We took an overnight train down to Hué, we had 4 berth cabins which felt a little like a prison cell, although quite comfortable I could have done without the 7am wakeup song that was blasted over the PA system.

The main part of Hué is within a citadel which was home to all the Emperors from 1802. We visited the inner imperial part of the citadel on the first day. It is quite an impressive complex of buildings with temples and statues all over place. Unfortunately I was quite tired and didn’t really take it all in.

Our second day in Hué was a lot more interesting, we all hired mopeds (with drivers, I don’t think anybody would be brave enough to chance the roads alone) and had a tour round the city starting off in at a local market there was a museum nearby showing how the locals live as well as a covered bridge with a sweet old lady who read the palms of some of the American girls.

We had lunch at what I think was a monastery and then headed over to the tomb of one of the kings. It reminded me a lot of tomb raider as the area hadn’t had any restoration done to it at all. By then it had started raining which I think had brought us down a bit because we went on a little cruise up the perfume river to a pagoda but nobody seemed to be very interested. One thing I did notice at the pagoda was an old American car that I actually recognised from the cover of a Rage Against the Machine album cover. It was actually the car used by a monk called Thích Quảng Đức who drove it down to a busy junction in Saigon and burned himself to death in protest of the treatment of monks by the government.

It took a little while to get my confidence up on the moped and ease by vice like grip of the handle on the back, especially at the fist junction we past, but it was great fun in the end, even managed a few Paparazzi type shots from the back.

My first real day with the Intrepid tour started with a breakfast at a restaurant staffed by street kids (sort of like Jamie Oliver’s one but without all the media attention and backing). The service was really nice and the food was gorgeous. Saying that, all the food in Vietnam is gorgeous, you could give a newspaper to a Vietnamese chef and you’d be tempted to lick the plate.

An hour later we where on the road for a four hour ride to Ha Long Bay for our little mini cruise aboard a Junk boat. Ha Long bay is a stretch of water with over 2000 little limestone islands dotted everywhere. The postcards and travel agents make it sound so secluded and romantic, the truth is that of the four million tourists that visit Vietnam each year over two million of them visit Ha Long Bay and sometimes it felt like they all chose to visit on the same day we did. Aboard we had lunch and sat around on the top deck admiring the view for a few hours before we were dropped off at the entrance to some limestone caves. The cave’s where quite interesting, lots of stalactites and stalagmites that if you squint hard enough might bare a slight resemblance to an animal.

That evening a few of us had a swim and got into a little bit of trouble for jumping in from the top deck of the boat which was about 25ft high before dinner followed by many hours of cards.

It took most of the morning to get back to Hanoi where we had the afternoon to do what we wanted. I joined a few people for a quick look around the Hanoi Hilton (the prison where a lot of POW’s where kept including presidential loser John McCain). It was all very interesting, but there seemed to be a lot of propaganda especially about how the American pilots were treated. I also had to go to the post office to send a few xmas presents back home which turned out to be a little complicated since I didn’t have a Vietnamese address and had to fill in 5 different forms.

After another amazing dinner we met up again at the hotel to catch the overnight train down to Hue (pronounced h’way as in “h’way the lads”). The 4 bed sleeper compartments where a little prison cell like, but not too uncomfortable and didn’t stop me sleeping.

Crossing a road in Hanoi

• Wait until the road you are going to cross is mostly mopeds and fewer cars.
• Take a deep breath and step off the curb (avoiding the river of god knows what in the gutter)
• Keep a constant pace, don’t speed up or slow down no matter what happens, just let the traffic deal with you.
• Arrive at the other side and change your underwear.

I arrived in Hanoi from a very brief overnight stay in Singapore. I ‘d love to write all about Singapore, but I was feeling really rough and all I really saw was the inside of the 20 bed prison like dorm I was staying in. I was up at 5am (again for the second day running) to catch my flight to Hanoi.

