Traveling in Japan is challenging, but extremely rewarding. It’s easily the most modern country we’ve been to (or probably ever will) but that doesn’t make traveling there easier. Actually, budget traveling is difficult – if you had money to burn it would be a breeze. Hotels are everywhere and the Shinkansen (bullet train) is fast and efficient, but both are hideously expensive when converted to Australian dollars (or any other currency). Budget accommodation is difficult to find (in summer anyway) and the public trains are hard work when traveling between cities with packs. Away from the tourist attractions most people don’t speak English. Luckily, we both speak a bit of Japanese and really enjoyed finally being able to speak to the locals in their own language. It helps when trying to buy things and find your way around too.

Just a quick post to say that we are alive and well in Japan. Internet access is few and far between here, and what we have found is expensive, which is why we have been so quiet until now.

We are having a fantastic time travelling in Japan, but are finding that travelling here is the hardest we have experienced so far. We will write more details later, but I`ll just say that so far we have visited friends in Nagoya, toured around Hiroshima and are now staying in Kyoto, spending a few days looking at historical temples and castles. Next stop will be Tokyo and hopefully we will climb Mt Fuji too.

We also have a post on the way for our few days in Hong Kong.

We had to fly via Hong Kong to get to Japan, so we had decided to stop over for a couple of nights and have a look around, not really knowing much about the place at all. It turned out to be a cool city to visit.

On our way back to Bangkok we stayed two nights in Sukotai, a dusty town half way between ChangMai and Bangkok. We hired pushbikes and toured the Sukotai Historical Park - temple and building ruins from Thailand's first capital and golden age, back in the 13th century. It was interesting to try and imagine what life in the city must have been like back then.

We had decided that we wanted to be a bit adventurous whilst in Chiang Mai and were looking into going on a three day/two night trek in the jungle. There are SO many different treking agencies in Chiang Mai (literally hundreds) so we were finding it difficult to choose one. We had heard that a lot of people go on the treks to smoke opium and that a lot of the guides regularly get stoned on the trips so we were anxious to choose a reputable company (the thought of being out in the jungle close to the Myanmar (Burma) border, which is closed due to conflict between the two countries, with a stoned guide was not really that appealing!).

We have uploaded some photos from Ko Pha-Ngan. Please excuse the poor quality. We had this film developed in Bangkok, and they didn't do a very good job.

The photos can be viewed in the post entitled Beach Hopping.

We went north from Bangkok, to Chiang Mai, the capital of Thailand's north. We opted for the overnight bus instead of the sleeper train, based on price (although we much prefer the train). It all turned out to be a bit of a schmozle.