Rotterdam/Amsterdam/Cologne/Frankfurt/Heidelberg/Bremen/Frankfurt/Berlin

I've covered a fair bit of ground since I last posted, all the places listed in the title in fact.

Rotterdam is a very cool city, many interesting new buildings although they do seem to love the rather naff Euromast a but too much. I went on a boat tour of the harbour (Europe's largest) which was good but rather windy.

Amsterdam was a fun place, when I arrived on Friday the whole place seemed to be full of English tourists which wasn't great. But I met some cool people at the hostel (where I think I got bitten by bedbugs). I went to the Hague on Saturday, the sun was shining so I headed north a bit to the beach for the afternoon - a week later the thought of sitting on a beach seems bizarre since it's so cold and wet.

Cologne has a big Dom, they love it, they put the outline of those two towers on everything. Apart from the Dom, there isn't much else there.

Frankfurt is Europe's Manhatten apparently. There are some tall buildings there but I think it's rather a generous comparison. For a big city it still felt like quite a small town. While I was staying in Frankfurt I did a daytrip to Heidelberg, it's very pretty apart from the area around the train station, which wasn't a great first impression. The castle there was pretty impressive but they bizarrely out a museum of German Pharmacies inside, not sure what the link is between old castle and the chemists.

Bremen is very small but it's the home of the Becks brewery which do tours. They don't actually drink Becks in Bremen, they have their own local version Hakke Becks, which we got to try in the rather generous tasting room at the brewery.

Hamburg is probably a really interesting place, shame I didn't see much of it. I ended up spending too much time trying to find somewhere to stay the second night as it was a German holiday - Reunification day so everywhere was full. Of course everything was also shut on the second day as well as they all celebrated, so I didn't see many sites. I did see their parade, which was lame and each German state had a tent and beer hut and they all raced eachother in dragon boats, Saarland won.

Berlin's a really cool place. So far I did a tour which covered all the major sights and went over a lot of the history. Today I went to the Sachenhausen concentration camp, which was an interesting experience.

In a couple of days I'm off to Leipzig then Prague for a few days.

Belgium

I got to Brussels from Paris by train, which was clean and arrived on time - very novel. After stepping out the station things seemed a little strange, there were no cars driving, only a couple of buses and a few cyclists. As I walked to the hostel, the few cyclists became many, it seems on Sundays the population of Belgium take to their bike and peddle around the capital (although the car ban on Sundays may have had something to do with it as well.

There are plenty of odd things in Brussels, the national symbol is Manneken Pis, a fountain/statue of a tiny man taking a leak which they dress up in different outfits everyday. Theres also the Atomium, Belgium's Eiffel tower (apparently), which was built for the '58 expo and is celebrating it's 50th anniversary. They also have large cartoon murals painted onto the side of buildings here and there.Although Brussels is in the Dutch speaking Flanders region, 90% of the population speak French, so I have no who is speaking what half the time.

While I was here, I stopped by the European Parliament and watched a bit of a debate, which was gripping. I also took daytrips to Antwerp and Brugge. Had a nice canal ride around Brugge and climbed the Belfry, which was a lot of steps.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Rotterdam for a night then on to Amsterdam. The Internet's a bit rubbish at this hostel so I haven't been able to add any pic to Flickr yet, will try again at the next place.

Paris

After getting up at 4:45 in the morning to fly to Paris (which only took 55 minutes in the air plus what seemed like an hour to taxi around Charles De Gaulle airport), I wasn't very pleased to see the biggest queue ever to buy tickets for the RER train into central Paris as all the ticket machines were broken. But, luckily they decided that instead of making us queue they let us get on for free.

While in Paris I've seen all the sights. I've been to the top of the Eiffel Tower (Very expensive), visited the Versailles Chateaux (also very expensive), the Arc De Triomphe, the Champs Elysees, the Obelisque, Louvre, Notre Dame, Patheon and Pompidou centre.

I've found it's harder to backpack in Europe, everythings much more expensive and it's hard not to spend spend spend! Although the Louvre was free on Friday evenings for under 26s so saved there. I rattled round most of it and saw and snapped all the big sights, the Mona Lisa isn't particulary interesting. Staying in hostels is better than I thought it would be, I thought it would be hard to sleep but I'm out cold every night. Next stop Belgium and Brussels.

Travels Part 2: Europe

Trip number 2 is a grand tour around Western Europe visiting all the big cities and interesting other places.

The preliminary itinery is:

Paris
Brussels
Amsterdam
Bremen
Hamburg
Berlin
Prague
Vienna
Munich
Zurich
Venice
Rome
Nice
Marseille
Barcelona
Madrid
Porto
Lisbon

Although it might change if I get bored of somewhere or decide I like it, my itinary is flexible so I can go where I like. I'll be using the trains to get around, apparently they're reliable and frequent, how novel. I've got two monthy interrail passes to get about, which covers most trains, although some need a supplement like the Paris to Brussels train and nearly all the trains in Europe.

I'll be plotting my route on a map here and the photos will be here if they ever get uploaded - the Internet is really slow!

Back to Bangkok - Round 2

After a long and very cold journey on the overnight train from Chiang Mai (The air conditioning was blasting all night) we got back to Bangkok and it was the end of the second tour. After a farewell breakfast I randomly bumped into Tegan from the first tour and we had a wander around the streets of Bangkok.



We walked from Khao San Road in Banglamphu to Siam Square in downtown Bangkok where all the shops seem to be, it took us a couple of hours and there were plenty of random monuments and temples along the way, which made it pretty interesting. After getting to Siam Square, we'd had enough of walking and so got the Skytrain to the river and then a river boat back to Banglamphu, where we walked into a parade for the Songkram festival for the Thai new year, which was happening in a week.



The next day before getting on another overnight train, I headed to the Grand Palace which was spectacularly ornate and packed out with tourists and Thai's paying their respects to the Queen Mother who had recently passed.

Chiang Mai

It was back to normality in Chiang Mai, with a hotel with beds, TV, normal toilets and even a shower curtain (which seems to be a luxury in Asia). Chiang Mai is Thailand's second largest city and much calmer and more laid back than Bangkok.



I visited the Doi Suthep temple in the morning, it's on the top of a mountain next to Chiang Mai and has spectacular views over the city. As with all these slightly remote temples, there are lots of steps up but the Doi Suthep conveniently has a lift as well.



In the afternoon we went bamboo rafting down a river near Chiang Mai, although we seemed to spend more time in the water than on the raft and it turned into a massive waterfight. Luckily it seems the water here is far cleaner than in Bangkok.



In the evening we headed to the Chiang Mai stadium to watch the Thai boxing. There were nine fights and the competitors seemed to start rather young, but the last two fights were pretty interesting.

Homestay near Lampang

Before we headed off to the middle of nowhere for the homestay in a small village, we stopped off at the Lampang Hot Springs. The water blasts out of the ground at boiling point and you can buy eggs to put in the pool in the picture above and they come out hard boiled. They also have the water running through channels round the park to let it cool of so you can paddle in it.



The homestay was a bit more basic than the one on the previous trip, the accommodation consisted of a big room with mattresses on the floor and a mosquito net. Some local people from the village played their weird instruments for us over dinner which was nice, even if it was the same tune repeated endlessly for about and hour. After dinner the local children did some of the traditional Northern Thai dances.



After a long and hot night without air conditioning, we offered alms to the monk at the village temple. Ladies aren't allowed to have direct contact with monks so they had to drop the food into the bowl.


After that we had a bike ride around the village, visiting the big temple, mushroom farm, local school and textile shop. I seem to have managed to do more bike riding in the last few days than the last few years.