Day 73: The day I forgot Rolf! (and saw the Great Wall of China)

Mood: Distraught
Music: Kings of Conveinience - Riot on an empty street

Well. Yes. I think the title says it all! Today I forgot Rolf. I left him sat in the combat pocket of the trousers I was wearing yesterday and for some reason just assumed he was in the pocket of the other trousers when I did my final checks for the day. I only realised when I got to a particularly good vantage point and then started tapping my pockets to find him!

It was from here that I took the above photo of Hachi, who will have to substitute for Rolf in today's excursion. I really don't think Rolf would be too happy with that but I could hardly leg it 45 minutes down the mountain and then demand a 3 hour round trip just to fetch him for a photo call... He does have a photo today, as ever, just peeking out of the pocket he spent the day in. This is below.

Anyway.... I was picked up today at 8:30am and we set off away from the nation's capital in the direction of the section of wall we were to visit (Jinshanling). A new expressway was built for the 2008 Olympics and as such the journey time has been cut significantly. Apparently it used to take almost 4 hours to do the 90minute journey. From a car park Stephen and I set out on foot up to a steeply stepped path that led from the northern side of the wall up to it. The Great Wall was built in its current state in the 14th century to keep out the Mongol raiders who were frequently attacking the local villages.

We joined the wall at a platform a short way from one end of this, the longest publically open section of wall. There were a couple of people at a number of the towers on the wall selling water, cola and beer at hugely inflated prices to the tourists en route. I had to make used of one of these on the way back, it being a hot day and me carrying my whole camera bag on my back. That and only setting out with 500ml of water, which was all gone before I had gone half way along the section of wall we walked, and we had yet to return the way we came. Obviously I gave my money to my guide and let him haggle the price down rather than paying 5 times the going rate.

From the high points, the wall streched for as far as the eye could see in both directions. Unfortunately the sky has been fairly dusty and that has made visibility more limited than one would like in such a place. I also makes photographing the area rather tricky as the whole sky appears as a very bright diffuse light source, washing out the sky in all but the most carefully framed photos.

The wall was much steeper than I'd imagined in places with sections of very steep steps. The section I walked was also uphill most of the way to the point where the continuing path in to the Simai wall area was closed for renovation.

On the way I met a British group who were walking to raise money for charity. I first passed them as they sat in one of the towers resting. They caught me up after a few minutes as I've stopped to take some photos of the wall in the distance with my telephoto lense. I did get a little confused when I heard them suggest that I might be papperazzi who had followed them out there. At this point Stephen caught up too and we continued in amongst the group for a little while. It turned out to be number of people raising money for various charities. After a minute or two I gleaned from other conversations going on that some of them came from Solihull and one of them was the wife of a Birmingham City player. It turns out that I met this group, from some googling after I got back to Beijing this evening. I left them after they stopped to rest again and met them, me going the other way, after walking another half mile or so and back. They were only a few hundred meters from where I'd left them.

On my way back I picked up Stephen at the tower I'd left him at. He'd been struggling most of the way as he has a cold at the moment. As such I left him there and walked the last few tower sections by myself. We made our way back down the wall and then down the hill to a restaurant for a late lunch.

The return to Beijing was only notable as we arrived back in time for rush hour. This extended the time taken considerably. I would note that Beijing is the craziest place for traffic that I've seen so far. With cars driving all over the place mixed with bikes going in all directions and people walking out fearlessly infront of streams of traffic. Even the green walking man on crossroads doesn't really cut it here. I've mostly ensured there was at least two people between me and cars coming from any direction while I've been crossing the road...

Enough for now. I'll not be posting tomorrow, most likely, as I've an overnight train to my next city.

Night all!

 

Day 72: Tian' Anman

Mood: Awestruck
Music: Greenday - Nimrod

I woke up earlier than I really needed to today, but set about finishing the work around for the connectivity issues and posting yesterday's blog.

After an amount of unnessesary farting about I realised I'd no time left for breakfast so headed out to meet Stephen to start the tour for today. The first destination on our trip was Tianaman square. The square is huge. It is longer than Red Square in Moscow and at least twice as wide. The square was built in the 1960s apparently and the building on it that most people recognise (with the portrait of Mao on the front) is called Tian' Anman, after which the square is now known.

From the square we walked through Tian' Anman and into the Forbidden City. So called because it was the home of the Emporor for the last two Chinese dynasties and as such only the very highest members of society were ever allowed to set foot inside.

The Forbidden City comprises of a series of coutyards with gates and large buildings with set purposes between each section. The last three are a banquet hall, followed by the Emporer's office and sleeping quarters and then the Empresses living and sleeping quarters. At the far end is a garden used by the royal family to relax and entertain themselves. Feng shui of the palace is obtained by a stream that connects the mote, through the inner courtyard and the artificial hill behind, created from the earth excavated to form the moat.

On exiting the North Gate of the Forbidden City we walked a short distance to where our driver was waiting to pick us up and take us to the restaurant next to the Temple of Heaven. After a rather tasty lunch we entered the park surrounding the temple. Local people have free access to the park and a number were in an area next to the main walkway where a large stereo was playing slow music. In ones and twos they were waltzing around in the park in the middle of the day. I was rather nice to watch but I decided not to take any photographs, lest I make anyone self concious and thus less enjoy dancing their day away.

The main building of the Temple for good Harvest was renovated in time for the Olympics and the marathon's blue line still passes the outer walls of the building. It is an impressive three story circular building (the ancient chinese believed that the heavens were circular and the earth square) with a blue roof glaze, symbolizing the heavens.

From here it is a short walk along a long raised terrace that divides the park in two even halves, up to the alter of the heavens. It was here that the Emporor performed an annual ceremony asking for good fortune from the various heavenly deities.

Following this I was dropped back at my hotel. As I had yet managed to get a photo of a national flag I decided to set out on foot back to Tiananman square to photo the large flag there. There are surprisingly few state flags flying in the city. The only fly outside the main government buildings.

After this I headed back to my room and managed to get the hotel to bring some food to my room for dinner.

Tomorrow I start at 8:30am and head out to some little garden rockery thing... it looks a bit more like a wall maybe, I guess...

Day 71: The Great Firewall of China

Mood: Woohoo!
Music: CD 1 Mix Tape - Various

Not much happened today... I got up early to get to the bus to the airport. I got to the airport a little early as my local itinerary had my flight listed at 9:30am but my itinerary from Audley had it as 10:15am. No problems there, just a bit of sitting around. As I planned to get to the airport 2hrs ahead of the flight all would have been fine even if it was the other way around.

After an uneventful flight to Hong Kong I rushed to my new departure gate, only to remember that my watch was now an hour out so I had plenty of time to eat some lunch before the onward flight. Rolf is pictured with my pre-flight/lunchtime beer.

The onward flight was similarly painless and I got to Beijing around sunset. The terminal I landed at was built for the Olympics and is, quite simply, massive. I also has a lovely deep red roof, curved to look like a dragon, with triangular skylights which look like scales.

