Malaysia

We've spent the last two weeks in Malaysia, we arrived by bus from Thailand and have worked our way down the east coast and across the country to Kuala Lumpur. The next stop is Bali and then home!

Kuantan The huge mosque in the centre of town.

Melaka - an historic port on the west coast, with a lovely Chinatown. We spent three nights here wandering around the old town and sampling as much Chinese food as possible. Chinese temple


Kuala Lumpur

Mmmm Clarkie's birthday dinner, steamed fish Chinese style.

Thailand revisited!

It had been over a year since we last visited Thailand and it was great to be back. The people were smiley, the food was great (apart from a small food poisioning incident), and we were able to visit some places that we didn't get to last year. We spent a couple of days in Bangkok before heading to Kanchaburi.

Kanchanaburi, home of the bridge on the river Kwai.





Ko Phangan was deserted when we were there and a little disappointing, perhaps we've been to too many beautiful beaches to be impressed by these :). Most of them were not as nice as this photo suggests!


Back in the Thai share taxis!

Cambodia

Arriving into Cambodia was a relief after a couple of weeks in Vietnam, people here smile rather than grimace at each other so the atmosphere is a whole lot friendlier! We've spent a few days on the usual tourist route in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap and have headed here to Battembang to escape the crowds. We hired a bike today, the first time we've had one with gears, and had a tour of the countryside. We had a ride on a bamboo train which is effectively a bamboo bed with wheels and a bike engine that runs on tracks. It was quite hairy going over the bridges. Then we just had a tootle around and wherever we stopped the kids would come and say 'hello, goodbye'; the only English they knew.

We're off to Bangkok tomorrow and then we'll wind our way down through Malaysia to catch our flight to Bali.

Angkor Wat - the eighth wonder of the world and surrounding temples.




Ta Prohm temple, where tomb raider was filmed.



Bamboo train in Battenbang.


It's rainy season across south east Asia at the moment, we hadn't seen that much rain until we got here. It rains a lots in Battenbang (near the Thailand border), in fact so much that we were wadding through the streets in knee deep water trying not to think too much about what might be floating in it! This photo is before the water became so deep that the bikes had to drive on the pavements.


Biking in Battembang.

Nam

We didn't enjoy Vietnam as much as we expected. There was plenty to see and places to visit but we didn't find the people overly friendly. In fact we found them quite rude and hostile. We didn't let it spoil our trip and we did meet some nice people like Mr Xe.

Me with Mr Xe, my tailor in Hoi An - it's hard to tell if the trousers are the right length when all you've got to wear with them is flip flops. I didn't realise he was so small until we put this picture up. Hoi An is the place to get tailor made clothes with over 200 individual tailors in the town.


Happy Birthday to you...


Claire's bum in the Cu Chi Tunnels near Saigon - The Viet Cong used this 200km network of tunnels during the Vietnam war. They must have been a lot smaller than us; this tunnel has been widened to accomodate westerners.


An entrance to the tunnels, widened for western bellies.

Sweating it out in Vietnam

We flew into a very hot Hanoi (38-40 degrees centigrade, with about 80% humidity, swedish sauna style; the BBC describes the 'Discomfort from heat and humidity' as 'Extreme', err, yeap!) and had a couple of nights trying to get used to it. We haven't. We then headed on a bus-boat-bus trip to Cat Ba Island. We had two nights there including a full day trip round Halong Bay. We got stung for our trip. We'd haggled hard but when the boat turned up it wasn't what we had seen in the brochure! (Usual SE Asia stuff) We had a wicked day with some frenchies and a couple of Aussies anyway. We got our revenge though as we only paid a deposit and when we got back no-one wanted the rest of our money so we got a bargain in the end.

From here we got a bus-boat-bus trip to Ninh Bin with a bunch of other tourists who we ended up having dinner and beers with for the rest of the day. We had a day out on a couple of motorbike taxis and then headed down to Hue on an over night bus. It wasn't as bad as we were expecting and we're now in Hoi An. I've just been measured up for a suit and shirt for the wedding and I'll get to try it all on tomorrow! Claire is still deciding what she would like...

