Anthony 'YoGiN' Powles Random Thoughts
Quite late here, drinking a last beer, with people we have met here. We have just spent a day in Hanoi with the heat, seen some really nice places.
We should be leaving Hanoi tomorrow, we’ll see how that goes ;) Not much to say right now, pretty tired, but here are a few photos to keep you going until next time !
Just a little message to say i arrived to Hanoi in one piece with Mitch, we are still waiting on Pit, he should be with us soon. Last message we got from him was he landed in Hanoi and was waiting for his bag. Unfortunately phones arent working that great, so we might have some difficulties meeting up, but i’m sure we’ll eventually catch him.
Apart from that, we’ve already spent a day and a half here, and it is very nice. To compare, as hot and sticky as in Thailand (which i love so much !! right) a lot less dirty than what i’ve seen in India, and traffic is bit difficult, but still less dangerous and crowded than India.
Thats it for the first impression, we haven’t done much yet, been mainly wandering around in the streets (as most of the things that can be visited are .. closed on mondays :/ )
Well we should be meeting Pit anytime soon hopefully (within less than 1 hour i hope). We bought tickets for a puppet show tonight, but its already started so i guess we’ll be trying to go again tomorrow.
Hey Everybody,
Just a little news to start this new trip site, we are leaving Paris on May 14th around midday, and should arrive in Hanoï early sunday morning after changing planes in Hong-Kong some time during the night.
We are group of 3 friends (again), but 3 men this time, Nicolas (aka. Mitch), Pierre (aka. Pit) and myself (Anthony aka. Yogin).
We will be in Vietnam for 1 full month, so we should be back in France early morning on June 13th.
I’ll try to post some news on our trip as often as possible, along with some photos, as if you were with us!
As we are all excited about this trip, this last week of work is going to fly so fast (as we have loads of stuff to organise before we leave) but slowly at the same time as we would like to be there already ^^
Anyway, next news will be posted from Vietnam !
See you there.
No, i have NOT been lazy not to log in and write some news, but its more like internet is too lazy to come to me, sort of :)
Ok, so last time, we were leaving India, arrived at Colombo airport and went straight to Negombo for the night, its a nice small fishmen town, sort of peaceful as we didnt want to hit Colombo to start with. So we spent the night there, and went off to Kandy by train the following day. Trains are slightly less hectic than in India, a bit more comfortable, less crowdy depending on the hours, but bloody hot, oh, and cleaner too :)
Arrived in Kandy, with the rain, yep, its the Mansoon there, 2 mansoons a year, soaking wet, still hot though, quite painful. We found a nice guest house, where a nice family holds the place, its like a big home, ‘its your home’ they said. We spent a few days there, visiting the Tooth temple. We then decided to take a driver for 3 days to go round the Golden Triangle above Kandy. Our driver was the ‘daddy’ from our guesthouse family. A very nice guy.
So, we did a few cities in the triangle, Mihintale, Anapurana, Sygiria and a couple more i can’t remember right now, but i’ll fill in the gaps when i get home.
Some very nice historical sites, but mostly destroyed by the time, but they are working on clearing it all up, amd they better be, seeing the cost of that entrance ticket to all those sites hehe, yes, Sri Lanka is very expensive compared to India and Nepal. So then we were back in Kandy, at our guest house, we went to the botanical garden in the afternoon, little shower (rain) as we were leaving it hopefully, and went to see a traditionnal dance and music in the evening. Very nice.
Then we decided we could use a few days on the beach and went down the west coast staying a night or two in a couple places on the way, until we reached Mirissa, a beautiful place, nice beaches, barely anyone around, just what we needed. Though the sun did catch us, and we all caught the sun at some place or another, but its cooling off now ;)
Well now we are in Colombo now, and about to spend a day or two here before going back to India.
Hugs to all
Tony
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Hello folks,
I know its been some time since i’ve posted any news, but its been kind of a problem finding internet access, and also, we havent been all so well lately, but we are getting a lot better now, joys of travelling :)
So last news said we were in Sauraha, seems like that was ages ago, had a nice time in the national park there, saw some crocos, rhinos, loads of nice colored birds, missed out on the tigers and bears though hehe, can’t have them all i guess. We also managed to spend a nice time for Stephs birthday there.
We then left for Kathmandu, and what should have been a 5 hours bus ride turned out to be at least 12 or 13 hours, gotta love check points, and miles of traffic jams in the mountains, but we managed it, waited, at least you can’t starve on the road, there is always people around selling food and drinks. We then spent 6 days in Kathmandu and its valley, especially the valley, visiting, lots of walking, lots of nice things to see, we spent that week with another 2 french guys who were starting their trip, and were going for a 20 days trekking the following week (can’t remember the names of the places we went now, but i’ll look them up at some point). So we spend a few days and evening the 5 of us, been nice to drink again :)
We were then thinking of going to Sri Lanka, but 2 things slowed us down, the first one was all the warnings we had been getting from friends and family about what had been going on the last few days over there, and the second was the price for the plane tickets, so we decided to simply go back down to Calcuta, and decide what we’ll do there. So we did, and after checking a few information sites and all we decided to go south, along the east coast of India, towards Chennai (Madras) and Pondicheri. However the train for Chennai is a 27 hour trip, so that was a BIG no-no in 1 go for us :) So we only took the train for 7 hours or so, down to Bubaneshwar (will have to check spelling). This is were i started to feel sick, so i didn’t see much of it, except for some caves with lots of monkeys hanging around, and the hotel room :)
I guess leaving Nepal and back to India was harder on the stomach that i thought (and it took me a few days to get over it, actually i’m just starting to feel better, a week later). So, we spent a couple days in that place then finally got on the tracks for a good 24 hours of train to Chennai. By that point none of us were feeling very good, so we didnt do much, and just basically hanged around, booked our plain tickets for Sri Lanka, and went off to Pondicheri by bus, and spent another 3 days or so there. There is definately good french cooking over there, but not that much else, temples and churches are … surprisingly colorful, beaches saddely poluted. But we ate good, and got our strength back now it seems as we just arrived back from Pondicheri earlier today.
So, tomorrow morning, gonna get up early, head to the airport, and fly to Colombo.
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