Toyota pretty well owns the market for saloon cars (almost always Camry) and pickup trucks. Hyundai is the brand of choice for minivans. Honda is doing well too: they have a huge share of the small (100-125cc) motorcycle market, which is a popular way to get around in most places, and the dominant vehicle choice…
Author: scjody
Bicycle #09
The first bicycle I ever bought was a Giant Sedona ATX back in 1994. It was a rigid frame mountain bike with STX (slightly above today’s Alivio) components. I rode it all over the trails of St. John’s, took it to university in Kingston, put it on a train to Vancouver, then rode it back…
Phase IIIb: into Tibet and onto Kathmandu
Robin and I spent the last week in Beijing.. I needed to do some planning, book some tickets, get a visa… and Beijing is a great city anyway (apart from the pollution.) We’re now on a train from Beijing to Xining. We left the hostel at about the same time but by different routes: she…
Vietnam 2: Hoi An, Huế, Hanoi
From Saigon, I headed to Hoi An. This is a beautiful heritage town filled with old buildings, most of which now house custom tailors! These are places that will make you any sort of garment, usually overnight. Prices are good but sadly quality isn’t, so I didn’t get anything made. Instead, I wandered around the…
Vietnam 1: Mekong Delta, Saigon
Robin and I entered Vietnam on a boat from Phnom Penh to the Mekong Delta and spent a few days there. The delta is one of the regions that feeds Vietnam (and probably other parts of the world too..) I didn’t see much rice growing, but the evidence was all along the river: random floes…
Beijing break
Robin and I are in Beijing, taking a much needed break from moving every few days. Also I’m still getting ready for the rest of my trip… cycling in Tibet and the Trans-Siberian. So… how we got here, in brief: from Dali, we took the bus to Kunming, the train to Guilin, then a short…
Sometimes, planning is hard…
Things I’ve had to deal with lately: Getting a Russian visa. Apparently this can only be done at home, or in a country where you have permission to stay for 90 days or more. For me, this means Hong Kong. I had to buy an "invitation" online for 45 USD, print it at a business…
1957 Minsk
I met a traveller outside a café in Saigon who was strapping a variety of tools and parts to the back of an antique motorcycle. He told me it was a 1957 Minsk and he was riding it to Hanoi over the next few weeks. He had just bought it for $300 (USD) and had…
The temples of Angkor
I’ve uploaded my photos from the temples of Angkor near Siem Reap, Cambodia. We spent a very full day visiting the temples. We got up at 4:30 and got on our tuktuk for a ride through complete darkness to the ticketing station. Then, up to Sras Srang, a small reservoir, for sunrise. After that, we…
Phase III: China
We entered China on May 1 after a bit of a misadventure coming down the mountain from Sapa: I realized about halfway down that I’d left my passport at the hotel :( We were in a full van of people which obviously couldn’t turn back just for me, so Robin and I continued to the…
Ayutthaya
I’ve uploaded my photos of Ayutthaya. This is one of the ancient capitals of Thailand, active from 1351 to 1767. There are some great ruins, including a chedi (pointy mound found at some temples) with a tree growing right through its middle! Some of the structures have decayed in a way that shows that they…
Vietnam so far
Oh yeah, I have a blog :) Vietnam so far has been great. People are really friendly, even when they’re not trying to sell you something! Even arriving in the country on a canal in the Mekong Delta, there were kids on the banks waving at us and yelling "Hello! Hello!" The trip so far…
My life is a stereo
My life is a stereo… I found these biscuits in Cambodia. They taste just like Oreos. …kinda cheaply made though About 1/4 of the cookies had one side backwards, in other words the textured side of the biscuit was smushed into the filling. One cookie was completely backwards: smooth side out on both sides! Julie,…
Riverside Hotel
A few days ago in Saigon (nobody calls it Ho Chi Minh City), we were on a bus for a day tour, the kind of bus that drives around and picks everyone up at their hotel. The tour guide checked his list, and then: Tour guide: "Does anyone stay at the Riverside Hotel?" Tour guide:…
I’m on a boat
Robin and I are on a boat to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. We passed a couple of days in Siem Reap, visiting the temples of Angkor. We visited Angkor Wat last and found it somewhat anticlimactic, mostly because it’s bandaged up with scaffolds for restoration and packed with tourists. Bayon, with its hundreds of…
Holiday in Cambodia
Cambodia is a dual-currency country. Anything even remotely touristy prices its offerings in US dollars. Coins are not used though. Any change under 1 USD is given back in the local currency, Riel, usually at a 4000:1 exchange rate, which exists in bills as low as 100 Riel (well under 1¢.) A tuktuk, southeast Asia’s…
Louang Prabang and a waterfall
Robin and I took the "VIP" bus to Louang Prabang a few days ago. It wasn’t a great ride – no aircon, twisty roads, an unscheduled stop when the bus in front of us hit someone in the middle of the road and waited (blocking both directions of the road) until the police photographed its…
ATR 72
From Louang Prabang: a chance to fly a new (to me) airline and aircraft: Lao Airlines and an ATR 72. The airport was small and security was poor. A photocopied sign, strangely from CATSA (Canadian air security) advertised the usual liquid ban, but they xrayed all our bags when we entered the airport, with no…
Pizzeria names in Siem Reap, Cambodia
Happy Herb’s Pizza Happy Angkor Pizza Ecstacic Pizza Happy Special Pizza (We were in Siem Reap Apr 4-7, 2010)
Heading to Cambodia
From Vang Vieng, we took the bus to to Louang Prabang then flew to Chiang Mai, rode elephants, and took the train to Bangkok. Right now we’re in Bangkok for one last night before heading to Cambodia (train to the border, share taxi to Siem Reap, probably.) I have a few half-finished blog entries on…