On June the 10th I will be heading out east on my motorcycle towards Nepal. Taking my time the plan is to cross Europe, head up through Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan, taking the ferry from Baku across the caspian sea to traverse Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, crossing the Pamir mountains into Kyrgyzstan, down through the Xinjiang province of China, over the Karakoram range on the KHH into Pakistan. In Pakistan I am going to trek to the base of Nanga Parbat the ninth highest mountain at 8128m before continuing on to India and eventually onto Nepal.
Tag: China
With planing well underway for my 2015 trip and a new web site under construction it seemed like a good time to revisit my trip from London to Thailand back in 2008. As this new site will be the home for all future travels it only seems right that it should be the home for my old ones too. I have copied my old blog here post by post with some spelling and grammar correction as well as some additional photos.
You can use the map below to follow my overland trip to Thailand in 2008 and navigate between posts.
Ok yet again it has been quite a while since I updated this, I am now in Laos but we will get to that later on. First where we left off… after leaving Mt Emei I made my way back to Chengdu where I stayed for a couple of nights to chill out and eat the good veggie food at the Buddhist monastery. While in Chengdu I heard that the Chinese were going to re open tibet on the first of May, which was a bit of a shock as I had accepted that I wouldn’t be going, just incase it did open I decided to leave the country so I could reenter in May (just incase). So I headed down on the night train to Kunming to meet up with Beth and Nick (who I had perversely spent time with in Beijing) who were heading to Vietnam. Spent a couple of days in Kunming sorting out visas and headed for the border by sleeper bus, nowhere near as nice as the sleeper trains but it got us there and only broke down twice. Got into a town in the north (Sapa) which is meant to be a travelers haven but was a little disappointed as it all seemed a little fake and staged, maybe if we had gone trekking we might have found something a little more real. Spent two nights there but after me boasting all day about how I have never had food poisoning I spent the night throwing up and the following day in bed. After Sapa we headed south to Hanoi a lovely old city which we immediately got lost on arrival at 5am and walked for an hour in the wrong direction. Spent a few days sitting around Nick’s pool (as he was stating at a posh hotel) and then me and Nick set of on a 3 day tour to Halong bay.
Moving on south by bus (cheaper and quicker than the train) with Beth to the sea side town of Hoi An and my first beach of the trip. First night we hitched a ride with some Germans on mopeds down to the beach for the sunset and had a great swim. Spent 4 nights there swimming, partying and hanging by the pool.
At this point I discovered that Tibet would not be opening and aranged to meet my mum and dad in Cambodia in June so insted of heading south to Ho Chi Minh city, I travle west into Laos. Beth wanted to make it to Thailand asap so accompanied me as far as Savannakhet
Currently sat alone writing this in a dorm room in a Buddhist Monastery
at 2070m up Mt Emei, so got I have a bit of time to write some stuff down.
My family may be imagining it like the one we stayed in in
Japan, at £2.85 they would be wrong, I am currently very happy I carried
my down jacket up here and dreading my next trip to the toilet (must
not drink any more water).
Anyway had 2 nights in Xian and saw the terracotta army, I have
always found the history of the army very interesting but as I
expected seeing it in real life did not add anything.
Booked a ticket to Chongqing with the intention of getting a cruse
down the Yangzi but after looking at the dates realized that it would
be a bit tight to get my visa extension after the cruse so changed my
ticket for one to Chengdu, extensions in Chengdu take five days but in
Leshan they only take 2, so jumped straight on a coach on arrival at
Chengdu; plus it meant I got to see the grand Buddha (71m tall carved
into a cliff).
Stayed a couple of days in Leshan and got my visa done in 4 hours-!! On
the second day I took a trip to a local village with a 70+ year old
Chinese man and 4 Chinese students. Was really great to get off the
tourist trail and spend a day chatting to young and old Chinese people.
Back in my hotel reading the LP I realised that Mt Emei was only 40min
by bus so here I am. (For my dad, over 2000m height gain today all by
steps, summit tomorrow morning 3077m)
No idea where I will go next, how exciting.
Update:
Got mugged by a monkey today, he got my bottle of coke but not my cookies-!!
