Si Pan Don (4000 islands), Ban Lung, Phnom Phen, Siem Reap and Bangkok

A long bus ride and a very wobbly boat ride later we arrived at a place called Si Pan Don or 4000 islands in southern Laos. We stayed on an island called Don Det in a hut on stilts (literally a hut!) over looking the Mekong with 2 hammocks, a bed and a mosquito net (what more do you need?) We went tubing again - a more sedate affair this time - they drove us up river in a tiny boat 'til we were (apparently) 3km away and then told us to jump out of the boat into the river. I'm not sure if you can imagine the Mekong but by this point it's already travelled from China and through lots of countries that don't seem too worried about river hygiene... The water was brown and moving very sluggishly, but by that point we didn't have much choice, Mark, a guy in the hut next door called Simon and I all jumped out into our tractor tyre inner tubes and away we went. We could see out huts from where they dropped us off but it still took an hour or so drifting back. All was going swimmingly until we got separated, Mark and I drifted to the other side of the island and almost made it ashore when we spotted a rather large snake swimming in our direction - luckily it got pulled away by the current but it was a little scary! We spent the rest of our time there swinging in hammocks, reading and sipping the local tipple of Laos Lao (home brewed whisky) lemon juice and honey which worked wonders on my stuffy cold.



Next we were off to Ban Lung after crossing into Cambodia. We were told the road there was really bad (pot holes and dirt track) but it didn't seem too bad - maybe it's worse in the wet season. Ban Lung is a small but sprawled 'town' on an unsealed red dirt road, it's completely out of the tourist trail but so worth the trip. We hired a motorbike and with Mark driving (and only falling off the bike a couple of times..."pot holes" apparently :P) and a hand drawn map, set off to see three of the many waterfalls around the area. The first one we could only look at from a distance, another which went into a huge plunge pool with a big cavern underneath and the last which dropped 40 foot straight onto rocks - this was where Mark lost the motorbike key which fell over the falls while he was leaning over the edge. 'Oh SH*T" was pretty much all we were thinking... Out in the middle of no where with no one around except the ticket guy who clearly didn't speak any English and only had a cow for transport. After about 15/20 minutes of manic searching down river Mark changed into his swimming shorts and went climbing through the falls. Incredibly he found the key wedged between two rocks - he is possibly THE luckiest, fluky **** I have ever known!




Once we'd regained our composure and calmed down we went to a volcanic crater which is now a huge circular pool, the water was really warm (and not at all eggy smelling which I thought it would have to be to keep the water warm?) It was crystal blue and sooo good to swim in and wash off the red dust that had completely covered us on the ride. We both looked like we'd had a bad fake tan with orange eyebrows and stripy legs!





Next it was on to Phnom Phen which is a little hectic and crazy - similar to the road in Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam but dirtier. We woke up early and went out to the killing fields where there are hundreds of mass graves, a memorial site and S21, an old high school that was turned into a torture camp during Pol Pot's reign, some pretty moving and disturbing sights. After that we were planning on going to the local museum but I fell down a crack in the pavement and twisted my ankle badly so we ended up having to go back to the hotel where all the tuk tuk drivers kept telling me they'd drive me to hospital to buy crutches. Haha. No.



We then got the bus out to Siem Reap in north-west Cambodia and spent two days exploring the Angkor temples. My favourite was definitely Ta Phrom which hasn't been restored and is completely overgrown with towering trees that are the only thing holding the buildings together. We went to the most well known temples of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom but they're incredibly overrun with tourists and tour groups. We both agreed that the quieter temples in the more secluded areas were definitely worth the effort to get there to escape the crowds.




After an uneventful crossing into Thailand we've spent the last couple of days in Bangkok, which definitely lives up to it's seedy reputation! ("ping pong show?"). We're catching the train down to Phuket this evening to go and find the perfect beach and diving/snorkeling sites just in time for Mark's birthday and Christmas day... 30 degrees on a beach :D

HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR EVERYONE! x

Vientiane, Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang and back again.

After a good nights sleep we woke up bleary eyed to explore Vientiane. Its a lot more laid back than Vietnam, especially for the capital. Although there isn't a great deal to do here. We spent a couple of days wandering round looking at the sights such as Patouxay, which was supposed to resemble the Arc de Triomphe. It was never completed so is really just a big concrete block, known locally as 'The Vertical Runway' as it used concrete donated by America for the completion of the airport.

We caught the bus up to Vang Vieng, it's only 150km away, but the journey took about 6 hours due to some pretty bad roads. Vang Vieng is definately a backpacker town, every building is either a guesthouse, restaurant, shop or internet cafe. There are even restaurants that have TV's with all the tables facing them, showing Friends or Family Guy on repeat. The main reason for coming here is to go tubing, a rather dangerous activity that involves giving you a tractor tire inner tube and throwing you in the river 4km upstream of the town and leaving you to float back. Bars have been set up along the first section with huge rope swings, zip lines and slides that propel you at various speeds into the river. They also try and force shots of Lao-lao on you, a type of locally brewed whisky, to make things that little bit more entertaining. After the bars is a long stretch of river where you float past the karst mountains while the sun sets. Unfortunatly no-one warns you that this part takes around 2 hours, so nearly everyone arrives back after the 6pm curfew and loses part of their deposit. Getting out back at the town is quite a scary experience in the dark as the river is shallow and rocky. Local children have got a scam where they help you get out, then charge you 20,000kip (about 1.60). All this resulted in Nikki losing a flip flop! We went again a couple of days later, making sure to get back in time and before it got dark!

After a few days of lazing around watching Friends and floating down the river we headed up to Luang Prabang. This has been our favourite place so far. The town is a designated UNESCO World Heritage site and consists of lots of shady streets and old colonial buildings. Every night there is a night market set up selling local handcrafted goods. Out of the town there are also some great excursions. We took a trip out to Kuang Si waterfall, a huge waterfall that makes it's way down the hill via a series of pools that are designated for swimming, if a little chilly!


A couple of days later we went on a half day elephant trip, we were taken out to the Elephant XL camp by jeep early in the morning, then transfered to the camp by a traditional skinny boat that felt like it might capsize at any minute. As soon as we reached the camp we saw elephants, it's amazing how prehistoric they look close up. Once we were given a crash course in how to drive an elephant and the first group had returned we clambered aboard, unfortunately due to some confusiong on the boarding platform Nikki and I ended up on separate elephants but still had a great time. One lucky person was able to ride on the neck or 'mahoot' while two more people ride on a sort of park bench on the elephant's back. We set off for trek through jungle and river then arrived back at the camp about an hour later and were able to feed our elephants bananas or sugar cane which they gladly accepted. We were then transported down to the Tad Sae waterfalls, not as high as the Kuang Si waterfall, but just as impressive, with a lot more swimming areas and clear blue water. There was another elephant camp set up here and they regularly came tramping through the bottom pool where we were swimming. After an hour of playing at the falls we were taken back to the reception area for lunch, we were having such a good time we enquired about lengthening our stay to 2 days, which would involve another ride in the afternoon, staying at the camp and then bathing with the elephants the next day, but they were fully booked, so we returned to the town.


We had such a good time we returned to Tad Sae waterfall the following day for more frolicking and fun in the water. While we were there I saw some elephants emerging from the bushes behind Nikki, we thought it was just another trek, but we noticed they had no passengers apart from their mahoots and seemed to be heading right for us. We clambered out onto the waterfall ledge and it turned out it was bathing time and the place we had been swimming happened to be the deepest area. They came right up to us and let us stroke their heads and play with their trunks while they submerged themselves and used the waterfall as a shower. One of these was the biggest elephant we'd seen so far, and there was a couple of bulls which we hadn't seen yet as Elephant XL only used females. It was such an amazing experience, made better due to it being so unexpected. We were on a real high for the rest of the day and were gutted to be heading south and leaving Luang Prabang the next day.

