Time To Head Home

Well, that's five months pretty much done!

Today, Nads and I will make our way to Hong Kong Airport to start our long trip back to the UK. In between leaving Hong Kong and arriving in London is the small matter of a 13hr stop in Delhi Airport and we can't leave the airport because we don't have a visa.

I don't think we can really say we stopped off in India but it does provide one last bit of adventure, which will be mainly trying to find somewhere to lie down and sleep/trying not to get too bored! After that, it's back on a plane and heading straight to Heathrow and by Tuesday night (Providing everything runs on time!) we will be back home. A bit of a scary thought and a bit of an exciting one too.

(Once I am back home I am going to think of some 'Travel Award' categories like 'Best Country' etc. and post a blog later in the week)

Whistle Stop Review Of Three Weeks In China

Three weeks is a pretty long while and China is a pretty big country (Even before you add on Hong Kong) so here's my attempt at an express review;

- It's been surprising.
Before I arrived in China I expected the worst from what I had heard from others. I thought that I would want to see The Great Wall and The Terracotta Army then get home but it has not been like that. China has actually been pretty nice!

- Forget Everything You Know About Chinese Food.
The food you buy from Chinese takeaways is nothing like the food you get in China, oddly. There isn't a battered prawn ball in sight and there's certainly no strangely red sauce that stains the carpet like no other substance on earth. Equally, it isn't all about turtle soups, shark tongues or boiled chicken feet either. Yes, those dishes exist but there is some amazing food in China too. From the popular Cantonese menus found in Hong Kong to the Middle-East inspired food of Northern China. If I could recommend one dish it would have to be pork steamed buns...delicious!

- It is old AND new at the same time.
China is an ancient country and therefore some fantasic history. Getting to see The Great Wall, The Terracotta Army and The Forbidden City up close was amazing but there are also so many new things too. The city of Xi'an is growing fast and a trip to Shanghai and Hong Kong will see you nestled in amongst shiny, modern skyscrapers towering over the streets. I just hope they keep working on the environment, the smog (A fog caused by pollution) is no fun to breathe in all day.

- There are some things that take more than 3 weeks to get used to.
Spitting. Well, not so much the spitting but the hocking. In China it is perfectly normal to spit out a wet, phlegmy spitball outdoors or indoors. Nothing has made me wince like a man or woman next to me hocking up what appears to be their attempt at a world-record sized spitball and then firing at the pavement/sink/floor of the train. Moon pants are also interesting, instead of nappies young children will wear no pants and trousers with the bum area cut out, this allows them to do a Number 1 (Or 2!) on the street. It is pretty good on saving plastic used to make nappies and I'm told it also means nearly every child is toilet trained by 2 years old but it still takes some getting used to seeing!

- The weather changes...like the weather.
Because China is such a huge country there is such a change in temperatures. When up in Beijing it was nice and just like a perfect British summer's day with blue skies and a breeze, Shanghai was a bit wet and smoggy when we were there and Hong Kong has been just like Mexico, pretty hot and sunny. On top of that are parts of China that are desert!

Overall, I have really enjoyed what China has had to offer and I can see myself coming back one day if I get the chance.

In The Photo: I spotted this for sale in Beijing. I'm actually pretty pleased to say I didn't try that creation.

One Direction Watch {China}

As with most of Asia there has been absolutely no sign of the fivesome so there's really not much to report!

Giant Duck

I did not expect to stumble across a 16m high giant rubber duck on my travels but today, while walking along the sunny Hong Kong waterfront, I did just that.

The duck started it's world tour back in 2007 and has since visited many cities including Amsterdam, Sydney and Sao Paolo. It has spent the past month in Hong Kong and it's creator, Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, has said he created it to bring people together. Judging by the crowds it is still drawing after a month I would say it has done just that!

Did You Know?: In mid-May a malfunction caused the duck to deflate entirely!

Hit The Lights

Hong Kong has one of the most famous skylines in the world, especially at night and every day at 8pm they put on the largest permanent light show in the world; The Symphony of Lights.

The music did sound a lot like one of those bad ITV quiz shows you might find on TV if you are off school for the day but the show was still impressive. A whole array of different skyscapers and other buildings work together to put lasers, spotlights and multicoloured lights in time to music and flash them across the bay. Quite a sight.

Disney

It might not have been the most cultural of attractions but that didn't matter to me today as I travelled to Disneyland Hong Kong with an excited grin on my face.

I am not ashamed to say that I absolutely love Disney parks and am lucky enough to have now visited three different ones. The atmosphere inside is always so upbeat and I have to admit that I even got a little bit starstruck as Nads and I had our photo taken with Mickey himself.

Did You Know?: The Disney parks in California, Florida, Paris and Tokyo are all bigger than the one in Hong Kong, making Disneyland Hong Kong one of the least known and officially the smallest Disney park in the world!

Name That Brand

After Thailand and Cambodia, China is the third country on the trip that doesn't use the same alphabet as the English language. Mandarin (China's most widely spoken language) has it's own set of characters to make words and I thought I would attach a few pictures of some snacks you can buy in China. Can you work out which famous brand is which?

Once you have worked it out, have a think. Is it just the name that's important for customers to recognise or are certain colours and the way words are written just as important?

One Week Left!

