles away. The bungalows had bikes that I could use, but the road after dark was terrifying so I opted to walk with my little wind up torch in hand.

The town of Kampot is tiny. I think I am being generous when I say its a half a mile in all directions from the town square.

As its such a small town, life runs on a different clock. The post office was never open when I walked past as it usually had a sign in the window with something like "gone to the supermarket' or "getting hair cut" or my favourite "out!"
The bars and restaurants all made up their opening hours as they pleased, I watched one turf everyone out so the bar staff could take a nap (it was about 4 in the afternoon).

Despite being such a small place, there was no shortage of restaurants and bars, mostly serving pizza, one claimed to have the best burgers in Cambodia. I don't know if this is true as I didn't try one, it was never open when I walked past.

After three nights in the bungalow I moved into town to stay in The Magic Sponge hostel (another recommendation) which turned out to be possibly the best hostel I have stayed in, and that includes TaiWan. The dorms were in the attic/penthouse and came with their own private rooftop sun lounge areas and bathrooms. The bar had a large seating area under vines so it was nice and cool and a mini golf course. Actually the golf course ended up causing a little problem as some Chinese family that had dumped their kids on me and another guy were not happy that we didn't let them win. We were promised ice cream for the winning team and I wasn't about to let some kid take that away form me. They didn't ask us to entertain their kids again, so win win!

A few nights there and it was off to Kep for some seaside fun!

Cambodia 1. Phnom Penh: Spring Festival 2018

Spring Festival in my current job involves nearly a month off somewhere in January or February. Cambodia had slowly crept its way to the top of my 'to go to' list so I decided to use my month holiday to finally visit the country.

I managed to find cheap flights to the capital city Phnom Penh and booked a hostel. They picked me up in a tuk-tuk from the airport and I had my first hair raising trip in one of the cities many speed of light motorbike taxis driven by a fool on his phone.

I wasn't hugely taken with Phnom Penh, I found it too big, too busy, too chaotic and lacking in interesting things to go and see or do. Maybe if I lived there and knew my way around a bit things would be different but I might actually like the place, but as a tourist just asking through, not so much.

My hostel was in one of the multiple alley ways about a half n hour walk from the river. The hostel itself was nice with a little pool in the bar area, which, in the 30+ degree heat was a real day saver. Every day finished with a relax in the pool with a beer, chatting to the other people staying in the hostel. We all exchanged travel ideas and recommendations of places to see but we all a little stumped with the city itself.

I wandered around by the river and watched the boats coming and going for a while, found a market or two and had a look and that was pretty much it for the city. I had been warned not to expect too much and so only planned on a few days in the city and the rest of the time to travel nearby.

The markets all seemed to be crammed into little side streets and as far as I could tell, they all disappeared a little after the sun went down. They were very similar to the ones we get here in China but, if possible, with even less order and planning. They were interesting to look around, if cramped and busy.


My next stop was one that came as a recommendation from Sean and, as he used to live there I trusted that it would be worth visiting.

I booked a bus to Kampot and readied myself for the 4 hour journey to the river.

ShangHai the Final Frontier: National Day 2018

Last October, National day, I went to Shanghai for a quick trip. During the big Chinese holidays is the best time to visit the big cities as most people who live there will go home to see family. Personally its my favourite time to go. As an added bonus,  I have been there many times so its always a nice familiar trip. For this particular trip, I arrived with no plans and just googled "interesting unusual things to do in Shanghai." I was not disappointed! As it turned out there was a Star Trek Exhibition in town as part of a world tour to celebrate the release of the new film and 50 years of the original series. I am a bit of nerd so went to investigate.

Note: the shark is my number one! 

The show was in an exhibition centre near the airport which was basically deserted. Pretty much just me and a handful of the local fans. I had a blast! Here are some of the best pics.





The exhibition had sets, costumes, scripts, props and miscellaneous other weird and wonderful things from The Next Generation and the new film.

