Back to London – London, England, United Kingdom
Jump to the full entry & travel map London, England, United Kingdom So we got back to london super late at night in fact it was the next day. We still had luggage stored at the generator hostel in the luggage room (my 50lbs backpack) so we had to go there to get it even though we never stayed there, it was pretty easy to get in though hostels I’ve found are pretty laid back and give pretty much anyone access without confirming that we stayed there
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Back to London – London, England, United Kingdom
Jump to the full entry & travel map Perugia, Umbria, Italy Hello all, I am currently sitting on the balcony of our room after Belen discovered that she can get wireless on her laptop from here. It has been a lazy day today, after my shift I have basically spent my time sitting listening to my ipod, snoozing or reading, it is just too hot to do anything active today, plus I have been trying to keep out of the sun. It was 31 degrees the other day and it is defiantly hotter today, my guess would be at least 36-37, and with no breeze it makes moving a bit of a chore.
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lazy day – Perugia, Umbria, Italy
Jump to the full entry & travel map Chengdu, Sichuan, China So much for loving trains, it was long overdue for a bad travel day. Everything started out all right, we left on the train after 10pm and then maybe 12 hours later we stopped, about 4 hours from our destination. Thats ok, maybe its a lunch break or something? And then hours went by…and no one to ask…so we just wait. Until finally we asked the Chinese girl in the car with us and her English was good enough to tell us that the train is bad but do not worry. So we waited 12 hours in total and the train started to go…backwards to the train station. We happened to notice another white person on the car! And even better, he was traveling with a female Chinese companion. So we were finally able to ask someone what the deal was, apparently there was a landslide that caused havoc to the train tracks and they were trying to fix it. They say the train will reach Chengdu the next night, but really they dont know. The couple was contemplating whether or not to get off the train, same as us, we get a partial refund. Our big concern, we had no idea where we were, it wasnt in our guidebook, so essentially we were stuck in the middle of nowhere so it seemed that either option sucked. We get off not knowing when the train would leave again and not knowing for sure that we can get a bus the rest of the way. But they closed the toilets, so you would have to go to the public toilet, if there was one, which is scary in China anyway. But the couple said they would help us find a hotel. Thank god we found them, otherwise we would probably still be on that train. We found a hotel that was walking distance from the train station and we asked to meet them tomorrow morning for breakfast because we got coupons. We had a really weird brekky, some type of weird noodle concoction, green vegg, a roll, and hot soy milk. We walked with them to the train station, it was still there and no sign of leaving. So they helped us get a taxi to the bus staion and she helped us get bus tickets.
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Holy Quest to Hold a Panda – Chengdu, Sichuan, China
Jump to the full entry & travel map Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Woke before 6:00 to send emails, make phone calls and finish packing. Loaded the car while Chris worked and managed to leave right at check-out. We made a final Costco run for gas and sodas, then headed north. Lady Jane, our satellite navigation system, took us straight to the Bruce Ward offices where we received our keys and instructions from Lynn, the agent who helped us find the rental. We found our below-ground parking space without a hitch and brought up the first of several loads of stuff to our beautiful apartment. Such a view! We can see all the way from the new convention center grass roof to the Lions’ Gate Bridge. It took us until 6:00 to realize that we had never eaten lunch, so I hurriedly threw together an impromptu dinner and we went out on our balcony to watch the 9:00 gun go off–way cool! Fell into bed watching the glittering lights of West Vancouver.
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"Bienvenue" Translation: Welcome – Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Filed under: Skin Care A behind-the-scenes look at Angie Everhart during her shoot for Palmer’s Cocoa Butter yesterday (July 21). Photo: Rene Macura/Palmer’s Not only are models these days working past thirty (just look at Kate Moss and Christy Turlington ), but apparently pregnancy doesn’t stop them either! Take Angie Everhart, Victoria’s Secret model and former host of the “Ex-Wives Club” on ABC , who is the new face of Palmer’s Cocoa Butter stretch mark products
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A Very Preggers Angie Everhart is the New Face of Palmer’s Cocoa Butter
Jump to the full entry & travel map Calne, England, United Kingdom So we woke up in bath everything was closed because it was 6am but the town is beautiful we decided we wanted to move there the buildings are all stone and castle looking and extremely old. I wanted to go to see the ancient roman baths but they didn’t open until 9am so we walked around and waited and sunflower seed sandwiches with the extra bread we got from breakfast at the hostel the day before, and fruit leather we brought.
