Thought you had heard the last from me, right? Wrong. I need to complete the circle on the map so thought I would add a few words to accompany some…

What better way to spend my last remaining days of my seven-month trip than walking around like an idiot for hours on end? Brilliant. I negotiated t…

It can be a very appealing idea, travelling with a group instead of doing it independently, especially if you're travelling alone. I chose to do so w…

The overnight train was, supposedly, the worst journey, according to the rest of the group, but, ironically, I had the best sleep I had had on any. …

I was pleased that Dragon had kept to form and given half the new people in our group a new name: Scott became Scout, Shelly is now Shirley and Kal i…

The main attraction in Hangzhou is the massive West Lake. We had an afternoon before heading to Yellow Mountain to explore it, taking a tourist boat …

I was pleased to arrive in Shanghai and find the city to be more like Hong Kong than Beijing. The capital had struggled to captivate my imagination, …

People who lose their sight often say it's the things that you take for granted that you miss seeing the most; blue skies, green vegetation. Well, I …

With what men would refer to as severe flu and women might call a cold, the last day in Beijing was always going to be a bit of a struggle. That…

This really was the highlight in a trip to China for me, and it didn't disappoint. One of the Seven Wonders Of The World, it has only recently been …

The overnight train to Beijing was the best yet, with no smoking, a restaurant and bar (to keep the Aussies from going insane) and even a Western-sty…

Or Terror Otter Oreos, as Dragon calls them. Unearthed in 1974 by a farmer digging a well, over 6,000 hand-carved life-size clay soldiers are th…

I'm getting used to the overnight trains now; they make for a much better night's sleep than the overnight buses. I feel for the Aussies, though; it'…

One of the highlights of a visit to Chengdu - and, indeed, China - is to get a glimpse of those elusive idiots of the animal kingdom, the giant …

Dragon now calls me Monkey Magic - I'm not sure why, but it's a name that I have warmed to. So that's replacing my name from now on. Get used to…

If the visit to the Giant Buddha wasn't enough, we still had two more things on the agenda. On the menu this evening was the local speciality, S…

On the way to Chengdu we stopped off in Dazu County to see the cliff carvings there, dating back to the Tang dynasty in the 13th century. Highlights …

In a country with a land mass of 9,596,960, it's no surprise that you spend a lot of your time travelling China, well, travelling. After the overnigh…

There's no party. Sorry to get your hopes up.  

Yichang is the kind of place that you don't really want to spend any time in. It was a shame, then, that we had to spend 24 hours here, waiting to ca…

This is the second time I've attempted to write this blog; the first time I got Chinese symbols replacing Roman ones before the computer annoyingly c…

After the zombie-like state that the festivities in Bangkok and a couple of hours sleep had given me, I was well pleased to negotiate a taxi, pla…

After crossing the border to Thailand, I was unfortunate to find that I had missed the overnight bus by ten minutes, meaning I would have to catch th…

The Gibbon Experience is held in the Bokeo Nature Reserve and is an attempt to conserve the area from poaching, logging and slash-and-burn farming. T…

With the river trip to Huay Xai no longer viable, I suddenly had two days to kill before I needed to be at the border. I stopped in at a local sc…

Only opened to tourism in the last few years, the Nam Ha National Protected area covers 2,224 square km and includes many different ethnic hilltrib…

When I arrived in Luang Nam Tha I thought it looked like a bit of a ghost town - and a bit of dive. But then it was only five in the morning and I …

Every person who I had asked about Laos before arriving had painted an image in my mind of hammocks, Beerlao, sunshine and not really doing much. Fun…

With some of the guys I had met on the infamous Hanoi to Vientiane bus journey, I took a tuk-tuk to the Kouang Si Waterfall which lies 32km south of …

The journey to Luang Prabang seemed to drag on forever. Another case of relying on the breeze coming through the windows to stop you from passing o…

With the brains of the operation now back in the warm and sunny climes of the good old US of K, my forgetfulness is worryingly exposed. So it was…

It's hard to believe that a capital city can be so quiet. I'd expect High Wycombe on Christmas Day to be busier than this. Mind you, it has only go…

