I eventually make it to Quito after taking a night bus to the border town of Tumbes in Peru then catching a bus across to Ecuador before jumping on a…

After the fun of the sand dunes and sand boarding I get to Lima and check into "The Flying Dog" hostel in a posh part of town. I only stay for a few …

After the 5 day trek and Machu Picchu I caught a night bus to Nazca. Before I could even blink after getting of the bus I found myself in a small a…

I did a 5 day trek to Machu Picchu which was pretty hard work in the rainy season. It was cold and muddy at times but we all battled through to the e…

I got off the tiring night bus in Cusco with the guys from Puno and two other French guys and we wandered around the centre of Cusco looking for acco…

Unfortunately I kind of skipped through Puno after having a few drinks with a guy from Denmark,a girl from Sweden and a girl from Canada. I´d met …

I reached Copacabana and Lake Titicaca from La Paz, although I wasn´t very impressed with Copacabana the Lake itself was simply immense. The sheer…

I wasnt feeling too great the morning I woke to tackle a bike ride down the worlds most dangerous road from La Paz to Coroico road. The road pl…

After the scary flight from La Paz we booked ourselves onto a 3 day tour of the jungle. With the mosquito repellent on hand will took a 3 hour jeep r…

After new year we decided to head to the jungle of Rurrenabaque to check out some of the wildlife. Unfortunately the bus to Rur…

I had heard quite a lot about La Paz before actually arriving, mostly bad things about notorious scams and crime. I often find it strange how peo…

On the way to La Paz myself and the 3 other brits stopped in the delightful Sucre. The others decided to take a day trip horse riding around the su…

I spent a low key Christmas in the village of Samaipata. Samaipata is a pleasant but small village and a home for many expats. There wasn´t a great…

After the tiring but amazing jeep tour of Salar de Uyuni I catch a night bus to Samaipata. The journey to Samaipata is a sleepless one. As large Bol…

Crossing into Bolivia from Argentina displayed great contrasts. The people looked, acted and even spoke differently. My first impressions were that i…

After being slightly disappointed by Mendoza I found Salta a lot more appealing. It was a nice little town with some interesting plazas, buildings an…

I caught the 15 hour bus to Mendoza from Buenos Aires. I said good bye to Mike, Raj, Scuba and a few other guys in BA it had been good fun but it was…

We took a boat over to Uruguay to get out of Buenos Aires for a while. The traffic of the big city was getting to everybody. From the port in Uruguay…

We decided to head to La Paloma in order to see a smaller town than the beach resort of Punta Del Este. We arrived off the bus late at night and wand…

After a huge monster of a bus journey for 20 hours I reached Buenos Aires. It felt like an interesting city with a European vibe to it. I decided it …

I spent three days in Puerto Iguazu, a day on the Argentina side of the falls, a day on the Brailian side and a day of rest in between. It was an am…

We left Ilha Grande in the pouring rain with black bin bags covering our rucksacks to catch the boat to the mainland. After trekking around for a w…

After watching and playing lots of beach soccer in Rio I headed to Ilha Grande with three english guys I´d met at The Stone Of The Beach hostel in R…

Myself and Kate checked into Rio Hostel in the Santa Teresa area of Rio. The hostel itself was pretty good, offering a free breakfast, internet …

I flew into Sao Paulo from Santiago. Upon landing I was left gob smacked looking out of the window, Sao Paulo is huge. As far as the e…

I´d arrived in Santiago later than I really wanted after missing a night bus back from La Serena. All the buses back to the capital were booked up p…

Myself and two German girls I had met in Valpo arrived in Pisco Elqui 3 hours in land from La Serena. The scenery had blown me away on the bus journe…

I was thinking about taking a day trip out to the vine yards where Pisco (the local spirit) is made but decided that I'd take the bus out there and s…

After taking some beginner spanish lessons in Santiago I desperately wanted to get out and see a few other places. I´d caught a virus in Santiago …