A week today I will be back in the UK! I can't believe how quickly the past five months and twelve countries have whizzed by. With just Hong Kong left as a new place to visit, Shanghai seems to be preparing me for getting back home as today I walked past a 'Marks & Spencer' and a 'Tesco'!

True Love Test

Found in Yuan Gardens, this huge piece of rock is a traditional way of testing true love.

The man is supposed to place his hand into the circular hole on the right and the lady is meant to put hers into the hole lower down and to the left. If the man and the woman are able to reach each other through the narrow space then it is said to be true love!

Being on our honeymoon, Nads and I thought we would try it out. We didn't hold out much hope as a few other couples before us just couldn't reach but, with a bit of manoeuvring, Nads and I could just about reach each others fingers. Phew! 

Shanghai Serenity

Nestled in amongst the busy streets of Shanghai is this place, Yuan Gardens or 'Gardens of Peace', and it is every bit the traditional Chinese gardens that you could picture in your head. There are rockeries that stand tall next to the serene water features filled with koi, turtles and ducks and then there are the beautifully constructed old-style buildings that are dotted throughout.

The gardens were first created nearly half a millennium ago and they cost so much money they nearly made the emperor at the time bankrupt! Since then they have changed owners many, many times and they have also been damaged in many wars, including World War II. Currently though they are owned by the Chinese government who take great care of the place to ensure that it remains a peaceful retreat for all those wishing to escape the hustle and bustle of one of China's biggest cities.

Did You Know?: When they created the rockeries they didn't have any fancy glues or cements so the heavy rocks were stuck together and held in place by a mixture that included crushed sticky rice!

Unusual Music

You know when you sing along to a song, it's in a foreign language and you realise you have no idea what you're actually saying (Gangnam Style anyone?)? Well, I think this happens a fair bit in China.

I have been here nearly two weeks now and in that time I have heard two different versions of 'Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer', Mariah Carey's 'All I Want For Christmas' and 'Jingle Bells'!?! It has caused Nads and I to giggle and just check we haven't stayed 7 months too long without realising!

Army Of Warriors

In my opinion, The Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an should be included on any historical 'Wonders of the World' list. After highlighting them as the one thing I wanted to make sure I saw in China, I finally got to visit them today and, as a history nerd, I loved it.

What is really interesting is that their discovery in the 1970's was a total accident. A local farmer was out digging a hole for a new well and fell through into a huge chamber. Inside this chamber he found the first few of the thousands of warriors you can see in the photo and since that day excavations are still going. The photo shows 'Pit One' (The farmer fell through at the front of this area) and they have so far uncovered 2,000 soldiers and expect to find another 4,000+! Then there are Pits 2 and 3 where they are finding many more, it is one almight army. Amazingly, no record of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (The first Emperor of China) coming up with the idea, it being created or it being hidden has ever been found in Chinese records!

The warriors were created to look after the Emperor in the afterlife and, if you think about it, they have done just that. By becoming one of the most famous places in the whole world they have ensured that they, the Emperor's tomb and all of it's contents will be protected by historians, archaeologists and governments for many many years.

Did You Know?: Every single warrior has it's own individual face, they have never found two the same. Even each terracotta horse in the army is different!

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet?

This is easily the fastest (And probably the coolest looking) train I have ever been on; the high speed bullet train from Beijing to Xi'an.

At it's fastest it was speeding along through the smoggy Chinese landscape at 304kmph! To put that in perspective, the Eurostar only just pushes past 250kmph and this train can even get close to 400kmph on the right tracks!

High Flying

Tonight I went to watch the young acrobats of the Chinese National Acrobatic Troupe. It was absolutely incredible (Except for maybe the slightly creepy clown they used to try and make a story out of the performances)! 

In the photo you can see some of the young men performing their daring skills on vertical ropes. Here, some of them have hung themselves upside down with their feet while others spin around quickly while hanging on to ropes attached to their upside down friends!

There was also a beautiful performance with Chinese fans that ended with around 10 girls all on one bicycle at the same time as they cycled around the stage and another saw a group of girls doing amazing tricks with diablos. This included throwing it in the air, doing loads of somersaults across the stage and catching it again and then doing a dance routine in perfect unison...while all still throwing diablos about. I think I could get a diablo, practise every day for 2 years and not even be close to what I saw!

The Forbidden City

This is me, outside The Forbidden City in Beijing. Built just over 600 years ago it was home to two dynasties of Chinese emperors; The Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty. It is a huge city within a city and has a rather large wall and 52m wide moat running around the outside to protect it.

Nads and I were just two of thousands upon thousands who visit the site every day making it one of Beijing's top attractions. It only cost us about £4 to get in but back when it was home of the emperors entry was free, the only hitch was that if you weren't invited you were killed!

Did You Know?: Throughout the site there are 309 large pots that used to hold lots of water. They were there to be used in case a fire broke out but ironically, during the cold winters, fires were lit under them to stop the ice freezing!

Kate Moss, Lily Cole, David Beckham...Wallace And Gromit?!

As you wander through one of Beijing's newest shopping malls (Which has the world's largest Adidas store spread over four floors!) you would expect to see some of the planet's most famous faces advertising new lines of clothing. There were two 'models' I didn't expect to lay my eyes on though; Wallace and Gromit!

