Sep 2007

Haven't written anything for a while as I haven't been staying anywhere with good internet access. Had an amzing week long trip down to Alice Springs and Uluru. The first half of the trip was a 3 day dour from Darwin to Alice Springs. Left Darwin at 5.30am, this seemed early at the time but later realised that on these tours that 5.30 was actually considered a bit of a lie in. On the first day we drove south to Katherine Gorge where we spent the afternoon canoeing and swimming in the gorge. Apparently there are freshwater crocodiles in there but we didn't see any and they are meant to be relativly harmless anyway.

Everynight on the tours we had campfores and slept outside in swags, which are kind of like bivies but have a fixed matress attached. They were actually quite comfortable and it was really nice sleeping outside as the sky was so clear you could see thousands of stars.

On the second day we had another 5.30 start as there was a long drive to do. In the morning we stopped at Mataranka Hot Springs for a swim. Still didn't manage to see any crocodiles but did see a few wallabies in the woods. Next we went to a place called Daly Springs. It used to be a relatively big town and had Australias first international airport, but now its a ghost town where only 5 people live and they all work at the pub. Had a few more stop offs on the way to our next camp at Tennents Creak.

On the next day our main stop was at the Devils Marbles, a strange rock formation of huge granite boulders. Had a nice walk around there. It would have been a great place for climbing if I had had rock shoes instead of sandles. Arrived in Alice Springs in the evening and went for a night out with the guides and everyone else on the tour. So it was a really good few days and was a good introduction to Australia as the guides knew a lot about everything.

The next day I had spare in between tours so just spent the day around Alice Springs. Went out to a big wildlife park which was really good, so I should now know everything about desert plants and animals.

After that it was back to the early morning starts for a 4 day trip around the uluru area. In the morning we drove to Kata Tjuta,a group of mountains near Uluru. On the way stopped off to have a camel ride. Was good fun but not the most comfortable forms of transport and it did make me feel quite guilty for having camel for dinner the day before. Had a walk along one of the gorges at Kata Tjuta then went to Uluru to watch the sunset. Unfortunatly it was a bit cloudy so not as impressive as you see in all the pictures but still good.

The next day we had a 4.30am start to get to Uluru just as it was starting to get light so that we could do a walk around the base of it at sunrise. This was amazing, watching the rock change colour as the sun came up over the horizon. Well worth getting up for. In the sfternoon we drove to kings Canyon where we camped at quite a remote place. Slept outside again and in the night there were dingos walking around where we were sleeping. They are harmless but take anything you leave lying around.

It was another 4.30am start for a sunrise walk at Kings Canyon. I'd never heard of it before but if anything it was even more spectacular than Uluru. A really nice walk made even better by the sunrise. The last day of the trip was mainly just driving back to Alice Springs, but part of this was 4 wheel driving along a dried up river bed so it was still good fun. In the evening I got the Greyhound bus back up to Darwin. Despite being a 20 hour journey with a lot of stops as the bus was also doing a post run, it actually wasn't too bad. Haven't written about anything in much detail as there was too much to say, but this was one of the best weeks of my trip so far.

My overnight flights from Hong Kong to Darwin via Singapore were fine, except for getting stopped going through customs after admitting to having been to rural areas in the last month. But this actually turned out to be a good thing as they cleaned my hiking boots and tent for me.

Arriving in Darwin was another culture shock. After the big change in life from China to Hong Kong I wasn't expecting things to be too different when I got to Australia,, but I was wrong. I was expecting Darwin to be a small city but walking around the town centre when I arrived on Saturday morning I was shocked by how empty everywhere was and how quiet it was. In China and Hong Kong its difficult to walk down the pavement as theres so many people there and there are always people trying to stop you to sell stuff. Here you can just walk down the street and cross the road without fearing for your life. In China even if you use a pedestrian crossing the chance of a car actually stopping is still low. And in China I've just got used to having to ignore all the people that come up to you in the street but here people are actually just genuinely being friendly and want to chat.

After a night of no sleep and arriving in Darwin at about 5am, I didn't really do much the first day I was there. Just had a look round the town and tried to come up with some plans on where I wanted to go in Australia. Ended up booking on a tour to Alice Springs and Uluru for a week. In the evening, went for a walk around and ended up going for a drink on the harbour. This turned out to be a good introduction to how different Australian wildlife is. Were sat watching some huge fish and squid swimming around the harbour and then some dolphins just swam past as well. So it was a good first day here and looking forward to seeing more of the country

Been in Hong Kong about a week now but leaving in a couple of hours to fly to Darwin. Have really enjoyed being here, nice to have a few western luxuries after being in China for weeks.

Have spent a few days in Kowloon and out on Hong Kong island. Have had quite an educational few days as there are lots of good museums here. The history museum was very interesting and the science museum was fun, but didn't make me tempted to go back to working in the lab just yet. the medical museum was interesting, comparing chinese and western medicine and how the medical system has developed in hong Kong. THe exhibits and information about the hospitals in the 1800s strangely reminded me of my experiance of the hospital I went to in China.