Passing through the airport was easier than I expected. On the far side I met Steven, who will be my guide for the next couple of days in Beijing. After that we drove to my hotel. It is a single story courtyard building, very traditional but very comfortable. It seems to be located a stone's throw from the main shopping areas but I'll find out more when I look around more tomorrow.

I have discovered that access to my blog and also to facebook are blocked by the Chinese government and as such I'm having to bounce encrypted connections off a server to in the UK to bypass this. For some reason the static content on facebook seems not to like this but I can use the m.facebook.com site to keep tabs on everything.

Tomorrow my exploration of Beijing starts! I have to admit I'm rather excited.

Day 70: And on the 70th day...

Mood: Sleepy
Music: Bluetones - Expecting to fly

I had to be up fairly early this morning in order to get on the flight back to Seoul. As it happened I arived at the bus stop just as a bus was about to leave. It was only after arriving at the airport that I realised that I'd not actually confirmed which airline I was flying with, I only knew my flight was at 10:25am! There were so many flights leaving between 8:30am and 10am that my flight wasn't shown on any of the boards either. A quick call to Victor later and I was checked in and ready to go.

After an uneventful flight I was in and out of Gimpo domestic airport in less than 10 minutes flat, bags now in hand. This afternoon, after returning to my hotel, I've had a good go at fixing my laptop, but to no avail. I think it might be consigned to the computer shop in the sky on my return to the UK...

This evening I went ot the bar over the road from the hotel to get some food and a quiet drink. I think it's just me but anything on a menu that says "very hot chicken" is like a red rag to a bull. It was pretty hot, and most definitely chicken meat today too (although a fair bit of skin with it). Before leaving I took a photo of Rolf in the open beer casket. This was full of ice the first time I visited the place (St Patrick's day) but I think as it is the end of the weekend they might have let it melt away. I also had a cheeky bottle of London Pride, just because I could.

I'm up early tomorrow and fly to China. My next post will be from there (all things being well)!

Day 69: "Grilled Chicken"

Mood: I ate what!?!
Music: Various (same playlist as last night for a chunk of this morning)

I woke this morning in plenty of time to actually make it down to breakfast before being met by my guide for the day. I opted for the Western breafast over the Korean on and was pleasantly surprised when it consisted of a bowl of huney nut cornflakes and a plate of scrambled eggs, fruit and two cold chips.

Once I had finished this I met Victor, my guide for the day and the person who'd put together my whole tour in Korea . Victor is a Russian from Vladivostok, who first moved to Korea to teach foreign languages in schools but after moving around a bit, settled in Jeju and now runs a small one man tourist company. His English is near perfect and this allowed me to converse in a little more detail about a few subjects and also discuss the state of Russia at the moment.

The first stop on our trip was a free standing and fairly tall rock formation on the coast, just out of the town where my hotel is. Next up was the Natural History museum. It's a fairly small museum detailing the lives of the local peoples and also some of the geography of the area. It was fairly pleasant as museums go but hardly something to write home about.

After that we went to the airport to pick up another couple, who would be joining us for the rest of the day. Micheal and Patricia are a German / Malay couple who happened to meet in Glasgow of all places and now live in Malaysia, just north of Singapore.

The next stop on the island tour was a rock formation said to look like a dragon's mouth. Rolf is photographed next to this formation.

After that we drove across the island to a folk village, where people live in the traditional thatched housing of the area. As it is normally very windy on the island, the thatch has a rope lattice covering the surface.

Apparently, the thatch is mostly paid for by the local government in order to maintain the area as a local tourist attraction. It works fairly well as the place is very scenic. We also stopped here for lunch.

Next was one of the largest and busiest tourist spots of the day. That of a large volcano on the coast that had formed underground and made a castle / crown shaped circular island, now joined onto the main part of the island by a small spit. It is a couple of hundred meters climb to the top but the views are quite impressive.

Penultimate on our tour was the end of an overground lava tube. This had worn much of a rock away in a long trench that leads down a few hundred meters to the sea. At the end of this was a black sand beach from which we skimmed stones for a while.

Last up was the other waterfall in the region of the town I'm staying in. It falls into a rock pool which leads directly into the ocean via a short stream and is really quite impressive.

As the other two are staying in the same hotel as I, we decided to go out for food this evening. After much wondering about, Patricia plumped with a place that said "grilled chicken" on the outside. The thinking was... at least we know what animal this comes from!

After realising that they had no menu at all other than what was displayed on the walls we decided on a spicy dish that appeared to contain chunks of chicken, according to the photo. When it turned up it was actually grilled chicken intestines in a spicy sauce. We only discovered this a mouthful in each and then tried to communicate with the owner to find out what part of the chicken this came from. Needless to say that we did not make much headway into the meal before leaving!

After that we went to a bar and drank a couple of beers and also some of the soju (local rice wine). The bottle of soju costs the same as a bottle of beer but is the alcoholic equivalent to a bottle of wine!

I really ought to go to sleep now as I'm up early to catch my flight in the morning...

Day 68: The day I got offered a fork

Mood: So so, I guess.
Music: Various

Yes. Today was the day I got offered a fork. I'll get back to that shameful episode later though...

I was to meet Trueman at 9:30am again today to start our final trip together south towards the airport. As I had no details on the flight I was to take I had asked him yesterday when it was and he thought it was early afternoon about 2pm maybe. He told me this morning (as I rolled up 10 minutes late as I had every day so far!) that the flight was actually at 12:35pm and it was over an hour's drive away.

We were due to stop off on the way at Tongdosa, one of the largest and most important Buddhist temples in Korea. On the way we decided that we would still do so but would have to severely restrict the time we could spend there. In the end the time criticality was added to the motorway reports of traffic jams up ahead. When we got to the temple we nipped out and virtually legged it up to the far end of the site and back. The site consists of a number of gates and many prayer rooms. It is supposed to have been founded in the mid 7th centrury AD and houses what are said to be relics of Buddha himself, including bones.

I had been assured that arriving 30 minutes before a domestic flight in Korea would be fine, and although I was skeptical at the time, I now think he was spot on. Either way we arrived about 50 minutes before my flight and I quickly checked in. The boarding time was 10 minutes before the flight was due to leave and I'd barely sat down by the time the plane had started to taxi to the runway. I've not mentioned this before, but the national motto or Korea is "Hurry hurry". This seems to pervade everything they do, from driving to eating (you lucky ladies...). This does tend to mean that everything is done on time and everything is very punctual. The journey was only short but on the descent I worked out that they were having a raffle to win a number of prizes depending on the plane seat. I wasn't actually sitting in the seat I'd been assigned as I decided it wasn't worth the effort of turfing the lady in the seat out, so I sat on the isle seat one behind.

Lo and behold my original seat number was called out as the winner of the first prize to be given. The lady in my seat couldn't display the boarding card matching it and so when I showed the correct boarding card I became the proud winner of two boxed airline pens... As it happened, the seat I was actually sat in got drawn for another prize but nobody had that boarding card so they drew again.

On landing, I got onto the first bus leaving the plane and had to wait about a minute at the belt before the baggage started arriving. That is "hurry hurry" in action! I was then to take a bus to the south of the island and then a taxi to my hotel.

