Archive for 'Travel'
Photos from our trip to Hangzhou, West lake (西湖) and Longjing tea village. It was really foggy while we went but it gave that glowy morning misty look to the photos. Hangzhou was way too developed on most part but there are reminiscences of what Marco Polo called The City of Heaven. West lake is a beautiful place but when it is crowded with tourists, you no longer see its beauty. On the second day, we decided to go to Longjing Village which was the best decision as the landscape was stunning. next to the village, there is a path called 9 Creeks and 18 Gullies (九溪十八涧) which is an ancient stone paved road meandering through the forest and tea crops occasionally crosses with the stream that snake its way along the valley. This place is probably one of the nicest place we have been in China and remind me a lot of country side in the UK.
The third leg of our trip took us to a small village of Shirakawa-Go. Here, the city noises fade away replace by sounds of nature. There are odd tour groups and day trip visitors coming into the village but after the last bus leaves at around 5-6 pm, the village is back to the normal tranquil state again. The village is famous for its gassho roof farmhouse. The word Gassho is translated as palm together signify the shape of the steep roof that helps to prevent snow build up as it tends to snow heavily in this valley.
Kyoto is one of the places I always want to see. Comparing to other travellers, yes, I should have come many years ago but later is better than never. Kyoto is culturally rich, colourful and very high in diversity, a Mecca for photographer and architect.
Thank you Japan for a wonderful trip and memories. We love every moment of it, the food, the people, beautiful country and landscape. Everywhere we went, we felt welcome. Everytime we needed help, someone offered it to us even they can’t communicate in English.
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Over the Christmas, we decided to do a bit of travelling. One of the places that we waned to go for a long time is the watertown. Watertown is like Venice of China where a series of canal crisscrossing and serving villages in the ancient time before road, plumbing and modern sanitation arrived (which I’m sure wasn’t long ago for this remote location).
Photo of our trip to a small village outside Chiangmai in Thailand. We took an overnight train from Bangkok to arrive in Chiangmai at dawn. The village was very small but yet so beautiful and serene with nature.
This trip was probably one of the longest I’ve ever taken to plan – 3 years and 1 month in total. Admittedly, it wasn’t the planning itself that was difficult. There weren’t any multiple connections or off-the-beaten track destination. It was Belgium.
Leaving wet cold London and heading for a Tropical diving trip.
This trip was put together soon after a phone call with Pao. We wanted to go somewhere that is easily accessible (purely because limited time and lugging diving gears around isn’t fun) but hasn’t yet been exploited by the main stream tourism. Lembeh was the first choice but when Malapascua Island was tabled, we agreed almost instantly.