We're having a great time with Yangshuo as a base. Everything's pretty cheap and a lot of people speak a fair bit of English, so I don't even mind that feeling that we're still being constantly ripped off. Just not ruthless/stressed enough to make a decent attempt at bargaining I guess.
We did an overnight stay at Ping'an the day before yesterday. We got a bus transfer there, thankfully had an ipod to drown out the 'tour guide' (I couldn't work out what language she was speaking - Josh worked out after about 20 minutes that it was English!) and made a dash for freedom as soon as she got the little tour-guide flag and a loud-speaker out at Ping'an. Had a lovely time drinking beer with spectacular views.
The next day we walked through the rice-terraces, which was amazing. Would love to post up some pictures, but if you want an idea of what it was like, google 'longji rice terraces'. It's still pretty darn hot here, so we wisely did what the locals do, and got up at 5.30am. It was cool and misty, very atmospheric right up until the point where the heavens opened and drenched us in a storm! So the rest of the walk was done in squelchy shoes. If we'd have waited until a reasonable time then we probably would have been ok! But the walk was still great.
The buses back to Yangshuo get classified as 'an experience'. Bus 1: Never realised you could get 25 people in a 14-seater minibus... Fortunately we got there early so we had a seat, and didn't even have to share it with anyone. Bus 2: Love their idea of a connecting bus service - bus 1 was heading into town, bus 2 heading out on the same route, they just stop when they see each other. Was relieved to find a proper coach with air conditioning and everything, until they put on a particularly bad 5-minute long chinese-techno-pop song. On loop. For two hours. OMG I nearly went mad. Bus 3: No techno. No noise at all. Very, very relieved.
This morning we got a couple of bikes from Bike Asia (that's where Jamie used to work) and cycled up and down the Yulong river to Dragon's bridge, which apparently is very, very old. Well, actually we missed the last turn and spent 15 minutes being totally unimpressed by a pretty normal-looking bridge before realising our mistake. Actually, we missed quite a lot of turns, and maybe made a few that we weren't meant to, but generally had a great time - we just went along with karsts on one side and a river on the other, safe in the knowledge that there wasn't too much that could go wrong, and enjoyed the spectacular scenery. Most of the locals said hello to us as we cycled through lovely villages and past paddy fields, and every now and again one of them would try to sell us a trip back down the river on a bamboo raft by running after us shouting 'hello! hello! bamboo! bamboo!'.
Josh will disagree with me here I think, but I am promoting mountain biking to 'least comfortable way of travelling', even above camels. I think lots of beer is in order tonight to take my mind off my aching legs, knees and buttocks. Jamie, I honestly don't know how you do it.
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Monday 31 August 2009
Friday 28 August 2009
South into China
So another long silence from us I'm afraid. Things got a bit busy there for a while, and our Biejing hotel didn't have internet access. Also, China has blocked the Blogger website, so I can't see what we last wrote, and am having to submit this post by email. That means no more pictures till Vietnam in a few weeks (booo...)
Our last few days in Mongolia were great. We spent 3 nights at another camp, this time in some much more alpine scenery. All very relaxing - days spent rafting lazily down the river, and strolling in the hills. Nights were spent huddling under ridiculous numbers of blankets as it was quite absurdly cold at night. Seriously, at 7 in the morning when we woke up I could see my breath in our Ger. Fortunately the Mongolians are quite good at isolating themselves from the cold (they're used to -30 much of the winter). We had loads of blankets, a wood-burning stove in our Ger, and Vodka to keep us warm. We felt just like the locals...
Then we were off on the last 36 hours of the Trans-Mongolian into Beijing. We left Beijing not quite sure what to make of it. It had been pretty exhausting as it takes ages to get anywhere, and if you make any mistakes (get off at the wrong stop / try to visit something that is closed) then getting back on track can take forever. Also, it was UNBELIEVABLY BUSY. We've never seen a city so busy. The Forbidden City at times resembled a football crowd - there were hundreds of people all pressing themselves up against little glass windows to try and get photos of the stuff inside some of the main buildings. We spent as much time amazed by the crowds as we did by the (admittedly impressive) Ming and Quing Dynasty architecture.
We saw some fab sites, and had lots of fun, but to be honest were pretty glad to be going somewhere of a more manageable size afterwards! And now we're nestled between limestone carsts in the backpacker mecca of Yangshuo. It's about 35 degrees, the sun is shining, the scenery is beautiful and we're getting ready to head over to our evening cooking school. It feels a long way from Beijing (which it is). We're in this area for a few days to relax, check out the scenery and some of the local villages.
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Our last few days in Mongolia were great. We spent 3 nights at another camp, this time in some much more alpine scenery. All very relaxing - days spent rafting lazily down the river, and strolling in the hills. Nights were spent huddling under ridiculous numbers of blankets as it was quite absurdly cold at night. Seriously, at 7 in the morning when we woke up I could see my breath in our Ger. Fortunately the Mongolians are quite good at isolating themselves from the cold (they're used to -30 much of the winter). We had loads of blankets, a wood-burning stove in our Ger, and Vodka to keep us warm. We felt just like the locals...
