Detailed update Part 2

First of all, I started uploading some pictures to Flickr, so check them out via the link on the right. You can excuse my lack of pictures of New York, since, if you read my last post, you'll understand why.

Thoughts on the flight:
It was pretty nerve racking to finally get off the ground. It was a 15 hour flight that proved the be REALLLLLY LONGGG. When I boarded the plane, I already been awake for almost 24 hours, and I could barely sleep on the plane as it wasn't really confortable enough. Oh, and I think the pilot had a dinner arrangement or something because we touched down 45 mins early, I'm not complaining!

NOTE to religious zealots: I now have proof that the earth is round! The flight trajectory took us over Montreal, Northern Quebec, the North Pole, Eastern Russia, Mongolia, and finally China/Hong Kong. Very interesting scenery from above. Another itneresting aspect was the only time that the sun set was upon my arrival in Hong Kong. Finally, I will recommend anyone flying to Asia, Cathay Pacific. I will not hesitate to use them again in the future.

Thoughts on Hong Kong:
Well I finally arrived in Hong Kong! It's 8:00PM and exhausted, but also hungry (I skipped breakfast on the plane since we were landing in 1-2 hours, and I knew what kind of food I preferred!)
On Arrival in Hong Kong, customs was quick and uneventfull, took the bullet train to the Kowloon area (Centralized Hong Kong), very very very nice and modern. It took 23 mins and I don't know what speed we were going at but I would guess somewhere north of 250kms.
Arrival in Hong Kong was very surreal. From the many films, video games, and pictures I've seen of Hong Kong over the years. I had some expectations of what it would look like. I wasn't dissapointed, it was exactly like I had thought. Lots of neon signs, tons of people up and about on the streets. Practically every store/restaurant/bar open late at night. I didn't get to experience much of the famous Hong Kong night life though :(. I ate, walked around taking some pictures and passed out at the guesthouse where I was staying.
When I woke up, I had one thought, DIM SUM.
I asked around and found a restaurant inside a plaza. During the entire time I was there, I was the only foreigner, and the staff didn't really speak any english. But oh my god was it good!
I then took a cab to the train station to go to the famous Po Lin monastery where the big buddha was located.
I left there 3 hours before my flight was scheduled to depart. I was very sad to leave Hong Kong so soon, and will deffinetly need to go back and see it in more depth as well!

Update for Bangkok in the next couple days, sick of being in front of the comuter, it's freaking 35c over here! I'll be posting more pictures of Hong Kong before I go...

Detailed update part 1...

Ok people, as promised, here's a more detailed update to my going ons...
First I took the bus and left Montreal at 11:30PM on monday night toward New York. The bus ride was quite uneventfull and I arrived in New York at roughly 7:30AM.

New York:
Now I didn't get to check out New York much, because, on arrival there, I noticed that the lens of my digital camera had broke! So I had to struggle to purchase another one before having to catch the shuttle to JFK airport. So I was running around Manhattan trying to find a store that sells my camera. Finally managed to buy one (at Best Buy), get the defective one shipped back home and catch my shuttle to the airport. It was also interesting in the fact it was the first time I did some decent walking with my full pack on my back and found out that it wasn't much of a problem at all.

Thoughts on New York:
- The buildings that you see from the Bus leading into Manhattan look for the most part really shabby and decrepit. The newer ones look just plain tacky. I also think mobil has a monopoly on gas stations on that highway because I only saw those along the way.
- Manhattan was a different story, practically every building looked nice, especially the older ones.
- Time Square was...flashy...
- It gave me the interest to check out Manhattan in more depth at a later date...

Thoughts on JFK Airport:
- I got to the airport 2.5 hours early expecting the worse. I turned out that it was a breeze for me to get through customs and was waiting at the gate with over 2hrs to go before my flight would depart.

Update for the flight, Hong Kong and Bangkok in Part 2, stay tuned.

Bangkok, here I am

I've finally arrived. It's 2:30AM here in Bangkok.
I'm alive and have some interesting things to tell already.
But I don't have the time right now, I will do so properly in the next day or 2.
Oh, for the record, I'll DEFINETlY have to get back to Hong Kong! 20 hours was WAY TOO SHORT.
Take care everyone, it's looking very promising indeed!

Political unrest?

Well it turns out there's going to be some interesting happenings in politics in the region that should make my trip even more exciting!