Once again it was an early start for the 9 hour bus ride back to Vientiane but we had some pretty good seats and got settled in. Once we set off we realised the seats in front of us were not bolted down properly so kept swinging back and squishing Nikki. We stopped and had lunch at a roadside cafe then shortly after boarding the bus, we broke down. It turns out the bus had run out of petrol, luckily a passing truck stopped and spared some. We dropped some people off in Vang Vieng then carried on, getting a little worried that the driver hadn't stopped to refil the petrol tank. It seemed it was his goal to make it to Vientiane on air alone, meaning we broke down every 20 minutes! We eventually arrived 3.5 hours after scheduled. Because of the lateness of our arrival and the troubles in Bangkok it was nigh on impossible to get a room.

We've been waiting here for a couple of days as it is National Day today and we wanted to see what it was all about, but it seems it's just like a bank holiday. We hired bikes a couple of days ago and rode out to That Luang, a huge golden stupa with an attached temple. We're hoping to catch a bus down to Pakse in the next couple of days, where we'll cross the border into Cambodia.



Vientiane & Vang Vieng: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=87254&l=adbe9&id=720640428
Luang Prabang: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=87982&l=c5149&id=720640428
Elephants: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=87992&l=418f6&id=720640428

Hue, The DMZ and the journey to Vientiane

When we arrived in Hue it was late at night, we checked into a hotel then went and got some dinner. Luckily we stumbled across Cafe on Thu Wheels, a place recommended in the guidebook for its motorbike tours. As we only had a day to see the city, we thought it would be a good way of doing it. We'd arranged a bike tour for the following day. Despite a early and rainy start we had a great day. Nikki rode on the back of the tour guide's bike and I had my own. Our awesome guide Duong took us to an old american bunker that overlooked Hamburger hill, a Japanese covered bridge, a temple where we got to see a ceremony, an Emporer's tomb and the pagoda at the citadel. As well as seeing the sights it was also a great way to see some of the countryside, including rice fields, water buffalo, duck farms, small villages among other stuff. During the afternoon we ran round arranging a bus across the Laos border through to Vientiane, after going on a tour of the DMZ. We had decided not to make the final part of the journey up to Hanoi, as people said it was similar to HCMC with less to see.

It was another early start to get the tour bus in the morning, where we saw a funeral procession, that was really colourful, and involved a lot of people throwing fake money around. We had arranged to be dropped off at a town on the way back called Dong Ha where we would then catch up with the sleeper bus that was coming from Hue through Dong Ha on its way to Vientiane hence saving us a few hours of pointless travel. We were told would definately go all the way through to Vientiane, we wouldn't have to change buses at any point. As we were among the last people to get picked up, we got some of the worst seats. Nikki ended up squashed up at the back of the bus wrestling for shoulder space between a nice german gay couple (who made room for me) and a selfish, annoying, retarded, rude australia couple who huffed and puffed whenever she sat down and dared to take up her seat space on the back row ann the woman who wittered on like a deranged guinea pig about stupid. I ended up on a fold out kitchen chair in the aisle for the duration of the 9 hour tour that would send me hurtling through the windscreen should we break suddenly.

The DMZ tour was a bit disappointing, we saw a place called the Rockpile (a big hill that stickes out of the flat ground where the americans had bars/pubs on top and watched out for the Vietcong) from a massive distance. They stopped at the side of the road and told us we could take photos of it. Then possibly the start of the Ho Chi Minh trail (scrub land and a small statue thing all in Laos lettering). We were then taken to an old airforce base with a really really biased take on all the photos ("the Americans fleeing from the strong Vietnamese troops" or "Vietnamese Heros, who bravely killed many Americans" etc. etc.) and some rusting tanks and planes in the surrounding area (also a coffee plantation which was quite cool). We got a 10 minute stop over at a monument for the war and looked at 'Minority Villages' as we sped by on the bus after being told to 'ready our cameras'. We were quite glad to get off at Dong Ha, leaving the now boiling hot bus and the people on it for their 3 hour trip back to Hue.

As Dong Ha isn't on the tourist trail we attracted more attention, but a lot more friendly than the kind we received in China. When buses stopped at the traffic lights next to us people leaned out waving and smiling. I had a guy wanting to try on my shoes as he found them comically big, and children came out to greet us as we walked down the street. We got on the sleeper bus - good start - at 7pmish after being left waiting in the cafe for 2 hours. As we were the last two to board the bus we ended up with possibly the tinyest bunks in then entire world - neither of us could lie flat or even comfortably - and managed to grab a few minutes sleep here and there while the bus propelled itself and maniac speeds (lifting us off the beds when it braked!) til about twenty to one in the morning when they shook just Nikki an me awake and kicked us off in the middle of nowhere and told us (by pointing and gesturing and repeatedly saying "one") to wait 1 hour for another bus. The place was a total dump; road side shack thing with 'toilets' (holes) completely full of bugs, bad smells and a pig sty behing the urinals. We were joined by two girls and a guy from Ireland who were also confused by their unscheduled tour after paying for a direct sleeper bus from Hoi An to Vientiane.

The other bus arrived (among loads of others just stopping at the shack for toilet breaks) an hour or 2 later and wouldn't let us get on for ages, even once they'd took our bags and worryingly put them up stairs not in the boot area. Then people seemed to come out of the cafe and climb on board. As we watched through the window we saw they seemed to be stepping up something as they went to their seats - and then we realised that all our luggage, as well as the other's, was stacked in the aisle and all the vietnamese passangers were climbing over our bags, walking across them to get to their seats! Then we were allowed to board... only to find there were NO spare seats (the drivers hadn't seemed to be able to do the maths on that one and were as surprised as us) so they got some small plastic stools and put them down the aisle at the front of the bus, where the luggage and boxes weren't, and made us sit on them, luckily a woman who was getting off soon gave Nikki her seat so I was sat in the aisle next to Nikki with the 3 Irish travellers sat in front of me... Oh dear God, we were not impressed, we had at least 17 hours to go and things weren't looking good. Luckily after about 2 hours or so (about 4/5am) some people got off and we all managed to get a seat and attempt to sleep with the awful driving and braking. At about 5.30 we pulled up and stopped at the side of the road to wait for the border crossing to open at 6.30... sleeping on a bus in the middle of no where.

We went through the border control at around 7.30am, getting a visa, shelling out lots of money and getting conned into paying to use the toilets for being Westeners.
then just 7 hours or so left to go and we were away, stopping at a fly infested shack cafe for 'lunch' (Nikki stayed hungry, I tried some) and then we were off, only to get dropped on the outskirts of the city and have to get a 'Sangthew', an open truck thing, the 13km into town and get dropped off randomly in the center to find that EVERYWHERE, literally (almost) everywhere is fully booked! We eventually got a room after trawelling round everywhere and other travellers giving us hints or suggesting places they'd left that morning and washed, fed and were dying for sleep despite it only being 8.30pm...

Despite the journey from hell we've been having a great time in Laos and will do another post in a couple of days to catch up.

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=87240&l=3da67&id=720640428

Photos

For those of you not on Facebook, here are more of the photos from our trip so far, in case you hadn't noticed the photos relating to Guilin, Hong Kong & Vietnam are at the end of the post.

Olympics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69334&l=54d22&id=720640428
Beijing: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68225&l=9a457&id=720640428
Qingdao: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70887&l=b8e87&id=720640428
Shimonoseki, Hiroshima & Miyajima: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=72250&l=7666f&id=720640428
Kyoto & Himeji: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=72947&l=79db5&id=720640428
Tokyo: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=76084&l=521ce&id=720640428
Xi'an: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=76088&l=842d1&id=720640428
Chengdu & Leshan: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=76089&l=8de75&id=720640428
3 Gorges River Cruis (ChongQing to Yichang): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=79336&l=8e4d4&id=720640428

Enjoy

A fortnight in Vietnam

We arrived at Ho Chi Minh city (HCMC, formerly Saigon) at around 7.30am local time, tired and wanting a bed, to be confronted by a crowd of taxi drivers telling us $25 to town (most things here are priced in US dollars, the local currency Dong is about 25000 to 1 pound, hence 40 quid will make you a millionaire!). We went to the information desk and got one for about $9, after checking in we immediately collapsed for a few hours! When we eventually surfaced later that day it was dark, we got some dinner and headed back to our room, collapsing in front of a TV that had actual channels in actual English!