Here you can see Wallace sporting a rather snazzy cap and Union Jack jumper and Gromit has a dashing scarf wrapped around his neck as they model the latest line for the clothing store Chocoolate.

Seeing this large advert brought mixed feelings...one being total surprise at seeing some fictional British animated characters as actual fashion models and also huge disappointment at realising that Chocoolate wasn't a sweet shop.

The Great Wall

Here I am at The Great Wall of China, the last of the 4 Seven New Wonders Of The World that I am visiting on this trip. The first thing to note is that The Great Wall isn't actually one really long wall, instead it is many quite long walls used to link up natural defences like impassable mountainsides.

I visited the Mutianyu part which is over 3,000 metres long and has 26 watchtowers (You can spot some of them in the photo). It was a truly impressive sight and there were lots of steps as the wall rose and fell with the hillside. They were those tiny types of steps that feel like you are doing lots of small footsteps in quick succession, so quite tiring!

Despite all the effort that went into building it though, it actually became pretty useless once invaders to China decided to come from the sea and even more useless once planes were invented. Funnily enough, if it wasn't for tourism it might not even exist like it does today and even now there are stretches that have totally collapsed and piles that are still illegally plundered for building materials!

Did You Know?: The Wall being visible from space is a myth and not true. It might be long but it's simply not wide enough!

To Tan Or Not To Tan? That Is The Question.

Walk in to nearly any European or North American pharmacy and you will find rows of products to help you fake tan and when the sun comes out loads of people head outside to get a real one.

Here in Asia it's the exact opposite. In each of the 6 different Asian countries I have visited I have spotted rows of 'whitening' products like this facemask in the photo. They have things in them to make skin lighter and in Vietnam I also learnt that women on mopeds will try and cover as much of their skin as possible to actually avoid tanning.

Isn't it funny that millions of white Western people are constantly trying to make their skin darker while millions of people in Asia, with naturally darker skin, are trying to make theirs lighter! 

The Summer Palace

Today I travelled to the outskirts of Beijing to visit The Summer Palace. Ever since an Emperor made Beijing the country's capital nearly a whole millennium ago this site has been important but most of what can be found there today was built in the 18th century.

The site includes an absolutely huge lake that was entirely man-made. Nads and I hired a pedalo and spent nearly an hour on the water and we only got round the tiniest part. It was a pretty grand place and full of lots of impressive Chinese style buildings and artwork. It was also pretty knackering walking over the hill you can see both on the way in and the way out! Good training for The Great Wall.

Did You Know?: In the late 19th century, Empress Dowager Cixi stole funds from the Chinese Navy to do up the palace as a holiday home to spend the rest of her life in!

The Birds Nest

Here I am in front of the 2008 Olympic Stadium in Beijing. It is called 'The Birds Nest' because of the way the metal looks like lots of twigs formed together to make a nest.

As a sports geek it was a very exciting place to visit and I had great fun wandering around it and seeing where the Olympic flame was left burning during the games. I even went inside and I got to wander around the seats and see the track where Usain Bolt made his name 5 years ago.

As well as the stadium, the famous 'Water Cube', which held all the aquatic events of the 2008 Games, is still standing and looking spectacular nearby.

Review of Vietnam

If I had to choose one word to describe the country I'd probably go for 'mopeds'. There are quite literally millions of them!

There is so much more though, the country itself is beautiful. From the towering rock islands in Ha Long Bay to the bustling city streets of Ho Chi Minh City there is so much to see. I personally think that Hoi An is one of the most beautiful places in the world because of the hundreds of colourful lanterns hanging from old buildings and bridges that light up the streets, it was exactly like a painting of a 'traditional Asian' scene.

I will also remember the horns of cars/buses/mopeds being blown for what seemed like every second of every day in the cities. It was quite intense.

Overall, Vietnam is an amazing country and definitely somewhere everybody should visit if they get a chance.

Next up; China. The last country of the trip.

In The Photo: Here is a small part of a mosaic in Hanoi, the capital city. It is part of the longest ceramic mosaic in the world at over 2 miles from start to finish! Made to celebate the city's 1000th birthday in 2010, our taxi was driving past it for ages!

One Direction Watch {Vietnam}

There's about as many signs of One Direction in Vietnam as there are McDonalds in the country...absolutely none!

Islands In The Bay

I have spent the last couple of days in one of the most beautiful places on earth; Ha Long Bay! It is in the north of Vietnam and is made up of nearly 2,000 different limestone islands that lurch up high out of the water.

It is said that, centuries ago, an ancient dragon came to help the local Vietnamese people when they were being invaded. It crashed into a giant rock and sent boulders the size of islands scattering across the bay. This meant that the invaders couldn't find their way to land and the local people remained safe. That is the traditional story of how the bay was created and sailing amongst the islands was like travelling into a beautiful, pop-up book of the story.

Did You Know?: Ha Long Bay has featured as a location in two James Bond films and was the finish line in the Top Gear Vietnam special.

Jellies

Look at this jellyfish! As I was kayaking around some of the islands on Halong Bay I saw one every few minutes and they were huge. They could deliver quite a sting if you got mixed up in their tentacles but that hasn't stopped people catching them and selling them to China where they are a popular in salads.

