South East Asia Travel

I’ll just come back from travelling and I’ve had a couple of friends email me asking how to get around China and South East Asia so just in case anyone else wants to know below is the info:

Hi,

If I was you I would head down to Yangshuo then to Nanning cross the border into Vietnam (try and get a bus/tour bus that takes you all the way from Nanning to Hanoi).

Otherwise take the train to a village on the border, a tuktuk to the actual border, then on the other side a taxi from the border to the nearest town then a train or minibus to Hanoi. Make sure you book ahead and stay in the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel and make sure you tell the minibus you have reservations etc otherwise they will try and take you elsewhere.

The go on the 3 day halong bay trip with the Hanoi Backpackers. On return do touristy stuff in Hanoi (war museum) then head south to hoian drink and bit, you can hire a scooter off a local and go look at the marble mountain, you can also surf there which where the GI sturfed in the Vietnam War, there is also an accient temple which is worth going to (make sure you have a guide as they are mines in that area) girls can get stuff tailored there however the quality isn’t as good as in Thailand.

Then head all the way down to Siagon, read guide books to find out where to stay there however do the Cucci Tunnels. Cross the border to Cambodia, Phom Phen via a 2 day tour see some stuff on the way (we used smiles tour company). The mountain on the border between Vietnam and Cambodia is amazing.

Phom Phen is a bit of average however go to the killing fields, S21 and the Russian Market, we stayed in Yellow Hostel I think.

You then have two choices:
1. Head south to Sihanoukville, lovely beach, quite and vice very cool, we stayed there for 3 days however didn’t feel like this was enough, it’s about 3 hours south of Phom Phen. Then head back up to Phom Phen and then do option 2.

2. Head north to Siem Reip and Ankor Wat, spend a few days there its really chilled out but a bit touristy. Hire a Tuk Tuk for a day to take you around Ankor, I paid about $14 however it may have gone up a little, you also have to pay $20 entrance for a day pass which both time I’ve been was more than enough time. I have also heard there is an awesome floating village somewhere in that area however I didn’t hear about it till afterwards, but apparently well worth looking at.

THIS BIT IS IMPORTANT!!!
When heading over from Siem Reip to Thailand, Bangkok make sure you get a taxi, do NOT catch a bus. The road it shocking bad only a few buses actually make it, none if it rains. Despite what they say you can fit a max of 4 people in a taxi.

Once in Bangkok, do Phi-Phi (West Coast), Koh Tao (East Coast: driving PADI if you have time) and get a full moon party in at Ko Phangan (East Coast).If you have time head up to Chiang Mai and Pi, and then over the border into Laos via the slow boat (2 days). Otherwise fly from Bangkok to Luang Prabang.

In Laos make sure you do: Luang Prabang (loads of out door stuff), Van Vieng and if you have time Paske (4000 Islands), Phonsavanh (pain of Jars) and Bokeo Nature Reserve (gibbon experience book early, like 2 months early).

Laos is awesome if you want more info let me know, also if you want to do diving in Koh Tao use the drive company Coral Grand.

Anything else just email.

Leonard

Round the World Travel Plans

So I’m pretty much going to give up everything to go travelling around the world for 9 month. I’ve sold my car, taken a sabbatical from my company and told all freinds and family.

I consider this a huge step but one that had to be taken before I got tied down as then i would never be able to go.

My plan is:

UK–> flight –>China

China–> overland–> Vietnam

Vietnam–> overland –>Cambodia

Cambodia–> overland–>Thailand

Thailand–> overland–>Malaysia

Malaysia–> overland–>Singapore

Singapore–> flight–>Australia

Austrlia–> flight–>New Zealand

New Zealand–> flight–>Fiji

Fiji–> flight –>USA

USA–> flight–>Canada

Canada–> overland–>USA

USA–> flight –>UK

I’ve booked the tickets through STA Travel on a round the world 7 stop ticket and everyone thinks I’m mad, except the person i’m travelling with. To be completely honest though, I really don’t care, this has been a dream of my for pretty much 7 years and I can’t wait. The ticket cost around £1400 (incl. taxes) plus £100 for our working visa for Australia and £60 for China and Vietnam Visas; oh yeah also £350 for 10 months of insurance (hard core all sports included, can’t wait for NZ).

