Almost A World Tour!

Thank the lord for my weak bladder..! Words I never thought I'd hear myself say out load but after sleeping through an alarm I forgot to set it was an early morning whizz-call which made me realise I had 15 mins to get my shit together and get to the airport for the 07:35 to Krakow.

The lady running the hostel was super-helpful and after a thorough induction of the property & procedures she sent me off with boundless maps, brochures & leaflet to plan my next three days. My first stop was Wawel Castle & Cathedral which was the seat of the kings for over 500 years from the early days of the Polish state. Situated at the top of Wawel Hill wandering the grounds themselves offer generous panoramic views of the river Wista and Krakow down below. Without banging on for too long about some old buildings I'll just leave it by saying they definitely make my top 5 favourite medieval / Renaissance architectural marvels.

Wawel Castle

That evening it was back down to the banks of the river Wista as I'd been informed on good authority (super-helpful hostel lady - who else..?) that there was sort of a celebration planned - part of the annual Jewish Cultural Festival which runs each year from late June to early July.

Glasto eat your heart out...! It appeared the whole of Poland had turned up to join the festivities, I managed to find myself a little spot on one of the bridges over the river. The entertainment would be best described as Eurovision on crack. It was the very crčme de la crčme of tragic 80's electro-pop with multiple artistes taking the stage to showcase varying degree's of natural talent. But the crowd loved it and I must admit the atmosphere was kind of infectious so it wasn't long until I was bopping along with the best of them. The show closed to a pretty impressive firework display and then it was time for me to negotiate the streets of Krakow back to my bed.

Day two saw me saunter through the Old Town and surrounding streets taking in the various historical sights. I must admit I was finding Krakow to be exceptionally easy on the eye and it seems I was in good company - UNESCO added the centre of Krakow to its first world heritage list - good call! In the afternoon I made it down to Kazimierz, the Jewish district. In WWII the jewish people of Poland were slaughtered by the Nazi's and along with them all evidence of a strong Jewish community. Miraculously however all seven synagogues survived and I also saw a nice old lady feeding pigeons from her window.

Old Town square

Kazimierz

Final day in Krakow and not to end it all doom and gloom I had to take a trip to the Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial & Museum. Started in 1940 as a concentration camp for Polish political prisoners in 1942, it became the centre of extermination of European Jews. Between 1940-1945 the Nazi's killed 1.5 million people there, predominately Jews as well as Poles, Gypsies and Russian POW's. I felt it was important to visit something which had played such a significant role in Polish history. The whole experience was pretty sickening, similar to the trip I made in Phemon Penh Cambodia to the S-21 Jail and the Killing Fields, an all to bitter and harsh reminder of how exactly how cruel human nature can be.

Next Stop - Budapest

Well it's true what they say, time certainly does fly when your having fun. It feels like only last week that myself and Mark sat in the Departure Lounge at Heathrow enjoying our last pint of Stella all giddy like two little kids on Christmas morning about our globetrotting adventure. Now, 10 months later I sit down with a heavy heart to pen my last blog entry.

First task is to start integrating myself back into western society. I can't imagine trying to haggle down the price of a Starbuck's Cappuccino is going to make me many friends on a busy Monday morning despite my threats to go and take my custom to Pret if they don't offer me their best price - Good for me, Good for you my friend! It does mean however, I can finally drop the standard backpacker opening lines every time I meet someone new.

1) What's your name? (Almost always instantaneously forgotten)

2) Where you from? (Much excitement prevails if they have even heard of Chester followed a big cringe if they sudden blurt out "Ohh...Hollyoaks")

3) How long have you been away? (A feeble attempt to see who's more hardcore)

4) Where have you been? (Purely to tell them they must go to The Cook Islands)

Travelling does make you realise that the world is absolutely huge (as if it wasn't already obvious) and that although you can spend 10 months making your best attempt to see as much as possible its unlikely that you will ever see everything. Every time I get on a plane I check out the world map in the in-flight magazine and change my mind on where I want to see next. Currently Nepal, India, China & Japan are riding pretty high on my hit list.

Travelling allows you to do loads of things you never normally get to do cos you've got one of those job things which can be so demanding on your precious time. Now I can say I have swung over a 200m Canyon whilst being too shit scared to react, jumped out of a plane at 12,000 ft, rolled down hills inside big inflatable balls and bungy'd over lakes in New Zealand. I've dived the Great Barrier Reef, driven a 4WD & camped on a massive sand island, drank my own body weight in Goon and seen such spectacular sights as The 12 Apostles and Ramsey St in Australia. In Asia I zip lined through the clouds in northern Laos, climbed mountains before dawn in Borneo and partied under a Full Moon in Thailand.