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Roman Baths, and mysterious Crop Circles – Calne, England, United Kingdom
Jump to the full entry & travel map Stone Town, Zanzibar Urban/West, Tanzania My first day off and I spent it in the big city… Stone Town is the main port and capital of the island and is actually called Zanzibar while the island (made up of 2) is called Unguja. Not much to do there for night life but see some amazing sunsets, shop, see some historic sites and go to the markets. Back in the day not only was it the trade hub for spices but also slaves from the mainland were traded through here to head up to Middle East.
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Stone Town! – Stone Town, Zanzibar Urban/West, Tanzania
Jump to the full entry & travel map Maun, Botswana Being poled along by Ellisa in a mokoro (2 people sitting / lying in a dug out canoe), listening to the bird and insect life and reeds being brushed aside for 3 hours, as we headed to an overnight stay 4.5 km away on a island in edge of the 16,000 sq km Okavango Delta. Thank goodness we had a modern mokoro ie a fibreglass one as the wooden ones made out of single sausage tree that takes 80 years to grow but only last 5 – 6 years leak! We had to take everything in and then take out all of our rubbish. One mokoro had the cooking gear / food and another all of our tents piled on it.
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Stars and Frogs – Maun, Botswana
Filed under: Shoes , Celebrities with Style Both Jennifer Aniston and Eva Mendes look super stylish in their Stuart Weitzman ‘Alex’ sandals. Photo: Christopher Peterson, BuzzFoto / FilmMagic.com | Bauer-Griffin Star-worthy style that’s completely wearable. We’re in! Photo courtesy of Stuart Weitzman Jennifer Aniston and Eva Mendes have both been spotted wearing Stuart Weitzman’s “Alex” wedge sandal , and it leaves us just one question — who’s next?
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Jennifer Aniston and Eva Mendes Both Love ‘Alex’
Filed under: Cosmetics , Fragrance , Beauty Tips , Hair Cut and Style Backstage essentials from Make Up For Ever and Degree. Photo: Gustavo Caballero, Getty Images As promised, here are a few of the tips, tricks, and products from backstage at Miami Fashion Week: Make Up For Ever ‘s makeup artists had a trick for making legs look flawless. They mixed the brand’s famous Face & Body Liquid Makeup with regular body lotion and quickly rubbed over models’ legs to conceal flaws and even skintone in seconds.
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Backstage Beauty Secrets of Miami Fashion Week
Jump to the full entry & travel map Hammamet, Nābul, Tunisia Réservation Green Fee Au Golf Citrus, Réservation stage de golf GOLF CITRUS HAMMAMET TUNISIE Un concept golfique international conçu autour de 7 lacs dans un espace de 173 hectares d’oliviers et de forêts à quelques minutes seulement de la Baie de Hammamet. Le tracé de Ronald Fream exploite avantageusement les caractéristiques naturelles d’une oliveraie légèrement vallonnée autant que des collines escarpées de la forêt
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Réservation Green Fee Au Parcour de Citrus – Hammamet, Nābul, Tunisia
Jump to the full entry & travel map Ferney-Voltaire, Rhône-Alpes, France Traci here: We left Garmisch Germany today and I was very sad to say good-by. It was quite possibly the most beautiful place in the world. I cannot wait to upload some pictures…..hopefully tomorrow. Our drive took us thru Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France in about 6 hours. The drive was amazing. Mom was equally impressed and there is a running joke about her taking pictures of the guardrails in all the countries. No time to stop and take pictures along the way so we try to snap a few as we can (more often than not we get the guardrail and nothing more). Kris drove this part of the trip and the boys took on the task of catering to the kids during the long drive……lucky for them they napped part of the way. Will here: Traci is correct about the drive and the area, it is so beautiful, I don’t know what you would compare it to in the US. Only the drive from Tahoe into Yosemite compares in my mind.