I went to watch a soccer game in Santiago with two guys from Texas, one from Holland and one of the guys from the hostel. It was Colo Colo(Ch…

I arrived in Santiago, Chile after a long LAN Chile flight from New Zealand. The flight was long and painful with the inflight entertainment on the b…

I caught the bus back to Auckland where I stayed over night. I wanted to stay quite central and chose "Base" backpackers. The place was pretty bad, l…

On the way back to Auckland I spent a night in Roturua. Here I noticed just how bad my guide book was (Rough Guides) as I checked into YHA Kiw…

I caught to bus from Wellington to Taupo and arrived in Taupo at 2 o'clock. I checked into a rather shabby YHA hostel. Before I have time to blink…

I took the ferry across from Picton on the South Island to Wellington on the North Island. I took the ferry with a few people I'd met traveling in th…

I headed north to a small town to catch the ferry over to the North island and to Wellington. Whilst innocently purchasing a Moro bar from a petrol s…

I had never been whale watching before so I was looking forward to seeing the Sperm Whales off the coast of Kaikoura. It cost 130 NZ Dollars which f…

I caught the bus out of Franz Josef for Greymouth. I was planning to hop of the scenic train across the country to the East coast and to Christchurch…

I took the cross country train from Greymouth to Christchurch. It was a pleasant journey with some great scenery. Whilst in Christchurch a spent a …

After Wanaka I headed north to encounter the one of the much talked about glaciers on the west coast. To climb for a full day on the Franz Josef Glac…

I met a German guy and a Swedish guy on the bus to Wanaka, they'd both been skiing in Queenstown and were planning on heading up Tripple Cone…

I packed my bags after a week of fun snowboarding, bungy jumping and day tripping in Milford Sound. The plan was to head north up the West Coast. T…

After the excitment of the Highwire Nevis Bungy I thought a relaxing day trip to Milford Sound was in order.It was a long day trip to Milford Sound…

I saw the opportunity to do a bungy jump as a bit of a challenge. I'd always wanted to do one but also knew it wasn't going to be easy. …

Today I went snow boarding in near by Wanaka with Mark (guy staying in my room). We thought it would be a good idea to have a change of scenery on th…

I caught a flight out of Auckland to Queenstown. I was pretty glad I decided not to spend much time in Auckland especially when I saw the view out of…

I left Sydney after 4 and a half months of work and flew in Auckland, New Zealand. Coming into land I noticed just how green everything was compared …

I'm current in Sydney, I've have been here for about 4-5 months working hard and saving some cash. The time is quickly approaching where I'll be hit…

On our last day in Sydney I and Kate decided on a trip to the Blue Mountains. We walked through the busy Sydney streets across the many annoying pede…

After seeing some of the sights of Sydney we woke up early and walked to the bus stop to catch a bus to Bondi Beach. For some reason I still hadn't…

I'd got off the Oz experience in Sydney with Harry, his sister, Lucy and a couple, Adam and Sarah.We stayed in Base Backpackers for about a week whil…

I needed to slowly make my way back to Sydney so I booked myself on the oz experience bus from Melbourne to Sydney. I thought the oz experience would…

Back in Melbourne I thought I'd do something special and find the biggest cultural attraction in the area, so I headed to Ramsay Street. Not content …

We had a much needed rest at "Ned's Guest House" and rose at about 10 o'clock, we checked out and said bye to "Ned" himself. We headed to McKenzie Fa…

After waking up in the passenger seat of the car with ear plugs in and feeling a little tired we set off on our way again, it was about 8 in the morn…

We set off for the Great Ocean Road in a hire car that Dougie had chosen. It was a pretty sporty red number and Dougie was looking excited at the pro…

I had booked a Virgin Blue flight to Melbourne for about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, Dougie was following later in the day Going through Sydney airp…

I landed in Sydney on the morning of the 30th of December and caught a shuttle bus to the centrally located Metro Hotel on Pitt street. I checked in,…

After just less than a month chilling out in Brisbane I'm finally packing the rucksack again. Tomorrow morning I'm flying to Sydney for New Year…