The Return to XingYi: Tomb Sweeping 2017

This trip was actually before going to GanSu but I couldn't find the pictures. That problem has now been solved and here is the update.

Bacon in the gorge.

About a year ago, I think for Tomb Sweeping festival, Sara and I decided to go to XIngYi and visit the gorge. Then train to XingYi is 5 hours and about 80 yuan, a flight is 40 minutes and 200 yuan, we booked the later as it gave us an extra 2 hours in bed before needing to go to the airport. We got up, made a picnic and jumped on a  plane.

 XingYi is a tiny place in a very poor and often over looked province, which I think is a shame. Some of the most amazing places I have been are in Guizhou and almost no-one knows about it. In fact, I recently send some one my Chinese coworkers here and they were amazed at how beautiful, cheap,convenient and undiscovered it is.

Our first stop was MaLing gorge, which I went to a few years ago. Unluckily for us then, the weather wasn't great, and although we didn't actually get too wet, our pictures were rubbish. This time the weather was dry and fully cooperated with us. We climbed down into the bottom of the gorge, wandered for a bit before stopping for bacon sandwiches.

Last time I was in the gorge there was a long loop track which took in the highlights and key views, now there path carries on past the bridge and keeps going around the corner of the base.

Its is as amazing as I remembered it and we spent hours sitting and taking it all in before heading to the hotel.

As Guizhou is still off the beaten track, we booked into a 4 star hotel for the night and only paid 250 yuan for the night.



The next morning we went out to the second scenic area 10,000 peak park. It has a gold buggy looking thing for shuttling people between the viewing platforms. We soaked in as much green and nature as possible before heading on the bus back to the airport.

Yurt Life: National Day 2017

View from the train window

After my night in the campsite and another night in the hotel, I jumped on a train to ZhangYe. It was an incredibly boring train journey with absolutely nothing to look out so I lay on my bunk and read my book, 8 hours later I arrived.

I had booked into a "luxury yurt" as part of a campsite next to the Rainbow Mountains Park. I pretty much only booked out of intrigue of what a luxury yurt was and enjoyment of saying the word yurt. I arrived and was shown around. There were about 40 yurts and a restaurant and that was it! Finding the right one was tricky and finding it again in the dark after going to the bathroom was trickier still. I lost count of how any times people tried to get into mine.

The yurt itself was indeed luxurious, nicer by far than the hotel I had just stayed in. Everything was clean and freshly painted. I was very impressed.

The campsite was about 400 meters from one of the gates to the DanXia Geological Park which made for a very easy commute. I walked down, paid for the tickets and was directed to the bus station.

The park has a network of jump on jump off buses that go just about everywhere. For the most park, I didn't have to wait long and the buses weren't too busy. Although it wasn't far between the viewing platforms walking between them wasn't allowed.

All in all there are 9 different viewing areas of varying degrees of impressiveness. Most involved a huge amount of stairs to a wooden walkway which was usually covered in people chilling out and generally being in the way.

I had read reviews online of people being disappointed in the park and the colours of the mountains. They  weren't the vibrant blues and reds that I had seen on google but they were absolutely impressive!

The park is huge but as a visitor there aren't loads of different areas that you can go and get lost in or wander off to get away from people. Regardless, I had a great time and think it was completely worth visiting.

Sand, Stars and The Camel from Hell! National Day 2017

From the Oasis to the campsite was a collection of lucky breaks.

The first being that the campsite organizers emailed me directions to get picked up and I actually got it! If I had missed that one I would have been stuffed.

After that one, they called me. My Chinese not being great I grabbed a bored looking ticket lady and begged her to talk to them for me. Not only did she talk to them  but she threw me on the back of her and drove me down the road to where they were based. I am not entirely sure how she managed to just disappear from work without getting in trouble but either she did or she really didn't care.

At the reception, we were bundled into a minivan and driver about 25 minutes into the middle of nowhere.