I had heard travellers I had previously met refer to it as, the 'journey from hell': 24 hours - sometimes more - from Hanoi to the capital of Laos,…

Getting back to Hanoi from Sapa was an event in itself. First off, we had the white-knuckle ride that was the journey to the train station, enforce…

Well, gone are the days that I could say that I had never seen a dog being cooked in the street before. Sapa has quickly become my favourite dest…

Most people, when they come to Sapa, opt to do some (pretty lightweight) trekking around the hills, stopping off at rural minority villages on the …

The dreaded overnight bus to Hanoi wasn't anywhere near as uncomfortable as I imagined it would be. I actually managed to sleep for a large chunk o…

Having not really enjoyed being herded round like cattle on the DMZ tour, we decided to avoid the boat tours offered around Hue and charter a drago…

The four of us booked up on a tour of the DMZ, a 5km wide area of land on either side of the Ben Hai River. Despite being promised being shown a lo…

Before heading up the coast to Hue from Hoi An, the usual four had a mini bar-crawl along the riverside. The draught beers were 3,000 dong - or abo…

That is a place name; I have no offspring to tell you of.Booking up on a tour of My Son, the collective (Sam, Gemma, Liz and myself) took, first, a…

My second overnight bus of Southeast Asia took me north to Hoi An - and, no, that is how you spell it, I'm not dyslexic and trying to spell Hanoi…

After waking up feeling pretty groggy from the beers the night before, I had the realisation that I had booked on a boat trip and would have to spe…

The hot and sweaty coach journey to Nha Trang was memorable only due to the random person next to me's sleeping head getting closer and closer to m…

Even if you spend all day walking like I did the previous day, you still don't get to see much that Dalat and the surrounding countryside has to …

I spent an age looking round the many tour companies in Dalat that advertised trekking in the Central Highlands, but every one said they needed a m…

Sorry, that was rubbish. It's been a long trip. Into the Central Highlands of Vietnam I go, and an increase in altitude brings a much-appreci…

Everything goes on the back of a motorbike in Vietnam: caskets of fruit, beer, computer monitors, fridges and generations of families. Due to …

I used TNK for both a tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels and the Mekong Delta and I thought they were reet bo. If this review doesn't make i…

While in Saigon, I wanted to visit the Cu Chi tunnels, used by the Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communists) to hide and fight against the Americans during t…

Having had a good old ramble around Saigon and most of the sights, I was ready for a change of pace, so signed up for a one night two-day…

After an emotional goodbye at the airport, with Kyle flying off to conquer the world of transport planning, I wasn't really in the mood for dealing…

We're back again. We had heard all sorts of horror stories about overnight travel in Thailand: overbooked buses with people having to sleep in the a…

After clawing ourselves away from our lovely hotel room in Phi Phi, we took a ferry across to Phuket, Thailand's largest island. Having spent ti…

It's official. I'm historical. I'm a relic. An artefact. An antique. Well, maybe not an antique. But I am now quarter of a century old, and it's horr…

While we weren't expecting Ko Tao to be quite as built up as it was, we knew that Ko Samui was going to be something more resembling a holiday reso…

To get to Ko Tao we needed to pass through Bangkok - the fourth time we have had to after changing there to travel to Cambodia, Chang Rai, Pak Ch…

From our maps we could tell that our hostel was too far to walk but not really far enough to drive, so we decided to take our first cyclo of our ti…

The only way to get to Pak Chong, our base for visiting Khao Yai National Park, is Thailand's notoriously slow railway. Once we were only offered sta…

From the original capital of Bangkok to the second of three, Ayuttaya. The attraction: more wats. You might think we would be completely fed-up with …

We had spent our longest stay yet in Chang Mai and thought we could have stayed there even longer, there was that much to do, but hit the road, headi…

Chang Mai has no shortage of courses or activities you can try your hand at, ranging from rock climbing to trekking, from massage to yoga and cooking…

Earlier in the week we had gone to Monk Chat, which pretty much does as it says on the tin. We went and had a chat with a monk at a local wat so we c…

We had no problem finding treks around Chang Mai, booking a three-day, two-night trip to the surrounding hills via our hostel. What makes trekking …