The next morning we stepped out into what seemed the entire world's population of motorbikes, mopeds, scooters and pedal bikes on the one road we were trying to cross. It seems like sides of the road in this city are arbritraty, wherever there is space, the Vietnamese will fit a vehicle through it. Luckily we had a mild introduction into road crossing in China, this was now the main event. The important thing is to put your head down, don't look at whats coming and they will miraculously part like Moses controlling the red sea around you. The minute you hesitate, get scared and pause or stop to say "Ooh, look at that!", it all starts to go wrong, a great deal of screeching, honking and swerving occurs. Nevertheless we made our way through and found quite an exciting market. Unlike markets we've visited previously, there was no speciality, clothes, tourist crap, food, spirits, etc. all under one roof. Cries of "Hello Sir/Madam, I have your size, what you looking for?" followed us round. We weren't particularly in the mood given our state, but still sat down at one of the food stalls and had a late lunch. We overheard a conversation that made mention of a night market that set up in the evenings outside of the market hall.

We continued to wander round the streets marvelling at the copied books (who knew there were black market books) for just a couple of dollars each until it suddenly started raining, and we ducked into a coffee shop. Once the rain had let up, that stops and starts as if someone is in control of a magical switch, we made our way down to the Saigon river watching some boys jump into the very murky waters. Later on that evening we returned to the night market and decided to have dinner there, we found a great looking place with a big barbeque set up outside and ordered a red snapper with some noodles. The fish was served whole with a plate of rice pancakes, a few herbs and some cold noodles. The idea is to put a little bit of everything into a pancacke then roll it up. The pancakes and noodles were a bit bland, but the fish was great and we decided to return the following evening.

Rain greeted us again the next day, so we spent most of it inside. First stop was the Reunification palace which served as the HQ for the South Vietnamese army during the war. It was a bit like stepping into a villan's secret hideout from an old James Bond film. The most interesting areas were the display wall, featuring 'gifts' that included some hollowed out elephants feet, and the basement that was full of communications gadgetry and map covered walls. We then made our way over to what we thought was the war museum but became suspicous when the first display was that of a wedding ceremony. We had in actual fact stepped into The Ho Chi Minh City Museum. There was a small room dedicated to the war, but the rest of the museum told of the history and development of HCMC. Once we'd had our fill of scary stuffed animals and topographics we went in search of the actual war museum to no avail. Once back at the hotel we sorted out our Open Bus ticket, the ticket is a prepaid ticket that allows us to travel from HCMC to Hanoi, making stops at Mui Ne, Nha Trang, Hoi An and Hue in between. As previously arranged we once again went to the night market for our dinner opting for meat options this time, but wishing we'd gone for the snapper again!

The next few days were spent in Mui Ne in a pool that looked out over a beach and the South China Seas. After a couple of months spent inland it was nice to unwind and relax under the sun. We did however spend one day adventuring. On the way into Mui Ne we had seen loads of dragon fruit plantations, and wanted to go and investigate. In the spirit of the moment we rented a moped, as the roads were nowhere near as crazy here, and set off to find the dragon fruit to scoffs and sniggers from the hotel staff who told us it was too far away. One bum-breaking-knee-burning-hour-long journey later we found the plantations. They went on in every direction as far as the eye could see, and each one was accompanied by a roadside shop. We picked one and after sampling one with red flesh and one with white flesh we decided on the red, bought two and were on our way again. Boosted by our success in finding the dragon fruit we then tried to find the salt fields, unfortunately we found roadworks instead, and headed back to the hotel to enjoy our fruit by the pool, smugly asking for a knife, making sure the staff saw our enormous fruits!

The next stop along was Nha Trang, another beach town, but a little less resorty, and a little more cocktail bary. In contrast to the private beach resorts of Mui Ne, Nha trang consists of a central tourist district about a 100m walk to an enormous curved beach. The first day was spent by the sea, swimming and enjoying the weather, the second we had booked ourselves onto a tour of the islands. The tour involved taking us out to four islands with various activities along the way. At the first we were chucked out above some coral admiring the pretty fish and a couple of rays before the pain of jellyfish stings became to much and everyone clambered back aboard. At the second it was luch time, they put on a big spread including prawns, noodles and fish and then chucked us back into the water to experience the floating bar (a big bucket sat in a lifebelt with a load of cheap plonk in it. The next stop was an island where you could pay extrea to do a number of watersports, we decided against and stayed on the boat. This proved to be a great decision as we saw the crew catch and kill an octopus. Even after it was dead the suckers still worked as Nikki found out when the guide grabbed her foot and stuck it to the upturned creature. The final stop was an aquarium, we decided to stay aboard once again, but this tim it was a little less exciting, but we were treated to a fresh fruit feast and some fried octopus! On our final day in Nha Trang the weather took a turn for the worse once again so we were stuck inside for most of the day, although I (Mark) did hire a pedal bike to go and look at some Cham ruins. Quite interesting and very different from Chinese/Japanese temples. On the way back I went on a bit of an adventure into the non tourist areas, which was exciting to say the least!

The following day we caught an overnight bus to Hoi An, a pleasant sedate town next to a river. It is famed for its multitude of tailors shops and Nikki managed to pick up a skirt and a dress for about 13 pounds. Today we hired a couple of bikes and rode the 3km to the beach, again a very different kind of beach. Soft white sand was offset by huge waves that crashed into your head from all directions! We went for a rather ominous meal last night to a restaurant that had no menu, just 3 choices - meat, seafood or vegetarian. Following your choice the staff then bring out various dishes under that theme that change daily. They also demonstrate how to eat the dishes and after we had been munching on what we thought was some sort of chicken, we were informed it was baby shark! Tomorrow we head further north to Hue before continuing on up to Hanoi.

HCMC & Mui Ne: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=83126&l=18c0c&id=720640428
Nha Trang: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=83294&l=3c919&id=720640428
Hoi An: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=83796&l=7663e&id=720640428

Guilin to Hong Kong

We spent a few days in Guilin, which was quite a nice town, surrounded by crazy rock formations sprouting up at random. There wasn't a great deal to do, but we had fun relaxing and walking around the markets and the city centre. We spent a day in Elephant Park, a rock formation that supposedly looks like an elephant kneeling down to take a drink out of the river. We spent around 3 days here then took a sleeper train to Shenzhen.

From the train station in Shenzhen it was an easy walk to the Hong Kong customs. We were a bit wary of our accomodation in Kowloon, a huge building that was separated into guesthouses instead of apartments. Each floor would have 4/5 guesthouses on. There were quite a few shady characters hanging about trying to sell copy watches, bags and tailors services. We were also disheartened when we saw the quality of the room compared to what the same money would buy in mainland China. But we absolutely loved Hong Kong. We ended up not having to spend much time in our grotty room as there was so much to do. The weather was fantastic and the city didn't seem to sleep so we were always out and about and ended up spending a week here when we only planned to stay a few days!

We saw the Hong Kong skyline from the star ferry that crossed the bay, we climbed the Bank of China tower up to the 43rd floor and went up Victoria Peak on the peak tram for excellent views across the city. We watched the light show that happens every night from the Kowloon side (although it was a bit cheesy, all set to eighties muzac) and went out to Ngong Ping 360 on an awesome cable car ride that went round the south of Hong Kong island and over the new airport to the 'larges seated bronze buddha' in the world. We also spent a day at Ocean park not quite a theme park, but not quite an aquarium! We also met up with a friend of NIkki's Mum called Winnie who took us for a great meal in times square of dumplings (my favourite so far!). We wandered round the markets at night that didn't setup til about 8pm and did some much needed shopping! We also explored the bird, fish and flower markets which were all very interesting. During the week we felt we got the best out of the city and were sad to move on, but definately acheived everything we wanted to.