We drove to a hole in a fence where an angry looking man was waiting with 30 camels. On we jumped and (I can speak for the rest of the group) sat nervously waiting for our camels to freak out. They were all tied in a long line, mine being somewhere in the middle, so when the angry man pulled the first one to his/her feet they all followed. Standing up was a little nerve racking but it soon settled into a slow relaxing plod pace. That was until we had been going about 15 minutes and mine decided he was bored of following the one in from and started walking perpendicular to the line of travel. In front and behind of me was a nice calm line of well behaved camels, all just minding their own

Cunningly disguised bathroom

business and taking in the scenery. Then there was mine who wanted to do just about anything but as he was told. The angry man was not impressed but as long as we continued to crab side step in the vague direction of the camp, he didn't interfere with us or tell us off.

The camp turned out to be one big tent with about ten smaller ones and a seating area in the middle. We were left to do as we pleased until sunset, when dinner was available. There was nothing there except miles and miles of sand. I took about a million pictures wandered about until I got worried I wouldn't get home before dark. I was the only foreigner and so, as always, an attraction in itself. Most people were very patient with my Chinese and all fussed over me unnecessarily. I was very well looked after, to the point of getting irritated with it.

Sunset was around 6.30 and dinner was endless kebab and potato sticks. The food was amazing, which just goes to show that I value flavour far more than spice and oil. We ate out fill and then the beer appeared.

To my horror, someone pulled out a KTV machine and set it up. I was in the desert miles away from anyone and anything and STILL KTV followed me and haunted my every waking hour. As is alway the case, one woman somewhere will take this as her opportunity to take over and sing every God awful sappy love ballad ever written.

I sat outside with the staff of the campsite (4 guys whose entire job was babysitting a bunch of tourists) and drank until well after midnight. About 3 am they came and woke me up so that i could see the stars. Unbelievable!

October in DunHuang: National Day 2017

The October National day rolled around again and once again, all flights/trains/buses/horses out of the country had been booked. I decided to go and investigate a different side of China. In my travels so far, i have climbed mountains, visited scenic areas, wandered about "ancient" cities of all ages, boated on rivers, swam in lakes, ogled at waterfalls, hiked through jungles and tried just about every type of food available. One area of China that I hadn't even been close to was the desert region in GanSu.

GanSu is a long skinny province in the northern middle part of China. It borders Mongolia, SiChuan, the Tibetan Plateau and Qinghai. Parts of the northern silk road ran thought GanSu as well as the Yellow River. In terms of geography and scenery, its incredibly diverse which made for an interesting trip.

There aren't any direct flight to DunHuang, which is in the north west part of the province, so I stopped in LanZhou airport for a few hours before getting the short 45 minute trip to the top of the province. During my second flight, we flew over the start of the sand dunes, which the old couple next to me were kind enough to photograph for me. It's weird, there is literally a flat brand new city that goes right to the edge and then city and roads stop, sand and camels start. The old people were very friendly and we arranged to meet for dinner than evening. (Donkey noodles and BBQ)

I was staying in one of the only hotels in the area that had the license to have foreigners stay with them. The pictures looked nice so I didn't mind paying the extra money. The pictures lied! The hotel may have been nice, once but it was a long time ago but it did. October in DunHuang was all baking hot days with sunburn and freezing cold nights with frostbite, no matter what the time of day, i was dressed wrong.

The hotel, as run down as it was, was in a fantastic location. Behind it was the biggest food night market I have seen in China. Harry had told me that food is a way of life here, he was not exaggerating. The food in generally is very comforting and almost familiar, its all breads, meat, potatoes, onions and flavour without the need for spice. The night market was the whole of three large city blocks with one long road connect them selling souvenirs and touristy type things. I could have stayed a week just for the market but I was there to sightsee too. I wandered around for hours trying everything that took my fancy before filling my pockets in preparation for the following day.