We had laughed to ourselves at stories we had read or heard of people falling for numerous scams in Southeast Asia, and never thought we would fa…

Rubbish name, brilliant hostel. Felt like living in a wealthy mate's house for a few days. Don't do what I did and keep calling Pong, the owner…

We had a day to kill while in Siem Reap which we spent visiting the Landmine Museum, set up by a guy from the area who had set mines around the count…

Relieved to set off at a normal hour, we went to one of the furthest away temples - Banteay Srei - to see a pink sandstone temple that was heavi…

It was well worth it, waking up at 5:00 to watch sunrise at Angkor Wat, even though it looked like we might not make it on time as the sun threat…

The big one, the main event: The Temples Of Angkor. This is the reason why Cambodia is packed with backpackers right now. Get ready for photo-madne…

Seen as we can't get planes or buses right, we thought we would take the scenic route up the river from Battambang to Siem Reap. It's the hot and…

Yes, it is Cambodian New Year too, and, yes, the comedy continues. Blearry-eyed, we successfully boarded our 7:00 bus to Cambodia's second bigge…

Arriving in the capital city of Cambodia without preparation came as a bit of a shock, but one I think we dealt with pretty well. After finding some…

Upon arriving here, it became obvious that this hostel got its name not just because the owners are naturally 'happy', if you know what I mean. Let's…

Or, alternatively, Carry On Cambodia or The Muppet Show. Already our short time in Asia has been a roller coaster. This one's a funny one. We had in…

Already in a mood about being fobbed off with another budget airline when our ticket says Qantas on it, I couldn't believe it when the…

Cairns is the tourism mecca of Australia, with the most obvious infrastructure I have seen, not only in Australia, but perhaps anywhere. Eve…

This hostel is set above a busy Irish pub, but it's actually pretty good. This hostel is pretty big and so can get pretty noisy, but it's actually pr…

The ridiculously-overpriced ferry (26 dollery-do's for 25 mins!) was actually a lot more fun than I had envisaged in the choppy Pacific waters. Once …

With only really daylight hours to explore Queensland's third biggest city, we thought the best plan of attack would be to get up high and survey the…

Our two-day sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands didn't get off to the best of starts. Told to meet at 12:30 to depart at 1:00, we found ours…

  Fraser Island was always going to be one of the highlights of our trip up the east coast, but I hadn't foreseen it being such a rollercoaste…

See what I did there? Yeah, genius. Well, everyone apart from us, probably. Despite planning on having a couple of day's surfing lessons in Byron B…

For the tourists, a Daytripper ticket - unlimited use on trains, buses and ferries - is a pretty cheap way of getting around to see some sites. By …

A two-hour train journey takes you from Sydney centre to Katoomba, the basepoint for the Blue Mountains, so called because of the haze given off from…

With plenty of sights still to see, we decided to keep it a little cultural. A visit to a museum preceded by lunch down at the Sydney Fish Market. …

Reminded me of being a student again, which is no bad thing. Good common room and free internet, and cereal for breakfast which is a welcome change.

It was the 75th birthday of Sydney Harbour Bridge and celebrations were planned throughout the day. We were told that to get onto the bridge itse…

After feeling totally gross from the overnight bus to Sydney, neither of us were up for anything to stressful, so we booked tickets to the Aussie…

Despite us commenting beforehand that a two-day hike in the solitary confines of Wilsons Promontory National Park, sandwiched between stays i…

If I thought the disappointment of the Neighbours night was going to be remedied by the visit to Ramsey Street, I was mistaken.Our day had star…

Not content with the monkeys in the open zoo that is our hostel, we decided to visit Melbourne Zoo, deemed to be one of the best in the world. I…

After touching down at around midnight on our first night in Melbourne, we were apprehensive about our check-in to our dorm at our hostel in the ea…

Here's some of the possible reviews I thought of while laying awake at night listening to drunken 18-year-olds fumble around like clowns without make…

Our plan for Fiji was to do very little, in preparation for hitting the east coast of Australia hard in a few days time. We had booked in at all-in…

On our first night in Taupo I played five-a-side footy with some guys who had clubbed together to get a game from the people at local hostels. Need…