Also been up Victoria Peak in the tram and wandering round the parks. Hong Kong seems to be the place to go for shopping, but I think its a bit upmarket for me, all expensive designer shops. I did notice a few watches that cost about 20000 pounds each.

Also went to more rural parts of Hong Kong for a couple of days walking along the coast, but this turned into a couple of days sitting on the beach with a little bit of walking in between, as the beaches were just too nice and the weather has been very good. And in preparation for travelling down the coast in Australia I went to another beach on the south of Hong Kong island yesterday, so i've got used to the beach lifestyle now.

The journey to Hong Kong was an interesting one, my first and hopefully last experiance of sleeper buses. A reclining chair would have been more comfortable, but the only bus I could get had what they called bunk beds, but I think they would be better described as rows of shopping trolleys with blankets in them. If you were over 5 foot tall and not very thin then Ithere was no chance of getting any sleep, it was hard enough just to fit in the bed without trying to be in any kind of comfortable position for sleeping. THe bus went to Shenzen, a city on the Chinese side of the border. I had been told that from where the bus stopped you could just walk across the border and get a train into the centre of Hong kong. Have no idea where I got off the bus, but it wasn't the border, just rows of buses and all the signs were in Chinese so I had no idea where I was or where I wanted to go. Walked around lost for a bit and then found someone who spoke English who explained that I needed to get a bus and then a train to get to the border. So eventually an hour or so later I made it to the border. Considering Hong Kong is suppossed to be part of China they have quite a strict border crossing where you have to fill in forms to leave China, then go through and fill in more forms to enter Hong Kong and then you have to go through customs. So despite it officially being the same country i soon realised that it really is a completly different place. For a start they speak a different language and have a different currency. Once across the border everything got a lot easier and I discovered all the things that I had been missing in China without realising it. Clean flushing toilets, running water, signs in English, useful information and maps, queues for tickets and generally everything was just organised. After the luxury of finding some bread for breakfast (they don't have bread in China) I got the train into Kowloon, on the mainland side of Hong Kong. Found the hostel I had booked and realised one of the downsides of not being in China any more. Most of the hostels in China have nice spacious rooms, with lounge areas and gardens, in Hong Kong for about 3 times the cost I'm staing in a tiny room on the 13th floor of a tower block. It is in a good location though, on one of the main roadds through the city.

Spent the rest of the day just walking round the city and deciding what I wanted to do for the next few days. One of the big advantages of Hong Kong is that it has a proper tourist information service where they actually provide useful information about things about what you ask them. In China everywhere has an information place but they don't actually provide useful information they jst say that everything you want to do isn't possible and that the best thing to do is go on there over priced day trips to places you don't want to go (not that they get comission or anything). Walking round the city was nice as despite Hong Kong being at least as busy as the rest of China it doesn't seem nearly so crowded, probably becasuse its just more organised and unlike China spitting, smoking and lilltering are heavily fined in all public places.

In the evening I found out the other disadvantages of being in Hong Kong. Food in China was always very good and very cheap, where as here the prices are more like you pay at home. After dinner, decided to go for a drink. In China beer was about 30-50p a pint and really not much more expensive than buying water. Here it cost me more like 3-4 pounds, so it looks like I'm back to drinking water.

From Kunming I got another overnoight train to Guilin in the South of China. In Chinese terms its a relativly small city so I only spent a couple of nights there. From there I did a day trip to a small village called Longshen and up into the hills to see an area where the hills are coverered in terraced rice fields. It does look very impressive from the postcards I've seen but unfortunatly the day I went the hills were mostly in the cloud so souldn't actually see much at all. It was still interesting to visit the village though, in this area the women are seen as more important and dominant over men. We saw a performance of traditional dancing and singing and heard a bit about the culture of the area. They believe that hair is a symbol of life so only get it cut once, when they are 18. So there hair is about 2m long and the style that they wear it in indicates if they are married or have children.

From Guilin I got a boat down the river to Yangshou. the weather still wasn't great but the scenery from the boat was quite spectacular and the mist around the mountains just added to it. Yangshou is quite a touristy town with most places being either guest houses or restraunts and bars and it is a very popular place with Western tourists, don't think I've seen so many since I left home. It has been a nice and relaxing place to stay for a few days. Spent a day just exploring the town and then went to a cooking class that was very good fun. Learnt to cook a few Chinese dishes including the local speciality of beer fish and my attempts actually tasted quite good. Spent an interesting evening going watching cormorant fishing, the traditional way of catching fish here, that is still used a bit. They tie string round a cormorants neck then take them out on the river. The comorants catch fish butthey cant swallow them properly so the fisherman then catches the comorants and makes it regurgitate them and the fish are still alive. Was interesting to see but I didn't want fish for dinner after seeing that.

Have spent the last couple of days just cycling around the local area on tracks by the river around loads of little villages and through the rice fields and farms. This area is a lot like the typical image or rural China and quite different to anywhere else I've been. Its also the main area for climbing in China, although there still doen't seem to be that much of it around and i think its all bolted routes. i haven't actually tried any of it though as having seen the Chinese idea of safety standards in general, I decided against hiring some gear.

Off to Hong Kong tonight so I'm looking forward to seeing how different it is from the rest of China, not really sure what to expect.