After a bit of faffing around trying to get a wifi signal in my hotel (it can only be achieved rammed up against the window) I set off to haev a look around town and to get some food. After a few minutes walking down hill towards the harbour in the small town (pop. 85k) I spotted signs for a waterfall which is one of the local tourist attractions. I umm'd and ahh'd about this for a while, not having a camera with me, but decided to have a look.

I then walked around the harbour and up into town to try to find somewhere to eat. Eventually I plumped with a Chinese place recommended by the Lonely Planet guide. As it was really cold out, by this time my hands were frozen and I'd mostly lost mobility in my fingers. After ordering (spicy crab noodle soup) I sat on my hands to try to warm them up but it didn't do much good. When the soup arrived I found myself faced with shelled arms and chunks of body of crab again but decided I'd give this one a better go that the last and picked bits up to try to rescue the meat from them. It was at this point I discovered that my frozen hands simply weren't able to control chopsticks yet and I must have looks so incompetent and helpless that the waitress brought over a pair of wooden chopsticks (rather than the aluminium ones on the table) and also a fork. I normally pride myself on my chopstick use but being offered a fork. I have to say I cried a little on the inside and blamed the cold. As my hands warmed up I changed back from the wooden chopsticks to the finer point nose metal ones again, just to prove to myself that I could.

After that I went to find a bar that the guide said attracted ex pats on qa weekend, just to find someone to talk to. After the first beer I got fed up of waiting and came back to my hotel.

Tomorrow I look around this place with a new guide for the day.

Until again.

Day 67: Mountains and trees and things!

Mood: Cheery again
Music: More of the singing from the lobby with the out of tune piano...

I actually managed to make breakfast today! Hurrah... I was given a menu and picked the 'beef and leaf thick soup' which turned out to be very nice, if a little spicy. That much chili for breakfast isn't most people's idea of a good start to the day, but it seemed to wake me up and clear my nose at the same time!

We set out on the drive across town to the Mt. Namsam park area. This has a set of paths leading up through pine woods to the ridge along the peak of hill. The park has 57 temples, over a hundred tombs and many statues and carvings of Buddha made from its granite rock. Several of the status were destroyed/beheaded in the Confusianist period of Korean history. Several also remain with their heads put back in their original places.

The walk was a few kilometers up hill, passing several sites of interest on the way. We also passed many locals walking up and down the hill. The thing that stands out about this is the way that many of the ladies wear sun hats and also masks which cover most of their faces. This is, according to my guide, to avoid getting tanned at all. That is because beauty is seen in those with lighter skin in these parts of the world. Whereas when the sun comes out in the UK everyone clamors to expose every last inch of skin to get a tan... here they all cover up to avoid getting one.

After we reached the top we had a bit of a look around and then headed back down by a different route. At the bottom we stopped for lunch in a place that specialises in hand made noodles. These were served with some of the normal condiments but also some green chili peppers. I was initially quite wary of these until Trueman took one and bit in after dipping it in the bean paste sauce. It turned out that the chilies were incredibly mild, just above a bell pepper and rather tasty. After asking were these not hot my guide suggested we could get some hot chili too... Most people know that I'm not one to turn down a challenge that involves chilies (so I've lost a few in my time but I have taken part). I bit into the chili and chewed it for a while in the side of my mouth and thought not much of it until I started to swallow. From that point forward anything other than water that I put in my mouth released more of the burning hot chili onto my taste buds!

Most of the rest of the meal tasted of chili alone, but it was nice both before and after this. Being a creamy sauce over noodles, eaten with chopsticks, things did not end too well for the black jumper I was wearing. I really need to practice eating noodles using chopsticks without spraying blobs of sauce everywhere!

In the afternoon we visited a number of other sites, both around the other side of Mt. Namsan and further afield, including one which is apparently on many of the Korean tourist guides. The photo in the guide books is taken in the middle of the summer when the Lotus flowers are all blossoming in the middle of the pond.

Later on we visited the Seoguram Grotto, which I had failed to visit yesterday. It contains the most spectacular stone sitting Buddha that was hidden for hundreds of years and only found again during the Japanese occupation almost 100 years ago. The grotto dates from ~800AD and also houses several large statues guarding the doors around the main Buddha.

After seeing this I was dropped off back at my hotel for the evening.

Tomorrow I say goodbye to Trueman and fly to the island of Jeju for a couple of days before returning to Seoul.

Day 66: Taking back the Swastika...

Mood: A little bored of the guesswork required with Korean food
Music: Supergrass - Supergrass is 10

Today was a free day for me. Or at least one that wasn't guided. I had a number suggestions of things to see and do though. First up for the day (ignoring the sales phone call I received at 3am) was to sort my washing. I know it's not very glamerous and you probably don't want to hear about such dull things, but they are quite important to such a trip. Given I've been moving on regularly, it's quite difficult to find the time to wash everything required.

The large Bulguksa temple, located a mere stone's throw from my hotel, is a major local attraction and it is not difficult to see why. It is wonderfully set on the slopes of one of the mountains that looks down over the city that was,well over a thousand years ago, the capital of a unified Korea, . The temple originally date back from these times but has been destroyed and rebuilt many time in its history. In the early '70s the Korean government restored the site and in the 1995 it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.

The site actually contains several temples, each with a differing golden bronze Buddha. The buildings are very ornate in themselves and the site is very relaxing to walk around. Not for the first time over the last week or so, I noticed several Swastika motifs on the lanterns of the complex and also in over one of the main temple buildings. I was perfectly aware that it was originally used in the Hindu religion but wasn't aware it featured heavily in Buddhism as well. Perhaps had I paid more attention to such religions I would know more about their roots. I have noted that it is used on maps here to denote Temples.

<Rant> I think in the Western world we have allowed to great a significance to be placed on the symbol and as such could not use it in this way. Or could we? Perhaps by encouraging its use by the Eastern religions we can reclaim their symbol from the hatred that it currently represents. That way the next generation would not make those connections and the symbol would be free again for any use...</Rant>

The photo of Rolf is next to such a symbol woven into the railings of the hotel I'm staying in.

The rest of the day I've pretty much wasted... Mostly by watching a film (Zeitgeist - Moving Forward) and playing Transport Tycoon on my netbook (both using the hotel TV as a screen).

This evening I went to the Korean restauant in the hotel.  I ordered a blue crab stew... I wasn't expecting it to arrive with most of the shell still intact though. Having nobody to copy on the meat recovery front I went at it with my spoon and chopsticks but wasn't overly successful. There were also a number of vegetable side dishes of various descriptions. A couple of which I recognised, may others I didn't. I'm almost looking forward to picking up food and knowing what it's going to taste like before I put it in my mouth!

I'm now sat in the hotel lobby listening to the same people as yesterday singing. A notible low was the piano playing guy singing The Macarena... really... he did.

I join back up with my guide in the morning and head for a day walking on Mount Namsan before one final night in this hotel.

Bye for now!

Day 65: I'm on the road again...