Then we were off on the last 36 hours of the Trans-Mongolian into Beijing. We left Beijing not quite sure what to make of it. It had been pretty exhausting as it takes ages to get anywhere, and if you make any mistakes (get off at the wrong stop / try to visit something that is closed) then getting back on track can take forever. Also, it was UNBELIEVABLY BUSY. We've never seen a city so busy. The Forbidden City at times resembled a football crowd - there were hundreds of people all pressing themselves up against little glass windows to try and get photos of the stuff inside some of the main buildings. We spent as much time amazed by the crowds as we did by the (admittedly impressive) Ming and Quing Dynasty architecture.
We saw some fab sites, and had lots of fun, but to be honest were pretty glad to be going somewhere of a more manageable size afterwards! And now we're nestled between limestone carsts in the backpacker mecca of Yangshuo. It's about 35 degrees, the sun is shining, the scenery is beautiful and we're getting ready to head over to our evening cooking school. It feels a long way from Beijing (which it is). We're in this area for a few days to relax, check out the scenery and some of the local villages.
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Saturday 15 August 2009
Mongolia birdspotting
OK, for those of you who are interested (umm - that's you, Marion), here's a list of the birds we saw on our first trip in Mongolia:
Black eared kites (lots)
Black vultures (lots)
Steppe Eagle (lots and lots)
Golden eagle (maybe)
Kestrel
Long-legged and rough-legged buzzards (sooo many - they're like pigeons)
Tree sparrows
Wheatear - could never work out if they were Isabelline or Northern
Skylark
Raven
Swallow
Red-billed Chough
Desert Wheatear
Sandpiper
Demoiselle Cranes (yes!)
Shelduck
Hoopoe
Isabelline Shrike
There were so many birds of prey, and they were huge! Sitting around on the grass, we got really close! Unfortunately internet is slow, will try to add pictures later. Gotta go now as someone else is waiting for the internet, could waffle on for ages about how great it was!
Black eared kites (lots)
Black vultures (lots)
Steppe Eagle (lots and lots)
Golden eagle (maybe)
Kestrel
Long-legged and rough-legged buzzards (sooo many - they're like pigeons)
Tree sparrows
Wheatear - could never work out if they were Isabelline or Northern
Skylark
Raven
Swallow
Red-billed Chough
Desert Wheatear
Sandpiper
Demoiselle Cranes (yes!)
Shelduck
Hoopoe
Isabelline Shrike
There were so many birds of prey, and they were huge! Sitting around on the grass, we got really close! Unfortunately internet is slow, will try to add pictures later. Gotta go now as someone else is waiting for the internet, could waffle on for ages about how great it was!
Photos from Mongolia
Around the Gobi Steppe
Watching vulture chicks in their nest
Our camp at the Gobi Steppe
The camp owner's family
Monastery in Ulaan Baatar
Mongolia. Lots of space.
Another week, another country! We've been in Mongolia for about 5 days now, and it's an amazing place. They're obviously trying to keep it's charms a secret by making it as irritating as possible to cross the border from Russia...
We got the train from Irkutsk to Ulan Bataar - a great old russian train with wooden windows, and comfy as always. All was going well and we were at the Mongolian border in no time. Then followed seven (7) hours of passport checking, cabin searching, and general form-filling on both the Russian and Mongolian sides of the border, during which time they decided it would be sensible to (a) switch off the air conditioning and forbid anyone to open windows (b) lock the toilets (c) sell people beer. As our Provonista (the person who looks after the carriage) smuggled people into the toilets whenever she could get away with it, everone sat sweltering in their cabins, or drinking (and sweltering) in the corridor.
After a brief, but fun, 24 hours in Ulan Bataar we set off for the countryside to see what this Mongolian Wilderness was all about. Oh my god. There is a quite ridiculous amount of space with literally nothing in it except beautiful and dramatic scenery and incredible bird-life. Jo nearly passed out with excitement within about 10 minutes of us leaving UB, before it became clear that everywhere we went we were met with dozens of Vultures, Eagles, Cranes just feet away from us (for non-birdies, they are VERY BIG BIRDS). We stayed in a wonderful small ger camp about 150 miles from UB, run by a local expert on pretty much everything. The day spent touring round the local area spotting wildlife with him was an amazing highlight.
In our three nights staying in a ger (traditional Mongolian felt tents) we saw pretty much every season. We arrived in sweltering heat, left in crisp cold sunshine, and in between had the most dramatic storm we've ever seen decend upon us.
So now we're back in UB, and heading off north tomorrow for another few days in the wild (and the comfort of a ger).
Pictures to follow (hopefully).