Last Dong Day

Today's my last day in Vietnam before flying to China tomorrow morning. That means I will be starting to spend Chinese Yuan instead of Vietnamese Dong, something which should be a lot easier to work out because it's roughly Y10 to £1 instead of a whopping 32,400 Dong to £1 (roughly). I am a lot better at dividing by 10 than I am at dividing by 32,400!

In The Photo: While it's only possible to get 5, 10, 20 and 50 notes at home, here in Vietnam you can carry round a few half a million notes like this! You can even go to a cash machine and withdraw a few million Dong!

Puppet Show

Last night I got to see a Vietnamese water puppet show. The shows originally started centuries ago in the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta and the puppeteers use the water as a stage while they stand behind a bamboo screen.

What I saw last night was exactly the same except it was in a theatre in Hanoi instead of a rice paddy! It was incredibly clever how they used the water and the puppets were very well made. What you can see in the photo is dragon puppet moving around with a bird puppet, it is part of the traditional story of how the people of Vietnam were created. I got to watch a few other Vietnamese stories told on stage too and it was a really interesting evening.

It's Not Like The Garage Down The Road

The latest garages in the world have fancy clean handles, a smattering of special offer advertisments for things like wind-up torches and you can even put your card straight into the pump to pay now. In Vietnam you can fill up at one of these.

Believe it or not this type of petrol pump has been quite a commom sight in both Vietnam and Cambodia and equally common are old, large glass Pepsi or Fanta bottles filled with fuel to take away! I'm not sure it's the safest way to store highly flammable liquids but it seems to do the job in South East Asia.

Tumbling Down

I hope everyone back home enjoyed their Monday off. I ended up having quite an eventful afternoon when the ceiling of our hostel room fell in!!!

I was sat on the chair you can see in the photo, just checking my emails and catching up on football news when I suddenly heard something fall over above me. I thought it sounded a bit odd because it sounded like it was really close (Not like when something falls over upstairs in your house and you know there's a fair bit of concrete or rafters between you and the floor above).

After that, I heard a few more things topple over in quick succession just before a pretty ominous cracking sound. I looked up and saw some of the wood decorating the ceiling come apart and things starting to fall through. It must have all happened in just a split second because I leapt from my seat and flung myself onto the bed to get out of the way.

I looked back and saw that where I was sat was covered in shattered glass (Including a now obliterated fish tank and mirror), ceramic tiles, wood and lots of dust. Small shards of glass even covered the far reaches of the room. This certainly woke Nads up from her nap and luckily I only had a very small cut on my arm.

[Apologies for the photo being a bit blurry. There was a lot of dust in the air and it was taken very quickly as the hotel staff had just started to clear up and after we had to move some of the debris to actually get out the room]

The Temple Next Door

This picturesque temple is right next door to where we are staying in Hoi An, in fact it can be seen right outside our bedroom window!

It's an old building dedicated to something called Confucianism (Conn-fyu-shunn-ism). Confucianism isn't technically a religion but it is a set of beliefs that people choose to follow.

It was started around 2500 years ago in China by a man called Confucious. At this time things weren't good in the country and he became a teacher who created a set of rules that people must follow. They included things like respecting your elders, treating other people how you would like to be treated yourself and knowing that if you have made a mistake you must try your hardest to correct it. It was very strict but also incredibly popular and many people still follow these rules today.

Did You Know?: One thing people used to say about Confucious was that if his mat wasn't straight he wouldn't sit on it. This might sound really fussy but it's actually the core of his beliefs that things must be done properly so that they are correct. Think of your writing, if you don't start a sentence with a capital letter and finish it with the correct punctuation is just isn't right and doesn't make proper sense.

War Tunnels

Today I found myself crawling through the Cu Chi Tunnels not far from Ho Chi Minh City. These famous tunnels were used by large numbers of Vietnamese fighters during the country's war against the USA . They run for many kilometres, different tunnels going in different directions but all connected.

You can see how small and cramped these tunnels were for me but they used to be even narrower because they have been widened for tourists! Imagine having to live inside these for days on end, sharing your space with poisonous centipedes and scorpions as well as a whole village worth of people.

Did You Know?: The only time people left these tunnels, even though it got so hot inside, was after dark when there were no US soldiers around. However, if bombing was happening it could be days before anyone went to the surface!

Rush Hour

Cambodia may have had some of the craziest driving of the trip so far but Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam certainly has the busiest roads.

The amount of mopeds in this city is incredible. I have heard a tour guide say that there are around 4,500,000 of them, there are only around 6,500,000 people! They are everywhere!

A Famous Post Office

There can't be too many post offices in the world that are tourist attractions but this one in Ho Chi Minh City certainly is.

Saigon Central Post Office was built when this part of Vietnam was under the control of the French and it was designed by a man called Gustave Eiffel...the same man who designed a certain famous tower in Paris that shares his name!

Because of the fame of his Eiffel Tower creation this post office in the middle of the city now has many, many visitors a day that don't even want to post anything, including me!

Fast Food Update

It has to be said, KFC are one of the best fast food chains out there in the way that their menu changes around the world. Easily one of the easiest places to pop into for some food and not break my fast food rule of not having something on the menu in the UK.