Our last day in Rotorua was slightly dampened by the weather. We had pictured another glorious sunny day when we made our plans to spend our time w…

Seen as Rotorua was the home of the 2006 World Mountain Bike Championships, it seemed only fitting that two complete novices gave it the runaro…

Just brilliant. Nice room, good location. But best of all is the landlady, Teresa, who will bend over backwards to help you do what you want to do. S…

The first thing you notice once you arrive in Rotorua is the smell. I've produced nicer smells after eating a McDonald's and even though you think yo…

On our last day in Waitomo we trekked the 12km Waitomo Walkway, described by our Rough Guide To New Zealand as "one of the best short walks in the co…

The next big thing to tick off was to visit the underground caves at Waitomo, in the west of the northern island, in King Country. The star of …

The highlight of the Bay Of Islands is the fact that there are so many excursions available. You can fly in a helicopter, go for a cruise on a boat, …

One night wasn't really enough to see Auckland, but time is of the essence and we have had to think hard about priorities. Higher up is to see the …

Still in zombie mode, we fought the tiredness and made the most of our first and last night in Auckland by visiting the Sky Tower, the tallest free-s…

Thank God. It was obviously sad to say goodbye to South America as it has been absolutely quality from the first day, but getting back to hearing and…

Fat Camel is an appropriate name - greedy, impersonal hostel that charges for the smallest extras. No window in room, boiling hot with a fan that did…

Our last full day in Chile and South America was a bit more cultured than most. We began by visiting the cathedral in the city centre. Very grand, we…

Really nice hostel. Why? Great atmosphere, helpful staff who put something different on each night eg spaghetti night, wine tasting etc, great bed…

Our journey across the border to Chile went as smoothly as we could have hoped. Once we arrived in Santiago we were lucky in that every time we g…

Sorry, had to get that in there somehow. If you hadn't guessed, it meant that we're leaving, crossing the border to Chile. But here's what happened…

As unromantic as our overnight bus journey to Mendoza was, it wasn´t short of incident. First off, we had the stress of making a second bus …

I wouldn't bother reviewing every hostel we stay in, but this one is well worth a mention. It's pretty much spot on. Reasons: An unbelievably nice co…

After the exhausting two days in Bariloche, we were quite up for a chilled one while in our next Lake District destination, San Martin de los Andes. …

Not wanting to slow the pace down while we're in Bariloche, yesterday we did a 60km bike ride around the area. After a hilarious confusion be…

Thought we'd hit it hard in Bariloche so signed up for white water rafting in the Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi, and it's quality. It's the first time…

After 30 hours of travelling, we finally got out of El Ghostvillage. I say that as if I didn´t like it, I did, it was just good to get away from t…

I thought El Calafate was small, but compared to our new destination it´s an absolute metropolis. El Chalten is pretty much the bare minimum, or l…

Well, a few dogs in the end, as it turned out. Let me explain... We were unsure what was to be done with our second and final full day in El Calaf…

Another long bus ride, this time a 23-hour overnighter, with some more films from the scrapings of the Lidl bargain bin and some Spanish bingo (…

Today we visited Peninsula Valdes National Park, a short trip in a small group but taking up a whole day. The main attraction is the wildlife, and …

I shouldn´t have badmouthed Skegness. Friday was cloudy and wet all day, so we were restricted to internet cafes and our hostel room. We did…

After an hour of looking round for a bar that showed the game, we did indeed find somewhere. Much of the day had been spent just chilling out because…

Yesterday we took advantage of what time we had left at Iguazu and went back to the national park. It was well worth the second visit as there were m…

We are now at Iguaza National Park, but despite being labeled as Brazil on my itinerary, we are on the Argie side. To get here, we took an 18-ho…

Over the last 24 hours we´ve seen both sides to BA. Yesterday we went to La Boca, home to Boca Juniors, which Lonely Planet calls "vivid, work…

We arrived in BA on Thursday morning after an all-night flight, but after getting very little sleep on the plane it felt like a very long Wednesday. …

So I've not actually left yet, but thought I should get to grips with this blog lark first. I've saved the cash, had all the jabs, got a couple of go…