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4 countries in 6 hours – Ferney-Voltaire, Rhône-Alpes, France
Jump to the full entry & travel map Sapa, Vietnam I spent a couple of days in Sapa, which is this small mountain town northwest of Hanoi. To get there I had to take an overnight train to Lao Cai, followed by a 2 hour bus ride to Sapa. It’s turned into a mountain resort in the past 20 years, but the local Black Hmong people still live in the surrounding villages nearby, much of them now selling handicrafts to tourists. During my time there I hung out with this French couple I met on the train, Jeremy and Anne May, and through them also met this super cool Mexican guy Anton. Together we went on a small trek to and around the village of Cat Cat. Many of the Hmong people speak english surprisingly well, most of it they learn through tourists. We met a Hmong lady named Cho, and she actually joined us on our trek. She never stopped talking and we learned all about her family and the different villages. However, the best time I had while in Sapa was on my first day when I rented a motorbike and rode it through the mountains to this waterfall called Thac Bac. It was scary zooming around the trucks going up and the fog was so dense at times I couldn’t see a thing. Also, instead of braking, I thought I’d just whip through a muddy, unpaved section of the road and ended up getting mud all over legs and feet. Some of the village people had a good laugh over that.
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Sapa – Sapa, Vietnam
Jump to the full entry & travel map London, England, United Kingdom 3年又3年。 原來我上一次踏足London已經係3年前…時間過得真係太快。等我入境果時仲答個果海關話我上次黎係兩年前…點知出到去睇返本passport個印先發現原來係06年。 倫敦, 成為左我因為旅遊而探訪得最多次數既地方。第3次。老朋友。 ————————————- 由 LAX 到 JFK 到 LHR, 折滕了17小時以後我就在地球的另一端。背著15公斤的backpack加一個小拉o急, 走出 King’s Cross Station 跟老朋友果來一個熱切的擁抱, 有識途老馬的帶領, 緊張的心情終於可以放鬆下來。 浦落機吃過午飯打再電話給老媽報平安後二話不說先來一場musical。倫敦跟New York City一樣給我最大的魔力還是Broadway show。雖然今次只是短短停留兩日, 還得乖乖地死去睇返一場! 人生的第三場Broadway musical, 是林一峰強力推薦的Aveune Q.
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又見老朋友 – London, England, United Kingdom
Jump to the full entry & travel map Pattaya, Thailand Hello! We’re in Pattaya! It was a bit of a rough ride getting here we booked bus tickets in Siem Reap & either the girl in the travel agency hadn’t got a clue what we were talking about or she just lied but she told us the 2 buses we had to take (1 to the border & 1 to Pattaya) were VIP buses & the 1 to Pattaya would have Air Con & a toilet..
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Hiya from Pattaya! – Pattaya, Thailand
Jump to the full entry & travel map Siem Reap, Cambodia Hi Guys! Sorry its been so long since we’ve done a blog but we’ve just been having so much fun!! Siem Reap is amazing! It’s so nice here, the town is really pretty & relaxed & the people are lovely. We think It’s as nice as Hoi An, but it has a better night life, which is always good! There are loads of cool bars with good music. On our first day here we just took it easy after the 6 hour bus journey, which turned out to be not that bad.