Mood: Gald I'm not on the road tomorrow!
Music: Sub Focus - Sub Focus

Well, here we are again. Firstly I'd like to apologise for not getting yesterday's Rolf photo up earlier. I was very tired and also didn't want to start unpacking all of my belongings all over the very small traditional guest room I as sleeping in. Needless to say, he is there now.

We set out after I had eaten a traditional breakfast consisting of rice, a bowl of soup and anumber of dishes of stuff that I couldn't really identify. There was definately some strips of egg and some kind of meat, a dish of small chunks and then some small pieces of honey fried nuts and seaweed. In this last dish there was also a chunk of chili in the same coating. I think this might have been a bit strong for breakfast when you weren't expecting it!

Our first stop of the day was a paper factory. Whereas I had been taught at schol how paper was made, this would be the first time I would see it done live by hand.

I'll run through the steps now for those who want to know... if not skip on a bit as this might be dull(er than my usual drivel ;))!

********* Begin Paper Making *********

The bark of the tree is stripped and dried and then boiled in a lage vat of water and left to soak. The boiling and soaking is repeated several times until all of the pigment is released from the bark and it becomes a set of fiberous strands. These are picked by hand for their consistancy and then passed on to the next process. Those not selected are boiled yet again until they are ready for pulping.

The pulping is done by a large machine that is like a bath tub with an oval in the middle. This is so that the thrashing pushes the water and pulp around the tank in a circle to allow a greater amount to be processed in a single batch. The thrasher breaks up the strips of fiberous material into very short strands.

These are then transferred into a fairly deep pool. Also added into this is a semi viscous binding agent made from the released substance from the root of a plant that I could not understand the name of. The roots were all in a bathtub of water which is changed periodically. Into the pool a hanging tray is dipped. On this tray is a wooden blind. The blind is shaken with a layer of the pulp and then taken out an layed over the top of the previous layer with a tiny thread along one edge to sperate the layers.

This pile is then pressed in a huge mechanical press and the resultant sheets seperated and pressed onto a large metal frame with very hot water inside. The sheets dry out in a few seconds and are piled up ready to be dispatched!

********* End paper making *********

At the end of the factory was a shop containing a number of things made from paper including some clothes!

We took an early lunch here so that we could visit a nearby beef restaurant owned by a number of local farmers. The food was cooked on a circular dish with a sauce in a lip around the edge, on a burner in the middle of the table. We sat on the floor and filled up on really rather nice beef and accompaniments.

The only other stop of the day was the traditional Andong Hahoe folk village. This is a collection of maintained and lived in buildings. The area has a small exhibition celebrating the fisit of Her Majesty the Queen several years ago.

The rest of the day was spent on the road driving south towards Gyeongju. The twist roads soon opened out onto large motorways but it still took several hours to cover the hundreds of kilometers we were from my hotel for the next couple of nights.

Right now I need to get some washing done before heading down to peek at the karaoke bar here...

PS. The karaoke bar was a booth thing for groups. Rolf is pictured in front of the people singing in the reception area this evening (during a break).

Day 64: Confucious, he say...

Mood: Enlightened
Music: Some old English language music my guide had on CD in the car (ABBA, the Carpenters, Bee Gees among others)

Today we spent pretty much all day heading south in the car. We stopped off just before lunchtime at the Hwanseongul caves. These are a massive set of interconnected caves with a metal walkway leading visitors through about a mile of metal pathways. Some of the caves are almost 100m high and have stalactites and rockflows running down them. One of the most impressive formations I saw was a "bacon strip" formed like a stalactite but in a strip leading down the cave wall from the source of the water.

I would be pointing you at photos of these formations but photographs are not allowed. I was told I couldn't even take non-flash photos because other people would see me using a camera and start flashing away with their own.

We took the monorail up and down from the cave to speed up the journey and get us back on the road as soon as possible. After a brief stop for lunch we carried on our journey, passing through large mountainous regions. The roads had turned very windy but in most valleys we saw the path of the new road being build on a series of bridges and tunnels that will lead straight through the mountain range.

In the late afternoon we arrived at the Dosanseowon (the Dosan academy). It was originally founded by Yi Hwang, one of the fathers of Confucionist thinking in Korea, in 1561. The small school like compound contains a lecture area, housing for a small number of students and some other buildings (a library, a printing house, a shrine and stores). It was one of the top academic teaching places for Confucionism in Korea for centuries and still hosts some ceremonies. As today is the mid point between the summer and winter solstices, they were preparing for one such ceremony while we visited.

This evening I've been delivered to my guest house. I have a small room with sliding doors and a traditional mattress on the floor. Thankfully the floor of the room is heated else it would be rather cold!

I do have electricity and wifi though.

Enough for now. Night all. 

Day 63: Soeraksan National Park

Mood: Cold (again, not a mood but there we go!)
Music: Chase and Status Ft Plan B - End Credits

I met Trueman in the lobby at around 9:30am this morning, for our trip into the national park. I only realised it was raining when I got downstairs as the net curtains hid that from me with my view over the trees growing up the hill that rises behind my hotel.

We set out on the 100m walk from my hotel to the park entrance and from there walked out into the park a couple of miles towards a cave that sits on the top of a very steep hill. As we got ever so slightly higher above sea level the rain turned to sleet and then snow. By this time my ungloved hands were getting rather cold! The cave has been used for prayer and meditation since at least the 1300s and has a very small temple built inside. The monk(s) who are there sleep in a wooden box that is almost strapped to the side of the mountain!

After visiting the cave we went back down as and had some soup made from some of the dried fish that I had seen yesterday at the fish market. After this we walked back to the park entrance and took the cable car up to the viewpoint from the top of the connected hill. We did not do this first thing as the rain clouds were obscuring the top station and we would not have seen anything at all had we gone up then.

The area around the top station had recieved a fresh covering of a few centimeters of snow and this made it all rather pretty. We investigated the viewpoint above the station and also the ancient temple that sits on the top.

The final visit for the day was a waterfall lying just under a couple of miles from the park entrance. This had some steep climbs in quite deep snow to reach but was very pretty. Rolf is pictured here also!

This evening I've come back to the hotel and have had time to sort through my photos from the last couple of days. It turns out that I've now crossed the 10,000 photo mark for the trip. Count yourselves lucky that I'm not planing on any "full holiday photo viewing" sessions!

Tomorrow I head south about 4 hours drive to Andong. Time for me to go look for food...

Bye for now!

Day 62: Go East!

Mood: Sleepy
Music: Deadmou5 - Strobe

Today was a day spent mostly on the road. We stopped at the Namhansan Fortress first. This is a fortress with walls which run along the tops of the surrounding steep hills. The wall runs for over 12km and is over 10m high with archery posts every 2m or so.

We walked up here and saw some of the large gates and the commanders house before walking back down the hillside to the car. From here we set out on the 200km drive east to the coast and the location of my hotel for the night. I managed to catch up on a little bit of sleep on the way, I did find myself drooling a little on me when I woke up at one point which I thought was particularly fetching.