After a tip off from the guesthouse owners we then got the ferry across to Macau and spent an almost free day there! When we got off the ferry we got a free shuttle bus to the Venetian Casino where we put our bags into the free luggage store, then went to the gaming floor where we got free drinks (but didn't gamble!). We went and got dinner in the food court then wandered round the shopping arcade with its indoor canals before picking our bags up (that had been transferred to the front desk) and getting on the free shuttle bus to the airport! We had a fairly sleepless night in the departure lounge then boarded the plane to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) at about 7am.

Photos:

Guilin - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=79549&l=87e60&id=720640428
Hong Kong & Macau - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=79824&l=4a745&id=720640428

Yangtze River Cruise & Showdown in Yichang.

It's around 5am local time, we're sat in Macau airport departure lounge, there's free Internet and there's an hour and a half before we board, perfect time to update y'all on our (mis)adventures.

After leaving Chengdu via 6 hours on a hard-seat train (its as it sounds) we arrived to the dizzying lights of Chongqing. The city itself is rather uninspiring, although it keeps you fit with its myriad of steps everywhere due to the city being built on a rather large hill. We spent a relaxing three days not running around seeing sights (as there aren't any) and instead organized ourselves onto the majestic sounding '4-day river cruise of the Yangtze river and it's 3-gorges'. We boarded the ship at around 9pm on the first night, as we approached we were greeted by a band, could see large comfy beds and a rather glamorous looking restaurant through the windows and well turned out smiling staff waiting to welcome us aboard... this is the boat that could have been... We were directed round the back to a smaller boat, our 'beds' were less than 6ft in length and the mattress comprised an MDF board with a folded dog blanket and a sheet for comfort and we were sharing with 6 Chinese people (1 of which spoke minimal English - "You put the ballbaskets?" [do you play basketball?] he enquired of me) who farted and snored in their sleep as if they were training for some sort of world championships.

We tried to get some sleep but, due to the end-to-end layout of the beds, Nikki spent most of the night trying to rebuffed a small Chinese woman's attempt to play footsie with her, and I resisted all urges to kick a different small Chinese woman in the head. (Tempting, I know.) At about 5am without the use of any kind of alarm one of the small Chinese women sat bolt upright, spluttered something and our cabin sprang alive with activity. How we missed English manners of asking if we minded the lights being turned on when our retinas burned with the sudden onslaught of strip lights on our tired eyeballs. Once they had all got ready in about half an hour they sat on their beds for an hour and a half until it was time to depart the ship. Meanwhile we lay in ours for as long as possible, removing ourselves only to straddle the squatter toilet in the en suite bathroom trying to get a shower from the head that was strategically placed directly above it. The warm water hitting the bowl gave off a lovely aroma of stale (excuse the language) piss. We disembarked the boat to a rather eerie looking dock at 7am and clambered up the steps to Ghost City. Once at the top our assigned guide, who spoke little to no English, pointed at a different guide, who spoke no English, and said "Maybe you follow him". We quickly gave up on this and explored the temple dedicated to death and the afterlife ourselves. It was quite interesting in a comical kind of way, especially when we unknowingly stumbled into the theme park area. It consisted of a haunted house style attraction that made scary 'oooOOOoo" noises and had things jump out as you walked around.

Once we were back aboard the ship we whiled away the rest of the day playing cards. The next day we were awoken after another sleepless night at 6am once we docked at 'White Emperor City'. This used to be a peninsula but, due to the three-gorges dam raising the Yangtze's water levels by 100m, is now an island. We walked round not really know what we were looking at, but getting some impressive views of the first of the three gorges. On the way back to the boat we heard an almighty screaming and, after following the sound, found out that it was coming from some pigs that were being lifted up a large step by their ears and tail from a boat to a truck. We sailed through the impressive gorge shortly after, enjoying the steep cliff walls that surrounded by mountains that went up beyond the clouds. After travelling the 8km gorge we transferred to a smaller boat to explore the little three gorges, which provided stunning scenery, the winding river banked by peaky hills. After a couple of hours we transferred to an even smaller (wooden) boat, that carried about 20 people, to explore a small tributary while the guide sang to us and we witnessed a rather scary looking woman opposite us consume a whole skewered baby pigeon, head and all!

After returning to the previous boat we were ushered off at a 'traditional' village that had been relocated further up the river banks due to the rising water levels. There was nothing original about the village, it was more evidence of the Chinese approach to conservation! Everything was completely new and the village consisted of lots of small shops selling local arts and crafts goods (read: tourist crap). We returned to the boat and continued our tour of the river, the only thing that spoiled the beautiful scenery was the incessant high pitched commentary in Chinese coming through the loudspeakers that lasted the entire 6-hour trip! We rejoined the main ship that had docked further down the river at a small town called Wushan which we had the chance to explore. There wasn't much to see apart from the largest display of public line dancing we've seen yet (about 400 people). The boat remained at Wushan dock for the night and set off in the early hours of the morning where we were again woken at around 6am when we passed through the second gorge, and the third gorge at 12.30 in the afternoon. Our cruise came to an end at 2.30pm where we transfer ed to a coach that took us the rest of the way to Yichang. We immediately booked our coach tickets to Guilin, found a hotel and collapsed for a couple of hours.

We went to get some food in a random restaurant right next to the hotel after waking up still a bit worse for wear. As we blindly ordered (no English menu) and started eating the owners son tried to take a photo of us (this happens quite often but never in a restaurant) - Nikki put her hand up and stopped him so he got bored and walked away. Then his Mum (the restaurant owner) picked up the camera phone and took one when we weren't paying attention - we were REALLY pissed off having told them 'no' once already so we got up and left leaving almost the entire meal without paying. She chased us down the street ranting at us as we mimed that we weren't paying cause she took photos and we'd asked them not to. She grabbed my arm and I pulled away then grabbed my t-shirt and then grabbed Nikki's bag and wouldn't let go, I literally dragged her down the street by Nikki's bag while a bigger and bigger crowd grew! Luckily the concierge from our hotel came out and spoke some English - the woman was shouting to the crowd that we'd "ran" off without paying (we'd walked down the street!) Nikki got really upset and left to go to our room, I stayed with the concierge and the onlookers to try and sort it all out. After LONG talking and ranting and gesturing between the concierge, the restaurateur and the crowd, none of which I understood, the woman let go of Nikki's bag and we were told we didn't have to pay for the meal. Towards the end of it all of the crowd had turned on the woman and were shouting at her and telling her off for making us so uncomfortable! Later that night Nikki realised that the woman had actually left nail marks and broken the skin on my wrist where she'd grabbed me! It was such a weird experience, it made us realise how horrible it must be to be a celebrity with it happening all the time - after visiting china you can understand why sometimes they kick off and smack the paparazzi!

The next couple of days in Yichang were rather uneventful apart from the woman who approached us in the park asking us to help her with an e-mail she had received from the UN awarding her a $500,000 grant in exchange for her bank details. We tried our best to explain it was a hoax, all the while she insisted we should ring them on her behalf to give them her bank details. We eventually escaped after telling her we had a bus to catch to Hong Kong in a couple of hours. The following day we boarded our bus to Guilin.

14 hour buses and 16 hour trains

Over night bus from Qingdao to Xi'an - My god what an experience!! there were bunks running the length of the bus which all faced forwards, they'd 'spaced' them so that your feet were in a moulded plastic shape thingy that went under the person in fronts head which they then used as a 'pillow' - needless to say I couldn't lie flat let alone Mark! Mark's bunk was above mine and as we started moving he decided to move into the empty one next to me until a bus guy (possibly spare driver?) came and gestured wildly and rambled loudly in chinese at us 'til we eventually understood that there might be more room for us at the back of the bus... we went back to find a bodged flat space that was about 2 3rd's of the width of the bus with thin foam mattresses over it - just enough space for 2 people to lie side by side and long enough for Mark and I to lie flat. We later realised it was directly above the engine and was really warm - Mark got too hot so ended up back in one of the weird cot things while I sprawled out, pretty comfortably, in the warm space. After a couple of trips to places that looked like coach (and possibly our) graveyards to pick up unknown boxes of stuff (possibly smuggling?) we were on our way. When we woke in the morning some of the boxes that had been stacked on the bunks above us had fallen precariously jammed between the bunks about a foot above our heads. We turned up about 2 hours later than scheduled (after dropping off the boxes at another mysterious coach graveyard) at Xi'an bus "station" and made our way round to the hostel.

