The Hong Kong Sevens

The Hong Kong Sevens is the biggest sporting event of the year in Hong Kong. It draws visitors from all over the world into town for big weekend of rugby and partying. The official main event is the special 7 person rugby format, featuring teams from all over the world competing in matches consisting of 7 minute halves and culminating in the final on Sunday evening. The unofficial main is the rampant partying in the stadium and in various parts of the city. While the matches are taking place the place to be is in the south stand in Hong Kong Stadium. Beer jugs aren't allowed in this section but you can purchase 1 litre cups of beer for HK$100. The south stand fills up quickly and is definitely where to go if you want to party and wear a costume. Oh, and occasionally watch some rugby too, the view of the pitch is quite nice from the upper reaches of the south stand.

Lan Kwai Fong

After the day's matches are over everyone grabs some food somewhere between the stadium and Lan Kwai Fong. LKF is usually very busy on weekends but on the weekend of the Sevens you can barely walk through the packed street. It's a massive street party and everyone is on the piss!

Tickets for the Sevens can be bought in advance or on the way to the stadium on match day. There are loads of scalpers right outside the MTR station at Causeway Bay. One would think the scalpers would be a bunch of old Chinese guys but surprisingly they're all Caucasian. The face value is about HK$400, seating is not reserved. Costumes and strong livers recommended. 

View from the KL Tower, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The best views in Kuala Lumpur are from the KL Tower, which itself sits on top of a hill in a forest preserve right in the middle of the city. It's at least 100m higher than the view from the Petronas Twin Towers' Skybridge and you don't need to queue very long to get to the top.

Koh Tao, Thailand

If you've ever thought about getting your scuba diving certification Koh Tao is one of the best if not the best place in the world to do it. There are dive shops galore offering just about every course available. The PADI open water course costs about US$300 and takes 4 days to complete. The cost usually includes accommodation. Koh Tao is the cheapest place in the world to do the open water course and offers really good dive spots to practice your skills. I did my course with Davey Jones' Locker (DJL). The staff there was really friendly, knowledgeable, and did a great job teaching me the course and keeping me away from the coral underwater.

There are loads of restaurants, dive shops, hotels, bungalows, and bars in the main town in Koh Tao. Just like in the other islands there are nightly fire shows at some of the restaurant / bars on the beach.

I spent my entire time in Koh Tao doing the dive course so I didn't the rest of the island. The easiest way to get to Koh Tao from Bangkok is to book a train + bus + ferry combo at the rail station. There are friendly English-speaking staff there to help you. You can also take a ferry from Koh Samui or Koh Phangan. 

Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

For such a small island, Koh Phi Phi offers quite a bit. For starters, it's easily one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It's one of three places on the planet that have amazing rock formations that rise up out of the water as if they were fingers. The accommodation options on the island range from basic guesthouses that run for about US$20 per night to luxury resorts which can cost in the hundreds. There are no publicly available motorized vehicles on the island, the only ones I saw belong to the guys who haul out the rubbish each evening. 

You can snorkel, dive, wakeboard, banana boat, hike, or just laze on the beach. Oh and you can party like a rockstar every night. There are nightly fireshows on the beach and as the fireshows come to a close the party gets started with free buckets and hordes of bucket-loving party goers. Being able to party on the beach nightly is awesome! There are loads of tattoo parlors where you can get traditional bamboo needle tattoos lining the road to the beach so it's very easy to wake up with a tattoo in the morning. 

We were lucky enough to have enough people to hire our own boat for a tour of the Phi Phi Islands at a cost of about US$20 per person and there were about 15 of us. We went to all the usual stops like Mosquito Island but on our own schedule which was really nice. Although we did have some mechanical issues at one point which led to the boat almost drifting into a limestone karst and me almost drowning cause the boat kept slowing drifting away from me but thankfully my mates helped me get back onto the boat. All in all, it was an amazing day capped off with a spectacular sunset; easily one of the most memorable days I've had while traveling. 

To get to Koh Phi Phi, you can take a ferry from Phuket, Krabi, or Koh Lanta. The ferry is about 1 to 1.5 hours from any of those places. There's an airport in Phuket and in Krabi; in both cases the ferry terminal is not too far away. Oh, and if you've ever seen the movie "The Beach", this is where it was shot.

Singapore to Sydney...The Long Way

Back in Hanoi in October I spent some time one day researching how I'd get from Singapore, where I planned on spending Christmas, to Sydney where I would spend the New Year. The straightforward thing to do was to fly directly to Sydney however this proved to be very expensive at around US$450 for a one way flight. So I did some digging and eventually found a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne for about US$195 followed by a flight from Melbourne to Sydney for US$102. Combined with the cost of transport from Singapore to KL I was going to save about US$100. The downside was that I was going to have to get from Singapore to KL by early evening, then take a redeye flight from KL to Melbourne, then spend about 4-6 hours in the airport before finally catching a flight to Sydney; total time in transit would be about 36 hours. Compared to an overnight flight direct to Sydney from Singapore it was a no-brainer...I would save the money and spend 36 hours to get to Sydney.

It all started with a bus ride and short walk to the unofficial bus depot. All the buses to KL departed from here and there were passengers everywhere. I would've rather taken the train (even cheaper than the bus when a return ticket is purchased in Malaysia) but it was fully booked. Passengers on my bus were told to check-in by 07:30 but there was quite a bit of anxious confusion since the check-in window for Starmart (I know, it sounds like a supermarket but it's actually a bus company) was closed until 08:00. Finally someone showed up and opened the check-in window. The bus was scheduled to depart at 08:30 but the actual time of departure was 08:50 and unfortunately we got caught in the massive traffic buildup at the border. The border crossing took over an hour because of the sheer volume of cars and buses. Once we crossed into Malaysia the going was pretty smooth.