We stopped for lunch in the food court of a service station before driving onwards. Our only other stop was to give Trueman, my guide for the next few days, a break from driving. The place we stopped at had some rather interesting wooden carvings. Some of you know what I'm talking about, the rest probably don't want to know...

We arrived in the coastal town of Sokcho and had a look around their fish market. From here I was taken to my hotel and left to my own devices for the rest of the afternoon.

Tomorrow I'm going to hae a look around the national park that my hotel looks out over (not my room, I face the back of the building).

Day 61: Deey-eM-Zee

Mood: Somber
Music: Kings of convenience

Today started with a 7:50am pick up from my hotel by my guide for the day. There was only one other on the tour with me, a Canadian school teacher with a penchant for travel.

We set out heading north out of the city of Seoul towards the border. On the way we mostly travelled up alongside a river. The edge of the river has razor wire along a fence with lookout stations every hundred meters or so. The reason for this, we were told, was that even so the other side of the river is in the south, North Korean spies use the river to gain entry to the south.

They also have nets on the river every so often. These occasionally catch bodies floating down from the north and they have also caught mines attached to floatation devices that have been released by the north.

As we got closer to the DMZ the traffic thinned out and we arrived into the large car park, with attached peace gardens from which the tours into the DMZ leave. Our guide lead it's from our transfer bus and into the tour bus. At the end of the bridge that marks the edge of the civilian controlled zone we had our passports checked before being allowed to proceed.

The first stop inside was the 3rd tunnel found by the South Koreans that the north were digging under the area. The tunnel is deep underground, blasted through solid granite using dynamite.

This tunnel was apparently located by the drilling of a large number of bore holes by the south Koreans following a tip off by a defecting tunnel designer. The holes were filled with water that was checked from the surface. As the bed rock is granite there was no leakage until the tunnel was located as it passed through such a hole.

Personally I don't believe that more modern techniques weren't used. It seems like a but of a yarn to stop the identification method being revealed to the North Koreans. I'd suggest that a form of triangulating sonar in the bed rock would be fairly foolproof. These days ground scanning radar/sonar would work too I guess but I'm not too familiar with the modes of operation of such kit.

Anyway... I digress... Next up was the view point of the 1st battalion. It was for this one hill that 30,000 American's and Koreans were killed during the war. It holds a very prominent position looking over the rivers in front of it and is obviously of great tactical significance. From here you can look out over the barriers to North Korea. It is not permissible to take photos from the within 10m of the barriers and a large yellow line marks this out on the floor. Apparently due to the potential for camera flash to be mistaken for muzzle flash. As I'm quite tall I could hold my camera up at full stretch and photograph over from behind the line. I was then asked by numerous people to do the same for them due to my hight! Rolf id sat on one of the telescopes at the viewing platform.

From here we were taken to a gift shop selling foods grown in the dmz and also some North Korean foods and beverages.

Our final stop was the train station on the north end of the southern part of a train line that runs all the way through Korea and up into China. This station has never served the train it was built for and wool not do so until unification. Our guide said they are preparing for either unification or another Korean war.

The visit finished with a trip to an amethyst factory a few meters from my hotel.

In the evening I went back out into the city to take some night shots of the main street of this city with over 20 million inhabitants.

And that's about it for today!

Day 60: Seoul

Mood: Happy
Music: Royksopp - 3 albums, Sub Focus - Sub Focus

I had today free to explore the city of Seoul and started off a little nervous of what I might find. Thankfully the city metro system is fairly easy to navigate. The lines do tend to run paralell in many places though, so you have to change more than you might do on the tube.

My hotel is situated in what appears to be in the main financial district and also the home of the national assembly buildings. It is merely a short walk to the nearest metro station and it was from here I started out this morning. The weather here is rather cold and dry at the moment. It was hovering just above zero and as such I had my coat done up as far up my face as I could manage! The

I set off this morning in search of palaces and wasn't dissapointed. There are a number in central Seoul and I visited Gyeongbok. It is sat proudly at the end of the main street in the centre of the old part of the city, to the north of my hotel.

The buildings were rather grand in the main area and the landscaping was very impressive. The pagodas and building on landscaped ponds are particularly nice. The steams flowing into the ponds are deliberately slowed down by placing sharp bends and pools before they reach the pond to allow it to have a perfectly flat surface on still days. This gives fantastic reflections in the water of the building all around.

At the entrance to the palace they happened to be percforming the changing of the guard ceremony as I approached. This lasted for several minutes and involved a number of brightly coloured guards marchin with flags past lines of tourists (myself included) with cameras whirring.

After this I visited the museums of King Sejong and Admiral Yi, both who have large statues on the main square. From there I had decided to go and visit the largest mall in the city. This is mostly because it appears on all of the tourist suggestions and included an aquarium at one end.

The aquarium was fantastic. I'd rate it much more highly than the one I visited in Sydney and it also cost a lot less to get into than that did.

As well as all of the normal exhibits of local and regional fish, they had several areas designed for children, placing fish tanks in every day objects. They also had a tank of the fish that nibble dead skin from you, as in the ones you pay to dunk your feet into a tank of, with hand holes. The fish suck gently at you in repeated short blasts and it feels very, very strange.

My main annoyance during my visit was that I ran out of battery on all of my cameras before I got to the shark tanks. These housed many of the sharks I'd seen in sydney and also a larger sand tiger shark. In a second tank they had a number of small hammerhead sharks and a shoal of sardines. The sardines swam in a massive ball, reflecting the light with pure silver on each side. The ball then changed shape as the small sharks swam around them, it was fascinating to watch.

On leaving the aquarium I made my way through rush hour metro traffic back to my hotel. I stopped at the bar opposite (as I noticed a Guiness sign through the window) for my St Patrick's day pint (that plus a couple of others...).

Now I must leave you as it's rather late / early here. I've been lying in bed planing oTTD on my laptop, listening to the coverage of the cricket on TMS.

Night for now :)

Day 59: Erm... yes... well... anyone speak Korean?

Mood: Daved and confused
Music: Pendulum - Immersion

Today has been a bit of a mess, mostly because most of it was used up travelling. I landed in Tokyo at about 6:30am this morning, having had about 2 hours sleep at most, and went to the transfer desk to get my boarding card for my onward flight. It was quite cold in Tokyo, about 4C when I arrived. This wildly contrasted to the 30C in KL and the jumper I'd taken out of my bag for this reason had been re-packed just before I left, not to be seen again until Incheon (Seoul international airport). I was then sat on my own for a good two hours in short sleeves before other people started appearing in the departure gates.

Once on the plane I fell asleep almost immediately. I recall taking off and then dozing again. After a couple of hours I woke up and chatted to the person sat next to me for a while.

On arrival I grabbed my bags and then tried to find an ATM. I then had to double check the rough exchange rate before withdrawing money (it's about 1800 won to the pound). My next job was to work out where to get my bus from and how to by a ticket. These were fairly straight forward and I initially got the impression that more people than I thought spoke English in the country. This would be proved wrong when I, as instructed, got a cab from the drop off point to the door of the hotel. It took several minutes on the phone with a translator before the taxi driver managed to get the address of the hotel I was staying at. After all that he drove around two corners and I'd arrived. Had I known where I was and where the hotel was, I'd have walked it in no more than 2 minutes!

