Fun and games

Another no-photo blog post this time I'm afraid - I'll try and add some later but the bloody Novotel provides bloody Macs instead of proper computers so I don't think I can bother working out how to connect my camera. That's one less trip advisor star for you, Novotel ;) (Also there's a bit of a queue for the computers and if I go up to my room to get the cable, someone will nab my place)

Not that we have many photos from Nha Trang anyway - the weather was pretty wet so we contented ourselves with wandering around and getting drunk. Sometimes the other way around. We tried the hotel swimming pool in torrential rain, much to the amusement of the pool attendents. And generally spent quite a lot of time being thankful that we weren't still in Hoi An, which got the full brunt of Typhoon Ketsana a couple of days after we left.

Getting the train out of Nha Trang was quite interesting. Due to the typhoon, the train we were supposed to get at about 12.30 still hadn't left Hanoi by 9am that morning (Hanoi is about 36 hours away from Nha Trang by train). So we dashed down to the station to change our tickets to a different train, which should have arrived at 8pm the previous evening but had been delayed and was expected to arrive at about the same time as our original train. Went back to the hotel, had breakfast, checked out and went to the train station, where we found out that the second train now wasn't expected until 6pm, possibly later. The only other option was a more basic train, leaving in about 15 minutes, which we got hard-sleeper tickets for. It was either that or hard seats, and at least the sleepers have air-conditioning!

In the end I think we got on the first train through, and it was almost completely empty. We somehow ended up playing chess with one of the guards. It was great fun, loads of the other guards crowded in to our otherwise empty cabin to watch and smoke, and the journey went by in a flash. Hard sleeper was a lot more comfortable than we were expecting as well - it was nice to have some space to spread out in, even if Josh couldn't quite sit up straight on the bottom bunk.

A very brief evening in HCMC and then off to the airport. HCMC looked like fun and it was a shame we didn't have more time to explore, but maybe next time...

So far, Hong Kong has been crazy fun. We arrived with just enough time to check in and make our way down to the waterfront to see the 60 years of Chinese Communism fireworks, which were a fair sight better than the ones on Clapham Common. So us and about 50 billion Chinese people were there, and we end up bumping into Tom (Jo's colleague from work). We headed back up into Kowloon from the fireworks and end up in a bar that looked seriously seedy from the outside (and to be frank was pretty seedy on the inside). Not quite sure how the next bit happened, but we ended up playing dice drinking games and singing karaoke with a group of random Chinese people. It was fantastic fun!

Now we're back to paying 3 quid upwards for a pint and having to use the tube to get everywhere, we're starting to look forward to the full package in London. 

Stormy Weather

We had a fab time in Hoi An, despite the weather. We managed to squeeze in a cloudy morning on the beach on our first day, before the "rainy season" started living up to its name. It rained heavily for the rest of the day, the whole of the next day and most of the day after that. On the plus side, it did cool things down a bit - it was actually quite pleasant to be drenched in rainwater rather than sweat for a change! Also as a Yorkshire lass, I'm used to wet leading to cold leading to miserable, but it's just not a problem here. The rain would have been heavy enough to cause flash floods back home, but they didn't have any problems in Hoi An at all, apart from the power going down for about 15 minutes at one point.

Hoi An - very pretty!

We visited the ancient Champa ruins of My Son, which was particularly atmospheric in the rain. We didn't have much time there; on the way there our tour guide placated everyone by explaining that this was because it was very small and most of it was just rubble anyway, so there really wasn't very much to see! It was a great place to hang around though - all very Indiana Jones and well worth hanging around until the last minute to get a glimpse of the place without loads of tourists, even if we did nearly miss our ride home.

Jo getting wet at My Son

Hoi An was just a great place to hang out and I'm not quite sure where all the time went (although quite a bit of it was spent in several of the fantastic restaurants, bars and patisseries). We took full advantage of our one (semi-) sunny day by spending it all on the beach or in the sea, and even in the rain we managed to go swimming at least twice a day, either in the sea or the hotel pool. The beach at Hoi An was great - really big and long, lovely sand and very clean. We camped out on a couple of loungers at one of the sea-front restaurants, with drinks and snacks on hand from Ms Man and her family, and then fantastically fresh seafood for lunch, caught by her husband that morning. The sea had great big crashing waves, great fun for playing around in for 5 minutes until a particularly big one comes along, crashes on top of you and sends you gasping and spluttering for the shore. Josh described it as like being sick backwards, but that didn't seem to stop him!