What you can see here, nearest to the camera, is a 'Flava Roast' burger meal, it came with an Asian-style soup as a side! It was a bit like a warm version of the flavoured chicken sandwich fillers you can pick up at the supermarket. The other meal was 'Chicken Strips With Rice'. Out here in Asia it's very common to see rice served with fast food meals. The pudding was a 'Cream Ball' desert, this is basically that whippy style ice cream with some chocolate flavoured cereal at the bottom and a bit of chocolate sauce.

It may not have been award-winning cuisine but it certainly cured my midday hunger. Plus the drinks are served in glasses!

Cambodia Review

Cambodia has been a lot like Peru back at the beginning of the trip; I didn't know very much about the place as I entered but I have loved it.

I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the history of this country and I want to learn more about it when I get home. I have also enjoyed the food again and the people have been really friendly too. On a side note, Nads and I haven't spotted a single McDonalds anywhere, a first on the whole trip!

It's on to Vietnam tomorrow for the penultimate (Last but one) country of my trip. The only thing I am hoping changes is that the temperature drops a little bit, 35°c+ is a little to hot for me to handle.

In The Photo: 'Friends' is a great restaurant in Phnom Penh and not just because it serves amazing food. It is a non-profit business that puts it's money into training and paying young adults that used to live on the streets of the country. Once they have been fully trained they can stay on as teachers or go to work in other restaurants around the city. It is a great way to help some of the many youngsters in Cambodia who don't often get a chance to get off living on the streets.

One Direction Watch {Cambodia}

Those 1D boys were saved on the very last day from escaping an 'absolutely no trace' status for Cambodia!

Once again it has been a country where I have heard more Westlife than One Direction but on the way back to our hostel today I heard 'What Makes You Beautiful' playing in a restaurant I walked past. That has been the only sign of them though.

Road Travel

Ask most people what they know about transport in Asia and, generally, they will say that it's famous for being a little crazy. So far on this trip, Cambodia is staking a claim to be the craziest of the lot!

After a number of trips about the country I have to say that it's not exactly clear which side of the road people drive on. Obviously, there is an actual side but vehicles spend so much time overtaking one another that each journey is littered with vehicles driving head on towards one another resulting in braking or swerving by one or both drivers!

Then there are the horns, I just don't get the horns. To begin with I thought they were used as warnings but they get beeped when there is nothing to beep at and at other times I thought it might be a bit of road rage, but there are so many horns literally every few seconds on a busy road that they have no effect anyway, they just become background noise.

Ahh, road travel in Cambodia. I won't forget you.

Change of Plan

A change in the way India now does it's visas means that Nads and I won't be stopping there on the trip. It's a bit sad as we won't get to see the Taj Mahal but it also means that we get to see our friends and family a little bit earlier.

A visa's basically a piece of paper that lets you into a country. You don't need them for all countries, some you can get for free and others you must pay for. We couldn't get one before we left because it would have gone out of date before we needed it but it would have cost just over £40 each. Since we have been away, though, India have changed it to over £100 each. Ouch.

Our around-the-world tickets have an option where we can make a change to some flights for free and, considering we were only going to be in India for less than a week, nearly £250 is a lot of extra money to pay so we decided to make the change.

Cambodia's Darkest Hour

Today I visited the building in the photo below, it is a museum now but it has a famous past; starting life as a high school but being turned into a prison called S-21.

In 1975 Cambodia was taken over by a group called the Khmer Rouge led by a man called Pol Pot. Within hours of taking over he started moving people from the cities to the countryside to live as farmers and within one week the cities were deserted. The Khmer Rouge bombed banks because they didn't want people to use money any more, they closed down schools because they didn't think people needed educating (This is when the building below became a prison) and they also shut down hospitals. Sadly many, many people didn't survive this because they simply didn't know how to farm properly to make enough food.

Pol Pot also didn't want any intellectuals (Educated, clever people) in his country so he arrested every teacher, doctor, lawyer and politician his soldiers could find and put them in prisons like S-21. The soldiers even arrested anyone wearing glasses or having soft hands as this was seen as a sign of intelligence! Those that were arrested also had their whole family captured too and had to stay in prison until they admitted they were spies. If they didn't admit to this (They rarely were spies) the soldiers found ways to force the prisoners to say they were. Once they had said they were they were killed with their family.

Unfortunately this lasted for nearly four years until other countries found out what was happening and in that time 3,000,000 people lost their lives. Cambodia is not the biggest country on the planet so that works out at more than 1 in every 4 people!

It may seem weird to think of turning places like S-21 (Or even the concentration camps in Germany) into museums about times like this but the Khmer Rouge is a big part of Cambodia's history and it is agreed that keeping these places open means that no one will ever forget those that died and it will help stop someone like Pol Pot ever being in control again. What do you think?

A Bit More About Cambodia

Apart from what happened here in the 1970's, which I will blog about in the coming days, I was aware that I didn't actually know too much about Cambodia. I thought that I'm probably not the only one so I had the idea of doing a bit of reading and writing a short history of the country for those that want to learn a bit more...

It's in the year 802AD where things kicked off as Jayavaraman II started calling himself 'Universal Monarch' (I have no idea what happened to Jayavaraman I!?) and built the first temples. All was going swimmingly until important people started falling out.