My room is quite pleasant and I'm now, after several hours of sitting around, am going to have a nose around and then look for somewhere to get dinner from.

Wish me luck...

Day 58: Departure

Mood: Relieved but sad
Music: Random Japanese Music from the on board flight system

Today started early as we had to get up to buy our tickets for the Petronas Towers viewing platform. They only issue a set number every day and you have to buy those tickets on the day. As the booth opens at 8:30am, the queue starts building up from about 7am. We joined at about 7:20am and it already had a hundred or more people in it, each buying tickets for several people.

Once we got to the front of the queue the tickets for the observation deck at the top of the building were only available for after when we needed to be at the airport, so we could only visit the viewing bridge. After buying the tickets we headed back to the hotel for breakfast.

Breakfast and packing took most of the rest of the morning until we had to check out. At that point we moved up to the lounge available to those with 'traders club' rooms. This provides free refreshments and we sat here and read until it was time to head back over to the towers.

The trip up to the joining platform starts with a 5 minute "aren't we great" video by Petronas. We then were piled into a service lift and run up to floor 41 where the lower floor of the bridge connects the towers.

We were told we'd get 15 minutes on the viewing platform but were shepherded back into the lift after about 5 or 6mins. I did manage to get a photo of Rolf looking down out over the towers, as shown above.

From there we headed to the airport via KL Sentral station. As my flight was 3 hours after Emily's flight home, I said a brief goodbye as she went through security and I was going to join her the far side after I'd checked in.

Unfortunately the check in didn't open for quite a while and then I had difficulty checking in given that I didn't have paper tickets confirming when I'd be leaving the country. By the time I did get through security, immigration and over to the departure building, her flight had boarded.

As such, instead of a photo of Rolf waving at Emily boarding her plane, it is merely one of him waving at her flight just before it left.

Day 57: Decision day

Mood: Pensive
Music: The only thing musical heard all day was the Islamic call to prayer...

Today didn't really start, it more ambled into breakfast followed by a return to the room to watch the full coverage of the England vs Scotland game from yesterday / last night. By the time the two and a half hours of programming had finished it was almost lunchtime.

Obviously, over the last couple of days, I've been paying rather close attention to the goings on in Japan and today I finally decided to cut that part of the trip. The to and fro with the travel agents was made slightly more frustrating by the internet dropping out in the hotel in the early afternoon but that just meant that I had to decamp down to Starbucks to use theirs for a while.

Eventually Korea has been chosen as the replacement country to visit although I'll still be taking the same flight to Tokyo tomorrow evening. I will be in Japan for 3 hours before transferring out to Seoul. Hopefully things will be ok to allow this to proceed.

Rolf is pictured looking at a map of the region, trying to figure out where might be good to visit instead of Japan.

This evening we got some night pictures of the fountains between the Petronas towers and our hotel.

I'm not sure if you'll get an update tomorrow, it depends on the connectivity at the airport...

Bye for now.

Day 56: The Birdie-arium

Mood: Ooh... Shiny!
Music: Whatever it was they played 5 times while we we eating dinner (Rhianna, and the black eyed peas mostly)

Today started with a lie in! Woo! After that we nipped upstairs for breakfast followed by watching the second half of the Italy vs France rugby game that we'd tried to watch live the night before. As we knew the score from half time we only watched the second half but really, what a game! I've not seen a game of rugby that close for quite a while!

After that we set off for the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park. As it proudly boasts, the largest free flying aviary in the world. Here we saw loads of exotic and colourful birds all flying around us or wondering about getting chased by the rug rats that parents hadn't got hold of.

The park is quite large and it took a good couple of hours to walk around. We stopped off at one of the shows mid afternoon and it is here that Rolf is stood next to one of the eagles they had on display, once the show had finished. On the way out of the park we got to see a troupe of small local monkeys as they were fed by the tourists. The babies were rather cute as they still quite clearly hadn't gotten the grasp of jumping onto things and hanging on quite yet...

In the evening we headed back to the hotel via the old train station (a fantastic towered building) and took a chance to go through the Petronas towers to take some photos from the other side.

This evening I watched an episode of Top Gear from the BBC iPlayer, I'm slowly starting to get back up to speed. I think in Japan I might have time enough to watch a bit more.

For the record, the current thinking on that is to not go to Tokyo until the end of the two week visit and just shuffle everything else around so that it fits. I've been in touch with the travel agency a couple times this evening by email and they are starting to make the required changes to my itinerary.

Day 55: Twin Towers!

Mood: Worried
Music: Assorted dance, including The KLF - Last Train to Transcentral

This morning we were picked up by a bus at 8:30am after packing our still wet clothes into plastic bags inside our luggage and strapping our still soaked shoes to the outsides of our baggage. The bus took several hours to snake it's way down the old road until we reached a motorway that would take us down into Kuala Lumpar.

To entertain myself during the journey I read a little, listened to music and watched the film (Salt) they had on a screen at the front of the coach. I could just about make out the chinglish subtitles on the screen and read these rather than trying to make out the sound on the bus's speaker system.

We were advised to get off in Chinatown rather than at the central station by the person loading us onto the bus from the hotel but when we got there we realised that to get to our hotel we actually needed to go back to the central station and change from there. This meant a brief ride on the monorail again before changing onto the underground train line running towards the twin towers.

Our hotel is located directly opposite the towers and our room on the 30th floor gives us a lovely view over the park below and the towers themselves. Rolf is pictured looking out of the window this evening.

This afternoon was spent having complimentary afternoon tea (2:30pm - 4:30pm) in the lounge a couple of floors above us and then complimentary cocktails from 5pm until 7pm... Free bar, free food, what more can you ask for?

This evening we went down to one of the restaurants for dinner. That means that we've not left the hotel since checking in at about 2pm. Oh well, what can you do ;)

Until tomorrow.

PS. The Worried status is related to the events in Japan through the day. Obviously I'm keeping a close eye on the nuclear developments as well as the Earthquake / Tsunami carnage. 

Day 54: In the jungle, the mighty jungle...

Mood: Soggy
Music: Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Ice cream: Strawberry
Pringles: Lemon and sesame seed
Clothes: Muddy
Brought to you by the number 7 and the letter t

Firstly I'd like to apologise for the photo bonanza that is today but lots of things were seen and done!

This morning we piled into a minibus that was going to be our transport for the day. The bus was full, mostly of a group of GAP year students fresh out of school on a round the world jolly.

Our first stop was a BOH tea plantation. The plantation has 200 manual labourers who work for 3 months at a time clipping the tips of the leafs buy hand shears or with motorised shears and bagging them. They get paid based on the amount of tea they collect, about 4p per kg of tea leaves. A good worker can collect almost 200kg of tea in a day and as such will earn up to £8 in an 8 hour working day!