I've managed to put together a basic slide show of some of my photos for China. They're not all that interesting but you must put the sound up on yo…

After meeting up with Neil for some Tom Yam soup I headed to Singapore's airport via the underground. Once I got to the airport I realised my flight …

I had stumbled across my guest house in Singapore by accident. It was clean, new and very friendly. I stayed in the dorm room which cost $18 a night …

Again the "Final Destination" curse struck. I was taking a shower after getting out of bed at about 11 o'clock in the morning. There I was whistling …

As everyone started to get off the bus taking all their belongings with them I remembered that we had to cross a border in order to get into Singapor…

After obtaining some form of a tan on Langkawi I consulted the guide book to figure out some kind of vague plan. As most of the people I've met along…

After the jungle trek I headed to the north west corner of Malaysia near the Thai border to an island called Langkawi. I was going to go to the east …

After my jungle trek I headed back to Kuala Lumpur for the night before catching a night bus the next day to the island, Langkawi.

After a couple of days in Kuala Lumpur I decided it was time to get out. I didn't really want to sit on the beach just yet as I'd been doing that in …

Rat Watch Report November 2006 Malaysia:1 (Kuala Lumpur) It's an early strike for Malaysia as a huge monster of a rat is sighted in the China Town …

The previous evening I spent wandering around China Town and it struck me just how I was taking everything in my stride. If it had been my first coup…

This is the second time I'm typing this entry due to the rubbish computers here. It completely froze on me, I had copied it just in case but it neede…

This is the first time in a long time I've actually written in my journal as opposed to just typing this whilst I'm on the Internet. I spent a total…

After chilling out on the beach on Koh Lanta I decided I should head towards Puket and land on Koh Phi Phi. On Koh Lanta I was surrounded by couples …

After the madness of Koh Phangan and the masses of people, I decided I needed a break. I also had a flight to catch from Puket when my Thai visa expi…

I have been reluctant to type this entry because I really haven't got much exciting to say about the Full Moon Party, probably because it all went so…

I've never broken any bones in my body, unless you count a big toe, but that doesn't really count does it? In a kind of "Final Destination" kind of w…

As I was in the area and there was a full moon party approaching, I decided to head over from Koh Tao to Koh Phangan (about an hours journey on a boa…

Today was the last day of my advanced open water course and I had to do four dives in the day. I had to get up early at 5.30 but thankfully I slept o…

I took a couple of days off to relax before starting my Advanced Open Water course. The normal Open Water Course was fine but didn't really give me t…

It was an early start as we picked up or equipment and jumped in a pick up truck for a lift to the harbor. The dive sight (Chumphon) sight is very po…

Thailand: No. of rats sighted: 5 (Bangkok, Chang Mai, Ko Tao(3)) I woke at about 2-3 in the morning to nip to the toilet in my modest beach h…

We took a boat in the afternoon after I watched a few diving videos to Mango Bay on the north coast of Ko Tao. It was a rocky but beautiful coast lin…

I woke up nice and early to check out of one beach hut in exchange for another. I headed to the dive school for a morning of watching videos and doin…

I had the day to do nothing in Bangkok while I waited for my 8 o'clock over night bus and ferry to Ko Tao an island which is known for its great and …

After spending the previous day walking around the Siam Square area of Bangkok to sort a few minor chores out, I thought some sight seeing was in ord…

Rat Watch Report October 2006 Now, I know you've all been wondering, and after many personal requests I've put together a few stats. I've been count…

I was a bit disappointed with Vietnam, I had heard great things about the place before I had left. Whether I enjoyed it less because I had to rush sl…

To my annoyance I had to take the 17.5 hour bus journey back to the capital, Hanoi as I had a flight booked to Bangkok. This meant travelling for mos…

Today I set off on foot to wander around the old town of Han oi. I walked around for about half an hour before working out that I actually should hav…

I arrived in Hanoi after a shortish bus journey from Hue. I had been here before on my way north but had only spent an hour at a hotel. It was about …

