Hoi An to Saigon

Well, I'm still in Vietnam and still sweating like crazy, don't think I'll ever acclimatise to this crazy weather! Hoi An was great fun, the beaches were incredible and we met up with lots of friends from our Halong Bay trip to enjoy several buckets of alcochol with (Vietnam is a very dangerous place for my poor liver). We also managed to squeeze in a bit of culture, my going to the Myson ruins. They were a 1000 year old cluster of Hindu temples, which were bombed quite heavily during the war, as the Viet cong were hiding there. There were an awful lot of lingams there, which I found highly amusing (would love to upload pics but my brand new memory stick immediately got an evil worm when I put it into a pc... think I'll give up on downloading pics until I get out of Vietnam!).

After Hoi An we travelled down to Nha Trang, which is essentially Vietnam's best beach resort. What we didn't know is that it's also one of the dodgiest places to go in Vietnam. Just after we arrived, we bumped into three of the Halong bay boys. We literally couldn't believe our eyes, they'd been beaten up really badly. Apparently they'd got into a disagreement with security at a bar which had ended up with two of them in hospital. Not a good introduction to the place, we quickly decided to spend only one night there! As we spoke to various travellers, more and more stories came out about muggings, violent robberies, etc. I have absolutely no photos of the place as I was too scared to take my camera out! Nonetheless, Nikki and I managed to survive unscathed, well apart from giving our livers another battering and depriving ourselves of sleep once again (6am bedtime is never a good idea... fun though!). I'm not sure if I'd recommend the Nha Trang really for the safety reasons, plus the beaches are actually much nicer in Hoi An... possibly best avoided.

After another few hours on the open tour bus we arrived at Mui Ne, at the unpleasant hour of 2am. We lucked out with our accommodation though - when we arrived, we were told the cheap room we wanted was still occupied, so they upgraded us to a big bamboo bungalow right by the sea, with two large double beds. We were lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves, and woke up to see palm trees out of the window. Beautiful. There wasn't an awful lot going on in Mui Ne, but we did have fun going to the nearby red sand dunes, where you could hire out a plastic sheet and ride down the dunes!

After our last bus journey in Vietnam (woohoo!), we're now at Saigon. First impressions are good - it's busy, chaotic, but clean and you don't get too many hassles. After a much needed nap, we headed straight out to a bia hoi place. I'm going to miss squeezing into these tiny places, full of people, sitting on plastic chairs surely made for 5 year olds, and drinking ridiculously cheap beer. Vietnam has certainly been a lot of fun.

Sweating buckets in Vietnam!

Wow, once again I've neglected my poor old blog (still have to break in to it from Vietnam), and now I'm miles behind! Add to that the fact that I've temporarily lost some of my pictures of Vietnam due to my USB stick and memory card getting a virus, this might be a slightly rubbish blog. But I'll try my best!

Getting into Vietnam was a bit of a nightmare. I took a sleeper bus from Kunming to Hekou, which is the border crossing on the Chinese side. All I had to do was walk across the border to Lao Cai, then take a minibus to Sapa. Sounds easy, right? Nope. The bus dropped us in Hekou at 5am, and the border crossing didn't open for 3 hours. The town was literally dead - no people, no lights, nowhere to go. Luckily there was an English speaking Vietnamese guy with his family who also got off the bus, so we sat together in the street, surrounded by  cockroaches and mozzies, until the sun came up and the border finally opened. Once on the other side, I got a nice taste of Vietnam to come - everyone was trying to rip me off, charging me triple to get the bus to Sapa. I had to fight my way from the crossing to the bus station, where I finally managed to pay the right price after some negotiations. Welcome to Vietnam!

Sapa was really breathtakingly beautiful, set high in the mountains and overlooking hundreds of rice terraces. I can't get enough of rice terraces, I love them! Especially seeing the workers with their conical hats painstakingly looking after their field. There wasn't much to do in Sapa apart from walking around the terraces and drinking bia hoi (the world's cheapest beer I think... 60p for a big jugful works for me!), so we decided to combine the two and go on a drunken wander to Cat Cat village with three British guys we'd met at the hostel. Well, lets just say it ended up with me having my second rice-terrace related accident. Yes, I fell over AGAIN and still have many bruises to show for it. I wonder if my shins will ever again not be covered in greeny purple splotches!

After Sapa, we made our way to Hanoi, which gave us our first experience of Vietnamese sleeper buses. And I thought the Chinese ones were uncomfortable! I think these buses are built specifically for 5 foot tall Asians, definitely not for me. The positions I've had to contort my body into recently have not been pleasant. This bus was particularly bad as the air con on the bottom bunks wasn't working. I haven't moaned about the heat yet in this blog so here goes...... it's sooooooooooooooo hot!!! Every day, it's mid thirties and with about 75% humidity, it's hard work just existing sometimes. But nonetheless, it's worth it to be here. Hanoi was lovely - bikes everywhere that you have to learn how to avoid (crossing the road is like an art form in Hanoi sometimes!), and  lots of good food, interesting sights and fun times to be had in the hostels. Nikki and I went to see a traditional water puppet show one evening, so hilariously bad but great!