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Siem Reap, Ankor Wat Temple Ruins & Quad Bikes! – Siem Reap, Cambodia
Jump to the full entry & travel map Kathmandu, Nepal Thank you all so much for your comments and emails, friends and fam! I love them, and it makes me feel like I’m not traveling alone, but with all of you. Also, I’m glad that you find something informative or entertaining in my random thoughts about Nepal… In response, however, I want to make sure that I’m conveying Nepal in an honest way. To clarify: being here is not like a jail sentence, or like a Catholic Charities commercial. In fact, I think Kathmandu and I have come to certain peace recently… Yes, there are the challenges and discomforts endemic to traveling in any under-developed country (waiting 10 years to see a bank teller, stepping on mangy dogs, brushing teeth with bottled water), and there are the unpleasantries associated with urban life (noise, crowds, smog), and of course, there are some peculiarities distinctly Kathmandu (hiding your sunglasses from monkeys). But when I think of Nepal as an integrated whole, the negatives are a pinprick on the screen. At first, they were all I could see. Now, I’ve internalized them to point where I can differentiate between what is Nepal, and what is just part of this weird, mid-development transition happening in Kathmandu. Nepal is how in July, women wear armfuls of green bangles and henna their hands so that their husbands may live long lives. Development is stepping in trash on the street. Development is my power going out 5 times a day. Nepal is families bringing bowls of food to the 10-year old monks in the monastery. Nepal is neighborhood gatherings at the temple courtyard every Saturday to cook dhal baat and play cricket. Essentially, almost all the faults and troubles I find here are not with Nepali culture, people, or this beautiful, spiritual geography; they are symptoms of growth that I can tell are particular to this moment in Nepal’s history. What can you expect in an un-colonized nation that had never known of the globalized world until a plane landed here in 1950? Nepal is desperately playing catch-up, grasping in a million different directions at once and generally making a sloppy mess in the interim. This is temporary, though. What will endure (I hope) are the distinct characteristics of ancient Nepali culture and mountain life that have always drawn visitors here. And in the meantime, before it disappears—which it assuredly will, in time—visitors who are willing to tolerate the inconveniences of Kathmandu-mid-development can glimpse, in the backstreets, medieval life still untouched by the long arm of globalization. This is truly rare, and truly spectacular. As a final note on this point, saying Kathmandu represents all of Nepal is like saying New York City represents all of the US. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to travel to the backcountry, but there is an entire nation outside of this valley with jungles, plains, tropics, alpine peaks, tigers, elephants, rice paddies, hundreds of languages and whole new layers to this culture I haven’t yet experienced…. but hopefully will. In the meantime, as I’ve said before, there are comforts to be found in Kathmandu and life isn’t all that bad. Tonight, for instance, I ate spinach pasta and drank a cappuccino while surfing the web in a local café. All in all, I think it’s easier to travel here than St.
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Finding the Middle Way – Kathmandu, Nepal
Jump to the full entry & travel map Hue, Vietnam Organised a private taxi to take us to the national park as no local buses go there. Left at 7am, arrived after 8am and got dropped off at the carpark near the summit. We walked for about 10 mins and we’d already reached the highest point! Spent about half an hour there just taking pictures of the view and silly jumping shots! Then walked the track to the 5 lakes and sat by a little waterfall for an hour soaking up the sun and updating diaries
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Bach Ma National Park – Hue, Vietnam
Jump to the full entry & travel map Copacabana, Bolivia Music and fashion was always the passion at the …………………….. The original Copacabana (after which the famous Rio beach was named) is a quiet little town on the banks of Lake Titicaca (at 3,600m one of the highest lakes in the world), and is better known as the gateway town to get to the little island of Isla Del Sol in the lake itself. Revered by the Incas as the birthplace of the Sun (their main deity), it is a laid back, little touristed island with a few hospedajes and places to eat with fantastic sweeping views of the snowcapped mountains one side and the vastness of Lake Titicaca on the other, with Incan ruins dotted over its length. We thought we had regained a bit of our lost energy from being sick and decided to walk from the town along a 14km peninsula, and take a little boat across to the island and then spend a couple of days walking the paths between the bays and ruins to the other end. Being around the lake meant there was plenty of trout which made a great change from the bland food we´d had for the past 2 months in Bolivia. Not sure if we´ve mentioned it, but the Bov´s love a carb. A meal’s not a meal without at least 5 carbs plus your piece of meat – think rice, plus potatoes (often chips plus boiled), pasta, beans, quinoa grains, oh and a slice of tomato! They do however do a great soup which comes with every set meal for the grand price of $1-2, so who are we to complain? The peninsula walk was gorgeous, sun shining over the bays, inviting water glistening, small local boats made of reeds bobbing at the edge. We also found out we weren´t as re-energised as we thought though, and really struggled up steep Incan paths and over the hills, Brad doubling over at the side of the road a fair few times with cramps, but once we´d started, we had to finish. We met a couple of other tourists walking the route too and shared a local boat over there. They dropped us at the base of this massive Incan staircase with original water channels on either side, which proceeded to climb for hundreds of metres at what seemed like a 60 degree angle. The last things our achy, brakey legs needed was to climb up another thousand steep steps. Feel da burn! Mind you, we got to the top of the ridge just in time to sit with a beer and witness one of the most beautiful sunsets we´d ever seen.
