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.

Elephantastic

Next stop was the Elephant sanctuary near Lampang where elephants rescued from the logging industry were kept. First we saw them take a bath (above) then they put on a show showing off the skills they'd learned including how to stack logs and bow when their name is announced.



One of them can even put a hat on it's keeper.



We also got to watch two of the elephants paint pictures, they were no picaso but priced like they were.



We had a nice but relaxing ride on the back of the an elephant, we got tossed about especially when they went downhill.



After that we went to the Elephant hospital and saw the elephants that had been rescued from the Burmese border where they'd been used for illegal logging until they'd stood on a landmine and had their foot blown off, bit they were making it through and were so sweet.

Sukhothai - The old capital

Our first stop on the second leg of the tour was at Sukhothai, in the North of Thailand. This was the old capital before Bangkok, but was destroyed after Thailand lost one of the many wars they fought against Burma.


Luckily the ruins are on flat land as we had to cycle to get round them. The new town of Sukhothai is down the road and rather small, but we didn't stay long.

Bangkok - Round 1

After the overnight train, we arrived at Bangkok very early in the morning, although got woken up on the train around 5am by women patrolling the carriages selling stuff - very annoying. After dumping all our things at the hotel we had a narrowboat ride around Bangkok's canals. The boats were very narrow as the name implies and we heard that someone had gotten very ill after water from the canals splashed in their mouth, which made us all paranoid the whole journey.


We saw lots of sights from the narrowboat, including the grand place (above), which I'm going to go visit when I get back to Bangkok the second time. After the boat trip we went to Wat Pho, the temple of the reclining Buddha, which was extremely ornate.


The rest of the day and most of the next day was spent perusing the many markets. We went to the weekend market, which is meant to have over 1,500 stalls and was insanely busy. We were also lucky enough to be staying very close to Khao San Road in Chinatown, which is a pretty lively area, especially at night.

Ko Samui

Next stop was the island of Ko Samui, which took 4 hours by coach and 2 hours by ferry to reach, but was definately worth it. We stayed at the Sandy Resort, which was just off the beach and had a pool and loungers on the beach.


On the first day we were there we had a boat trip round some of the 40 islands that make up the atol. We did a bit of snorkling, although there weren't may big fish that was probably for the best. We even had lunch on a remote beach that could only be reached by boat.



On the evening of the second night, we went to see a ladyboy show, I don't think I could listen to a Tina Turner song in quite the same way, not that I'd want to anyway. Poor Damien from our tour group got dragged up on stage and humiliated a little bit, but it was all very funny. After spending the remaining time swapping between the beach and the pool, we headed to Bangkok on the overnight train. We had proper sleeper beds, although I didn't get much sleep with all the rocking and strange noises.

Nakhon Si Thammarat - Home of the shadow puppets

We crossed the border into Thailand and after a 7 hour journey, made it to the town of Nakhon Si Thammarat. They don't get a lot of foreign visitors in Nakhon Si Thammarat so as we went past, the locals came out of shops to look and wave at us.

Nakhon Si Thammarat is famous for being one of the last places left in Thailand where the ancient art of producing shadow puppets continues, they're produced by hand from cow hide. The shadow puppet master is quite famous and performed for the king of Thailand, we got to watch a short show.
Thailand's quite a culture shock compared to Malaysia where most people spoke English and the Malaysian language used the normal alphabet. Getting dinner at the night market involved a lot of hand gestures. Getting around is also a bit strange as they use săwngthăew, which are trucks with benches in the back and work like a cross between a bus and a taxi.

Penang - Last stop in Malaysia

Our last stop in Malaysia before crossing the border into Thailand was the small state of Penang, an island off the west coast where the majority of the population is Chinese not Malay and where the British invaded (is there anywhere we didn't invade round here?). We got to the Island by ferry but there is also a bridge, the second longest in South East Asia.

We got there in the afternoon and had a chance to wander around, there are hundreds (maybe a bit of an exaggeration) of temples and mosques dotted around the streets. I also went to the top of the Komtar tower to their viewing deck, but it started raining when I got to the top so the pictures weren't great.


The next day we had a tour round Penang starting with the old British fort. Next we headed to the Chinese Wharfs, there are seven along a stretch of the front and is where the Chinese immigrants arrived. Each is named after a popular Chinese family name so only those with that name could stay on that wharf, if you look inside you couldn't tell that they are a shack built above water as they all have electricity and TVs etc.


We headed to the Wat Chayamangkalaram temple, home to the reclining Buddh, then after a stop off at another chocolate factory we finished at Kek Lok Si Temple, the largest Buddist temple in Malaysia.

Sukasuka retreat - Day 2

Day two and we headed to the local village to see traditional Malay houses and to trek to a waterfall.


After trekking uphill for what seemed like miles, the pool was so good to swim in.



It rained very heavily that afternoon, before it started Joan (one of the group) had gone out in a kayak and had to be rescued by a passing boat when the storm struck. In the evening we had a traditional Malay meal, sat on the floor, only eating with the right hand and no knives and forks. We even wore traditional Malay sarongs.



The next morning we were catching the coach from Kuala Kengsar, the royal town in the state of Perak. Before we left we saw a few of the sights including the Royal Palace and the Royal Mosque (below).

Goodbye city, hello country

We left KL the next morning and got a coach to the state of Perak, then got a rickety minibus and a boat to our next stop, the island of Sukasuka in a man made lake created by damming a river to stop the royal town flooding further down. We stayed in cabins with a family who own the Island.

After being in KL for a couple of days and Singapore for quite a few days, it was really really quiet here and felt very remote. There were lots of mozzies around as well so we had to load up on the insect repellent and sleep with mosquito nets, which I was sure I would end up with my head sticking out of in the morning and bitten to pieces.



The huts did have electicity and toilet so it wasn't too basic though hot water and air conditioning was notably missing and it was a very sticky first night. Plus there were lots of bumps in the night including the Ghekos, which make noises like someone is knocking on the door and a very noisy bullfrog. We also had the the guest below in our cabin the first night.

KL - Day 2

On day 2 we had a guided tour round the sights of KL. We started off at the Batu caves, which is a Hindu temple in the side of a rocky hill with a lot of steps to the top. The caves are home to a hoard of monkeys, who are highly adept to getting food and drinks from the tourists. When we were climbing the steps up, they all came bounding down like something from Indiana Jones.



The caves are huge inside.


After visiting the world famous (apparently) Royal Selangor Pewter Factory, where they make all sorts of things including the F1 trophies and the worlds largest tankard.



We also visited the National Monument, a chocolate factory that had lots of free samples and the National Mosque.