Final tour today to the largest of the 260 or so islands that make up Hong Kong, Lantau Island. Different tour operator today, so getting it all sorted was a bit of a faff, multiple pick ups, bus swaps and getting the ferry over to Lantau meant although I was picked up at 8am we didn't actually get to Lantau until 10am. We again took the very crowded tunnel through to Hong Kong Island and then a ferry to Lantau, when we could have very easily taken the bridge fr...

Early start again, as have to get down to the harbour area for my pick up at 8am. Thankfully that was straight forward! Crossed over to Hong Kong Island proper via one of the tunnels under the harbour, the oldest and the cheapest - so needless to say it was the busiest. Hong Kong Island at first glance doesn't appear to be quite so cramped or run down as Kowloon or Mong Kok where I'm staying. We whizzed along the harbour front and past Happy Valley Race course -...

Day trip to Macau today, which was quite a long day, but worth it. Up for breakfast and a 7.30 pick up at the hotel, which turned into 7.50am - apparently Hong Kong time runs along the same lines as african or caribbean time...... Anyway, down to the ferry terminal for a seacat trip of 60km to Macau, the old Portuguese colony, which is now a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China, like Hong Kong is. There were about 20 of us on the tour, so it wasn't too u...

Still haven't worked out why Thailand has Bon Voyage everywhere - I'm fairly sure they weren't a French colonial outpost, but there you go, makes for a better title!! So, what to say about Bangkok? Not sure really. Definitely not as nice as Singapore, but not as rundown as the bit of Bali I was in. Still a fair bit of poverty - lots of "shack nasty" places alongside the railway line (can't remember where I learnt that description, but it is very apt!) where ther...

Today was brutal - let's just get that out there to start with. It wasn't cooler today, it was hotter. Got up okay to have breakfast and meet my tour guide for 7am. We took a taxi to the train station and got the train to Ayutthaya, which is the ancient capital of Thailand. We were in 3rd class seats and the train was fairly old and grotty, but it was cool as we were sat by the open window and the carriage fan. The journey took an hour, so we were there by about...