In the 10th century, Suryavarman I took charge and brought everyone back together and in the next century Suryavarman II reigned. He asked for Ankgor Wat to be built and started wars with his next door neighbours, Vietnam. Vietnam fought back though and killed him in the end, obviously annoying the Cambodian royal family a bit.

Years later one of the murdered kings cousins created an army that beat the Vietnamese. After winning he made himself King Jayavarman VII. This guy was a big fan of buildings and set about building loads more colossal structures near Angkor Wat (Including the Terrace of the Elephants in the photo). He got a bit carried away though and spent all the countries money on it! Eventually word got out there was no money left and the Angkorian Empire fell and 150 years of war with Thailand began.

Then, for nearly 300 years smaller kings (As in not very powerful. Not as in not very tall!) ruled Cambodia but had to do what Thailand or Vietnam said. Then France arrived and weren't very nice. They basically made the king sign things to say Cambodia was no longer it's own country but actually part of France (A colony). Cambodians weren't very happy with this so there were a couple of years of fights but after that it was all a bit quiet until the end of World War II.

In 1953, King Sihanouk began a royal mission to make Cambodia it's own country again and was successful later that year. In 1965 the same king fell out with America because he thought they were after him, this led to the Americans bombing Cambodia and killing thousands. 1970 saw the king visit France and while he was away two people took power from him, one of them being his cousin!

This led to the horrible things that happened to millions of Cambodian people in the 1970s. Since this period ended in 1999 things have been much quieter and the country has tried to get back to normal. Twenty-first century Cambodia is still one of the poorest countries in Asia but is slowly getting back up again after being knocked off of it's feet a few times and the people that live here are looking to a better future.

There we have it; a brief history of Cambodia. I enjoyed learning all of this and I hope you did too.

Angkor Wat

Today I visited the world famous Angkor Wat site, it is so iconic that the building behind me features on the Cambodian flag! We got up super early (4:30am) to go and see the sunrise and then spent about 5hrs wandering around this and surrounding sites.

Angkor translates to 'Capital City' and Wat means 'Temple' meaning that this construction was the main religious building in the country when King Suryavarman II ordered it to be built around 800 years ago and it stands out because of it's 65m high towers that were built to look like lotus flowers.

There were so many buildings and temples to explore, many were still being rescued from the jungle that had swallowed them up after centuries of neglect (At Ta Phrom there are still many huge trees with roots as thick as tree trunks wrapped around the carved rocks) and at Angkor Thom there are massive faces carved in stone and a long construction called 'The Terrace of the Elephants' where huge images of elephants are carved into the walls and columns are made to look like trunks. It was fascinating to look around the ruins of a culture I know so little about and I definitely want to learn more about the Khmer.

Entering Cambodia

Today I travelled by bus from Bangkok in Thailand to Siem Reap in Cambodia, the 10th country of the trip. It was a bit weird crossing the border on a coach trip as everyone has to get off and go through one passport place to leave the country you started in and then wander a short distance to go through another passport place to enter the next country before getting back on the bus again!

My first impressions of Cambodia are that it's really flat! Fields strech as far as the eye can see and I haven't seen anything close to a hill yet. There are also loads of bicycles and motorbikes and not many cars on the roads.

Just like Chile, the money could give me brain ache here. There are roughly 6000 Cambodian Reils to just £1 and to make it even more confusing most places take US dollars but give you your change as a mix of dollars and reils. Ouch to the maths!

In the photo: You can see our rucksacks on a tuktuk ride to the guesthouse we're staying in. The first tuktuk ride of the trip so far.

One Direction Watch {Thailand}

Shocking news...in Thailand I heard more Westlife on the radio than 1D! In fact, I didn't hear a single snippet of the 1D boys in my entire 19 days while I heard Westlife 3 times!

I did spot one lonely T-shirt in the distance at a market but, to be fair, K-Pop (Music from South Korea, like Psy) is very popular here and listened to much more than western acts so that may explain it....still trying to work out the popularity of Westlife though :-S

Street Food

This is a photo of one of the most delicious streets in the world. The buildings aren't made from biscuit and the pavements aren't marshmallow but this road in Thong Lo (Pronounced "Tong-Low") is home to some of the best street food in Bangkok.

Anywhere you travel, street food is always worth checking out because it's always cheap and made fresh. The hostel I am staying in is on this street and I look forward to every dinner time with great excitement as I walk past each brightly-lit stall and choose something on offer as my stomach rumbles excitedly.

Tonight I had a delicious meal of crispy pork with rice (£1.00). The rice was steamed perfectly and covered with a delicious brown-coloured sauce while the many pieces of pork melted in my mouth while I crunched through the perfectly crisp crackling too. For pudding Nads and I tucked into some warm, sweet sticky-rice and mango (£1.20). The mango was so fresh and juicy and the thick coconut milk poured over the top added to the sweetness. I have read that this stall sells one of the best versions of this dish in the whole of Thailand, it's hard to disagree.

Some of the other mouth-watering dishes from this street include pieces of barbequed chicken sticks to dip in a peanut satay sauce from just 50p, gut busting fried dough balls topped with sesame seeds and served with condensed milk and Thai custard dips at only £1.00 for a bagful and traditional Pad Thai, a meal of yummy noodles mixed with fresh shrimp, herbs and fried egg priced at just at just under £1.50!