I had planned to get the bus out to the Crescent Pool Oasis before heading to the camp site I had booked for that evening.  It was an easy bus journey that left form across the street from my hotel.

The bus drops you off near ish the park but it is pretty obvious where to go. Its basically a newly built road that stops at the bottom of a sand mountain. I bought my entrance ticket, left my backpack and wandered in the general direction.

From the ticket office to the pool itself is a short walk along a planked walkway. It was busy but not to the point of being crowded.

The pool was looking a little thirsty (I heard the spring that once fed the pool has long since died, so it needs filling up every now and again) but it did its job of adding to the weirdness of the setting.

Next to the pool is a small building, the honestly I still have no idea what it was for. Looked cool though. To the front, and sides of the pool building complex are steep dunes that I decided was a really good idea to climb. Now I am aware the I have never tried to climb a mountain of honey but this is exactly what it felt like. Every step my feet were sinking to nearly my knees, I took of my shoes long ago and tied them to my bag.

Someone had helpfully put a rope ladder up the side of the dune to make it easer to climb and give you something to hold on to. The whole route, about 200m long, was littered with people who had bailed out to catch their breath. It was tough! Although only 200m long it climbed nearly 300m so it was tough, steep and exhausting. The top looked like a battlefield with people who had just dropped to rest.

Now that I am looking back on it, the view was worth it but at the time it was much harder to tell.

Cabin fever in Kenting: Summer 2017

The bus journey from Kaohsiung is about 3 hours and for the most part, uneventful.

We drove through Kenting as the bus station was on the far side, the whole town follows the main road and is about 400m long. I got off the bus and walked back to my hostel. I had booked into one of the only places in town, in the Kenting Space Capsule hostel. Most of the hostels in TaiWan are more like the Japanese capsule style, which i had been intrigued to try. By now though I was getting fed up of not being able to stand up in my room and spending the whole time either on or in the bed.

The space capsule was more of the same, but nicer. I described this one as being something that reminded me of a hobbit house. the room had a sliding door with space at the end of the mattress for bags and shoes. It was nice for a few hours but as this post goes on, my descent into madness becomes more and more obvious.

I left the hostel and wandered about for an explore and to find some food. The beach wasn't far away and I had noticed some smaller bar looking places on the front. Nothing is far in Kenting and everyone seems to know where everyone and everything is, getting lost obviously wasn't going to be an issue.

I get to bar, order and beer and settle in to watch the sunset. It is at this point I notice the beach is closed. I ask the waitress what is going on and if they will be opened again any time soon. She just smiles and says something about the typhoon that was expected sometime tomorrow. Perfect, I had arrived into the most famous beach area of Taiwan just before a storm that forced all the beaches closed.

As no-one seemed particularly worried or phased by the storm I didn't really think anything of it. I sat on the deck for a few hours and then headed back to the hostel. By the time I got back, they had taped the windows and stocked up on bottled water and instant noodles. I was sent to the local supermarket to do the same and told I most likely wouldn't be allowed to go out tomorrow.

I spent a total of two days in the hostel, going stir crazy. There were only three other people in the hostel, two American girls and a French girl. Between us we did our best to keep occupied but it really was dull. We watched whole seasons of TV shows and played hours and hours of cards. Eventually the staff came and found us with news that McDonalds across the street had reopened and they were going to order something. A 400y order was placed and we all sat on the floor in reception feasting on nuggets and chips. This was the most interesting and entertaining thing that happened in my whole trip to Kenting. Needless to say, I will most certainly be going back!

I was offered a  seat on the first bus out of town back to Kaohsiung which I jumped at. A few hours later I was dripping on the mat in a hostel in Kaohsiung. There was food other than instant noodles and McDonalds and other people to talk to, bliss.

Regardless of the slight hostage situation, Kenting looks beautiful and it will stay on the top of my 'to return to at a later date' list. fingers crossed for some better weather next time though.