Here's a few piccies of the last week:

Claire's snazzy new multi-purpose brolly getting an outing in Hue. It has saved us from frying a few times already but we haven't had any rain since we bought it... yet!


It's pretty amazing what you can get on the back of a motorbike. I tried to get a photo of three bikes with what looked like industrial sized air conditioning tubes on the back but it didn't come out. :(


A view from the entrance of a cave in Halong Bay.


Me sweating it out under a Cat Ba sunset.

Northern South Korea

Jeongdongjin - Northern east coast
There were some lovely beaches in this area and great seafood restaurants, but the beach was surrounded by barbed wire and scattered with watchtowers keeping an eye out for North Korean infiltrators.


A North Korean spy submarine which grounded near the town in 1996. It's now on display for visitors to view. It looks pretty big on the photo but is really cramped inside, hence the need for the hard hat.

'Suncruise resort' complete with lifelike seagull squawks and foghorn noises on the 'deck'. It looks a bit strange perched on the top of the cliff in this otherwise sleepy town.

Seoraksan National Park - near Sokcho.
Ulsanbawi peak after a three hour hike with lots of Koreans in amazing hiking outfits. Most of them were wearing white gloves, not sure what that was for as it was 26 degrees!

Seoul - We've spent nearly a week in Seoul as it's a huge city with lots to see. There are far too many photos to go on here but below is a taster of what we've been up to.

Archery at Suwon Fortress. We both managed to hit a target 15m away once with our 10 arrows but Clarkie wins by hitting the correct target. The pros can hit a target 145m away!



Steamed dumplings at Namdaemun Market - we have been trying to sample as many of the local culinary delights as we can. Some have gone better than others. Dumplings can either be savory or sweet and we caused some panic in the restaurant when we poured some soy sauce on the plate with the sweet ones. Luckily the lady saved the day with a load of tissues. Oops!



Baseball Koreans, like the Japanese, are crazy about baseball. Whilst in Seoul we went to see the LG Twins, one of the local teams. The game lasted for nearly four hours which we weren't expecting but the crowd kept us entertained. Maybe the game we saw was particularly dull or perhaps all baseball is a bit boring but it was definitely worth going to see the fans in action.

Korea: Map

The latest view of where we have been and are heading:


View Korea in a larger map

More Korea!

Our last few days have been spent soaking up some culture in Gyeonju, on the east coast north of Busan. It made a nice change to Busan as only 280,000 people live there, so it was small enough to walk around. There was lots to see including tombs that look like grassy hills from the outside, which are Korea's version of pyramids.

Yangdong Folk Village A preserved 500 year old village which is a cultural presevation area . People still live there, in traditional homes mainly farming for a living. There were lots of tourists like us snooping around and having a good look round the few buildings we were allowed in! Some of the Korean tourists were having a good look round the ones you weren't allowed in too.

Ssambap Lots of veggie and meat dishes, the idea is to wrap up a little of a dish, rice and sauce in a lettuce leaf. It would probably be a really healthy meal if we hadn't eaten so much of it!


Clarkie enjoying the soju, the local cheap spirit. It's really strong, cheap and the Koreans love it.


Our 6 1/2 hour bus journey from Gyeongju to Samcheok. We were the only people on the bus for the whole journey and the very nice driver bought us a cup of coffee.


Samcheok - Clarkie mistakenly befriended this very drunk man with a partially shaved t shirt wearing dog in the local park, he was pretty keen for us to take photos of it!

End of Japan and the start of Korea!

Last few days in Japan = Nagasaki and Hakata/Fukuoka - the city with two names! We spent a couple of days in Hakata before catching a ferry to Busan, South Korea. The city wasn't that interesting but we did have some great food. The photo below is of a heated roof tile which Clarkie's selection of ramen was served on, the noddles are dipped in the sauce on the right, which wasn't that easy to do even though our chopstick skills have improved over the last few weeks!