Still feeling quite bad I missed out on the Singapore airlines plane food (which actually looked quite tasty) and arrived in Hanoi some time in mid afternoon. I was bundled into a tiny minibus which for US$4 will take you the hours drive from the airport to anywhere in the city. The drive from the airport was terrifying, I don’t have enough fingers to count the number of times a moped nearly ended up under our wheels, you also soon get used to the sound of horns. Once at the hostel I went back to bed for a few hours then decided I should make an effort and go for a walk, but roads at night made me think again and I only ended up walking around the block.

The next day I was determined to see more of the city so I followed other people until I got the hang of the road crossing thing. I got ripped of buying a photocopied lonely planet guide book (that smells of fish), I thought I was paying £1 for it when I actually paid £10. Got a much better grasp of the exchange rate now (around 25,000 dong to the pound).

All the streets in old town Hanoi have a different theme: silk street, toy street comb street, clam worm street etc. each selling exactly what it say on the tin. This didn’t make it any easier to find my way around, I managed to get lost for about 2 hours after I popped out to the supermarket for shower gel.

I spent the rest of the day at the Hoan Kiem Lake getting hassled by the street touts who try and sell you anything they can and once they get up close and out of earshot of anyone else they offer a whole different range of products (I’m sure you can guess).

I also watched the water puppet show which turned out to be really funny. Seven puppeteers stand waist deep in a very smelly green pool and operate puppets from behind a screen whilst a live band plays along, I don’t think there was much of a plot to the storey, but it was really enjoyable.

I’ve met up with the guys I’ll be spending the next few weeks with on the first of my tours. They all seem nice enough, there’s 2 young Australian couples, an Australian mother and daughter, an American mother and Daughter and a family of Americans. We all went out for quite a posh Vietnamese dinner which came to all of £4

Next stop is Hanlong Bay which looks amazing from the photo’s I’ve seen. Hopefully I’ll get a couple of good HDR’s.

I met some Australians in Hiroshima who informed me that there was a Universal Studios in Osaka and that it had a proper full on Jaws ride. After the emotional roller-coaster that I had been through at the A-Bomb Museum and the Peace Park I jumped on an early train over there.

I was a little disappointed with park, although I had just visited the same place in Hollywood which had updated a lot of it’s rides. The jaws ride was great though, you go on a guided tour of Amity Island, then you get a call from another boat in distress. As you go through the rest of the ride Jaws get closer and cloaser to the boat and you get more and more wet. It ends with him chewing on a powerline and being blown up by a nearby oil drum, shot by the guide.

The other problem was that it was so cold, I’ve managed to get this far on my travels just wearing a hoody, and I didn’t really want to buy a coat to last the last 3 days before I head to SE Asia where a coat would definitely not be needed. I ended up mainly going on the rides that where indoors and using the time in the queues to warm up.

That night I met back up with the 2 Australian girls and anther Australian guy back at the hotel. It was decided that we should have a real Japanese night out and go to a Karaoke bar. I managed to murder the pixies, blur and underworld and we all had a go at chanting along to tubthumping.

The next morning the 2 Aussie girls an myself went to the Dotobori district of town which must have been an inspiration for Bladerunner. Lots of industrial buildings covered in neon signs. It looks like quite a trendy place to hang out, it was full of big groups teenagers all dressed up as though they where going out for the night. I head back into Tokyo for the evening and just went straight to bed.

For my last day in Tokyo I decided that I would just catch the subway to Akihabara, then just walk in a random direction until I found something interesting or I got bored. I found a cool market selling all sorts for weird stuff as well as a whole load of fish. They also seemed to sell a hell of a lot of octopus which I’ve never really seen on sale before.

I ended the night at a restaurant with an English guy I was sharing a room with, he showed me Okonomiyaki which is like a pancake, cabbage and whatever other fillings you like. I had shrimp, they also topped it with a special Okonomiyaki sauce which tasted just like HP brown sauce to me. We had a really interesting conversation about how you meet people and have this weird little relationship with them where they become like your best friends and then a couple of days later one of you has moved on and all of sudden your doing the same thing with someone else. I’m sort of looking forward to doing an organised tour where I’ll be with one group of people for a few weeks.