I've been moaning a lot lately on this blog. I don't think I'm the type of person who is impressed by everything like some people I've met along the …

It was my worst bus journey so far. The driver drove like he was in the film "speed" if the buses speed dropped below a certain level I think he thou…

I spent the early part of my "free day" in Hanoi catching up on sleep before heading into the traffic to do a few internet chores. I also copied a fe…

Myself and Tina booked a 3 day tour of Halong Bay from Hanoi, it is apparently a lot more hassle to attempt to arrive at Halong City and then get on …

If it wasn't bad enough getting off the overnight train from Sapa at 5 in the morning, the taxi driver drove us round the block in an attempt to rip …

We opted for a one day trek in Sapa, it cost 10 US Dollars. The trek wasn't hard at all and took us mostly downhill through rice paddy fields and sma…

Myself and Tina arrived in Sapa earlier in the morning after taking a 10 hour night train from the capital, Hanoi. As we arrived in Sapa after an hou…

Spent most of today just doing various chores such as visiting the post office and an ATM. I also went to see the Vietnamise Water Puppets, which was…

Myself and Tina decided to do a walking tour of the capital today as well as buying some train tickets to Sapa, north of Hanoi. We went to visit one …

I eventually got to Hanoi after another monster bus journey. I had traveled for about 30 hours from central vietnam to Hanoi to avoid the typhoon. Ha…

After a 10 hour over night bus to Hoi An I got off and was just about to check into a hotel when I bumped into Tina (German girl) in the lobby. She s…

Ok, so theres a typhoon heading towards Vietnam...hmm should be interesting. I'm catching a night bus tonight to head further north to Hoi An, I shou…

With not much else to do in Nha Trang other than sit on the beach I decided to go on a boat trip. As usual I didn't really look at the detail of the …

After another long bus journey the bus stopped of in Nha Trang where I was getting off. Tina had to get off too and wait about five hours until her b…

We met our guide for the day, "Budda" outside our hotel with three of his mates also with old stylie Russian motorbikes. We jumped on the back and he…

I left Mui Ne and headed to Dalat. In the same bus was Gal and Tina, both traveling on their own to Dalat from Mui Ne. I had met Gal (from Israel) ea…

I had hired a motor bike driver for the day to take my around the sights of Mui Ne, this meant getting up again at 6:30. I managed to get up in tim…

I hopped off the bus at Mui Ne as most people seems to head further north to busier places. I thought it would be cool to stop of here to check out t…

It was yet again another early start for me today as I waited for a bus to take me for a tour of the Mekong Delta, south of Ho Chi Minh City. I was l…

I caught the tour bus at 8 o'clock heading to Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi Tunnels. After Angkor Wat I wasn't really ready to tour another temple bu…

I woke up to a noisy street outside and spent the day wandering to get an understanding of where I was actually staying. I was based in the backpack …

I woke up at 6 in the morning said goodbye to Ben and caught my 7 o'clock bus to the Cambodia/Vietnam border. I had really enjoyed Cambodia although …

Today instead of just being lazy and not doing too much (due to my cold) Ben suggested going to the shooting range. Its not really my cup of tea to e…

Myself and Ben headed to Phnom Penh, I intended to take it easy for a while and try and shake my cold/flu type thing I had picked up probably from ge…

Myself and Ben (guy from NZ) hired  two scooters and a driver to get us out of Battambang to see some of the sites. The journey turned out to be…

After a slight change of plan (although I don't really have one) I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to catch the slow boat down the river to Cambodia's…

I took my time to get up this morning but eventually I climb the step concrete steps to the guest house restaurant for a spot of breakfast. I felt a …

Myself and Yan got up at 8 o'clock to meet our keen tuk tuk driver (keen for your money as they all are) for the day. We paid him about 5 US Dollars …

I finally managed to leave Phnom Penh for Siem Reap today. I checked out of my guest house No.9 and paid my rather large bill. In Cambodia they tend …