South Korea - Busan
After a fairly uneventful ferry journey we arrived in Korea. Signs on the boat had warned us to wear our seatbelts as the ferry swerves to avoid whales and 'other sea creatures' but we didn't encounter any. We did however smell and see thousands of dead, almost dead and living fish, eals, octupus, turtles, prawns etc at the Busan fish market. The guys below were tucking into a huge platter of fresh fish and the various pickles, vegetables and sauces which come with every meal here.


On our last night in Hakata we met a really friendly Irishman who teaches English in Busan,he invited us out to dinner with his girlfriend so that we could sample some traditional Korean food. The restaurant was at the end of a tiny dark alley so we would never have found it ourselves or been able to order any food as there was no menu or English speakers.

Bulgogi - our dinner for the night. A bbq set in the middle of the table, each piece of beef is wrapped in a lettuce leaf with sauce, served with an array of delicous pickled side dishes, ummm!


An friendly Irishman, called Mark with big messy dark hair and an exotic girlfriend remind you of anyone?!

Japan Map

I thought I`d put a map up showing where we have been and where we are still planning to go in our 3 weeks in Japan. The red blobs are where we have stayed for at least one night. The blue blobs are other places we have visited, either on our way to somewhere else or as a day trip. Green blobs are where we are planning on staying over the next few days until we leave for South Korea.


View Japan in a larger map

Volcanoes and onsen - Kyushu

To try and see a different side of Japan we've spend the last few days visiting some smaller towns and spending our time out of the huge cities.

Ibusuki - a really sleepy seaside town at the southern most tip of the Satsuma province, as well as the tiny oranges they also grow giant radishes around here. We spent a morning at the onsen (hot spring) there, starting with a sand bath on the beach, basically being buried alive by the bath attendants and left to sweat in the sand for 15 minutes. Afterwards we made use of the traditional Japanese bath which included a 84c sauna complete with tv.

Clarkie wearing his yukata (a Japanese dressing gown) because the sand bath is mixed everyone has to wear one of these, apparently it also aides the sweating part of the experience!

Our last trip on the bullet train.
Sakurajima - one of Japan's most active volcanoes. The kids here wear hard hats to school in case there's an eruption. The volcano has erupted over 500 times this year and the whole area is covered in ash.

We spent a night in a youth hostel which looked like something from an army base in the company of three middle aged Japanese people. The hostel had it's own onsen, no showers, so it's been communal bathing for the last few days!
Clarkie's standing on the lava field created in the 1914 eruption which joined the island to the mainland.


Hot water foot bath with slightly weird brown stuff floating in it, but we're pretty sure it was mud/rock from the volcano!



Aso Another volcano but we could walk up to the crater of this one and the whole area stank of sulphur which it was spitting out. Mount Aso is the largest active volcano in Japan, it has bunkers to provide refuge for tourists if the volcano erupts, we only saw smoke though, no lava in sight!

For Exeter uni alumni please watch, you'll all have known someone like this at uni!

Gap Yar

xx

Japan - Part 2

We spent four days in Kyoto, an old imperial capital of Japan, visiting plenty of temples with day trips to Osaka and Nara. For the last week Japan trip we're traveling around Kyushu, the southern most island, it's a lot warmer here than further north which suits us just fine now that our bodies have come accustomed to warmer climates!

The super fast 'shinkansen' bullet train. The Japanese are really polite to the extent that conductors, cleaners and attendants on the trains bow to the carriage when they enter and leave.


Feeding the deer in Nara, just outside Kyoto.
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Katsura Imperial villa garden, Kyoto.


Himeji castle between Kyoto and Hiroshima.


View from Miyajima island, just outside Hiroshima. We took the easy option and took the cable car up then walked down, a wise choice as everyone walking up the thousands of steps looked like they were about to keel over!


Osaka aquarium. Clarkie is impersonating the huge spider crab which looks like it would attack him if the glass wasn't there!


The aquarium is home to two huge whale sharks, this is their smaller hammerhead relative.