Strawberry Mojito and wifi - what more can a man want?
Sea, sand and sun
Restaurant workers and hawkers digging for crabs while trade was slow.

The train journey from Hoi An to Nha Trang was pretty hard work. There are only three trains a day and none of the times were very good, so we ended up spending 10 hours in a soft seat during the day rather than taking a sleeper overnight. The whole 'overland' idea is starting to feel a little tired now and I'm really glad we've only got one more long train journey left. The train was quite comfortable really, but it was pretty grubby and they had TV on really loud for at least 6 hours. I spent 2-3 hours trying to ignore some really bad play, which seemed to consist of some annoying girl constantly breaking into ear-splitting cries and thought the next one couldn't be any worse. They then played a video of small children singing songs and dancing for about an hour. The only way to get through it was to thank our lucky stars that we weren't trying to do the journey with a hangover.

Train departure board, Vietnam-style.

We're living it up in Nha Trang at the moment. Spent most of yesterday hopping between pool, sea and bars. Luckily they're all pretty close to each other. We were supposed to go on an islands and snorkling boat trip today, but the weather looked too wet and stormy so we pulled out. In fact, I think it might be the end of our beach-going for this holiday as tropical storm Ketsana (soon to be Typhoon Ketsana) makes a bee-line for Vietnam. It's set to hit Hoi An, so we're glad we're not there any more. Looks like Nha Trang will see nothing more than a few storms, but probably enough to stop us hitting the beach. Fortunately there's a spa nearby :)

Finally some photos (part 3)

Jianshui - a small town in China with some historic parts left and not overrun with (Chinese) tourists. It was great!


A pretty typical road in China. Keeping out of the way of everything really keeps you on your toes!


Jianshui market


We spent 7 hours on this bus going over mountain passes between Jianshui and Hekou. Bring on the rail link!


Rice terraces - in Vietnam this time. They're a bit of a theme across this part of Asia, but they're really beautiful and very impressive.


Local minority women lend a helping hand along the not-particularly steep or slippery path to their village.


When we got there, suddenly lots and lots of embroidery appeared and was met with a chorus of "You buy from meeeee.....". I got away with a single cushion cover.


Hanoi - watch out for those bikes, because they won't watch out for you!


This monk in a cyclo was taking pictures of us, so we thought we'd return the favour!


Off the Reunification Express at Da Nang. The Vietnamese take the same attitude with rails as they do with roads - absolutely no help for pedestrians!

Finally some photos (part 2)

Umm - maybe this should be part 1. All this stuff happened before the previous post.


This is us in the dining car on the trans-mongolian between Ulaan Baatar and Beijing. We're sitting with Anna and Apia (Err - I don't know how to spell that), a couple of Swedish girls we met in Mongolia and spent quite a bit of time with.

According to the Rough Guide, this was an old shopping street in Beijing. When we got there, we found that they'd razed the old shopping street, and rebuilt it to look a bit old, but with space for H&M and Zara!


And these are all the things you're not allowed to do in said street. Awesome.


The Forbidden City, replete with Beijing smog!


Cooking school in Yangshou. It turns out that most chinese food consists of one spoon the oyster sauce, one spoon the chicken stock buillion, one spoon the soy sauce...


Stepping stones at Yangshou. Josh waited for me to get all the way across, camera poised in case I fell in. Sorry to disappoint!

Finally some photos! (part 1)

Apologies for the lack of any sort of coherent order :)


Lovely rice terraces in Ping'An


Lijiang wins the chinglish competition!


Lijiang


Tiger Leaping Gorge - quite possibly the last drive of your life


The Three Pagodas in Dali - which is a sort of Buddhist theme park.


Fried goats cheese on a stick - not as tasty as it looks, unfortunately!


Ping'an rice terraces looking 'atmospheric' (i.e., wet!)


Musicians in a park in central Kunming

We love Vietnam

Sorry - no photos again, we've left our camera lead in the hotel.