It was FREEEEEEZING cold - we were wearing trousers, socks, shoes (we've been living in flip flops up until then), t-shirt, hoodie, fleece AND scarf all at one time and we were still so cold it was horrible. It wasn't helped by the fact that the place we were staying was a courtyard style jobbie so that if we wanted to go to the loo or shower or common room we had to run through the rain while trying not to slip on the algae covered tiled floor... it would have been a really nice place to stay if it wasn't such miserable weather.

Unfortunately cause of the weather we were pretty lazy the whole time we were there. we booked ourselves onto a tour provided by the hostel to go see the terracotta army and the Banpo museum (a museum about a 6000 yr old village). Mark and I realised we were the only ones from our hostel going on the tour and a bus with some other people on it picked us up around 9.30am. We found out the other people (6 in total) were an Italian family with 3 daughters and 2 elderly parents and also a chinese guy who was dating one of the daughters. Only the one Italian daughter spoke any english (and chinese - while the chinese guy spoke little english and no Italian) and the rest ignored us or asked questions about us through the daughter while ignoring us... odd. We had an english speaking chinese tour guide which was good so we had someone to talk to at least. The family we soooo stupidly slow that we (incl. tour guide) could walk down some steps across a courtyard and up another set of steps and the family would only just be reaching the middle of the first set of steps! Because of their slowness we missed our booked lunch and they had stopped serving and so we had to go find another place to eat. While in the meal the tour guide left and it was mark and I sat with the family so it felt like we were interrupting their family dinner - in the end we gave up trying to be polite and just helped ourselves to the food as and when cause otherwise they just helped themselves and there would have been very little left for ourselves. After lunch we went to the Banpo museum and the family decided not to go in cause they were too cold so sat in the bus and we were hurried (stupidly fast) around the museum while they waited... GRR. Anyway bar the family we had a good but cold day.

The terracotta warriors were pretty impressive but as someone described them later "they are what they are" which is very true - all the post cards/pictures you've seen of them is exactly all they are! There are less of them than we imagined and they've all been reconstructed from broken pieces because it seems non of them survived the thousands of years crushed beneath the earth :P One thing we never knew 'til now is that when they are first excavated they are all brightly painted and patterned but within 3 days the colour fades to the colour you see today. Because of this they've covered loads up that are still coloured to try to excavate them while keeping the colour.

On our last night in Xi'an we met two girls who were from essex and they invited us out to the "big goose pagoda" to see a musical fountain show - it was the most amazing thing I've seen so far - so beautiful! there was about 100/150m long area of concrete with flat areas that stepped up about 5 steps every 10m or so and lights set in the floor that faded through the colours and a pondy thing at the top - there were crowds of people on the stepped areas across width of the concrete. we found a place and waited - at 9pm it started. water shot about 10/15m, and all heights in between, up into the air from hundreds of spots on the floor on the flat concrete all the way down the length of the area. in the pond section there were fountains spinning water so that it shot up in twisting patterns and at the back individual spurts that squirted water slightly after the squirt in front to that there was a wall of water that rose and fell like a wave - and all this in time to music and the coloured lights (classical and chinese style) it was so amazing i wish i could describe it better! or at least show you some photos :( mark's got a couple but non that came out too well. we couldn't believe that this show only got about 2 lines of text in our guidebook - to both of us it seemed like the REASON to go to Xi'an! with the weather being so cold and the lights and music and magical atmosphere it made everything seem really christmassy or at least like bonfire night! I wish i could describe it all better.

We got up at 4am the following morning to get a 16 hour train to Chengdu where we are at the moment. We managed to get hard sleepers which are not hard - 6 beds stacked 3 on top of each other in one open room. We were in rooms next to each other so we were side by side but with a wall in between. When I first walked in and saw what I thought was my bed i was shocked cause someone was in it... then I looked upwards and there, near the ceiling, was my bed. there was about 2ft maybe less between the bed and the ceiling. and about the same or less between my bed and the one next to it. eek. There were little tables and fold out chairs in the corridor where Mark and I ate noodles we brought with us, while entire families in the bunk rooms next to us sat and watched like they were at the zoo. They must have had a great journey with us to watch! We arrived at 10.30pm to THE busiest train station I've ever seen (two 20+ carriage trains unloading people at the same time) and spent half an hour or so trying to get a taxi who only seemed to pick up people they liked the look of or were going far enough for it to be worth their trouble - many driving out without people in them!

We're now in a pretty nice hostel and it's warmish and not raining but Mark and I are full of colds after the past few days of wet weather and feeling pretty rough so taking it easy for the moment, recuperating and stroling around. Last night we went for hotpot after an unsucessful attempt the previous night where we went to a restaurant where no one spoke English, we didn't speak Chinese, and there were no pictures to point at, so we ran out without ordering anything! This time we went (to a different restaurant) prepared with a piece of paper that had prepared Chinese phrases of 'Only a little spice' and 'No fish' which we proudly presented to the waitress, as we don't trust fish being so far from the coast, which she ignored and beckoned over an English speaking waitress who talked us through the whole process. We were given a bowl of sesame oil which she added corriander, salt, sugar, vinegar, oyster sauce and MSG to, and told to use it to dip our ingredients in once cooked. A large pot split into an outer and inner ring with two different sauces in is placed on a ring burner in the middle of the table. You order a few different plates of stuff that are brought out raw, which you then cook in the hotpot. We had ordered a pot with a mushroomy/goji berry soup in the middle and what seemed like sauce made from concentrated volcano magma on the outside, our plates that came out included beef, mutton, bamboo, mushroom and pork dumplings. It worked out well as I preferred the dumplings and bamboo while Mark was happier with the mushrooms and meat. We enjoyed the meal and the experience and have worked out our menu choices for next time.

We attempted to visit the Giant Panda Research Centre today, but gave up after waiting 40 minutes for a bus for it to drive past us full! Instead we headed into central Chengdu and saw a large Mao statue saluting over Tian Fu square. On the way we tried some of the local street food after a recommendation from some people in Xi'an who had just come from Chengdu. A couple of days before we tried baked sweet potato, which was very tasty, so decided to be a bit more daring. We got what looked like curly fries with a little bit of chilli on, and some (possibly soba) noodles, which the vendor then proceeded to add various spices and chemicals to, and we wandered over to the square to enjoy our tasty treats. The 'fries' turned out to be some weird seemingly raw vegetables that gave us pins and needles in our tougues! The noodles were cold and tasted a little like the minty stuff dentists squirt into your mouth. After eating about half of each we gave up and dumped them both and got a couple of buns stuffed with what we thought was thin strips of potato that we are both very fond of, unfortunately it turned out to be the weird raw vegetable again so we gave up and went to KFC! We then explored the people's park which was nice, but a lot busier than other parks we've visited so no where near as peaceful. On our way back past Tian Fu square there was a large fountain display, but it didn't hold a patch on the one we saw in Xi'an! We kept going and explored the shopping district as Mark was hoping to pick up a couple of cheap t-shirts but all the tops are now long sleeve as they are in their Autumn/Winter season (we're still in shorts and flip-flops).

Tomorrow we hope to make it out to the Panda centre followed by a visit to a 71ft buddha carved into a cliff face at Leshan on Sunday.

Japan

The day after Nikki's birthday we had a wander round a small park in northern Hiroshima (Shukkien Park). It represents a part of Chinese landscape in miniature, including a small mountain that we conquered. In the centre of the garden there is a huge lake with lots of friendly terrapins in who came to say 'Hi' to us whenever we stopped at the side. After making our way back through the city we hopped on the Shinkansen up to Kyoto.

