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)!