Warburton.me

Phish Phood in Phuket

// November 3rd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // by Andy

So… had a bit of a strange experience today. We’re in our final days in Phuket before we head up to Bangkok and the weather was a bit grey so we decided to head to some shopping malls and have a bit of a browse.

While wandering around we came across a Fish Foot Spa, which basically involves sticking your feet into a massive bowl of Doctor Fish (also called Garra Rufa) which then proceed to suck off all of the dead skin and dirt, leaving you with silky smooth, clean feet!

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but it felt pretty much like having 500 odd fish sucking on your feet – in other words, it tickled like hell! Afterwards, my feet felt really tingly and are now softer than they’ve ever been! Great experience – definitely worth a try!

Also, grabbed a quick video – enjoy!

Tuk Off!

// October 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // by Andy

Well… it’s finally happened, we took our first Tuk Tuk ride and in typical web 2.0 geek fashion, I caught it on video and put it on YouTube!

Under the Sea – In Phi Phi!

// October 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // by Andy

Well… we’ve been here in Phi Phi, Thailand now for about 6 days and I’m totally and utterly relaxed. The place we’re staying in at the moment is pretty much paradise. We can see the beach from our bungalow and it’s literally a ten second walk down to the shore. Nothing relaxes you more than waking up to the sound of waves crashing on the beach!

In other news, Steph and I are both burnt to a crisp. I caught it on my shoulders on the ferry over from Phuket and then made it worse by spending all day in the Sea. Steph has managed to burn the back of her legs, shoulders and bum during our adventures today snorkling and looking at the marine life.

Speaking of snorkling, I finally got the chance to put my waterproof camera case and Stephs new Netbook to the test today – we made this little video of our first ever attempt at snorkling – Enjoy!

Videos from China

// October 23rd, 2009 // No Comments » // by Andy

We took a few short vids in China… here they are!

Xi’an, Chengdu and beyond

// October 14th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // by Andy

Well… still in China (for one more day). At the moment, we’re in Chengdu having taken an overnight sleeper train from Xi’an, tomorrow we fly to Shenzhen and will then be crossing the border to Hong Kong.

Shenzhen is just outside Hong Kong and by flying their instead of direct to Hong Kong is going to save us a few hundred quid – just because it’s on the other side of the border – daft really when you consider both are Chinese owned regions!

Xi’an was grey and rainy pretty much the whole time we were there but we made it out to see the Terracotta Warriors which was pretty awesome. The room you can see behind us in the photos below is about the size of a football stadium and supposedly contains around 8000 warriors, although only about 1000 have been excavated so far.

.

If theres one thing I’ve learnt about the Chinese while I’ve been here is that they like to do things BIG. Big walls, big monuments, big buildings and big cities. Strange for a country where the average height is so small

We only popped into Chengdu for a couple of days, but while we’re here we’ve been out to a Panda Breeding Sanctuary just outside of the city which was pretty amazing. They had normal black and white Panda’s but also Red Pandas which my fellow geeks should recognise, since it’s also known as the Firefox!

Anyway… next stop, Hong Kong!

Strange…

// October 10th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // by Andy

Sitting in a Starbucks in the middle of Xi’an drinking a caramel chocolate jelly Frappicino. That’s right – it’s an iced coffee with JELLY in it. It’s a strange experience – a bit like a grown up coffee flavoured jelly and icecream!

I’ll try and put a pic on Flickr later. Computers in our hostel are a bit crappy so no promises!

Beijing from steph’s point of view!!

// October 7th, 2009 // No Comments » // by Steph

Well then since this is a joint travel blog I thought I better post! Andy has pretty much told you all the facts of what we have been up to but hasn’t really said much about how it feels to be here!!

Monday was our first whole day here and we started by going to the forbidden city! The place was amazing! I can’t believe just how well the Chinese have preserved it! I got a bit fed up though as everyone kept staring at me and I think I had my photo taken a million times!! People were even asking to have a photo taken with me!! I guess they are not used to seeing women with blonde hair and who are nearly 6ft!

Beijing is a very friendly place, all the locals are very friendly but their way of live is very very different to ours! It’s very rare to see a pushchair over here for example, apparently due to the one child rule they are very close to their children and prefer to carry them! Also they are considered a luxury and many Chinese people can’t actually afford them! Same goes for nappies! They cost £25 for a small packet over here so they just don’t bother with them and the children have splits in the clothes and just “go” when they need to!

You can really see in parts of Beijing where the government have tried to make it more westernised. The airport for example is very moden and in parts of Beijing the government have built walls around the less desired parts so that the tourists don’t get to see them.