First the Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been involved in controversy over severe corruption in his government. Many rallys and protests have been staged over the last few weeks forcing him to call a surprise April 2nd election. Anyway, pressure has been mounting over the last couple weeks, here are are more articles from the BBC on the subject:

Thai protesters vow to continue (feb 26th)
Thai opposition to boycott poll (feb 27th)
Thai protesters issue ultimatum (feb 28th)
Thai PM defiant as crisis mounts (mar 1st)
Thai PM opens election campaign (mar 2nd)
Embattled Thai PM stages rally (mar 3rd)
Thousands rally against Thai PM (mar 5th)
Thai PM defiant despite protest (mar 6th)
Rallies keep pressure on Thai PM (mar 7th)
Thai capital braces for key rally (mar 13th)
Thai PM hints at stepping aside (mar 15th)
Thai PM dodges Bangkok protest (mar 16th)
Thai party alleges election fraud (mar 20th)


And just today, as if that weren't enough, it turns out that Laos's communist chief of over 30 years is stepping down from power at 82 years old. Elections are set for April 30th, although I may have left Laos by then.

The Killing Fields

Well, I finally went and rented The Killing Fields. A very disturbing film about about the beginning of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the soon to come revolution/massacre that took place. According to Wikipedia:

"The Khmer Rouge regime is remembered mainly for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people (from an estimated 1972 population of 7.1 million), through execution, starvation and forced labor. It is often said to have been one of the most violent regimes of the 20th century — on par with the regimes of Adolf Hitler and, in the views of many, Joseph Stalin. In terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population of the country it ruled and time in power, it was probably the most lethal regime of the 20th century. The organization received support while it was in power from the People's Republic of China, who intended to "box in" the Soviet-backed Socialist Republic of Vietnam."

I urge anyone looking to learn more about recent Cambodian history or want to learn more on how low a society can sink to, to seek out this movie.

Here's more information:
IMDB movie entry
Khmer Rouge Wikipedia entry
Cambodia Wikipedia entry

Travel plans...

I realized some of you may not be completely up to date on what my travel plans will be exactly. So here's what they are for now:

Click here for a map of the area

I'll be leaving Montreal Next Monday on the 27th of March, travelling to New York by bus. From there, I'll be taking a plane to Bangkok (Thailand) with a 22hr connection in Hong Kong (I couldn't resist taking a bit of time to check out Hong Kong!).

Once in Bangkok, I'll be spending a few days to get my bearings. Then will be travelling overland to through Thailand to enter Laos at the north Near Chiang Rai on the map). Then, I'll make my way through Laoso North to South. I'll then enter Cambodia at it's northern border with Laos, go through the country mainly following the Mekong. I'll need to make it to Bangkok again to take my flight home.

I'll be travelling alone with my backpack over 2 months, should be exciting ;)

Angkor Wat...

Angkor Dawn, originally uploaded by Kenny Maths.

Here's an absolutely gorgeous picture of Angkor Wat in Cambodia (I'll be visiting it near the end of my trip).

Some nice shots of Hong Kong from others

Hong Kong, originally uploaded by Robot Monster.

Can't get enough of what Hong Kong looks like at night! I can't wait to check it out for myself

The Peak, originally uploaded by derailleur.

Nice clear day shot

CRW_2235, originally uploaded by alidarbac.

The best looking shot I found of Hong Kong at night, gotta love the color!

RSS Feeds and this blog

Ok, I reckon many of you are not aware of what an RSS Feed is and how incredibly usefull it is. Basically, it allows someone to "subscribe" to a site, and the browser then checks for updates on the server and if there are any updates, it will notify you. This saves you from having to manually check the site for updates. This is gonna be usefull for this site in particular since I will probably update the site only sporadically.

RSS is especially usefull for news sites. Lots of them support RSS feeds nowadays. from the BBC, The New York Times, Cyberpresse, Le Monde and the CBC/Radio-Canada.

This blog supports RSS Feeds, if you use a browser such as Opera or Firefox, the support is built-in. In both cases, if the site has feeds available, a little icon will appear to the extreme right of the URL address (the www.something.com). Opera shows a small RSS, Firefox will show a little orange symbol with waves. Simply clicking on the icon will subscribe you to the site. If you're still using IE (anyone still using that crap??), you'll need a separate RSS client. I''ve never tried any of them, but there's a list of them here.

If you ARE still using IE, do yourself a favor and download either Opera or Firefox. As many of you know (too many?), I'm a huge advocate of Opera. In fact, it's maybe the best thing since sliced bread.

Btw, my Flickr page also supports RSS feeds. If you subscribe to that, for example, you will be notified whenever I upload new pictures.

Hope this helps, if you type "RSS Feeds" in google, you'll also find lots more info on the subject. This site is a great resource to find more sites that support RSS feeds.

Finally, if you are using a browser that supports RSS/Atom feeds, here are direct links to my feeds. Just click on them to subscribe to them:
My Blog
My Flickr Photos

Opening up for business

Ok, I finally decided to make my blog public.
Not completely happy with it, but it'll have to do!
I'm leaving in just over a week and I can't wait!
On my trip, I will be posting pictures on my Flickr account, you can reach it by clicking on "Flickr Photos" on the right side of the page.
I will posting some of them directly on this blog as well.