When we got to Kyoto we got a local train close to where we were staying, then tried to walk the rest of the way with our backpacks, then we got lost. Once we found our way we were shown to our room, a 22 bed dorm, that was virtually full! It had been a long day so after a chilled evening we tried to get some shuteye, only to be woken by a bunch of rowdy Aussies in the middle of the night/morning!

We got up the next day and went and had a look round Nijo Castle, the place where the shogun would stay. It was pretty good, but the thing we liked best was the musical floorboards that would alert the guards when someone was sneaking around. We went to check out the Manga museum, only to find it was closed on Wednesdays, so had a walk around Kyoto city centre. After so many descriptions of it being a spiritual city it began to feel like we were in the wrong place surrounded by tourists, skyscrapers, Starbucks and McDonalds.

The following day we planned to do east of the river, which is where all the temples and shrines hang out. Starting out in the south we visited the temple of 1001 Buddhas. 500 kannons (The Goddess of mercy) line up in rows on either side of a giant Buddha in the middle, each one has 40 arms holding something different and each kannon is unique. Along the front were the 28 guardian Buddhas. It was a pretty impressive sight especially viewed from either end of the giant wooden hall (supposedly the longest wooden structure in Japan).

We then took a walk up to Kiyomizu-dera Temple at the top of a hill, the temple itself was quite understated but the walk up took us past a hillside graveyard that seemed to go on forever. Once up the view from the temple's balcony over Kyoto was a great sight, the trail then led us back down past a waterfall that is said to cure all illnesses (although we decided not to as there were hundreds of people doing so and we didn't want to catch their diseases!) and down the paths of 2 and 3 years. If you fall on these paths you are said to get 2/3 years bad luck. We took a stroll through Gion which is old Kyoto with small wooden houses and bars lining the streets. We finished the day with a visit to the Manga museum which turned out to be more like a library. Some 200,000 manga titles (with a small English/foreign languages section) line the walls and visitors are allowed to take them out to read in the garden (a large AstroTurf pitch) or in one of the many seating areas.

The next day we took a trip to Himeji, a small town about an hour and a half away from Kyoto on the Shinkansen. We had heard it was possible to rent bikes for free but were disappointed when informed that they had run out. We started to walk up to Himeji Castle which dominated the landscape and came across another tourist information centre who were more than happy to give us bikes which we rode up to the castle. The castle was never used in a war, but is supposedly one of the finest examples of its kind in Japan. Afterwards we went through the miniature gardens next door and participated in a tea ceremony. Basically you wander in and are served something incredibly sticky and sweet then a bitter bowl of green tea that tasted similar to grass. We hopped back on the bikes and spent the afternoon riding the roads and dodging the traffic of Himeji.

We had planned to spend the next day in Nara, but after a tip off we went to a small peaceful garden in the north-east of Kyoto where we saw some crazy trees and a bird (a heron apparently). We did some deep thinking whilst walking down the path of philosophy then hopped on a bus down to the Fushimi Inari shrine. Thousands of torii gates are packed in along the paths creating tunnels that almost completely block out the sunlight in places. Each gate is paid for as an offering by a company who wish to do well in business. One of the most impressive things we saw in Kyoto and well worth a visit.

On Sunday we spent the day travelling up to Tokyo where I (Mark) unfortunately spent the evening bed ridden with some kind of flu and a fever. We stayed in the Asakusa area, which had lots of small market stalls lining the streets around the Sensoji Temple. The following day we looked into getting out to Mt. Fuji as I was planning on climbing it. That evening we went around Akihabara the discount electronics area that is awash with neon signs and cafes where girls dress up as Manga maids to try and get business.

We got up early the next day to explore Tokyo's fish market, rows and rows of merchants line the giant warehouse and crazy 4-wheel drive buggies whizz past ferrying goods back and forth. We got some good pictures of various sealife (both dead, alive and twitching) but unfortunately Nikki's camera packed in half way round.

Although I was still running a bit of a fever I decided to go out to Fuji anyway. I took a highway bus out to Kawaguchi-ko then a local bus to the Sengen Shrine at the foot of the mountain. As it was outside tourist season there weren't regular buses up to the 5th station which is about 2300m up the the 3774m mountain and I had missed the last one. Therefore I would have to climb the whole way which I would be doing at night to get to the top for sunrise.

Now this may be hard to believe but I left my camera on the highway bus which fortunately I got back the next day, but have no evidence of my climb! I started at around 6.30pm by following the road as the mountain trail looked a little dangerous, somewhere I took a wrong turn and ended up going around the mountain but eventually found my way back onto the forested Fuji-Yoshida trail. The trail is separated into 10 stations at which I had planned to rest along the way. I realised this plan was not great when I approached a run down shack with broken benches stacked up inside signposted as '1st station'. I carried on climbing and thought of getting to 5th station as I knew this was more major with 24 hour toilets at least. As I made my way up (listening to Red Dwarf spoken novels on the iPod) my flu kicked in and I felt I would have to give up once I reached fifth station. Eventually after stopping just past fourth station I had one of the two Snickers I had brought with me, and it tasted so good I decided to save the other one in case I did make it up. During this rest I also realised my bento box that I had packed had exploded, and was now inedible! Along the path on trees were hung small pieces of paper that were counting down to something, and as I passed 4th station I realised they were counting down to fifth station. The map indicated it would take around 45 minutes to walk between 4th and 5th station so I was surprised when I came across a sign for five station. My heart sank as I realised it was yet another run down shack that was all locked up, but then I saw another small piece of paper that was tied to a tree that still wasn't at 0, so kept climbing. Eventually after 6 hours of climbing I came across what I thought was the real 5th station, with toilets and a rest room. I sat on a warming toilet seat for a while, put on some more clothes, filled up my water bottle and freshened up. After a brief stop I decided to try and make it to the top.

It was around 1am when I set off from 5th station so I figured I had around 5 hours to make the rest of the climb. Soon the trees thinned out and down below I could see the small towns lit up at the base of the mountain. Progress was good at first but slowed when the air became thin at around 3000m and I was stopping at almost every bend in the path that zig-zagged up the mountain. As I approached the last base before the summit I saw the sun starting to poke up along the horizon and stopped to watch it rise. It was an awesome sight, that was truly unforgettable. I tried to climb the remaining 250m but the flu along with the wind made be begin to shiver and I though it best to descend again (after consuming my second Snickers). I went back down to what I thought was 5th station where I intended to catch a bus back to Kawaguchi-ko. As I sat there sipping a cold coke taking in the view I asked someone when the first bus was, they told me it would be in 3 hours, but it went from 5th station about 1km across the mountain. I felt my muscles groan as I stood up and walked over to 5th Station where I made a phone call to Nikki and posted a postcard to my Mum and Emma. Once back at Kawaguchi-ko station I picked up my camera and got a train back to Tokyo, struggling to keep my eyes open all the way.

We spent the following day exploring central Tokyo which was more of what we expected out of the city, tall skyscrapers and bright lights. We were on the hunt for a new pair of flip-flops for Nikki when we saw a sign for H&M. Following the stream of people coming towards us with H&M bags we eventually found the shop down the street with a HUGE queue of people in front of it. We followed the queue past one block, then another and a third, before it went round the corner as far as the eye could see. Insane! We gave up on H&M and explored the awesome 7 storey toy shop across the road instead.

The next day was a dead, spent travelling back down to Hiroshima where we spent the night in a Ryokan style B&B, the best nights sleep we had in Japan! Not too difficult after nights spent in 22bed dorms. After catching a train back to Shimonoseki we got the ferry back to Qingdao in China where we've spent the last few days. We're now just about to get a taxi out to the bus terminal to get a 14hour sleeper bus across to Xi'an to see the terracotta warriors.

Turning 22 in Japan.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect of my 22nd birthday spent in a strange country without my family, most of my friends and only Mark who knew anything of the occasion. In a country where if you want to order anything other than Coke (a universally understood word apparently) it involves a lot of pointing and gesticulating wildly or mumbling a badly pronounced (rarely understood)sentence from the phrasebook.

We were Hiroshima in the South of Honshu island, Japan; the city where America had dropped the first atomic bomb at 8.15am on August 6 1945 during WWII (that trip to the museum really paid off!).