I might leave this street weighing a bit more than when I entered it but with so much amazing food to sample in such a short time who can blame me?

My Thailand Review

If New Zealand and Australia were about the wildlife then Thailand has most definitely been about the food. I went on my cooking course, ate a lot of different street food and while I certainly haven't been brave enough to try everything I have eaten insects (One thing I managed to avoid was durian fruit...it smells so much like vomit that it's banned on public transport!)!

It was also been great spending time with Reuben and Bex again. Meeting up in Sydney was fun but to experience a festival like Songkran with them over a good few days was fantastic. Thailand is also the first country on the trip where the first language doesn't use the same alphabet as the UK so it was great to have friends from home to experience this with.

I experienced a lot of Asian culture here too and as Buddhism plays a big part in many peoples lives there were so many temples. It was amazing to see how colourful each one was and the amount of time and effort that had gone in to decorating each one with colourful tiles, paint and precious materials like pearl and gold. It really has been a very colourful country and I would love to come back again one day.

For now though, next stop Cambodia!

In The Photo: This is quite literally one of the coolest ice-creams ever. In another food adventure I found a stall in a Bangkok mall that made ice-cream by taking the flavour liquid you want and adding liquid nitrogen! Liquid nitrogen is a chemical that is so cold it BOILS at -196°c and in the process freezes anything it touches! It was one of the smoothest ice-creams I've ever had.

Odd Yoghurt & The Lesser Spotted Knife

While waiting for our bus back to Bangkok, my friend Reuben purchased a yoghurt snack for his girlfriend, Bex. He bought it thinking it was tropical flavour but it turns out that although it could perhaps be described as 'exotic' it certainly wasn't tropical. What you can see below is the unusually flavoured... sweetcorn and kidney bean flavoured yoghurt!

In other, food related news Nads and I went out for a pizza and saw a knife next to a fork. You might not think this is very unusual at all (Pretty standard probably) but it was literally the first knife either of us had seen in Asia! We have seen plenty of chopsticks, plenty of spoons and plenty of forks but not one knife anywhere since Australia.

Songkran 2013

Songkran is easily the most fun I've ever had at a New Years celebration, the whole festival is a days long water fight on the streets of Thailand!

Absolutely everyone gets involved, armed with water pistols or a bucket, and the sole aim is to get as many people as wet as possible! I have soaked and been soaked by; businessmen, little children, police, backpackers and anybody else who's about. The most amazing thing is that nobody gets annoyed, everybody is smiling and laughing with one another (Even when it's ice cold water that takes your breath away!). It's a really happy celebration.

Did You Know?: Getting wet in Songkran symbolises washing away the previous year and welcoming in the new rainy season for Thailand.

Crunchy

Here's a photo of me tucking into a local delicacy, a cricket! I was a little bit nervous before trying it but it actually tasted ok and I ate a second. It had a crunch to it that was no different to a potato crisp and the vendor selling them dusted them with some chilli powder and sprayed on a bit of fish sauce so they were quite tasty, if a little bit too fishy for my own tastes.

They lady that sold them did have a good laugh at the group of us that had brought them though. We were all taking photos of us trying them but eating insects here is no more unusual than seeing someone eating a packet of crisps in the UK.

Did You Know?: They say that if the world's population keeps growing so quickly it won't be many years before we are all eating insects. This is because they take up much less room than cattle etc., there are so many of them and they are actually really good for you (They contain a lot of protein).

Happy New Year!

Tomorrow marks the official start of Thailand's New Year celebrations, or Songkran as it known here. Traditionally Thailand used a different calendar to what we use and the New Year according to the old calendar is still celebrated to this day.

To join in with the celebrations Nads and I are travelling up to Chaing Mai on a night bus tomorrow with our friends Reuben and Becky from uni. It should take 8-12hrs to make the journey but it is supposed to be the top place in Thailand to celebrate.

In Bangkok things have already started with places like family businesses and post offices closing until the 17th. We visited Wat Pho today and saw the world's largest reclining Buddha which is 45m long (You can see that it wouldn't all fit in one photo!) and has a smile that's 5m across! With Songkran approaching, the Wat Pho site was crammed full of stalls selling foods and souvenirs and there was even a traditional Thai band playing music, it feels very exciting to be in Thailand at this time of year.

Every Little Helps..

Look what I spotted on the way out of a train station! Since spotting this one I've seen a couple more plus some 'Boots' chemists and a 'Body Shop'. Could almost be like home.

Currently trying to decide whether to go up to Chaing Mai or down south to the beaches after sampling a bit of Songkram this weekend (Will blog about that in the coming days) but, first, off to visit some friends from home. They're travelling longer than Nads and I but our trips overlap slightly, we last saw them in Sydney so it will be good to catch up.

Thai Cooking

Today Nads and I delved into the world of Thai cooking by going on a cookery course with a Thai lady called Angsana. We started off visiting a market to pick up all the fresh ingredients and there was so much happening, lots of colours and smells.

After that, we went to Angsana's house to prepare our food. Before we got there we had to pick three different meals from her generations-old family cookbook and we went for a chicken massaman curry and two noodle meals; pat mii gatii and the famous pad thai. It was great learning to cook authentic Thai food with someone who was actually Thai and you can see me pounding chillies ready for the curry in the photo.