Travelling makes you appreciate what you've got like a set of great mates, an awesome family and that you live in one of the best cities in the world (even if you don't always get a seat on the tube). It makes you realise that you always want more than what you've already got regardless of whether you need it or not when really you should just really be happy & appreciative of what you've already got.

You meets loads of people from all different walks of life when your travelling around. Some of them are well funny, some of them a well strange but they are all well interesting. It made me realise that you should never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes - by which time, he's a mile away and you've got his shoes! But seriously, it's good to chat to the different people you meet along the way because whether you realise it straight away or weeks later you can learn something from each of them.

You start to see things from other peoples perspective too. I used to get really annoyed with people always hassling you for taxi's, massages, tailored suits, jet-ski's, jewelery or fruit. But then I thought that if I had a family to provide for then I would ask everyone who walked past because someone, somewhere really needs that taxi, massage, tailored suit or pineapple and then everyone is happy.

Whilst travelling I've had loads of idea's for business ventures like Reflexology, Juice Bars & Taxi Boats. But my best one was inspired by an encounter I had last night. I was ambling down the road looking for somewhere to score some cheap eats when a guy appeared from nowhere and placed an Iguana on my shoulder and then took a photo of me looking...well a cross between petrified & confused, then he demanded 100 BHT.....Well I though what a wicked idea. I'm sure I can pick up an Iguana in London for next to nothing. I could position myself outside a major tube station and then place it on a flustered looking commuters shoulder, take a quick Polaroid, then demand a tenner for my troubles. Do that 100,000 times and I'm a millionaire before I'm 30 - too easy!

And so the end has come. Thanks to everyone who has taken the effort to read the entries, I set up the blog originally as a way for the folks to keep tabs on me whilst I was away so I was abit shocked to learn that I have been getting some 2,500 views per entry. Apologies in that case for my appalling spelling but rest assured my Mum would have made a note of all my howlers and will have me doing my spelling corrections in the car driving home from Heathrow.

This is greggers signing off

Next stop - Almighty Blighty.

After a final lingering lunch date with YOSHINOYA it was all aboard Turbo Jet for the 65km journey to Macau.

Mac-where..? Exactly! If like me, your grasp of world geography is decidedly sketchy Macau is a tiny country situated on the Southeastern coast of China in the Guangdong Province. Turbo Jet (which deserves a mention in its own right) was part plane part boat. It had all the internal characteristics of an airplane - airplane seats, airplane seatbelts, a little fold away tray to use as you pleased & young, attractive ladies working the isles trying to flog you overpriced food, drinks and Marlborough Lights. But it is essentially a ferry and a fast one at that so after just 50 mins I disembarked in a whole new world.

I only had a couple of days in Macau which is all you need really as it only a small place, it has total land area of 27.3 sq km including the peninsula plus Taipa & Coloane islands. The whole country has a distinctively mediterranean feel and rightly so. Jorge Alvares became the first Portuguese to set foot in Southern China in 1513 and his visit was followed by the establishment of a number of Portuguese trading centers in the Pearl River delta. These were eventually consolidated into Macau, which soon wielded, with the permission on the emperor of China, a virtual monopoly on trade between China and Japan and between both nations and Europe. Today it is still a mixture of Chinese and Portuguese cultures harmoniously maintained and developed by its people.

In July 2005, 25 distinct sites in the historical centre of Macau were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. These are largely ancient stone fortresses, churches, Chinese temples and restored colonial villa's all scattered amongst tiny cobbled backstreets named by distinctive Portuguese blue enamel signs. Look to your left and you could be convinced you were in Portugal, to your right and you could be Shanghai.

Ruins of St. Paul Cathedral

Typical alleyway

Another World Heritage Site

I must admit I enjoyed ambling around these sites a whole lot more than I thought I would, infact the whole of Macau is one of those places which just oozes charm. Each street I ventured down had something going on, a group of old men playing cards in a shady corner of the park, old cobblers shops which look like they have been there forever and traditional chinese medicine and teashops. In the next alley there's funky clothes and souvenir shops and everywhere there are people zipping around on scooters, I haven't seen so many scooters since Vietnam. And that to me was what really appealed, a blend of the old and the new, the East meets the West.

