Author archive
4 November 2002
After arriving at Hong Kong’s international airport, we found the train to the city. At the city end of the ride, we had to transfer to connecting shuttle buses (included in the fare) to the Park Hotel. [Edit: in later years, we decided that the public bus is actually faster than the train if one […]
4 November 2002
Leaving Chiang Mai We had to wake at 0500 today for our 0700 flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. We had enough time for a light breakfast of fish congee, bacon and papaya. The crew for our flight was still eating as we left at 0605. At check-in we were given “CIQ” (Customs Immigration Quarantine) […]
3 November 2002
Today we have the last of our tours from Chiang Mai. After breakfast, we waited over an hour for our tour pick-up. The van arrived rather late around 0900 due to heavy rain, flooding, detours and traffic jam. The tour for the day is called Elephants at Work. When we got to the […]
2 November 2002
After another marvellous but early hotel breakfast we were picked up for our day tour to the Golden Triangle after 0700. In the vehicle were a group of Canadians (mainly family) who turned out to be great companions. We left Chiang Mai for Chiang Rai stopping at Chiang Saen, the capital of the old Lanna […]
1 November 2002
Relaxing I love Thailand and Malaysia when it comes to the buffet breakfasts at the hotels. Today was no exception at Imperial Mae Ping’s coffee shop. It was the usual East-West spread of congee, kwayteow, eggs, pastries, fruit etc. It was a busy place as there wasn’t a table in sight when we entered but […]
31 October 2002
Above: Last minute mending on the streets of Kunming. Today we leave China for Thailand. We started with a hotel breakfast in a garden-like setting. There was a good mix of Asian (congee, pau, red bean pastry etc) and Western (eggs, baked beans, toast etc). There was no western tea for Kim but only Chinese […]
30 October 2002
Above: At the markets. Kim’s mother rang us at the hotel this morning. She’s always interested and excited on our behalf when it comes to our travels. She’s always giving me newspaper clippings which she had collected from a long time ago, about interesting destinations. So perhaps she is living vicariously through us. I wanted […]
29 October 2002
Music from the CD shop started at 0900. The must have well-policed regulations about noise here. We took breakfast back at Sunshine Café, having scrambled eggs with ham and a fried egg with hashbrown (sharing halfway in our usual fashion). The Yunnan coffee was nice. Transport to Kunming, our last stop in China, involve a […]
28 October 2002
Today we moved south on to Dali, also in Yunnan province. It was disappointing to find that there was still on hot water when we woke. We washed using hot water from a vacuum flask and tap water. We taxied to the bus station and found a large IVECO van heading to Dali. Kim wasn’t […]
27 October 2002
Going up to 4506m The plan for the day was to go up to Jade Dragon Snow mountain. We found the bus stop to get there but the bus had just departed. It took about 40 mins to fill up till we could go but we remained productive by checking the bus schedule for our […]