Category: Backpacking

Hong Kong Highlights

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Hong Kong is a busy, dizzying city. We stayed in Kowloon, which was both crazy and brilliant. Coming from mainland China, one of the first differences we noticed is how expensive the city is. You realise this when you are forced to pay £20 for the smallest room possible in a hostel (and if you’re lucky you’ll get a window!). Aside from that, alcohol is expensive in bars and you may need to wander a bit to find some cheap eats. Getting around is fairly cheap if you get yourself an Octopus card, and a lot of the things to see …

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Tranquiltiy and Adventure in Xingping

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If you’ve ever had a 20 RMB note, you’ll have seen the gorgeous karst mountains and the Li river that roams in the South West of China. The location on the note is in a small village called Xingping. On most days, the small village is home to lots of tourists, taking lots of photos with their 20 RMB note and enjoying boat rides down the river, looking in awe at the surroundings. It really is a spectacular sight. However, my favourite part of Xingping wasn’t the place where we match up our note with the river and mountains. There are parts …

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Kowloon, Hong Kong: Busy, Bustling, and Burning my Money

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Stepping off the plane to 18 degrees after leaving Hangzhou and its bitter winter chill was blissful. My flight was delayed so it was getting late but I managed to swiftly get through boarder control, pick up my bag, and get on the City bus before midnight.  As the bus rocked up at my stop near Mong Kok station, I was amazed looking outside. It didn’t look like 12:30am. It seemed more like the middle of the afternoon: restaurants full, people chatting, and people walking down the street. I met Mitch, who had arrived earlier, and it was then that …

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How to survive a cold spell in Hangzhou

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This weekend Hangzhou reached some of the coldest temperatures the city has seen in many years. My school got closed due to the weather, and Mitch had buggered off to Cambodia as he’s already broken up, which meant I was left alone in our very cold flat (no central heating or double glazing) . However, despite sub zero temperatures and water cut outs – I’m still here, alive and well. Here’s how I survived. If you find yourself in a cold city, these tips may work for you too.  Buy yourself some proper pyjamas. If you’ve ever been to some non …

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Welcome to Helen The Bristolian Backpacker

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Hello! Thank you so much for visiting Helen The Bristolian Backpacker. The site use be a wordpress blog but I’ve now transformed it to give you, my wonderful readers, a better experience as I share more of my backpacking stories. The site is still very new but is always developing as I add new content and lots more great stuff. As a budget backpacker, I want to share information about places with you, and some tales along the way too! Please let me know your thoughts and comments below – What do you like? What would you like to see more of? …

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Waving Goodbye To Warsaw And Europe

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Warsaw. We spent a lot of time here in small chunks but I still feel like I didn’t really see it. It was the city we got picked up in for our numerous Angloville programmes. The day before the programme we had a complementary walking tour of the city, participating in three programmes meant three tours. “Why go on three?” I hear you cry, well, it’s nice to refresh your memory, but also, they gave us free lunch afterwards and as budget travellers, we would never say no to free lunch. It was a great opportunity to meet fellow volunteers before the programme …

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