We'd arrived the afternoon before and arranged some last minute accomodation at the information point in the train station. We got a good deal to stay in Comfort Inn Otemachi, a comfortable double room in a standard hotel (it could have been in any city around the world!) We spent the afternoon in the Peace Park; a park created as a memorial to the A-bomb which is surrounded by a river on either side. We went to the Peace Memorial Museum which stood near the entrance to the park and saw the devastation of the bombing to both the city and it's inhabitants, with scaled models of the city before and after the bombing - certaining a sight to behold.

Once outside the sun was so hot we were dodging from shade to shade through the trees. We walked up to see a memorial placed for a young girl who had survided the bombing only to be diagnosed with lukemia a few years later caused by the radiation. There is a story that says if you make 1000 origami cranes you wish will come true. The girl made cranes, hundreds and hundreds of them, wishing with each tiny crane that she would survive her illness. She made over a thousand cranes but unfortunatly died a while after. Now school children around the country make thousands of paper cranes which are placed in about 10 huge sealed glass boxes standing about 7ft high, 5ft wide and 3ft deep surrounding a statue in memory of the of girl. Thousands and thousands of cranes all wishing for the abolition of nuclear weapons and peace around the world.

The next morning after a birthday breakfast in the hotel of cereal and baked things (mmm, baked things) where i opened my birthday cards (thank you) we made a slow start to Miyajima; a small island about 10 minute ferry ride from Hiroshima. We got on the streetcar (tram) and headed towards the port, we arrived about half an hour later to realise we were at the wrong port and had to get an hour long tram ride all the way to the other side of the bay (doh!)

When we finally got to Miyajima we were starving, (it was about 2.30 in the afternoon) so we went and got some lunch of Okonomiyaki (a mass of noodles, chinese cabbage, beansprouts and pork cooked on a flat griddle in front of you with lots of flair and clattering of spatular things, then placed under a pancake with an egg and weird soy/bbq sauce on top - tastes a lot better than i've described it, trust me :)). We had an ice cream for dessert with chocolate biscuit thing on which we thought would be nice to eat while sitting in the sunshine in a park area - bad choice. There are lots of wild deer around Miyajima and Mark made friends with them quickly as his ice cream melted and all the chocolate bits fell off, one even started to eat his shirt while he was trying to run away from them, ice cream held above his head.

We walked around the coast of the island towards the infamous O'Torii gate and shrine. It would be high tide at 4pm (the best time to see the gate) so we decided to walk round a bit and take in the sights before paying to go into the shrine to see the gate from the, apparently, best view. After seeing the gate we went to an aquarium (they have some weird sort of draw for me - i blame dad) then went to catch the cable car to the top of the mountain to watch the sunset. Unfortunatly the last cable car up the mountain was at 5pm and the last one back at 5.30, we'd missed both, we decided to go back to the O'Torii gate to watch the sunset.

It was beatutiful. The sunset behind the hills surrounding Hiroshima in the distance and with the O'Torii gate in the foreground, it was a photographer's heaven. Mark and I, and apparently the rest of the tourists in Miyajima that day, have the photos to prove it.

When the last traces of light from the sun disappeared we headed back to the ferry and our hotel. For our birthdays Mark and I had decided to buy each other dinner and take it from there. Mark found a restaurant that served yakisoba, a noodle dish (a Fuji Hiro favourite) and gyoza, either Chinese or Japanese dumplings (depending on which country your in they belong to the other - no one wants to claim them!)

After the meal we went for a drink. Bars in Japan are odd to say the least. With little space to spare they cram bars into appartment buildings (where each appartment door opens into a different bar) we found one we thought sounded like it had all we needed 'Cocktails and Drums' unfortunatly the sign was blocked and we realised it was actually 'Cocktails and Dreams'. We tried it anyway. We walked into a tiny, empty (apart from the millions of spirit bottles) bar and a little old lady who didn't speak a word of english beyond 'england' and 'sweet'. There was no menu, therefore no pictures to point at and no phrasebook; it was going to be a interesting night. We decided after trying to ask for rum without successs that I would try a 'sweet' cocktail. Not bad, made with cassis and juice of some sort. After some trying conversation that mostly consisted of silence while she thought up the right word in english (pretty impressive with our immensly poor attempt in Japanese!) She made another and Mark managed to explain, somehow, that it was my birthday. We chatted while she disappeared, returning with two glasses of cava on the house :). Mark, unfortunatly doesn't like cava so I had to drink his - so as not to appear rude of course :P A while later, after the woman had put on a dvd of some Royal Family music event consisting of Elton John and the like, some girls came in and the woman told them it was my birthday, then a glass of 'prum' arrived in front of me, possibly bought by the girls. We eventually worked out it was a type of plum wine, tasty but not like Fuji Hiro's :) We were asked if we wanted to try some (we think) saki. It was ice cold and sweet and tasty - possibly why we think it might not have been saki...

A group of business men entered, order beers and sat smoking cigarettes (no smoking ban here but you can't smoke on the streets in the main parts of town) another guy came in who turned out to be the woman's son and owned the bar. He spoke some english and the woman told him it was my birthday. After he asked my name and got everyone to practice (after being told i was called Nikki-san) the guy pulled out a harmonica and started playing 'happy birthday', the whole bar joined in singing! I sat there grinning like an idiot with no idea what to do. When they stopped i said 'aragato', thank you, a lot and bowed (you get used to it - i'm still bowing now) soon after we went to leave, the owner asked if he could take our picture to putting on the bar's blog. We checked a week after but the blog hadn't been updated.

After Cocktails and Dreams we went to another bar high up in a building over looking a small park and some of the city. Mark insisted i try a cocktail called a grasshopper which tasted exactly like mint-choc-chip icecream (drool). After that we headed home and I promptly fell asleep, luckily waking up without any trace of a hangover :D

It certainly was a birthday I'll remember for the rest of my life :D

Almost Japan...

Nikki arrived in Beijing on the 26th and we spent 5 more nights there. We went out to the Great (signposted Grart) Wall. After an early start we had arranged to meet a member of Ting Tours to take us there. Whilst stood on the street corner waiting for some form of minibus to pull up we noticed a shifty looking character strolling up to us. He spoke no English but gestured for us to follow him, we assume his air conditioned mega van must be parked around the corner. As we crossed the road we realised that our transport for the day was to be a knackered old Lexus coupe "parked" at (on) the side of the road.

It took a couple of hours to get to a section that was brandished in signs proclaiming that "This section of the wall is closed to the public." and "Closed for refurbishment". We turned onto a small dirt track, fearing for our lives (and bruised buttocks), where our mystery guide parked up and we followed him up a steep bank to a broken section of the wall. We climbed up a dodgy 3 rung ladder (and were charged 2yuan each for the privelege by a hermit living on the wall) saw the climb was not yet over. We clambered up broken steps and mounds of vertical rubble to the top of the wall where we had about a 750m stretch of wall to explore, either end of which was impassable. After a couple of hours we headed back to the car and our guide (we'll call him Bob) took us back to Beijing. We payed Bob then parted ways, only to find out later he'd overcharged us!

After a lazy afternoon, we went to the night market where we tried sea snake.

Over the next few days we took in Forbidden City, Tian'anmen square, and some tranquil parks in the middle of the hectic city roads. On our last full day in Beijing we took it easy and went to a teahouse in the afternoon where they put on an hour long show with as much green tea as you could drink. We saw a shadow play, Sechaun face change opera, acrobatics, singing, a comic double act, a magic act and a special olympic tea dance.

We took the train down to Qingdao (about 6 hours) on the east coast to catch a ferry to Japan. We've been here for the past few days enjoying the beaches and the hot weather. The food has been an experience as there are less English speakers here so we have had to play a game of pointing and hoping and on one occasion we were forced to resort to McDonalds (it's just as bad here as it is everywhere else)!