The lads gather for a game of cards

But when the sun goes down on the history and the heritage the neon's soon come out to play. I wasn't aware of this but apparently gambling is illegal in Hong Kong so many people head over to Macau for a weekend of excess in Sin City. Now we aren't talking the strip in Vegas here but Macau is home to some 18 casino's which is rather alot for such a tiny place.

Cheeky school kids
I wanted to take some photo's of an old building but these kids appeared on the way back from school and wanted to be in the photo too

Usually I'm not much of a gambling man but I'm on my holidays and at this late stage in my trip I figured it was double or quits. Worse case scenario, I lose what very little money I have left and I'm on the next flight back to Heathrow. If I win big, its a quick call to the folks telling them not to expect me home anytime soon. Well.....either of the above happened and how can they when you playing the slots with pocket change..? But it was good fun all the same.

Grand Lisboa Casino
The scene of my flurry on the slots

And that, I suppose is the beauty of travel, you can rock up in some tiny country you know absolutely nothing about only to discover it is a real gem!

Considering my Round the World ticket kind of "hit the skids" somewhere in the South Pacific between Rarotonga and Tahiti, I decided on Hong Kong as my next destination. I have always quite fancied it and figured why not...when am I next going to be in this neck of the woods?

Arriving fresh from Brunei into Hong Kong was a big-time sensory overload. Massive neon signs hang outside every shop, there is heavy traffic everywhere (of both mechanical & human variety) and plenty of noise 24/7 - but this was what I had come to experience afterall.

Kowloon

I spent my first few days in Kowloon on Chungy's recommendation (Chungy is an old Uni pal and Hong Kong native). So I ventured out with my Chungy cheat sheet and the Lonely Planet tucked under my arm to tackle the walking tour. This took me through the caged bird market, flower market, dodgy knock-off threads market, chopstick market and finally the goldfish market (I kid you not). Then I treated myself to a new hairdo (nothing fancy, just a trim) but the old Chinese guy got abit fizzy with the clippers and now I have a Shaolin Monk crop. He seemed exceptionally proud of his efforts and kept asking me "you like, you like?". I didn't have the heart to tell him it was a trifle shorter than I wanted but on the plus side, it has shaved seconds off my morning beauty routine.

Bright lights of Nathan Rd

That evening I went down to the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade to check out the infamous skyline. It didn't disappoint as the whole of Hong Kong Island is lit up in neon. At 8pm each evening they have a Symphony of the Stars performance which is essentially a light and laser show to orchestral music across the harbor. Yes, it's as cheesy & tacky as it sounds but I loved it nonetheless. I then took a saunter down the Avenue of Stars which pays homage to home grown Hong Kong talent such as Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

Hong Kong Skyline

Jet Li - Avenue of the Stars

The following few days were spent taking in the sights. I queued 3 hours to take a cable car up the Ngong Ping Plateau on the outlying island of Lantau to see the Po Lin Buddhist monastery. The cable car trip takes 25 mins and offers some amazing views of Hog Kong but the main draw card is the Tian Tan Buddha. Measuring 34m high and weighing in at a hefty 202 tonnes its a rather impressive sight. I also covered off the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Hong Kong Museum of Art and Kowloon Park - incidentally a lovely place to have a relaxing breakfast whilst watching the olde timers doing their morning Tai Chi.

Tian Tan Buddha

Funky Fountains

I spent alot of time riding the MTR, Hong Kong's equivalent of London Underground apart from it runs on time, it's ultra speedy, it's squeaky clean, it's dirt cheap and it doesn't stink of piss. It transported me effortlessly across Kowloon to Diamond Hill to see the Chi Lin Nunnery a large Buddhist complex dating back to 1930's. It was a very serene place with lotus ponds, bonsai tree plants and the monks chanting behind big carved screens. With it being Chinese New Year it was absolutely mobbed with locals praying for prosperous 2007 and offering up incense sticks.

Chi Lin Nunnery

Kowloon Park

Hong Kong Island

Made a move from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island and have been calling Causeway Bay home for the past few days. My first stop on Hong Kong Island was The Peak which is the highest point on the island. I took the tram all the way up to the top of Peak Tower to have a good look at Hong Kong down below. I was relieved to learn that the tower had been specifically designed to withstand winds of up to 270km/h - theoretically more than the maximum velocity of a No. 10 typhoon (apparently). It made for some decent photo's.