I had to get up early to catch my flight to Singapore where I’ve got an overnight stop before I get to Hanoi. I flew on the new double decker super jumbo A380, Economy class was pretty much the same as on any other plane, but I did walk through business class which looked wicked. You get a double seat and a 21″ TV. Unfortunately I’ve been feeling a little rough since last night and didn’t sleep at all, to top it all off I was sick a few times on the plane. Hopefully it’ll not last to long and I’ll be good for my first Tour starting on Tuesday.

I spent my first night in Hiroshima drinking in the hostel with three Austrailians that I was sharing a room with. We got a bottle of Saki between us, because none of them had tried it before. I don’t think I’ll be rushing out to buy another. We spent the night playing games. They showed me Uno and I showed them Othello.

Hiroshima seems like quite a cool city, there’s a lot going on and it seems like it has quite a vibrant night-life, but I guess it’s hard to come here and not spend the day immersed in the city’s horrific past.

I spent the day at the Peace Park and A-Bomb Museum, it was quite an emotional affair and there was a couple of times that the room got a little dusty.

First off visited the A-Bomb dome. The bomb exploded almost directly above it and is one of only a handful of buildings that survived the attack. As I was wondering around I walked past a group of Eastern European tourists who where taking smiley, happy photo’s of themselves pointing at the building, I got so angry, I felt like screaming at them.

Next I walked over the bridge into the peace garden. There is a monument with an origami crane on top of it. There is a story about a girl called Sadako Sasaki. She was only 2 when she survived the initial explosion, but 10 years later fell ill with leukaemia. Spurred on by an old Japanese saying that if you fold 1000 cranes, the gods will grant you a wish. She folded well over 1000 (although wikipedia says she only folded 644) but her wish to get better was not granted and she died a few months later. Now the crane has become a symbol for peace in Japan and Japanese children fold them in the millions and are delivered to hang in the peace garden. Whilst I was there a group of kids came and sung a song around the monument and whilst I was watching a much younger girl came up to me and gave me a crane. Cue more damp eyes.

There is also an A-Bomb museum in the park which I spent most of the day wondering through. It go’s through the history of Hiroshima, before and after models, the science of the bomb etc. The most heart wrenching though is all the torn,burnt blood soaked clothes and personal items, complete with the story behind each of them. The one that really got me was the skin and finger nails of a boy called Noriaki Teshima who was at school when the bomb went off. He somehow made it home despite his skin dangling in tatters. He died a day later, but is said to have been so thirsty he sucked the pus from is nail-less fingers

The Museum also exhibits the letters of protest written by the mayor of Hiroshima to the leader of a country following any nuclear testing they do. So far there has been well over 600 letters, the last one being to Kim Jong Ill in North Korea.

I’m back at the hostel now feeling a bit moody, but I’m hoping to go to Osaka early tomorrow and hopefully go to the Japanese Universal Studios which will be quite a contrast from today.

Kyoto’s, home to Temples, Shrines, Gisha’s, Parks, blah, blah, blah. When I arrived in kyoto I only had one thing on my mind: Monkeys. There is a monkey sanctuary/park in the Arishiyama area of town. It takes about 20 minutes to climb up a quite a steep hill to the park. At the top of the hill you get ushered into the resting area where there is a cage on one side, from which you can feed the monkeys, but you can also go outside and wonder amongst them. I think I stayed there a bit too long, a couple of them came right up to my leg a started grooming each other.

I spent a couple of hours wondering around the gardens of the Tenryuji Temple which was quite nice, but I suspect that it’s quite similar to the hundreds of other temples that are found throughout Kyoto. I also went down to the Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine which is a series of small temples linked together with pathways which are lined with thousands of Torii (the red gate things). I got a bit lost wondering around and once it was dark the shrines got a little bit spooky.

I lso spent a day in a city called Nara which apparently was Japan’s first real capital (back in 710). It has a large temple and park complex which is inhabited with hundreds of wild deer that have lost their fear of humans and will happily walk up to you (especially if you have handful of crackers that the street vendors sell). Alson in Nara is Todai-Ji, which is a temple that houses the Daibutsu-den Hall, the largest wooden building in the world. Inside is a 15m high Bronze Buddha (I’m about as big as one of it’s fingers). The place was packed with school kids and tourists, but I think it’s funny how people go to places like this and never seem to take their eyes away from the the viewfinder of their cameras. Maybe I’m a little guilty of that as well, but I try to put my camera away for a bit every time I visit somewhere.