We got the train from Irkutsk to Ulan Bataar - a great old russian train with wooden windows, and comfy as always. All was going well and we were at the Mongolian border in no time. Then followed seven (7) hours of passport checking, cabin searching, and general form-filling on both the Russian and Mongolian sides of the border, during which time they decided it would be sensible to (a) switch off the air conditioning and forbid anyone to open windows (b) lock the toilets (c) sell people beer. As our Provonista (the person who looks after the carriage) smuggled people into the toilets whenever she could get away with it, everone sat sweltering in their cabins, or drinking (and sweltering) in the corridor.
After a brief, but fun, 24 hours in Ulan Bataar we set off for the countryside to see what this Mongolian Wilderness was all about. Oh my god. There is a quite ridiculous amount of space with literally nothing in it except beautiful and dramatic scenery and incredible bird-life. Jo nearly passed out with excitement within about 10 minutes of us leaving UB, before it became clear that everywhere we went we were met with dozens of Vultures, Eagles, Cranes just feet away from us (for non-birdies, they are VERY BIG BIRDS). We stayed in a wonderful small ger camp about 150 miles from UB, run by a local expert on pretty much everything. The day spent touring round the local area spotting wildlife with him was an amazing highlight.
In our three nights staying in a ger (traditional Mongolian felt tents) we saw pretty much every season. We arrived in sweltering heat, left in crisp cold sunshine, and in between had the most dramatic storm we've ever seen decend upon us.
So now we're back in UB, and heading off north tomorrow for another few days in the wild (and the comfort of a ger).
Pictures to follow (hopefully).
Sunday 9 August 2009
Hurrah! We have internet!
Sorry for being a bit remiss on the blog front - internet access has been a little hard to come by. For a start, there wasn't ANY internet cafe on the 4-day train journey, and then Listvyanka's internet cafe was basically the guys in the tourist information centre letting you use one of their two computers for a bit, but it was so painfully slow we gave up! But in Irkutsk (yes, the place on the Risk board) now, so we're taking full advantage of civilization!
Anyhoo, a bit about what we've been up to. The train journey from Moscow to Irkutsk was really great (see above for the train we were on). Nothing to do but look out the window, read books, play chess and drink beer. By the time to get off, we were a bit brain-dead but very relaxed!
We got to break the journey with brief stops at the platforms, where people would try and sell us food. We generally looked on suspiciously.... Until we found this:
Sausage and bread. The lunch of Kings - and us on the train. Made a difference to the meat and potatoes that they sold on the dining car, and the bread stuffed with luke-warm cabbage that we bought on the platform one morning.
Those views from the window? They were beautiful - mostly
So when we got to Irkutsk we headed straight off to a little village called Listvyanka, on the edge of lake Baikal. We really loved it there. The Russians so far, but in Listvyanka in particular, were really friendly and helpful - especially the students who offered vodka at 10.30 in the morning and wanted to practice their English.
This is Listvyanka. Very rustic. And wet, but that didn't spoil our fun!
Here's one of the (many) bars we drank in:
And here's an example of a traditional wooden house, along with a more modern development that has been carefully architected to fit in well with the traditional style. See if you can work out which one is which
We really loved Russia - way more than we were expecting. It's a crazy country and lives up to so many of the cliches, but somehow the whole place works. We're heading off to Mongolia tomorrow morning.
Monday 3 August 2009
Photos from Moscow!
Soviet art and architecture
St Basils & the army
Russian soldiers. We think vodka was involved.
The Lenin Mausoleum (and sombre face)
Backpacking in a 5-star hotel
Random station in Belarus
The Train to Moscow
Moscow: Paris on steroids
So, our first blog post on the road (er... rails).
The first week has been pretty awesome, though has gone by in a flash. After speeding through France, Belgium and Germany in 12 hours we spent a fleeting (but very pleasant) 24 hours chilling out in the sun in Warsaw. With no phrase book or guide book we just wandered round and drank a little too much pepper vodka.
Moscow is a different beast. "Paris on steroids" as Jo so aptly described it. Lovely architecture, but all about 10 times bigger than it should be. Apart from St Basils which is smaller than you'd think. Yesterday, Moscow also did its best to live up to our stereotypes by staging some kind of army demonstration in Red Square, and then letting all the soldiers roam the streets drinking vodka and singing military songs and waving flags.
Sorry about the lack of pictures, this computer isn't being too friendly. We'll post lots when we can.
Off on our 4-day train ride in a few hours. Eek.
The first week has been pretty awesome, though has gone by in a flash. After speeding through France, Belgium and Germany in 12 hours we spent a fleeting (but very pleasant) 24 hours chilling out in the sun in Warsaw. With no phrase book or guide book we just wandered round and drank a little too much pepper vodka.
Moscow is a different beast. "Paris on steroids" as Jo so aptly described it. Lovely architecture, but all about 10 times bigger than it should be. Apart from St Basils which is smaller than you'd think. Yesterday, Moscow also did its best to live up to our stereotypes by staging some kind of army demonstration in Red Square, and then letting all the soldiers roam the streets drinking vodka and singing military songs and waving flags.
Sorry about the lack of pictures, this computer isn't being too friendly. We'll post lots when we can.
Off on our 4-day train ride in a few hours. Eek.
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