Marty Mellway Photography

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk down a street in China during the Qing dynasty! Well you can't because it was a long time ago, but!! you can go to Nan She Village. In a district of Dongguan called Chashan you can find the village of Nan she. It is a perfectly preserved village that has survived the test of time, through the Ming and Qing dynasty it has been relatively unchanged. In the past it was known as a major cultural center for south-eastern China now it is a quiet town but no less important. It has now been placed under protection by Chinese authority as one of China's many cultural relics. The whole village is not much larger than 5-10 square blocks enclosed by an ancient wall, but it packs a lot history and culture into a small area. The current residents spend most of their time sitting around talking or walking up and down the beautiful streets. Most of the young people are usually off in modern China getting an education or working in one o...

So we have arrived back in Indonesia. In Bali!!! We met up with some friends (Julie and Cass) on the north coast and spent some time exploring some water falls and temples. Sights by day cheap Arak on the beach and guitar by night. The rum is cheaper than the soda. making our way along the coast we head over to the gili Islands. Our group seems to be growing, we meet up with some of our friends friends who have been here chasing the waves for a few weeks already. We also met a guy germany named Kai who was a friend at once. After a few days in the Gilis we spent some time exploring Lombok and than headed back to Bali. In the capital Denpasar we met up with a new friend of ours Gede from Bali. He was a really cool and down to earth guy and was managing a local band that one of his family nephews was in. The three young guys in the band age 16-20 were really great. They had some amazing original songs and played some great covers. I helped them out by doing a photo shoot so that they...

Yeasterday we explored a few of the cave systems in the Mountains near town (Vang Vieng). To reach the first cave he rode our rented motorbike in the general direction that we had been told by the locals.  After about a half and hour of trecherous gravel roads that had been washed out by the heavy rains we ran out of road. From here we had to go by foot. Where we left our motor bike we met a family whose eight year old son offered to guide us through the cave (never for free of course, but it really helps having someone who knows the cave and area.)  We had to treck for about 2 hours along a dried up riverbed through the rainforest. On either side of us great mountains of limestone disappeared into the clouds. The sounds of tropical birds and insects echoed off the cliffs toward us as we trekked on. By the time we reached the cave we were soaked in sweat from the afternoon heat. App. 40 degrees celcius, a noraml dry season te...

Its getting dark in the back of an old Thai bus as we make our way through the northern mountains to the Laos border on the Mekong river. The sunsets on the mountains, beautiful pink and red light illuminates the clouds from every angle. The bus seems to be barely making it up these bumpy roads and I'm growing tired of the ride as we have been riding buses since nine in the morning. Darkness falls and the stars appear. Starring up at the foreign constellations I reflect on the journey. My mind wanders between Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Canada, family, friends. It feels like I have never done anything but what I am doing now, but still it only been a couple months. We arrive at our destination, The border closes at 6 PM and we have arrived hours late. We stay the night in a guest house for about 5 dollars and cross in the morning. Arriving on the other side of the Mekong river we pull our heavy packs out of the long Asian boats and head up the hill towards immigration. Apparent...

I am currently backpacking through southeast asia, for anyone interested in where I am and what I am doing I will try to regularly post pictures and say where I am. I may be out of contact from internet for periods of time but I will do my best to find it where I can. My plan for the moment is to continue north into central asia. I started in Indonesia and after visiting Borobodur flew to Southern Malaysia and headed north. I am now at the Thailand border and plan to take a train to Bangkok (Thai Capital) tomorrow. I am hoping to head north into northern Thailand and as much of Thailand as possible. I am hoping to find an opportunity to volunteer or work in Thailand. If there are no opportunities I will continue into Cambodia and then to Vietnam, Laos China, Mongolia, Nepal, India.... for now thats as far as I can see. I have no set deadlines concerning when and where. I am having a great time as it is and am learning alot from the world. I am not sure what opportunities will present t...

Taken from my journal. We left Jakarta last week and headed first by train to the city of Yogyakarta. From there we took a bus to Borobudur, the site of an ancient Buddhist temple built in 750 AD. We arrived early in the morning off the bus and jumped in a small hand pulled cart to get to our guesthouse a few kilometers up the road. The guest house turned out to be very nice. In the high season the majority of the people who stayed there were Buddhist pilgrims who had come to see the great monument. We set our late in the morning so that we would have lots of time to walk through the temple. About 100 feet from our guest house on the main road you could see the very top of the temple rising out of the jungle beyond. We made our way down the road in that direction. The whole area seemed better kept than the rest of Indonesia, likely because they make a lot of money off it. We reached the main gate where we waited to buy a ticket to enter. The entry cost ended up being 100 000 rup...

Jakarta  april 10 th 2008 Written in the Jakarta train station. Taken from my journal. Indonesia is Chaos, I love it. I’ve been here for about a week now and already I can tell I have a future with this country.  Last weekend Jeanette and I went to Puncuk Pass,  a tea plantation about 2 hours outside Jakarta. We left early in the morning and managed to arrive before noon on Saturday. We spent the day exploring the hills of tea and checking out the amazing views. At one point we took a path through the rain forest which led us to a small lake which we later discover was the rainbow lagoon. The whole area was populated with macaques (small monkeys). Out in the open they were very friendly and mostly ignored us because we had no food. Later on we came upon a large family of them on a path next to the lake. There wasn’t much room with the mountain cliff to our left and a small cliff down into the lake on our right. But the monkeys were not at all impressed with our un...