I took most of today off to do washing etc. and also to travel down to Hiroshima which is about 2 hours south-west by bullet train. I’m going to have a look around the A-Bomb museum and Peace Gardens tomorrow and possibly go down to Miyajima.

I’m not sure how the time difference works out, but I left Seattle on the scariest bus ride of all time in the early hours of Monday morning and arrived in Tokyo very late on Tuesday night in a state that would put a George Romero zombie to shame.

After a really good nights sleep and trying to work out how to use the toilet, I set off for a look around the neighborhood. I’m staying in an area of Tokyo called Asakusa. There is a huge temple just up the road and it’s surrounded by a market, a really cute little garden (complete with fish pond) and a maze of little store fronts selling all sorts of weird food and trinkets.

I was sharing a room with 3 Swedes: Gus, Linda and Robert who turned out to be great fun. Gus was very eccentrict but funny, he always wears a top hat when he’s out. Linda and Robert where a little more reserved, but still great fun. They invited me to join them out for the night to the Shibuya area of the city. It’s one of the more young and trendy areas of town which is probably most famous for a crossroads that was used in Lost in Translation. We went to a noodle bar for dinner and ate for about £3 each. The food I’ve tried so far in Japan hasn’t been too great, but I’m defiantly open to trying anything new and maybe I’ve just been going to the wrong places. I’ve made myself a promise that I’m going to eat at least half of everything I buy, no matter how bad it tastes.

We also went to a Manga internet cafe, which are littered all over Tokyo. It costs around £2 for an hour’s use of a private cubical in which you get a PC and comfy chair and you also have access to a very comprehensive library of Manga books and DVD’s. There is also bring food and drink to your cubical on request. Apparently a lot of people use them to stay in over night if they miss the last train home, although it did seem a bit seedy and Linda said that the guy in the cubical next to her was “making himself very comfortable” whatever that means to a Swedish.

I’ve also spent a day visiting the Ginza area which is full of designer shops and department stores but not really my scene and the Akhiabara (aka electric town) area which was much more to my liking. There is streets and streets of gadget shops (including a massive 7 storey gadget have called Yodobashi Camera) and an unusual amount of “adult” stores and quite often the 2 merge and you suddenly find yourself surrounded by vibrators.

I’ve started getting the hang of some of the customs , bowing at people and taking your shoes off at the door are the 2 biggest ones. I’m also really worried about unwittingly offending someone. I know it’s really bad manors to blow your nose in public (which doesn’t help when I’ve got the beginnings of a cold and there must be a stack of others that I don’t know about. If anyone’s got any ideas, let me know.

The Japanese people are really friendly, and always putting themselves out to help you out. I really wanted to go to the Studio Gibli museum and the girl on reception at the hostel wrote me a note in japanese saying “please can you help me buy a ticket” with all the information on I needed to take to take to the supermarket which has ticket machines within it. Unfortunately it turns out the the museum is fully booked the whole time I’m in Japan, but I was really impressed by the good nature of everyone.

I caught the Shinkansen “Bullet” train to Kyoto today it was really smooth and apparently goes at 285 km/h but on the inside it was pretty much like any other train.

Since arriving here on election night I’ve been feeling a bit lethargic, I don’t now if I’m coming down with something or if it’s just the previous six weeks catching up with me. The weather hasn’t helped much either, it rained almost all day every day up until today. I’ve spent a lot of time just hanging around the hostel chatting to the other travelers, watching movies and sleeping, lots of sleeping.

When I did venture out I found Seattle to be a really cool place where people can be themselves, it seems like every other person in the street is covered in tattoos and piercings with pink and green hair.

