Angkor

Just arrived to Bangkok after 2 days in Angkor (Cambodia). This is another great place that no one that is travelling in southeast asia should miss.
Angkor is a large complex with more than 1 thousand temples. It was the center of the Khmer empire and nowadays is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Just to have an ideia about the dimension of the place, when London only had 50.000 people, Angkor had around 1 million people. More information can be found here.
I will upload some photos soon.

Just a word of advice for anyone that travels through the Seam Reap Airport, the nearest airport to Angkor:
- If you transit through seam reap you have to stay at least one night there.
- The people in the airport are really slow, so arrive there on time.
- If a guy comes to you when you arrive saying that it will help with your visa for something like 23$, don't accept, the visa doesn't take more than some minutes to get and it costs 20$
- There is a 25$ dollar fee when leaving the country and a smaller fee when doing a domestic flight.

Photos from Halong Bay

From Cat Ba Island

I arrived yesterday to Cat Ba, an island in North Vietnam, where I'm staying in a resort for 1 day to relax a bit before going to the capital. Before this I was in central Vietnam for some days and in
Halong Bay for 2 days. Halong Bay is a must for the travelers that come to Vietnam, the scenery it's amazing. It's a huge bay with thousands of rocks and islands in the middle of the sea with some floating fishing villages in the middle.
I haven't been updating this blog due to lack of time. My trip was a bit exhausting while I was in central Vietnam: getting up at 7am or earlier and seeing stuff all day. I was also a bit sick on the last days due to all the vietnamese food I have been eating. As soon as I have some free time I will try to upload some photos.

Reporting from Saigon

I'm now in Ho Chi Mihn or better known as Saigon, the largest city in Vietnam. I arrived here 2 days ago from Macau. Until now everything have been going very well contrary to some fears I had. From now on in Vietnam and Cambodga everything is going to be much more relaxed as I'm not backpacking any more, I'm now travelling with an asian travel agency.

Vietnam is much different from Hong Kong and Macau where I was before. It's still a poor country with some people making below 50$ a month. It's amazing how each 10s while I walk on the streets there is someone trying to sell some stuff or offer a ride (for money). This is also a bit less safe, it's better to keep always an eye on everything you cary.

Saigon the capital of the motos

Another photo of a street in the city center

Photos from the last days

Aberdeen, Hong Kong

Lantau island, Hong Kong

Pandas in the Ocean Park Hong Kong

Casinos in Macau

From Macau

I'm now in my last day in Macau. On the day I arrived I walked around and went to see the main places. Yesterday night I met some guys in the hostel and we went to some discos in Macau in the good old erasmus style, getting drunk with beers from the supermarket and then head to the main places MP3, MP4, DD2, DD3 (they are not very creative with names here).
Today I went to the Grand Waldo casino to play texas hold'em and I had the chance to participate in the first rebuy poker tournment in china. Payed 9euros to get in and bought a rebuy later for the same price. Finished in 12 out of 37 players, didn't win anything but it was a very good experience for the price payed.

Nowadays Macau is the new Las Vegas of the Asia, with the highest-volume gambling in the world and with the biggest casinos. The Venetion Macau is the biggest casino in the world and the second largest building.
Apart from the gambling scene there are also some cultural stuff to see from the time Macau was a portuguese colony. I didn't see many portuguese people, they say 2% are portuguese, but still most of the stuff is written in chinese and portuguese.

News from HK

The last days have been quite nice. I have been walking around, seeing the markets, going in and out of buildings as there is not much cultural stuff to see (they have to destroy the old building to do new ones), trying some asian food and seeing some sights.

Here are some photos I took on the last days.

Photo taken at night from the peak

A residencial area in Hong Kong

A business district

A street in a rush hour

Ladies Market

The Tian Tan Buddha Statue in the Lantau Island.


Hong Kong's Symphony of Lights everyday at 8pm on HK (This video is not mine, my camera is pretty shitty with video)

Yesterday at night I went to the Pacific Place Cinema I heard it was one of the best ones in Asia. Well in my opinion although the architecture was pretty cool it was not much different than any cinema I used to go in Portugal.

Today most of the stores are closed and there is a sign everywhere that says typhoon level 8. I'm not going to stay in the hotel so let's see what happens :) More info about the typhoon here.

The Arrival to HK

Just wanted to let you all know that the trip went well. I arrived to Hong Kong 2 days ago after a 12 hours flight from London.
After I arrived a nice girl from couchsurfing came to pick up, we went to have dinner together, I had the chance to try some chinese dishes (rice cake and some spicy noodles) and she showed me a bit of the city.
On the next day I walked almost all day around the HK island and at night I went to see the victoria peak. On my way back I decided to come back by foot because there was something like a 1 hour line to get on the tram, well it was a huge mistake, I had walk more than 3 hours to get back to the center of HK.


The thing that impressed me most in this city was the size of the buildings. Hong Kong is the city with more skyscrapers and one of the most dense places in the world. Hong Kong's skyline is ranked the best skyline in the world. 4 of the 18 tallest skyscrapers in the world are here.

Planning the trip

Before starting my job I'm going to do a trip for one month in southeast asia starting next friday. I'm going to start in Hong Kong and Macau where I'm going to stay 10 days, then 10 days around Vietnam, 2 days in Cambodia (Siem Reap and Angkor) and in the end 5 days in Bangkok. From there I fly direct to Holland to start my work there. Most of the trip will be by plane (10 flights) and the rest by bus and boat.

Introduction

Recently I finished my course and I left the job I had in Portugal to change to a different country. This blog is a journal of my personal journey.