Ok ok ....so I didn't make it out of the capital today and on to Siem Reap. Instead I jumped on a motor taxi to visit the so called "Russian Market" …

I had said bye to the two Aussie guys, Luke and Alex after the England football game about 1 in the morning before heading to bed. In the morning I w…

Today myself and Luke (one of the Aussie guys) hired a tuk tuk for the day to take us around some of the historical sights of the capital. Alex, the …

I took a 4/5 hour bus north to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. I had no idea where I was staying or where I was going as I haven't managed to pi…

No roller coaster could ever be as scary as this is right now, as my eyes dart around looking for my emergency exit! I'm sat sweating slightly with n…

I arrived in one piece after my 4 hour hair raising boat trip from Koh Kong.I booked into a nice guest house for 5 US Dollars a night, it was nice an…

I was attempting to get up at 5:45 in the morning in order to get across the border to catch a ferry to Sihanoukville a beach town in Cambodia. When …

I left Ko Chang with my friends Josh, Jimmy from New Zealand and a couple from Belguim. I headed to nearby Trat as a stop off and they headed back to…

This morning I woke up still feeling a little sick as I was the day before. I can't quite figure out what it is as I haven't been physically sick as …

Today I moved down the coast to Lonely Beach, although once I got there I realised I wasn't that lonely and it was, infact quite busy. I'm currently …

Finally after a day of rain and wind the sun came out to give me a spot of sunburn! Just been taking it easy in the sun and doing a spot of swi…

I caught the 11 o'clock bus to Trat on the East coast of Thailand, of course the bus broke down on the way out of Bangkok but after Laos I'm kind of …

I arrived back in Bangkok and checked myself into a reasonable guest house with a TV in the room and it's own bathroom. I took time to chill out in …

On the flip of a coin I decided to exit Laos and head to Ko Chang with it's beautiful beaches and jungle. I sacrificed southern Laos, although there …

Just when I thought I had run out of things to say and Vientiane had done nothing to inspire me, I stumble into a funny situation. It was sticky hot …

I arrived in Vientiane the capital of Laos after a six hour bus ride from Vang Vieng. After getting off the bus I found myself a reasonable small roo…

I had to make it to Vang Vieng via the infamous Route 13 where there have been numerous hijackings and or insurgence attacks on public buses over the…

Today I headed out to view the "Plain of Jars" that are situated across three different sites. Before visitors were allowed on any of the sites the M…

I got up early in Luang Prabang and caught the nine hour bus to Phonsavanh. The route drove along winding roads high up in the mountains leaving me p…

I woke early and left Charlotte in Muang Ngoi as she was planning on heading east and I was thinking of going the opposite way. I decided to head bac…

I sat and ate some noodle soup for breakfast looking out over the river and towards the huge green mountains. Early morning mist gathered around the …

So far I've found Laos to be the most amazing place for scenery so far on my trip. I found it strange as I have never read much about Laos being so b…

At about 6 in the morning I awoke to say my goodbyes to Brig, Amy and Lucy as they were catching the early bus south to Vang Vieng for a spot of tubi…

I woke up in our 5 person shared room with a slight hangover after consuming too much beer Laos the evening before. Myself, the Brigster, Amy, Lucy a…

Apparently Laos is the most bombed country in the world, being bombed by the USA years ago. I haven't seen any signs of the bombing yet but apparentl…

For our second night of trekking we were staying in a large bamboo hut situated right on the river facing the water. The sound of the rapids was pret…

We woke quite early and Wii (our trekking guide) made us all breakfast before we set off trekking the Jungle. Just like the day before it was hot, hu…

After all the smog of Bangkok it was good to get out into the fresh air and I was looking forward to the trek in the jungle north of Chiang Mai. Ag…

We got to Chiang Mai after a long over night train journey from Bangkok, the train was actually quite good in comparison to the hard sleeper trains i…

My flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok was pretty uneventful, I had enjoyed Hong Kong although my accommodation wasn't great and it was pretty expensive…