Being the home of Hendrix, Nirvana and Pearl Jam, it was unsurprising that most of the bars here are slightly on the rockier side, which suits me. One in particular stood out called Shorty’s on 2nd Ave. All the tables in the bar are made from pinball tables with another room out the back with around another 30 tables. Apparently the bar hosts international pinball tournaments as well.

I didn’t really see many of the attractions around Seattle, but one placed I did really enjoy was the Pike Place Market which was handily situated across the road from the hostel. I think it’s mostly famous for the fish stall where people shout and throw fish a lot in front of crowds of tourists, but if you venture a little deeper inside there’s a myriad of cool tiny little specialist shops selling bizarre things like old movie posters, magic tricks wind up toys old Indian herbal remedy’s an trippy little action figures.

The thing I’m enjoying most about travel is the totally random things I end up doing at the last minute. Last night I ended up in a bar at 1am with the 2 people I was sharing a room with (both of them in their pajamas) ordering a cup of tea, just because. Then tonight I was just settling down to watch the movie they where showing in the hostel, when I got invited to a radiohead laser show in the imax theatre in the science museum. Turned out to be one of my favourite things I’ve done so far.

I’m supposed to be leaving for Japan in the morning, but it looks like the connecting flight I was supposed to catch from LA has been moved forward an hour and a half which doesn’t leave a lot of room to deal with any delays. I need to speak to the travel agent I used and try and get booked on an earlier flight down to LA, otherwise it’s going to be a bit of a mad dash through the airport. Hopefully my next blog entry will be from Tokyo and not from the departures lounge of LAX.

I’ve spent my first night in Seattle in a bar watching the election results come in. All the bars were full of Obama supporters screaming, cheering and applauding every result that came in the democrats favour. When the California result was called (only 10 minutes after the polls closed) the place erupted, there was singing and chanting and the bar owner pored everyone a glass of champagne. The atmosphere was pretty electric.

After Obama made his victory speech a samba band came into the bar and gave 10 minutes of drumming and the bar emptied to follow a street procession down to the market square 1 mile down the road followed by half a dozen police cars. The party conveniently stopped directly outside the hostel. And with screams of “yes we can” I left the party. As I’m writing this another group has came from another direction complete with a brass band. This might just be one of the most memorable nights of my life.

I’m not sure why, but instead of heading straight up to Seattle I decided to spend a couple of nights in Portland, Oregon. I’ve heard from a few people that it’s amazing this time of year and the people are friendly. Turns out they were right.

I arrived on Sunday night around 8pm after a 24 hour train ride from San Francisco. I spent the journey sat next to a guy called Elijah who was from Seattle and had been hitchhiking his way around California for the past month and was on his way home now that his money had ran out. I was really impressed at his outlook on life, he works solidly at whatever work he can find for a few months, then travels as much as he can until the money runs out.

The hostel I stayed in was quite small but well run and a lot cleaner than most of the hostels I’ve used. Every night they get the leftover Pizza from the restaurant a couple of blocks away which saved me paying for dinner.

I really only had one day to experience Portland, and unfortunately the weather was very Newcastle like (damp), so the photos haven’t come out very well. I spent the morning wondering around Washington Park which had loads of little trails running through it along with a rose garden and a Japanese garden. I really enjoyed it, the colours of the trees, where truly amazing. In the afternoon I headed for downtown, to a bookstore called Powell’s which is the other thing Portland is famous for. It takes up an entire block and is 3 storeys high; it’s bigger than most libraries. I spent a couple of hours browsing around there and headed back to the hostel. I thought there was a pub quiz in the evening, but it turns I had got my days mixed up and I was a day early so instead I just hung around the hostel talking to a few Americans comparing the differences and stereotypes between Europeans and Americans, turns out everyone’s wrong about everyone.

I’m currently on my last train ride to Seattle which is only about 4 hours long. it’s election day so I’m hoping that the hostel I’m staying in will be showing the coverage of the results tonight, if not I’ll have to find a bar or something. I was a little bit surprised how much of an event it really is, there is a real buzz in the air. I was in a bar when one of the debates was on and there where people sat round watching it as though it where a sports match or something. I can’t really imagine that happening in Britain. Hopefully it’ll be a big turning point for the country.