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Copacabana – Bolivia – Copacabana, Bolivia
Jump to the full entry & travel map La Paz, Bolivia Well, we had no choice but to hole up in La Paz for 3 days due to our first seriously bad case of gastro on this leg of the trip. We were able to make short forays into town, but always within striking distance of home. Brad´s whole bag of antibiotics he was carrying finally came to good use. One place we did go to that was fascinating was the Coca Museum. Coca is a legal and commonly used leaf in most of the Andean countries, and is either chewed or put into tea bags which you can buy from shops. The effect is not really what you would think. As I think we´ve mentioned before, it’s a very mild stimulant (way less than a Red Bull, more like a cup of coffee) and is used to suppress hunger, improve stamina, and to open up the lungs to help acclimatise to altitude. It has been used by the indigenous population for thousands of years. When the Spanish first came they tried to ban it, until they realised it was incredibly valuable to improve the output of the slave labour in the mines and fields, so they just taxed it instead. The medical information at the museum was really interesting. As has been known for centuries, it has no long term negative health effects, it is non addictive, yet the US spends millions trying to stop its cultivation. The key is to separate what is used for local legitimate consumption, and that that gets used for the manufacture of cocaine. Interestingly, the US is one of a few countries outside Latin America which grows coca in its own country (not widely talked about) and one of the worlds largest importers of Bolivian coca is……………….the Coca Cola company. Yes, true! So when the side of the can says “contains vegetable extract” you now know exactly what they mean. Coca Cola is apparently a knock off of a French drink invented in the turn of the century called Coca Wine, and the original Coca Cola did have processed cocaine in it, though this was removed in the 1920s, but coca leaves are still used in the formula today for “flavour”. No wonder the Bolivians feel the US is a little hypocritical in trying to get the world to ban coca use in their country (just wait to see how long before some nerdy Coca Cola employee does a web search, finds this, and sues us for slander now!!!!) In the museum there is a little cafe where we bought a coca beer (wierd, green), coca and chocolate cake and coca coffee. We did feel a bit more alert after, but maybe because it was the first food we´d eaten in 4 days!!!! We caught up again with Janiis and Martine (who´d also been crook) for our first proper meal in days - plain boiled rice and potatoes all round!!!! Karen also finally got her hair cut´n´coloured (not her normal fine subtle streaks, but ended up with about eight inch-wide very blonde stripes. Looked OK as travelling hair, but wouldn´t recommend the look for a job interview!) Due to the fact that we had been sick for so long, we were still pretty weak and had to unfortunately skip one of the things we were looking forward to the most in northern Bolivia, cycling down the World´s Most Dangerous Road without going over the edge. As a substitute, though, on our last night, when we were finally up for some proper food, we went back to the Indian restaurant we found when we first got here, and had what they call “The Worlds Most Dangerous Vindaloo” – yes, and got the tee shirt for it too. Sh*t, it was hot. If that wasn´t going to kill off any remaining lurgies, don´t know what was!!!! On our last morning, we went into the centre where one of the years biggest festivals was taking place. Most of the major streets were blocked off for a procession that lasts from 10am to 2am the next day. Thousands of Paceñas (La Paz locals) dressed up in all their traditional regalia, some as mythical creatures, hundreds of marching bands, all singing, dancing and drinking. Great fun. We also went up to the rim of the valley that La Paz sits in to get an awesome view, and went past the shaman and witch doctor stalls, which was pretty spooky. If you´re ever in the market for a shrunken llama foetus to bury in the foundations of your new house for good luck, this is your place!!!
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La Paz – Bolivia – La Paz, Bolivia