7 to 18 March 2019 - Brunei Darussalam

On arrival at Brunei, late evening, I went into the airport toilet and when finished there found airport staff looking for me. As there had been only 20 people on the plane, the last of the day, and I was the last person to go through the formalities,  I was told nicely to hurry up as everyone wanted to go home. Flew through immigration and customs to find my family waiting for me. The time in Brunei was spent staying with my family and mainly touring round the capital, Bandar Seri Bagawan, with a trip across the border for a meal and to stock up on drink. Brunei being an Islamic country it is not allowed for anyone to buy or drink alcohol anywhere in public view. However, a non-Muslim may take an allowance into the country and non-Muslim expatiates are allowed to cross the border and take back 2 litres of wine or spirits plus 12 cans of beer every 48 hours.

Views of Brunei

Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei

River dwellings

Sultan's Palace

River bank

At the river bank

Mosque at the side of the river

Temburong Bridge

Jame'Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque

Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque

Jame'Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque

Jame'Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque Entrance

Oil Pump

The Teapot Roundabout

Kite Festival

The park along the river

Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque

I left Brunei on 18 March and after a stop at Singapore arrived in London the following day, almost three months to the day when I left the UK to start this trip. Russia and the Trans Siberian train journey was magical, especially in the snow. I rarely noticed the cold so that was a distinct plus. Harbin was different to what I had seen on TV mainly because little prominence had been given to the Snow Festival which I thought was fantastic. The Ice Festival was different too as I did not know beforehand that it would be possible not only to look at the ice buildings but actually be able to touch and walk through them. Anyone going to South Korea should go to Jeju Island as there seemed to be so much to do there. North Korea was an eye-opener for me with the buildings, culture and food; the oppressiveness of the place not being obvious until near the end of my stay there and especially the contrast to Dandong. I did enjoy seeing and climbing on the eastern end of the Great Wall in Dandong, the reason I wanted to go there in the first place. Beijing and Bangkok were as expected with there being more people and cars to be seen in both places. Brunei had it’s mosques and river, all of which I enjoyed. It was a good trip!

25 February to 6 March 2019 – Bangkok (Thailand)

I spent one night in Beijing, picked up the luggage I had left at the hotel having only taken a 20 litre day bag to North Korea, and caught a flight to Bangkok arriving there at 22.00 hours. On arrival at the Indra Regent Hotel, one I had stayed at many times before, I was asked for a cash deposit of B3000 before being allowed to go to the room. I protested so vigorously that a manager had to be called, and I still protested. Eventually I was given the room key after telling them that the room was booked with a credit card and charges for damage etc could be be added to the card as they already had that information. When I asked for a room on a lower floor I was told that it was not possible and later found out that the lower floors were only used for Asian guests because of the food smell that they left everywhere. Wifi also had to be paid for but with the problems I had accessing wifi they cancelled the charge for almost all my stay there.

The stay in Bangkok was mainly to rest after the earlier travels and most of the time there was spent looking at temples I had not seen before, and some I had. There was a climb-on and climb-off bus to go round the sites only with the amount of traffic in the city I thought that it would not be of much use. There was also the same sort of canal boat that was one reasonable price for all day travel and that I used a couple of times as it was easy to move around, and cooler as well.

On 6 March I flew to Brunei (capital Bandar Seri Begawan) to visit my daughter and son-in-law who were both working there, a flight of about 4 hours.

Views of Bangkok

Bang In Phu Canal

Looking down on Bangkok from the Golden Mount Temple

Golden Mount

  

Golden Mount

Bobae Pier Bridge

Mahakan Fort

Wat Ratchanatdaram

View from Wat Ratchanatdaram

The Grand Palace

The Grand Palace

The Grand Palace

The Grand Palace

At the Ladyboy Show

23 and 24 February 2019 – Dandong (China)

The first visit of the day was to the village of Husan, 12 kilometres from Dandong, to see the eastern end of the Great Wall of China which was built on mountains on the border with North Korea . The wall was built from 1368 to 1644 and stretches 8,850 km (5,500 miles) to Xinjiang in the far west. It was certainly a hard walk to get to the top of the mountain and from where the wall could be seen to extend into the distance. This is also called the Tiger Mountain section of the Great Wall.

On the way to the top

   

The eastern end of the wall looking toward the coast

Part of the Great Wall

From Hushan I visited the Taiping Wan Barrage which controls the flow of water in the lower Yalu River and also has hydroelectric machines installed in the dam. The power station is run by the Chinese with the generated power being supplied to both China and North Korea. One point made by the guide was that boats from both countries used the river no-one could land in the other’s country. 

The Taiping Wan Barrage

Lunch was at the local village restaurant where we had to wait for the owners to open as they they had been at a wedding. There were local stalls in the middle of the road so I bought some strawberries from one. They were very big, very very sweet and packed singly,which I did not expect.

After lunch I was taken to see the Quigcheng Bridge (or Broken Bridge) the part of which is a war memorial on the Chinese side of the river. Quite a number of Chinese people walked out on the bridge to stare at North Korea, considered to be a mysterious country by the Chinese.

A short cruise on the river followed on a boat full of Chinese people. They were quick to hire bioculars from the crew to have a better look at the people and soldiers on the Korean side of the river, shouting at them being and completely ignored by the Koreans. I took a photo of a woman on the boat only because her boyfriend was taking so long to take one that even I was annoyed. She just laughed to see what I had done, the boyfriend not even noticing.

Desolate North Korea

Desolate North Korea

Dinner was at a dumpling franchise and not very good. The dumplings in Kathmandu china west were much better. I’d asked the guide if there was somewhere I could get a back massage so he took me to a place that he used, one operated by blind/partially sighted people. I think that the Chinese train these people to do massages so to be productive as I have found them in Kunming, Lhasa and now Dandong.

Pagoda at the top of the mountain

The following morning we walked up to the pagoda at the top of Jinjiang Mountain Park. It was a lovely morning at the bottom of the mountain but the city was covered in clouds by the time I arrived at the top. There were a lot of families around as part of the park had children's rides and a type of funfair. One wall was covered in letters with people reading them. When I asked what they were I was told that they were letters extolling the attributes of adult children written by parents looking for marriage partners for their male and female children. I guess arranged marriages are still common there.
A haircut followed, in a tin shack after the guide phoned the barber to see if he was working on a Sunday. The guide told me that he had asked around his friends for a suitable barber for me saying that most barbers he knew were too young and he thought that they could not be trusted to cut my hair and beard. The older barber did a good job. Lunch then back to the blind massage parlor for another back massage .

I was then taken to see the new part of Dandong with it’s high-rises and the new bridge over the Yalu River built and paid for by the Chinese but not in use as there were no roads from the bridge on the Korean side of the river. It’s called the bridge to no-where.  Most of the flats in the high-rises had been bought by wealthy Chinese from outside Dandong as an investment and most were empty as without the bridge being used trade, and people, were not moving into the area.

On the river

The bridge to no-where

New Dandong

Then it was another walk along the river to use up time before getting the train to Beijing at 18.30 hours.

Looking towards North Korea

A group of ladies on the river side

The security people at the station looked serious and scary as I walked up to them then smiled at me and let me through without any problems. I don’t know if the carriage was kept deliberately cold as everyone was in their bunks (bedding supplied) by 21.00 hours with all lights out but I did notice that the heating came on later. I was in the 2nd class compartment which had six bunks and lucky enough to have a bottom bunk. Lights were put on at 06.00 hours when everyone was wakened for arrival in Beijing at 08.40 hours. It took 90 minutes in a taxi to get back to the Huguosi Hotel