Deciding on the Annapurna Circuit

Once i finally picked which trek i was going to do, and decided i wouldn't buy a guide or porter,  i made my way down to the Kathmandu Tourist Office to apply for all the relevant permits etc. Once there, by chance i said hello to the only two other people in the whole building that were applying to go trekking. Funnily enough they were doing the Anapurna Circut as well!, were massive fans of New Zealand,  aaand were leaving on the same day!, needless to say we decided to join up and do the trek together.

The next morning i met up with Brian and Paris and we walked to the bus station to catch a ride to Besisahar. The approximate time for the bus ride was surposed to be between 7-8 hours, although Murphys law decided to rear his ugly head and make it last over 10 hours. On the way we met gridline traffic twice due to massive car crashes, one i even hear took 11 lives!

First few days in Nepal

NOTE: NEPAL HAS SHITTY INTERNET SO I CANT UPLOAD PHOTOS ON HERE UNTIL CANADA. I WILL UPDATE WITH PHOTOS ONCE THERE
  
Finally out of Thailand and back to a trip that involves more than one big city filled with lady boys, seedy white men and clean bathrooms!. The trip began with me trying to save a few dollars by staying over at the airport since my flight was pretty early, sadly i realised too late that the airport i was flying out of was not the new pretty airport that has burger king and subway, but the one that Bangkok left to rot until Air Asia decided to use it for cheap flights.
 

All the seats were bucket shaped so you couldn't lie down, there was nowhere to get any half decent food, and sleep was almost non existent! although funnily enough Ive done this so much now that it wasn't even that bad. After pretending my bag only looked 8kgs (Air Asia max) even though it was more like 15kg i jumped on the plane and flew to Kular Lumpar for the second time this trip. After another big layover i get to Kathmandu!

Once i land I'm greeted to a much more temperate country compared to Thailand which was a welcome change. Getting the 30 day visa was a piece of cake and i had already sorted the hostel i was staying at to come pick me up so i could dodge the 300 taxi drivers outside. Kathmandu was definitely a change to anywhere else i had been on this trip, it reminded me of when i first flew into Lima to meet up with day all those years ago, expect this time i was prepared!. Once at the hostel i got out $30,000 rupees (approx 360nzd) and called it a night.

 Over the next few days i went and and looked at  all the tourist hotspots like the monkey temple, Bodnath Stupa and Durbar Square which was much of the same thing Ive seen everywhere else except for one of the temples in the Square called the Kumari Ghar. It absolutely fascinated me, which was funny because before i finally broke down and bought a local guide i didn't think much of it, but this temple is where the Nepal's "living Goddess" lives. If you don't know about these girls you best read up, its honestly the most interesting thing Ive learnt in my whole trip. Sadly when i was there she didn't come out to the balcony (which she does every once in a while) but it was still awesome to just hear about how she is picked, brought up and treated. Next door to here temple is a massive golden throne that's used one a year to carry her through Kathmandu (because she could never touch the dirty ol ground) which is carried by any and everyone!

The temple above is the location where after the priests pick out a suitable girl, they stuff her in a room full of dead animal parts in pitch black darkness and literally try scare the shit out of her, if shes deemed worthy after this abuse she becomes a goddess!....well until she bleeds, gets a pimple, gets sick or anything, after that the goddess part of her has moved onto another host.

Another thing i did was prep for some sort of trek i hadn't yet picked out yet. This included finding the only size 11 trekking boots in Kathmandu, some shirts, a down jacket, a fleece,  some "hip as" zipoff pants, a trekking bag, chlorine tablets for water and some trekking  socks, all of which cost me maybe $200? (i really need to learn how to keep track of my money).

Note: Evvvvery warned me about buying new boots and not "worn in" boots just in case the new ones gave me blisters etc, but #YOLO.

Spoiler:- They were amazing.

The Hangovertini

NOTE: NEPAL HAS SHITTY INTERNET SO I CANT UPLOAD PHOTOS ON HERE UNTIL CANADA. I WILL UPDATE WITH PHOTOS ONCE THERE

One of the nights i was in Bangkok, i went to the Sky Bar (as seen on The Hangover 2), its was so fancy up there and the prices were crazy!, although about normal price compared to NZ/OZ. I tried a Hangovertini, the trademark drink here since the movie. It tasted pretty bad, it tasted like a whiskey coke with rosemary in it, this is what the cast supposedly drank while staying there but i think it was just made to look like a beer (as seen in the photo).

Look at the prices!, one earl grey tea was over $10

The Skybar though was amazing!, its supposedly the highest open garden bar in the world, i don't know how true that is though. I ended up going up there with an Australian (blasphemy!) called Maddie. Since we both knew no one we ended up doing most of the other tourist things together, like a few temples and stuff, including some pretty awesome clubs, we even made friends with a band and followed them around to a few bars!

Overall Bangkok is a big ol city and not much more, but being stuck there for 3 weeks slowly warmed me up to it. If it wasn't so hot i could handle living there for a bit.

Bangkok

NOTE: NEPAL HAS SHITTY INTERNET SO I CANT UPLOAD PHOTOS ON HERE UNTIL CANADA. I WILL UPDATE WITH PHOTOS ONCE THERE


So i got into Bangkok at midnight, and since the public transport was closed and i didn't want to pay for a taxi and a bed for the night i stayed in the airport!. It was pretty fun actually, felt like that Tom Hanks movie. In the morning i got on the train and found my hostel which was awesome, it was made out of shipping containers!, in fact i had only booked for a few nights, which ballooned to over a week since without realising it was very close to the dentist i decided to go to.