We got caught in some more traffic as we entered KL but we eventually made it to the drop-off point in the middle of the city. I went back to the hostel I stayed at to store my bag and make use of the free wifi, got a meal, then got to KL Sentral station a bit too late to catch one of the many US$2.5 shuttle buses to the airport. Since I was in a rush I had to pony up and pay about US$33 to get a taxi to the airport. Very very upset about my timing error and about having to take the bus instead of the train to KL. Oh and I was in such a rush I forget to collect my change at the taxi stand. The only redemption was that the taxi driver did an excellent job and get me to the airport in time.

The flight was delayed for quite a while but we took off with no problems. Since I was flying on Air Asia, not even the water is free so I didn't eat or drink for the entire flight. However since it wasn't full I was able to stretch my legs and take up the seats around me. I landed in Melbourne at around 10:00 extremely tired, hungry, and thirsty. After passing through immigration I went to straight to Virgin Blue to check in for my flight to Sydney, scheduled for departure at around 17:00. I passed the time eating and watching movies on my netbook. After many hours of sitting on the floor next to a power outlet it was finally time to check in. Upon arrival in Sydney I collected my bags and then walked about 2km from the domestic terminal to the Mascot train station to save AU$10. The ride to the city from Mascot costs about AU$5 compared to AU$15 from within the airport. In the end, I didn't save as much money as my initial calculations predicted but I still saved a bit!

Vientiane, Laos - Oct 2010

Arc de Triomph

Vientiane is the capital of Laos. With the help of abundant foreign aid the capital is actually not a bad place when compared with Phnom Penh. The streets are wide and paved and the buildings have a modern touch to them. The riverfront was undergoing a massive renovation back in October to create a beautiful esplanade when I was there. Along the waterfront there are some great street food stalls with seating serving up cheap food and beer lao.

Pha That Luang

There aren't many sights to see in Vientiane other than the riverfront, the somewhat disappointing Arc de Triomph and the Pha That Luang temple. Apparently the concrete used to build the Arc was donated by the US to build roads but someone saw fit to use it for other purposes. The city is however a great place to get some good food and wine. The French colonialism left behind a tradition of baguettes and wine all over Laos. I can't think of anything else left behind by the French that's any good. In fact, it was the French who introduced the squat toilet to Asia. Yep, that's right, the French. 

Sunset over the Mekong River, Vientiane, Laos

Sunrise over the River Ganges, Varanasi, India

This is definitely in my top 5 of all the photos I took in the last 9 months of travelling. We woke up at about 4:30AM and headed down to the main ghat to watch the sunrise...and yea it was totally worth it.

Tubing in Vang Vieng, Laos - Oct 2010

I love tubing! Tubing in Vang Vieng is all about the partying. Whomever came up with the idea of sending people down a river in an inner tube and getting them drunk was a genius. You start by heading to one of the two tubing stations in town where you pay the fee for the tube in addition to a deposit. The deposit is returned in full if you return by 6pm. The total cost is about 10USD for the tubing fee + deposit. Once you're paid up and have signed the disclosure you're loaded up into a tuk tuk and chauffeured a few km down the road to the starting point / first bar.

The locals who work the bars are all really friendly and eager to throw a great party. At the first bar there's a water slide, body paint, and free lao lao (local whiskey)! The atmosphere is incredible as everyone starts up with a bucket, a shot of lao lao, or a can of beer lao. After everyone's had their fill here it's time to actually get into the tube and make your way down river to the next bar.

Mud volleyball getting underway!

The next few bars offer up more buckets, free lao lao shots, and water slides. Some of them have rope swings that start at about 6m above the river, "beach" volleyball, mud volleyball, and one even has a zip line! Although the river has a dangerously fast current during the wet season it's also at its highest level thereby making it the safest time of year to do the rope swings and slides. Despite this several people die here every year, usually because they're too drunk or can't swim or a combo of both. Regardless, if you can swim and you're not too drunk definitely do the rope swing!!

Sunset and tubing...what could
be better?!

While it's definitely not anything like the rest of Laos and has no cultural relation whatsoever to Laos, tubing in Vang Vieng is a destination unto itself. No where else in the world will you find a party scene quite like this one. And if you're too hungover to go tubing again the next day it's easy to spend your day at the many restaurants that are showing Family Guy or Friends all day long.

Vang Vieng is about 7 hours south of Luang Prabang and 3 hours north of Vientiane. It's possible to get here by private bus from Luang Prabang and by public or private bus from Vientiane. The party never stops...unless the local authorities show up.  

Terracotta Warriors, Xi'an, China - June 2010

The Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an are truly an amazing thing to witness. The first emperor of China had them built to protect his mausoleum in the afterlife. Ironically, at that time the nobility in China thought that mercury would give them immortality however it was the consumption of mercury that eventually killed the emperor. The most amazing thing about the statues are the details. Every single soldier is different. The face, the height, the armor...all different. It turns out that of all the statues at the site, only one of them was fully intact. The rest were painstakingly rebuilt from shards. The kneeling archer was saved because all of the standing statues around him collapsed and created a roof around him.

To get to the Terracotta Warriors by public transport you have to first get to the rail station. There are loads of buses in the old city that go straight there. From the rail station you can catch a public bus straight to the site. Once here it's worthwhile to hire a tour guide. The official rate is 100 CNY through the office however you can barter and get one for less. I got my own personal one for 60CNY for about 2 hours. Alternatively you can pay over 100USD for a fully guided tour including transport from Xi'an, which equates to over 600CNY. But seriously, why would you pay over eight times more for the same product?

Sunset over Phuket, Thailand - Nov 2010