Most of my friends think that 3 months to get from Beijing down to Singapore could never be done and not only will we have huge problems we’ll miss our flight, bollucks we’ll be fine.

So all I have to do now is work my arse off so my company’s finacially fine, my coleagues happy and I have no loose ends. No probs, 2nd Oct 2007 here I come.

Update…

OK so pretty much no one is happy with me right now. My Business partner’s girlfriend and his mum both hate me and are slowly turning him against me. My girlfriend thinks that we aren’t spending enough time together. My Mum thinks that I should wait a few years and get everything settle and sorted before I go, and I’m not going to tell my Clients as I’m pretty sure they’ll shit a chicken.

I’ll tell you know 6 weeks is not enough time to get anyones life sorted for a 9 month break, I f*ing knacked and now work harder than I’ve every worked in my life before (6:30am-1am everyday!!!). Anyway only 2 weeks to go and counting…

My Shiny New Blog

Hello future readers,

This rather egocentrically named blog “LeonardAustin.com” will become the online location for thoughts and ramblings of me, Leonard Austin. If you want to check that i’m the Leonard Austin you’re looking for then check out my about me page.

And for those of you who are a Leonard Austin and came through to this site because you Googled your name, congratulations on the awesome name.

For more frequent updates you can follow me on twitter:

www.twitter.com/leonardaustin

Wow – Google Reader

I’ve never really been into feeds in a big way, i know the benefits of them it’s just I’ve never had the time to really set things up to make my life easier. In total I’ve got over 1200 bookmarks, the majority of which I don’t visit regally but a lot of the sites I wish I could, if only I could be arsed.

So Google Reader, i’ve known about this service for ages but last time i tried it I was very disappointed; I found it hard to navigated and not very intuitive. For those of you who don’t know, Google Reader is a Web-based aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds. It was released by Google on October 7, 2005 through Google Labs (source wikipedia). Basically Google wanted to design a system very much like you email inbox for new content from your favourite feeds. Personally i think the first version was a bit of a mess although they did try and incorporate a few new gimiks in my eyes they whole system didn’t work.

However (apparently, according to wikipedia) in September 2006 they released a completely new version, and it is brilliant. I spent about 4/5 hours planning around with Google reader on Sunday afternoon, adding all my bookmark feeds, favourite websites and most visited websites. Instantly I could pretty much see all the articles published on each site in one place, and yes the interface is much more like a email inbox.

Features include:

1. An inbox type approach to new content to your favourite sites
2. Choice between list view or expanded view
3. As you would expect an ajax approach to reading the contents
4. A star system allowing me to save my favourite articles, just like gmail.
5. Once selected a read it will disappear from your inbox.
6. Multiply folders for each feed, i.e. tags.
7. Share feeds (haven’t tested this out yet)
8. A huge amount of keyboard short cuts
9. and so on.

Basically Google reader has allowed me to view all my favourite sites in one place, it has ensured that I will never miss an article on a website I wanted to read because I haven’t visited it in a couple of week and most importantly it has saved me about 30mins a day. The only downside I can find is that you can’t rename folders once you’ve created them, unless im wrong but please let me know. Also why the hell don’t websites that publish feeds, publish at least the summary of the article not just the title.

In conclusion, if you are not using a feed aggregator, like Google Reader, start now it will make your life easier. I know that there are other aggregators out there, like the one built into firefox, but I just don’t have the time to try them and I’ve committed a whole Sunday afternoon to the Google Reader, but if you use another aggregator which you think is much better please let me know and i might just try it out.