The Peak by Day

The Peak by Night

I also had an interesting wander through Hong Kong's business centre to marvel the architectural treasures - it is home to 18 skyscrapers no less (the ones which take part in the aforementioned Symphony of the Stars) including Exchange Square the Bank of China Buildings and Government House.

Central - Skyscrapers

But it was the sheer number of shops which I couldn't get over. I have never seem so many shopping malls, department stores & street vendors ever before. I mean, if anybody from Hong Kong came to visit one of London's main shopping districts like Oxford Street or Covent Garden they would be asking where all the shops were, it's insane! And they are open so late, most of them until around midnight so even late at night you can go and pick up such essentials as the latest Louis Vuitton bag or CD's from HMV. And I suppose with retail being such big business its highly competitive. I went into one gentleman's outfitters for an idle browse and the young lady working there was so friendly and helpful I left 10 mins later having bought a pair of jean, T-Shirts, trainers and jacket - how did that happen..!?

I also made the best discovery in a food outlet called YOSHINOYA. It's like a fast food Japanese style. I became hopelessly addicted, partly because I have been looking for something to fill the massive void Pret A Mange left in my eating habits and also because it is one of the few places in Hong Kong where I understood the menu. So it's been a No. 3 for lunch and a No. 7 for tea for the past 7 days straight. Considering opening a franchise in London, after my water taxi company takes off ofcourse.

Wishing you all a prosperous Year of the Pig!

Next stop - Macau.

After travelling through both Sarawak & Sabah it seemed, well, impolite to overlook little Brunei sandwiched in the middle so I managed to find a few days in my hectic globetrotting schedule to drop by.

Negara Brunei Darussalam (or just Brunei to his mates) is one of the smallest countries in the world but also one of the wealthiest thanks to the oil industry. I opted to stay in the capital city of Bangar Seri Begawan (BSB) a compact place home to some 75,000. It's certainly very different to other Asian capital cities with orderly traffic, high standard of living and no real signs of poverty.

So how do you occupy yourself for 3 days in a country where alcohol is virtually unobtainable and nightlife non existent - well you sleep alot! Nah, I hit the cultural trail hard and spent alot of time walking around looking at big gold shiny buildings.

After finding and settling myself into some very satisfactory digs I set off to check out the Mosques. The hotel I was staying in was a few km's outside of the centre and the easiest not to mention quickest way to get around Brunei is by water taxi. There are hundreds of them all zipping back and forth from the water villages and dropping kids off at school. I am considering launching a similar initiative when I get back to London, how cool would it be to have a network of little taxi boats chauffeuring people up and down the Thames - surely it's a winning idea!

Water taxi anyone?

The Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque is located in the centre of BSB and stands in its own artificial lagoon. Named after the 28th Sultan of Brunei it is one of the tallest buildings in BSB. I took a trip up to top for an impressive panoramic view of the city. Then I got one of Brunei's cool little purple buses out to the J'ame'Asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque. This was built in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Sultans reign in 1992. After being asked to put on a full length robe type thing I was allowed to have a poke around this one as long as I didn't disturb the people praying.

The Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque

The J'ame'Asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque

I covered off the Brunei Museum, Malay Technology Museum and Royal Regalia Museum on my second day. I'd now consider myself pretty much up to speed on the oil industry, recent technological advancements and all things regal.

On my final day I visited Kampung Ayer which is made up of 28 water villages and houses a total of 30,000 people. This, I would say is the highlight of my trip to Brunei. I got dropped off by water taxi and started to explore the maze of wooden gangplanks connecting brightly painted shacks, shops, schools and workshops. The people were amazingly friendly especially the children and it wasn't long before I was invited in for a cup of tea and a chat about my travels and how I ended up in Brunei (I don't think they get many tourists so I was something of a novelty) Then one guy offered to take me for a cruise round the rest of the village's and up river to see the Proboscis monkeys (I didn't want to tell him I had already seen them at Bako & on the Kinabatangan) and on to the royal palace (Istana Nurul Iman) where the Sultan resides.

Kampung Ayer

Local family at Kampung Ayer

Footie Fans - Kampung Ayer

All in all it was a good three days in Brunei. It's the evenings which are abit quiet as there really isn't anything much to do. The locals just seem to hang around on street corners like they are waiting for something to happen which never actually does.

Next stop - Hong Kong.