I learnt lots too and before today I didn't know that if you have phad thai outside Thailand and the noodles are a reddish colour it means they have used ketchup or too much chilli paste and that means it's not been done in the authentic Thai way (The noodles should be a brownish colour because of an ingredient called tamarind). Now I can look very knowledgable next time I'm out for a Thai at home and you can too!

Did You Know?: Most people think that they should use chopsticks when eating rice meals but in Thailand that isn't the case. Thai people only use chopsticks with noodles and actually use a spoon to eat rice. Angsana said it makes Thai people laugh to see tourists thinking they're doing the proper thing when they're struggling to pick up the rice with their chopsticks!

Golden Buddha

This is the largest, solid gold Buddha on the planet. It measures over 4 metres tall, more than 3 metres across and it weighs an impressive at 5.5 tonnes!

It's over 700 years old and it's said to be worth £28,500,000 but they only discovered it was made of solid gold in 1955! It turns out it was totally covered in plaster to hide it's value from those invading Thailand at the time and it was only after it was moved from it's original home to this newer one in Bangkok that the plaster cracked and the discovery was made.

Other Flavours

Ever since I was little I've always had a slight obsession with having to try flavours of brands from home that aren't actually available at home. I remember just having to buy a coke flavoured Calippo I saw for sale on my Y6 trip to Belgium, for example. I don't know why, maybe I just want to see if what we're missing out on is delicious or disgusting!

Here are two things I had for my lunch that I picked up from a supermarket; a fruity fizzy drink and some seaweed flavoured crisps. The drink, apart from being very green, was just 'alright'. It was pretty much a fizzy banana drink and it's no loss to you guys at home but the crisps were actually pretty tasty...possibly one for the British supermarket shelves.

Challenge: Even though they are written in Thai, can you work out what the brands are from their logos?

Tickets

Forget those boring paper train tickets you normally get, why not have plastic counters instead? These are what you're given when you pay your fare in the machines near our hostel in Bangkok (We got blue ones back in Kuala Lumpur too).

Tak Bart

Today I set an alarm and got up early to meet some Buddhist monks. The monks live a very peaceful and quiet life in monastries and don't do 'mortal' activities like cooking as they are trying to seek enlightenment. Each each morning they will walk around their village to be given food by the local people, this is called Tak Bart.

Around 95% of Thai people are Buddhist and believe that if you treat people nicely you will go to a better place when you die. As monks are very important and respected people, giving them food so they don't go hungry is a very good deed indeed.

To thank us for our offerings of curry, rice, fruit and water the monks blessed us in Thai and it was very humbling to see such respected people that seemed to be at so much peace.

(Normally it's not considered 'proper' to take a photo of Buddhist monks without their permission, but here they had given their permission to everyone at the resort making offerings)

Thai Massage

My feet got punched, my body got twisted and if I was pressed any harder I think my face would have popped through the other side of the pillow. That was my Thai massage experience and I chose the 'soft' option out of 'soft', 'medium' and 'hard'! I can only guess that the hardest option sees you getting put back together after being twisted into the shape of a human slinky.

However, I have to say that although it was firm, really firm, it wasn't ever painful. It was actually really good, it relaxed me and cured the bad back I've had for weeks too. Thai massage is supposed to be a 'must-do' while in the country and I have to say I agree.

Shark Fin Soup

Sadly, I saw a restaurant selling 'shark fin soup' while wandering through Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown. This meal is just what it sounds like, a soup with a shark fin in it. It's one meal I won't be trying and I am even going to avoid eating in places selling it whenever I can.

To get the fins thousands and thousands of wild sharks are captured each year and many have their fins cut off while they are still alive before being thrown back in to the sea. No other part of the shark is wanted or used. With no fins the sharks are unable to swim and then drown or starve to death in a lot of pain. Just for a soup! Would you cut the legs off of a live chicken and throw it back in the field to die just for your snack?

Not only is it an incredibly cruel way to make a meal but it's also one of the main reasons why so many shark species are becoming or have already become endangered. If you ever see it for sale please think twice about how it's made before deciding to try it.

One Direction Watch {Singapore & Malaysia)

It's official, there is evidence of One Direction on every continent I've visited!

To seal the deal in Asia I heard some of their songs on the hostel's common-room radio as well as spotting some books in a shop and then in Malaysia I spotted some 'I Love 1D' T-shirts in a market.

We know they are known in Europe (Because they're from there obviously) and we know they are known in North America. That just leaves Africa and Antarctica...if they are famous in those two places that means they are known on every continent on Earth!!! World domination would be complete.

Isn't it a bit of a scary thought that you might have someone that thinks they know you on every part of the planet but you have never met 99.9% of those people?!

My Malaysia Review

Just like Singapore I wasn't in Malaysia very long so there's not too much for me to put here really.

Unlike Singapore though, which is full of new and flash buildings, Malaysia seemed to be full of building sites that promised new and flash buildings. On one trip on the train I could spot a different building site bustling with machinery and workers in every block we travelled over.

I'm also starting to get used to the more humid weather when out and about but I have become a huge fan of air-conditioning. If the inventor is still alive I would like to find him and hug him!

In The Photo: This was taken on the train on the way back from The Petronas Towers, slap bang in the middle of Kuala Lumpur rush hour, talk about crammed in!