Today we were hitting the road once more (by bus this time) – following the National Road 6 heading all the way to Phnom Penh.
Category Archives: _Asia_
Siem Reap & Lake Tonle Sap
Gallery
This gallery contains 16 photos.
Today was a free day without included activity; options for the day included a blood donation in the local children hospital (to which just three of us went) and a boat ride on the Tonle Sap lake. Myself (as most … Continue reading
Angkor Wat
Gallery
This gallery contains 24 photos.
After the sun had rise, we made it back to our hotel for breakfast; however after breakfast we returned to the temples of Angkor to enjoy a guided tour of the most impressive and important temples. We started with the … Continue reading
Angkor Wat – Sunrise
We had an early start this morning – to be at the ruin site of Angkor Wat in time for sunrise.
Into Cambodia
This morning we headed off to the bus station to catch a bus to Aranya Prathet, the Thai town near the border to Poipet in Cambodia. From the Aranya Prathet it was tuk-tuks to the border post.
We eventually got stamped out of Thailand and (after careful check of our visas) stamped into Cambodia. After a quick lunch in Poipet our next transport arrived – from here it was pickup trucks for the journey from the border to Siem Reap (a drive of roughly three hours).
Bangkok
Gallery
This gallery contains 12 photos.
I made it into Bangkok in the early morning; I left my stuff in the hotel and walked over to Khao San Road for breakfast. Later on I continued down to Chao Phraya river – heading towards the National Museum … Continue reading
Lijiang
Once more we found ourselves in transport for a close to a full day – on our way to Lijiang, which would be the last stop for the tour. A nice town with a huge old city.
Lijiang has been partially destroyed during an earthquake in 1996; however most of the old buildings – built in the Naxi way – survived. Today Lijiang is a famous tourist attraction for Chinese tourists. We spent the day mostly wandering around – in the touristy and less touristy parts of town.
Tiger Leaping Gorge
Day 1: After a transfer from Dali to Qiao Tou and a late lunch in the Gorged Tiger Cafe we started our trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge with the short hike up to the Naxi Family guest house.
Day 2: The next we left the Naxi Family guesthouse at around 08:30 – with the 28 bends directly ahead of us (elevation gain of roughly 400m). After a shorter stop in the Tea Horse house and a longer at the Halfway House we arrived at Tina’s guesthouse in the late afternoon — after a day of incredible views, superb and ever changing vegetation – or one of the best hikes I ever did — unfortunately followed by the worst accommodation of the whole trip…
Day 3: We left Tina’s in the early morning for yet another hike – this time down into the gorge close to the river; after a short stop at Sean’s we had a transfer to the ferry bus stop (and another walk down to the river to catch the ferry – and another climb up on the other shore as well).
Dali
We made it into Dali in the early afternoon after a six hour bus ride from Kunming, enough time to explore the old town of Dali.
The following day the group split; I joined the group going for a bike ride. At first we headed down to the port to get a ferry to the other side of ErHai sea. Here we passed through a temple complex to finally follow a street to the next bigger village – and ended up doing a 40 km loop.
Kunming
We spent a whole day traveling from YangShuo to Kunming. This was now a full day in Kunming, which could easily be called Temple Day.
We started of with the grottoes, sculptures and pavilions just called Dragon Gate built by Taoist monks. Later in the day we visited several temples in the area, as well as famous Bamboo Temple.