We're catching the ferry this evening (8pm local time, 1pm GMT) to Shimonoseki on the southern most tip of the Honshu island of Japan (the big one with Tokyo on). It's a 40 hour journey so we've stocked up on snacks and the local version of pot noodles (which are a hell of a lot nicer!) to keep us going. We plan on spending a couple of weeks exploring Japan using the railways before returning to Qingdao to continue our Chinese adventure.

Off to catch a taxi now, we'll post again soon.

Love N&M

Olympic Fever

Just thought I'd do a quick post before Nikki arrives tomorrow.

I've been saving most of the big sights until Nikki got here, but visited a few parks. Jinshang park is a large hill behind the Forbidden city that was made from the material dug out to make the Forbidden City's moat. From the top you get great views of the city and there's a giant Buddha (although you aren't allowed photos). In the hunt for beach volleyball tickets I went out to Chaoyang park, but was too late, so had a wander round the park. It's pretty immense and has lots of areas, right in the middle was a tacky amusement park. On my way out I was invited into the Haier House of tomorrow. Haier sponsor the games and make household appliances. Their house of tomorrow involves putting internet and TV into anything and everything, including bathrooms, air conditioning units and picture frames.

Whilst waiting for the volleyball final I went for a wander round Beijing Zoo, after being promised a dolphin show I rushed round to see it and it turned out it was actually a sea lion! The zoo is ok, some of the cages look quite small, and it smells a bit funny.

Since the baseball i've also been to see quarter-finals of the water polo, had a full day in the Bird's nest where i saw womens and mens 4x100m finals, 4x400 womens qualifying, women's long jump final, second half of the decathlon, 5000m womens final, 50k walk and a few others, saw the Brazil vs. USA womens volleyball final and the women's 10k swim. Its been a really enjoyable experience slightly tainted by the touts ridiculously overcharging and the Chinese government being a bit overzealous on the security. I tried to go watch the closing ceremonies with someone from the hostel as we were told it would be shown on the big screen just outside the stadium, but when we got there the closest you were allowed without a ticket was about 1.5 miles away where you could only just make out the stadium.

Beijing is a great city and the scale of it is unbelievable, although it doesn't bring to mind what i thought a chinese city would be like, it seems more like a cross between a Chinese, american and spanish city!

I'm here!

Well its been an eventful first couple of days in Beijing! After a fairly uneventful flight i got to the airport and sent the 'I'm here and well' texts while waiting at the baggage carousel, after a while I noticed the people round were thinning considerably, until i was one of only two people left and there was no more bags to come. I realised the praise I had bestowed upon terminal 5 earlier that day was a little too forthcoming. My bag had been sent to Vienna! They gave me a phone number and told me it should arrive tomorrow (Monday) meanwhile i headed on a confused journey via 2 taxis to my hostel, quite a nice place just a short walk from the forbidden city. After sorting myself out with a shower i headed down to tian' anmen square for a leisurely stroll. I seemed to be attracting a bit of attention and ended up with an uninvited companion for the afternoon (Leah?) who wanted to practice her English. I also felt a little like a celebrity when people were asking if they could take a picture with me. Leah explained that my brown hair and blue eyes accompanied by my height made me somewhat of a novelty. I tried to stay up as late as i could to avoid jetlag, but only managed about 10ish (i had been awake for 36 hours at this point!).

I woke up quite early and decided to explore the Olympic village, i tackled the subways and was soon at the birds nest being swarmed by tickets touts, despite the many signs warning of the punishment. As the tickets had increased 10 fold on the face value (around £150-200 for athletics) i bought some for the Netherlands vs. Cuba baseball match. I had wanted to see a match in New York but it was too expensive there.

Again i was accosted by people wanting photos, and a couple of children asked for my autograph. I was also interviewed by a Chinese TV station! I headed back to the hostel and by bag arrived shortly after, so i grabbed a shower and a change of clothes and headed to the baseball stadium. I found out that its quite boring although the crowd atmosphere was good. Cuba won 12-3, i grabbed something to eat, and that was the end of day 2.

One gone one to go...

It's Saturday 16th August and Mark is currently on his way to Heathrow airport to catch his 4 o'clock flight to Beijing. He'll arrive in Beijing about 3am Sunday morning which will be about 9/10am Beijing time! Here comes the jetlag...

I'm (Nikki) back on the Isle of Man and busy gathering all the last minute 'essentials' like wet wipes and a pen knife that seem to have been missed off the miles of list we've made (and remade) over the past few months. I'm also contemplating if I'm actually going to be able to lug these huge mounds of stuff surrounding me on my back for a whole year and why, oh why, did i not go for a backpack with wheels?! (for the sissy backpacker BUT I AM a sissy and there's little to no upper body strength in these arms!..)

Anyway that's just a little update after months of nothing - we're pretty much prepared (we think). If we've forgotten anything Mark's going to give me a ring (skype) and let me know all the things I should grab last minute and all the "essential" items we've forked a fortune out for that we should just leave behind to gather dust!

The weather in Beijing at the moment sounds a little erratic - Olympic rowing being cancelled due to huge electrical storms while the sailing has to be delayed because there's no wind! Mark's off to watch some of the athletics happening this week and will hopefully be able to get a few extra tickets for other events when he gets there.

the initial plan when I arrive (26th August) is to spend a few days in Beijing (acclimatising, sleeps erratically and sweating lots) then we're off to S/Korea by boat then another boat to Japan where we'll hopefully arrive by my birthday (Sept 8th - all donations welcome :P ) for a weird Japanese styled celebration (?!) A couple of weeks spent drifting around Japan trying all that we fancy and daring each other to eat the most disgusting foods. Boat journey (48 hours long!) back to China but into Shanghai this time from where we'll then head west and hopefully make it into Tibet (via the highest railway in the world with pressurised cabins!)

I should stop writing now or I'll go on for ever. We'll hopefully be updating this more often from now on and using it as our main travel blog so you can keep up to date about where we are and what we've been up to.

If you want to subscribe to our blog there's a link at the bottom of this page (subscribe (atom)) which should tell you what it is and how to do it... good luck.

See you all in a year!

N&M

Getting Stabbed (Lots)

We went to see the travel nurse at Leeds Student Medical Practice today. She told us we would need vaccinations against Hep A, Hep B, Typhoid, Rabies, Yellow fever and Malaria (as well as giving Mark some Diphtheria, Tuberculosis and Polio vaccinations - DTP).

She seemed a little too keen to stab us straight away with Hep A/Typhoid and Hep B (one in each arm) employing a scorpion like pincer motion with one needle in each hand. Once she calmed down and the maniacal grin subsided, she informed us about the crazy daily ritual of eating malaria tablets for over a year (while we're away). Needles(s) to say our arms are slightly swollen and achy.

On Monday we will return for more stabbing - this time for Rabies (the first of three) and (Mark's) DTP vaccination.

Most of the stabbing comes free of charge, however Rabies and Yellow fever will cost us £40 per injection (total of £160 each) and the course of Malaria tablets will cost about £200 each.

N&M

Welcome

Hi,

Welcome to Nikki and Mark's Round the World Blog.

We are setting off in August starting in China. Mark is heading off on the 16th to catch some Olympic events in Beijing and Nikki will be joining on 25th.

From Beijing we plan to head across to South Korea by ferry then overland to the east coast where another boat trip will take us to Japan. After a couple of weeks there we'll head round to Shanghai taking in the sights of China. We then plan to explore SE Asia including Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand (spending Christmas & New Year on the legendary party island of Koh Phangan), Malaysia then flying out of Singapore to Brisbane (Australia).


We'll spend a couple of months driving around the coast of South Australia before we catch a flight from Sydney to Santiago (Chilé) with a two week stop in New Zealand along the way.

From Santiago we'll see if we can catch a last minute flight out to Easter Island before exploring South America (Chilé, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana). When in Ecuador we're hoping to make it out to the Galapagos Islands to poke some tortoises and other crazy creatures. We then plan to island hop from Guyana to Mexico via Barbados, Dominica, Antigua, Dominican Republic and Cuba. Finally we'll head across the Mexican border to Belize, then to Guatemala before a long flight back to the UK and a hot shower and food we can pronounce.

N&M