The scenery of the site was simply stunning as the shape of the hills in the cloud forest were as they have always been, but the ungle has been stripped and in its place are row after row of tea plants/trees, all trimmed to about 3 feet tall for ease of working. At the centre of the site we saw the factory which ferments, rolls and crushes, drys and sorts the tea leaves into bags of differing size pieces for processing elsewhere. We then got directed into a tea'ria for a cup before heading onwards.

Our second stop was an aborigine village a few kilometers further down the road. From here we got a blowpipe demonstration and each got to fire at a target and were then marched for 90 minutes into the jungle to see a flowering Rafflesia plant. The path was initially quite steep uphill, following a jeep track, and it was quite muddy but we attempted to keep our footware as clean as possible.

At the end of the jeep trail we crossed a bamboo bridge...

and sludged on through a much smaller trail leading into thick jungle. At this point we realised there was no hope of keeping our footware anything other than caked in thick red or orange mud and as such gave up caring. The trail featured a number of natural obsticales, from steep rocky descents to fallen trees and smaller slippery bamboo bridges. Eventually we reached the place where the Rafflesia was flowering. On the way there we made a joke about this being rain forest and it being dry... obviously within 30 seconds of saying that the heavens opened. This drenched everyone and although I had waterproofs, this just meant I just got wet on the inside as we were working quite hard and it was still pretty hot.

The treck back was made mudier by the rain and come the end we had mud caked over our shoes and up to our calves on our trousers. Eventually we made it back down the hill and were whisked to a local Indian restaurant for lunch.

The last two stops on the tour were a butterfly farm, where Rolf is pictures with butterflies as big as himself. They also had a number of snakes and insects such as spiders, stick insects (up to a foot long!) and chameleons. I managed to wrap Rold up in a whip snake to have his photo taken...

The final stop of the day was a strawberry farm. Many vegetables can be grown here all year round due to the steady temperate climate and constant rainfall. We picked our own strawberries and ate a few en route. We also tried some of the strawberry ice cream they had on offer which was rather nice.

After this it was back to the hotel to try to was the mud off everything in preparation for the trip back to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.

I think that'll do for now!

Day 53: Into the Highlands

Mood: Wibble
Music: Bloc Party - Silent Alarm (remixes)

Today started early due to the 7:30am pick up. We were stood outside the hotel until almost 10 past 8 until we started to panic a bit. Sure enough, going to ask the porter if it was likely to have gone without us made it appear around the corner.

A few circles of the city centre later, after we'd finished picking up all of the passengers, we actually set off for the Cameron Highlands. The minibus was full and I was squished up against a massive swiss guy who made me look very small in both dimensions.

Several hours later we arrived in the small town of Tanah Rata. The town is the central tourist destination for the area but comprises of nothing more than a bunch of guest houses, a number of travel agencies, restaurants, convenience/tat stores and a Starbucks... I had what must have been my first cup of coffee in 10 years in the Starbucks while using their internet (we have wifi in the hotel but it's proving quite unreliable and we need to sort hotels for KL). It's ok, I won't be doing that again in a hurry... Only hot chocolate from Starbucks for me from now on!

After that there was a little park with lovely flowers in and also the strange vegetable monument thing where Rolf is pictured below!

This evening I mostly killed time by getting a bit further in gta on the nintendo ds.

Tomorrow we have a full day tour of the surrounding area which is packed with things including a tea plantation, a strawberry farm and a butterfly farm!

Until again!

Day 52: Not even another church!

Mood: Thirsty (as ever, not a mood but how I feel)
Music: None

In a cunning shock... today started early! I was awoken by the alarm clock in the hotel room going of at 5:40am today. The only way, in my half sleeping panic, I could find of turning it off was to mash the top at random. I seemed to get there but only got it to go to sleep for another hour. When it woke me again an hour later I turned the light on and turned the damn thing off.

After breakfast we were met by the taxi drive from yesterday. I have to say that although this might not have been a good plan in hindsight we would never have seen some of the things we did without her. She was, without doubt, the slowest driver on the island amongst chaotic roads seemed to be in a world of her own most of the time while constantly suggesting other places we might like her to take us. "Very pretty, you like go XXXX" was the normal conversation "very cheap" was the price of everything in question...

Our first stop was an old mansion house museum in the centre of town, followed by the Khoo Kongsi, a family clan house/chinese temple. After that we went to the State Mosque, a Hindu temple and then the Kek Lok Si Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in East Asia. At the top it has a 36.5m tall statue of the Goddess of mercy. It is in front of this that Rolf is pictured, sat atop of the statue of the chicken, which was in a garden holding the other 11 Chinese year creatures. It also has a 7 story pagoda which is apparently one of the more famous buildings in the country. We were wanting to visit the recently renovated St George's church in the city but completely forgot to do so when we were on the same road as it. This meant we'd seen 4 major religious buildings, none of which was a church!

After that we parted company with the taxi driver at the State Museum and paid her for her time. The museum itself has a 1 ringgit entrance fee (20p) and was quite informative about the founding of the colony and the history of those who settled and live here now.

From there we walked around the rest of the city centre and stopped in "little india" for some food. On the way back to our hotel we spent a while trying to find the long distance bus station and in the end went into a travel agents and booked a minibus transfer to the Cameron Highlands which will pick us up from our hotel in the morning.

At this point I'll leave you for the night. Bye all!

Day 51: Another day "on the road"

Mood: Sleepy
Music: Air - Moon Safari

Today started fairly early when I rolled over and bashed my forehead on the bedside table... After this I decided that the day might as well start here. My only plans for the morning were to head for the balcony and pray that it was windy when I opened the curtains, so I could go sailing. As the tops of the trees were perfectly still as I opened the door and stepped outside, I realised I'd not begetting much done today. After eating breakfast, packing up and checking out we sat for a while before getting a cab back to the ferry terminal for the trip to Penang.

The boat trip took about two and a half hours but seemed to go much more quickly. I don't know whether this was due to the calm conditions or the new games I'd downloaded for my phone. Either way we got into Penang and found a female cab driver to take us to the hotel. On the way she suggested that she could do a sight seeing tour tomorrow to any of the places on the island (for about £5 per hour) and after a fair bit of deliberation we agreed to do so. I'll let you know how that goes tomorrow.

Dinner was from a Korean BBQ Chicken fast(ish) food type place. The chicken wasn't the nicest cuts of meat and although boneless, it wasn't nearly devoid of fat, gristle or large amounts of skin. I feel like having a load of chicken breast meat when I get back to the UK!

Bye for now.

Day 50: Cable car

Mood: So-so
Music: Chicane - Behind the sun

This morning was a bit of a write off due to an elongated lunch and then some time spent looking for a place to stay tomorrow night. At about midday we headed out to get a taxi to the bottom of the Langkawi cable car. This takes you up to the highest peak on the island at 700m above sea level. From here you have a set of stunning views back over the island and out to sea.

The top station of the cable car also has a bridge, joining two peaks many hundred meters in the air. It is on this that Rolf is pictured today. We spent quite a bit of time up at the top of the cable car and caught the sun somewhat between us. Mostly not me I'd like to point out!