Anyway, this is just a quick note to say how much we're loving it in Vietnam. It's a very chilled out easy country to be in compared with China. I don't think we'd realised how difficult we found it in China with the constant language barrier and squat toilets!

Sa Pa was lovely. We went for a couple of walks around the villages there, all very easy and accessible. The first walk in particular was great, we had a big group of local women in traditional dress following us all the way to the village (about 6km), holding our hands on the steep bits and chatting away the whole way - well worth the inevitable hard-sell of embroideries at the end of the trip! (Needless to say the one who'd picked on Josh did particularly badly from the deal)

Hanoi is very hot, and we've resorted to choosing between restaurants, shops and tourist attractions by the quality of their air-conditioning. We've had some really great food, and the shopping is great. We've jettisoned another book which leaves space for at least two more souveniers! Hanoi is the quintessential south-east Asian city. Motorbikes zipping around everywhere constantly peeping their horns, a lovely combination of traditional and colonial architecture and incessant badgering from hawkers (Hanoi has to be the only place I've been to where the taxi drivers hail you, rather than the other way around).

Getting the night train to Da Nang tonight, for a few days in Hoi An. We're in a cheaper hotel in Hoi An which means they give away free internet rather than charging a small fortune for it (20 cents a minute? Shame on you Hilton!). So I absolutely promise to uplaod some piccies soon, as soon as we've had our fill of lazing by the pool :)

Yunnan and buses

Ok, so we've been really remiss with blog postings - sorry about that, we've just been far too busy/relaxed/drunk/on buses. Actually, mostly on buses. Trains just seem better and better when you compare them with buses.

Anyway, we finished off our trip in Yangshuo with a morning kayaking, which Josh reckons is less comfortable than cycling - I disagree. Then bus to Guilin and overnight train to Kunming in Yunnan province. Kunming is a really cool city - way more laid back than Beijing, although not so many sights to do. There's a park in the city centre where loads of retired people hang around playing traditional music, singing and dancing. We found a big group of middle-aged women (and a few men!) doing traditional (?) dances to some modern music, being led by an extremely camp guy - it was quite a surreal sight. Found some really great little bars around the university area (universal truth: students like to drink), and generally had fun.

The overnight train to Dali would have been a lot more relaxing if they hadn't left really loud - and really bad - music on until 11pm, and started again at 6am. Still, we had a really comfy hotel in Dali so plenty of opportunity to relax. Despite previous experiences, Josh talked me into giving mountain-biking another go. It was still really uncomfortable, and the roads still disappeared into tiny footpaths as soon as you got 5 minutes down them, and I still needed beer to recover afterwards! But it's still one of the best ways to get away from the hoardes of tourists.

After a couple of nights in Dali, we got the bus to Tiger Leaping Gorge. The "about 4 hours" on a bus was actually 7, and it was bloody uncomfortable as well. Add a particularly hair-raising drive up the gorge, and it was a pretty exhausting day in all. Still, the views were truly amazing, and we did a really good walk the next day. I wouldn't have believed that such scenery were possible if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

After two nights at Tiger Leaping Gorge we went off to Lijiang, did the toursit thing there for a night and then headed back to Dali, and then back to Kunming (told you we'd been busy!) From there we spent a night in Jianshui, which was fantastic. Really off the main tourist trail, it was a completely different side of Yunnan. It was good to not be hawked at for a change! A lot of the people were staring at us like we had three heads, although there did seem to be a handful of western tourists around.

From Jianshui, our last bus (I hope!) - seven hours to the Vietnamese border. We were really worried about how easy it would be because we couldn't find much information before we left Kunming, but in the end it was really easy. We got the bus tickets from the bus station when we arrived at Jianshui, and then got up early the next day for another 7-hour bus journey over winding mountain roads. Tried to get worried about the precipitous drops and found that we've become somewhat accustomed to them... Felt slightly silly getting off the bus and asking "what way to Vietnam?", but the answer was "one minute walk that way", so that was good. Crossing the border on foot was a touch strange - like two airports without a plane between them, just a bridge over the river instead.

So here we are in Vietnam. It's trains from here on in. And we're going to start taking things a bit more slowly, so maybe we'll even have time to upload some pictures at some point.

Congratulations if you've read this far - you must be one of our parents. Hi mum(s) and dad(s)!