I picked Bangkok Smile Dentist after emailing the guy from New Zealand that started the whole "medical Vacation to Thailand" thing . He suggested to stay away from Puket and stick with Bangkok since they are usually more qualified and in less of a rush, in fact Bangkok Smile Dental is the one he uses for his clients. Once i was settled in to my hostel i went straight to the dentist. I walked through the door with no appointment and within 1 hour i had an xray, filling and an appointment for the next day to get my first two wisdom teeth out!


The extraction went great the next day, hardly hurt, minor swelling and minimal pain after. It took maybe two days before i could open my mouth correctly, but that was mainly that they ripped the side of my mouth a bit. Only side effect was that i drooled ALOT in bed, felt  bit bad about that. Around the same time that i was feeling better a whole new group of guys came to the same hostel, we ended up teaming up and for the next days we went out a few times, went to markets, etc. Sadly they were all off to Chang Mai then Laos?Vietnam so i couldn't go since i had a few more teeth to come out.
The third and forth wisdom teeth were much sorer to get out, the drill vibrated right through my jaw and for some reason no matter how much local anaesthetic they gave me i could still feel my bottom tooth being ripped out in pieces, the lady said they were the hardest she had ever got out, so i have that going for me. This time the recovery was almost instant!, only two pain killers that night and i haven't needed any since, in fact the next day i was temple and sightseeing, followed by  a night out in town!. Anyone that needs dental needs to go to that dentist i had.

Hong Kong

I touched down in Hong Kong around 9pm then got on the airport bus to the city. Compared to mainland china it was like going 20 years into the future!, the airport was amazing, the bus was amazing (and the prices showed why) and my hostel was located in-between a Louis Vutton and Gucci store. After finally being able to get on facebook after two weeks to tell people I was still alive I went to bed, ready for a big day ahead.

My main plan in Hong Kong was to find a cheap phone while walking around the city, as you all know I cant just buy something on a whim I knew today would be window shopping and taking prices, then tomorrow I would actually buy one. When I got back to the hostel to read reviews on all the phones I might buy I ran into a 39 year old American who sat down next to me with a handful of beers which he was pounding down, I even got the " aren't you New Zealanders known to be great drinkers? your being too slow, finish up!".

Before I knew it we were walking through the streets bar hopping and talking shit. We ending up talking with this stuck up brit who I hated more than Geoffrey from Game of Thrones!. He was actually ok at the start, but the American I was with just rubbed him the wrong way (no surprise, the American was very loud etc). The Brit did give some good insight into why Chinese are buying all the houses in Auckland among a lot of stories which reminded me that people really only care about money and nothing else (he was a investor/money launder). Later on the American and I went to another bar where we met up with some English doctors/teachers that were there for a conference, these guys gave me a little more hope for humanity after the last guy. By the end of the night we were drinking with the dean of a medical school in England. The night ended with the American getting too drunk and the dean and taking him back to his room. In the morning he found me and asked how he was so plastered but I was fine even after we drunk the same amount. I replied I was a Kiwi ;).
The next day I found the phone I wanted (Nexus 5), jumped back onto the Airport bus and found my way to Bangkok!

Last night in Beijing, Party Time!

As you would already now, this is the night I got my phone stolen!, lets elaborate.
So on this day I changed hostels to a slightly more party orientated one, knowing that since it was my last day I wanted to go out. Lucky for me, the instant I got in, I met a guy that I had met in Shanghai! so within a few minutes I latched onto him and his group of friends. In the day we planned to go to a few more temples until it started to absolutely pour with rain, so instead we went to this place called the silk market. This place is widely known as the upper class black market...market?. Once there we realised what they meant. It wasn't some street market covering a car park or something, it was a 5 story high mall, where all of the goods were mainly knock offs!.
  

After a bit of shopping, we got back to the hostel and started on the beers while watching the movie "beerfest" since almost everyone was from Germany. One of the girls we were with had a friend in Beijing and had sorted us a club that let foreigners in for a few dollars for unlimited drinks so after the movie we headed our way down to the club. Once in there we found out the club was on something like the 30th floor in a sky scraper, overlooking all of Beijing!, I took some photos with my phone buuuut never got to see them.

 We ended up staying till closing because it was so good. Once we got outside I was bumped over by a guy in the street and fell to the ground, I didn't think much of it at the time until around a minute later I went to check my phone and it was gone! that checkey prick had some moves. Sadly this ruined my buzz for the rest of the night, but there's much worse things than getting your phone stolen!


Anyways, the next morning I had an early bullet train booked to Shanghai which I only just made and once there I just did some washing/had an early night etc since the next day I had a flight to Hong Kong.

Great Wall of China (secret hostel run part of the wall)

After seeing the very touristy part of the wall, which was completely reconditioned I thought it would be good to go to a part of the wall that wasn't. the hostel I was staying at had a tour that said it would take you to a part of the wall that was a mixture of touched and untouched wall where only they were allowed to take people (I'm guessing while it was being fixed).

This was muuuch more expensive than the other part I had seen since it was in the tour, but once again the wall was the only reason I was there, so I may as well see as much as I could of it. Once there, I saw that the money was worth it. No one was there but us!, the start was fully rebuilt, but the further you walked the worse the condition of the wall was. I walked past the builders who were rebuilding the wall, and once past them I was completely alone (I quickly raced ahead of the pack I was with).