We left the hotel at about 10-11 to find Yumi somewhere cheaper to stay while she was in Macau, she was staying for a while before heading back acros…

Mirador Mansions (The building where I was staying in Hong Kong) is a huge block of dirty flats with about 16 floors of small cramped guest houses. T…

In my cramped four bed dorm on the 14th floor of a scruffy block of flats in Kowloon I met my Korean roommate, Yumi. She was in Hong Kong for a while…

I checked out out of our triple room as I said my good byes to the English girls who left for the airport to catch a flight to India. I went do…

Some of the guys on the tour where staying in Hong Kong for a short period of time. The two English girls hadn't already booked accommodation so we d…

After a long train journey of 17 hours we finally made it to Hong Kong. Immediately you could tell the massive difference between mainland China and …

We hiked down from high up in the Longji Rice Paddy fields and caught two buses to Guilin. We had the whole day to waste ahead of our 17 hour train j…

We checked out early from the "Outside Inn" village guesthouse and caught a bus to Gullin where we left some luggage behind so that we could hike lig…

Returning to my room after eating a spot of dinner I was caught off guard by a filthy cockroach scuttling across the floor of my room. With cat like …

We checked out of "faulty towers" at 10 in the morning and grabbed some much needed breakfast before we took a long bike ride through the countryside…

I dragged myself out of bed like a bear just out of hibernation for a spot of Tai chi at seven o'clock. The only stumbling block being that "The…

I spent most of the day trying to find a park in Shanghai with no luck, I later on discovered it was hidden in a shopping complex. It was the hottest…

I woke up late and was glad that I caught up on some much needed sleep, Shanghai seemed quite familiar for some reason and just didn't seem as exotic…

As we got off the train in Shanghai we realised we were in for another hot and humid day. The mixture of humidity and hot exhaust fumes from the taxi…

Try buying water from the vending machines on the streets of Xi'an, 1.5 yuan. Foreigners are often over charged in shops and your likely to pay 2 yu…

Four of us from the group went out for a few beers in an expensive 'foreigner'  bar (Expensive for China, just over a pound a beer) the nig…

I woke up on the train as the steward walked briskly by opening all the curtains on the carriage, some strange tinny music suddenly started playing. …

Today myself and Kenton, my American roommate from San Fancisco trekked back up to the restored part of the Great Wall of China to take a few photos …

I woke with bags under my eyes to catch a three hour coach ride to part of the Great Wall of China. It felt great to get out of the rush of…

We got up early yet again to catch the subway then a few taxi's to the Summer Palace. It was a vast park made up of temples, lakes, statues, boats am…

Most of the tour group headed out to the Forbidden City today. The weather was hot and muggy which made it hard work walking around such a huge place…

I woke late today and slowly tidied up my things and checked out of Leo Hostel. I walked to the hotel to join the tour for the rest of China and arri…

I spent some of the day wandering around the Hutongs south of Tianiman Sqaure visiting shops and having lunch from one of the many stalls on the way …

I slept surprisingly well for my first night in the hostel and woke pretty early. I decided to avoid the major sights because of my Beijing tour on t…

My London to Beijing flight was delayed by about an hour for some unknown reason. I was left thinking "What the hell am I doing" whilst waiting to bo…

I was shocked by the heat, humidity and general sweatiness... ...that's right... sat in Terminal 4 at London Heathrow awaiting my connecting fl…

After a year of saving and waiting, I'm finally off on my way tomorrow morning. My arms have survived the unslaught of eleven injections over the las…

Only 28 days to go now, I think I've got most of the important things sorted. Although I can't help feeling that there’s something I'm going to for…

After looking around various shops in Manchester (most are on or around Deansgate, Blacks, North Face, Ellis Brigham etc) at quite a lot at…

Planing is the part I don't particularly enjoy doing, filling in forms, red tape, ringing call centres and generally organising mundane thi…

This is an early post I know, I just wanted to get to grips with this blog and to find out how to work it properly before I leave the country. I…