At the village at the foot of the cable car I once again tried some of the Tom Yam. This time it wasn't quite as hot as it was in the hotel restaurant and I managed to wolf most of it down, much to the delight of the lady who cooked it. She giggled every time I coughed or spluttered a little due to the chili, it seemed to be a source of entertainment until they noticed I was well on track for finishing it all off.

When back in the hotel I had a brief 15 burst on one of their jet skis. I'm not a fan of the things but it's not like I'm going to get the opportunity to have a go in one very often. It was extremely powerful and I didn't hold it on full throttle for very long time over the whole stint. This was mostly due to the one or two foot swell that kept me bouncing up and down as I went.

After this I tried to go out in a laser for a few minutes before they closed up for the day. This was until I noticed that the wind had suddenly stopped dead. It wouldn't have been a very long sail to say the least.
Therefore I sat back and read my book for a while until I'd finished it and then got changed ready for dinner.

I have to admit to cheating a bit for this evening's meal... Spag Bol isn't exactly a local specialty, but I have been away for 50 days now and I've got to be allowed to slip every now and then. While eating I noticed a couple of geckos on the pillar behind where I was sat. They were quite cute but wouldn't hold still enough so I had to photograph them using a flash.

Anyway. Time for bed! :)

Day 49: Langkawi

Mood: Not what it ought to be
Music:  Moby - Wait for me

I recall the overnight train being much bumpier than the last one and this led to a rather bad night sleep. We were woken at 6am when the train made a scheduled stop and from here I decided to play on my ds instead of trying to fight for another few moments of sleep.

The sunrise revealed paddy fields broken with outcrops of palm trees. This was the first real countryside of Malaysia that we'd seen, other than the forest and palm plantations between KL and Melaka. It was quite surreal and rather beautiful in the early morning light. Sadly the windows of the train were too micky to take any decent photos through.

At Arau we left the train and hopped in a taxi to take is down to the ferry terminal at Kuala Perlis. From here we boarded a small passenger ferry to be taken to Langkawi. The sea was almost dead calm and in just over an hour we were on land again trying to find something for breakfast.

A 25 minute taxi ride was all that remained to take us to the Sheraton Beach Resort here on Langkawi. I had a few issues while checking in but I'll not go into that quite yet as they still might resolve the outstanding problems. While waiting to check in I did see some exotic birds and a small troupe of monkeys in the trees behind reception. Photos of them to follow.

The afternoon was split between an hour spent sailing around the coast in a Laser, being sat on a sun lounger reading my book and dipping into the pool to sit by the bar and drink cocktails. It is the latter that Rolf is pictured doing today.

In the evening we watched the sun go down while wondering along the sea front and sipping a quiet beer at the bar, followed by a meal in their spice restaurant (a fusion of Indian, Thai, Malay and Singapore style dishes). The soup I had as a starter would have killed most people with it's aggressive spiciness and even I had to give up after eating most of the solids therein. It was the kind of think that would have Phil sweating from just looking at on the menu! (apologies to those who don't get this reference).

At that point I'll leave you for the day

Day 48: Another day on the road

Mood: Sugar rush
Music: Moby - Play

Today started early as I was woken by the birds in the trees opposite starting to squawk as if their lives depended on it. Luckily I managed to get back to sleep for a bit before getting up for breakfast.

We set of in the morning for the sultan's palace in melaka. We'd almost walked past it yesterday but hadn't gone in. The building itself is built from wood and used no nails in its construction. As it is a four storey building (albeit on tiered levels), this is write an impressive feat. The building has also been moved at least once in its history. It must have been one hell of a flat pack ikea set!

Street that we got a taxi back to the bus station, a coach back to kuala lumpur and them trains back into town. Rolf is pictured looking over at the train station from the bus station.

As we got to the last leg of the train journey, a monorail, we were hit by a thunderstorm. Watching the bolts of lightning strike as the monorail twisted as tilted its way towards the city centre was quite fun.

You now find me sat in a food hall (quelle surprise) waiting for the overnight train that will take us to the north of the country.

Bye for now.

Day 47: Stuff

Mood: Quizzical
Music: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication

Today started... one of these days I'll start a blog post without that phrase... not yet though. Today started with breakfast and then a stint of reading before venturing out into the blisteringly hot day. First stop was the rotating viewing platform which raises 80m above the city. From the top you should be able to see over to Sumatra but the morning was quite hazy.

After that we went for a protracted walk around the shopping malls of the city and down to the pier that leads out over the straights towards a small offshore island. The silt had built up heavily in the area, this was the main reason that the traders had stopped coming here in years gone by, it made the waves very small and wading birds were visible in the water.

The walk back to the hotel took some time included a long stop in a Japanese restaurant for lunch. We actually also took in some historical sights of the city too. There is a large gate remaining from the Dutch defenses of the trading port and on the top of the hill, a large church. This was build by the Portuguese and used by them and the Dutch as a church but the English used it as a gunpowder store when they took over the area, blowing up the dutch built defenses as they did so.

Tomorrow will see a fair bit of traveling ending with an overnight train to the north of the country. I doubt I'll get to post until the day after.

Until then...

PS. To continue on the bizarre Pringle flavours purchased (cheesy cheese, seaweed, pizza, dill pickle) today blueberry and hazelnut can be added to that list!

Day 46: Malaka

Mood: Sleepy
Music: REM - Accelerate

The train last night didn't allow for too much sleep. There was the leaving Singapore border check to contend with first, by midnight we were back in the cabin en route with a man at the door offering us food in little polystyrene boxes. The rice was quite good but I really don't think there should be that many bones in such small pieces of chicken! After that we had to wrap up warm against the bitterly cold air conditioning. In our bunk beds that wasn't too easy as the blankets were barely big enough to cover me head to toe. I guess I am a fair bit taller than the average person in these parts.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 6:30am and stopped briefly to buy train tickets for the next northbound leg of our trip in a few days time. After breakfast we tried to locate the monorail station that should have been attached to the main terminus. After a bit of trial and error we found a map which firmly placed it the other side of a large construction site which covered the direct links on the map to the station. A change onto the overground local service later and we were heading towards the bus terminal, or at least where we thought it was. Thankfully a lady getting off a couple of stops before where we thought we were headed told us that, for the last month, most of the overground coach services we running from a new terminal at the stop we were about to arrive at.

The coach ride took a couple of hours and cost about as much as the taxi which took us from the bus station to our hotel in the centre of town. Either way this part of the trip was dirt cheap. The hotel room we are in is a large room overlooking the river here and costs £30 per night.

This afternoon was spent going for a walk around the locality and visiting a few of the local museums. One of which is a full size replica of a Portuguese trading ship (where Rolf is today). The inside of the ship is a museum with various displays chronicling the history of the settlement of Melaka through the ages and the numerous people who have ruled over it during that time (Portuguese, Dutch, British, Japanese, British, Malaysian).

Looking for dinner this evening was more of a challenge but we settled on a nice place which had seating down by the river. My curry was rather nice although the chicken used was in no way breast meat. I've a feeling I'm going to have to get used to that...

Night for now.