Were off to Xi’an tomorrow! We are going to be brave and try an overnight train! It will take 12 hours! It should be an interesting experiance!!

Exploring Beijing

// October 7th, 2009 // No Comments » // by Andy

Wow… what an epic couple of days! After arriving in Beijing on Sunday and basically doing nothing, we headed out to see the sights. Monday we went to see the Jingshan Park, The Forbidden City and Timinin Square, then Tuesday we did a 10km hike on the great wall of China.

Jingshan Park

Forbidden City

Timinin Square

The Great Wall of China

What can I say about the great wall? Well… it’s totally deserving of it’s name! It’s absolutely massive – we only walked the 10k stretch between Jinshanling and Simatai but that very nearly killed me! If the Great Wall was flat and always in good condition it would have been a nice walk with beautiful scenery, but it’s not – some sections of the wall are close to 90 degrees with steps that are about a foot tall each, other sections have a similar incline but with steps that are massively damaged, leaving you with not a lot to hold on to as you climb.

Walking this section of the great wall really is an epic feat of endurance, and not something that I thought I would have been able to complete, however once you get up there, you are driven to keep going by the sheer beauty of the landscape and the urge to see what you could find around the next corner!

There are loads more photos on my flickr account, so feel free to check em out – despite carrying a 13MP camera, I’m resizing to 800×600 for upload just because the internet connection here is a bit on the slow side.

Beijing Baby!

// October 4th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // by Andy

Wow… I can’t believe it… We’re finally here! Beijing baby!

Flight in was almost perfect, can’t fault a thing! I got a bit of a grilling at immigration after being picked out for a random Interview but it wasn’t that bad, especially since the police lady that interviewed me was young, friendly and pretty cute!

Beijing airport was amazing, huge open spaces and polished marble floor everywhere you look – it was more like the lobby of a five star hotel than an airport!

We’ve just got to the hotel, beijings “Sitting on the city Walls Courtyard House Hostel” which seems really traditional and cute. It’s hidden down a back ally in what is locally known as a HuTong. Even the taxi driver had trouble finding it! The room is a bit small, but clean and cool and the staff are friendly snd helpful so I can’t really fault it so far!

Steph has just passed out on the bed so we’re going to have a short kip then go out for a roam around the local area – we’re just around the corner from the forbidden city and Tiniman
Square, literally five minutes away!

Can’t seem to get on Twitter or Facebook at the mo, even through iPhone apps, but that was to be expected. Email and blog are working fine tho so feel free to comment or email if you want to get in touch!

How has travelling changed?

// September 23rd, 2009 // No Comments » // by Andy

Our good friends over at STA Travel Buzz have recently asked the question, “how has travel changed over the last 30 years?”

As a 27 year old, I’m probably not as well placed as some to answer this question, but I can remember going abroad was a much bigger deal when I was younger, compared to now. From what I recall in the 80’s package holidays were the norm, that is hotel, flights and transfers all in one deal – usually to a limited number of destinations. These days we frequently pick and choose where we want to go, which airline we want to fly with and which hotel we want to stay with, sometimes we even stay in multiple hotels or cities just to get more variety out of our trips. Planning our own trips and taking the middle man out of the equation results in cheaper holidays for everyone, in fact, the only people that loose out are the travel agents!

Stag parties have been massively influenced by this new cheaper travel trend, with lads heading out all over the world to celebrate the demise of the groom. No longer do they meet up in a local pub and have a few beers before hitting the local nightclub, these days they jump on a flight to Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, Krakow or even Vegas and hit the town there instead!

Until recently, flying around a small country like the UK was practically unheard of unless you owned a private jet, but now you can fly from one city to the next with relative ease. Birmingham to London which normally takes two to three hours on the train becomes a 30 minute hop on a plane and in some instances, costs less then going over land by rail! If that isn’t the epitome of cheap travel, I don’t know what is!

I think my fellow STA Explorer Andy Janes has possibly beaten me to this one by a long shot, but music has also become an essential part of travel. Due to the huge amounts of storage and the ability to do crazy things like watch movies and surf the net, I couldn’t imagine travel without my iPhone. Compared to days of old where you would have lugged around a Walkman and multiple discs or tapes, the convenience of the iPhone makes it seem positively prehistoric! So much functionality in one little device. It even allows me to save money on calls by using Skype from a wifi network to ring home for practically nothing! What more could you want from a device?

I can’t remember the last time I took a flight and didn’t have some form of MP3 player in my pocket – these days you can even make calls and surf the web during the flight thanks to on board phone and wifi networks!

What do you think has changed travel in the last 30 years? Feel free to share it here or on your own blogs – just don’t forget to let STA Travel Buzz know in their comments!