After a couple of days in Hanoi, we decided to escape the city and head to Halong bay for 3 days. It was AMAZING. Fantastic scenery of the karst peaks (like Yangshuo on water), which we got to kayak around on our first day. Our junk boat that we stayed on was great, and we were very lucky with the people we had on our boat. We got on particularly well with some lovely English boys, Seb, Leo and Josh, and an Irish girl called Ciara. The evening on the boat decended into carnage, with a game of ring of fire plus some moonshine that we'd bought from an old tribal lady near Sapa causing lots of cross dressing, naking jumping into the water (on the boys part!), and us boarding a nearby French boat to rock up and sing karaoke to them. It was one of the funniest nights on these travels so far, absolutely brilliant.

The next day was more civilised, with a bike ride around Cat Ba Island, then taking a boat to Monkey Island, where we stayed for the night. We had a private beach to ourselves, with cute little bungalows right by the beach. I could've happily stayed there a week, but unfortunately had to return to Hanoi the next day, from where we jumped onto another horrendous sleeper bus to Hue.

We only had 24 hours in Hue, but I loved it there. Nikki and I took a motorbike tour for half a day, which took us into the countryside, as well as to see various tombs and old bridges. So much fun. I would never have dreamt that I would enjoy being on the back of a bike so much!

I'm now in Hoi An, which is where you can get lots of tailoring done. I think I might have to get some shoes made to order, could be expensive but hopefully worth it! I'm off to the beach now, which is a short bicycle ride away. Oh it's a hard life for me!!   

Yunnan province

Wow. I wish I'd got to Yunnan earlier! I finally feel like I've seen a bit of culture in China. After my rather uncultured few days in Kunming, I got a sleeper bus to Lijiang. The old town was really beautiful, with incredible Naxi architecture everywhere. I immediately got lost after getting out of the taxi (the place is like a maze!), but thankfully a very helpful member of staff at the hostel took pity on me and collected me!

The old town is a pedestrianised area, with cobbled stones, chinese lanterns and small streams creating a magical feel. If only there hadn't been a million tourists there, I would have felt transported back in time. The Naxi women are much smaller than chinese women up north, and for some reason all very old! Seeing these little old ladies wearing baskets on their backs and flat caps was such a change from the modern chinese woman.

On my second day in Lijiang, I went to Tiger Leaping Gorge. I didn't want to do the 2 day trek (naturally) but I took a bus and then did the 3 hour round trip to the gorge and back up. Normally I'm so bad going down hill, but it seems that I've improved! I lead my group of 5 all the way and had to constantly keep stopping to let them catch up. I think the scenery was so incredible that I was too distracted to be bothered by the slippery rocks or steep drops just a few inches from the path. On the way back up we lost two members of the group, who eventually caught us up on donkeys! What cheats! It was a great day, and I felt that I deserved a celebratory Dali beer or two in the evening!

Speaking of Dali, that's where I headed next. My first impressions were that it was even more beautiful than Lijiang! The four gates surrounding the old town are very impressive, and the streets are much easier to navigate (once you get the hang of dodging the old ladies saying 'you want ganga?'). Today I went to a market for the local Bai people, who wear really colourful clothes and big headdresses. It was the first time in China that I can honestly say I escaped the tourist trail. And guess what? I loved it!

After I returned to Dali, I met an American family who spoke to me after watching me being asked by a few different chinese guys to have my photo taken with them (they do love the blonde hair!). They were amazed that I'd got around China on my own with very little Chinese. I think all you really need is some common sense and a willingness to smile at everyone. Anyway, they adopted me for the day and took me to get a foot massage and scraping after I showed them the state of my feet. The massage was incredible, painful but in a good way! My feet are still in a state though, as scraping involved rubbing the arch part of my foot with a 1 yuan coin until it really hurt. She totally ignored my manky heels, maybe they too big a job for the money we were paying?!

I've now booked my bus back to Kunming, where I have 1 more night in the wonderful hostel before making my way to Sapa in Vietnam. Can't wait!

Hong Kong to Yunnan

My current hostel has some marvellous software, enabling me to write this blog entry and beat the system!

I had a great week in HK staying with my cousin Kate and her husband Nick. I did as many touristy things as possible during my stay, including taking the star ferry, watching the symphony of lights, which is where all the biggest buildings put on a synchronized light show every evening to some terrible Chinese music, and taking afternoon tea at the Peninsula Hotel (delicious!). I also took a day trip to Macau, which is a small part old Porguese town, big part Las Vegas of the East. Very strange but worth a visit!

The symphony of lights show in HK.

After leaving HK I travelled to Guangzhou, and stayed for 24 hours before heading onto a 26 hour train to Kunming, the capital of the Yunnan province. On my first day I met up with Nikki and Kiara again, which was really nice to catch up. Nikki and I have now agreed to meet up again in Vietnam which should be really good, it's been a long time since it was just the two of us!

My first impressions of Kunming were that it's just another city, but with very little to do. What I discovered is that the main thing to do is sit around and drink! So, naturally, I gave that a go. I'm staying in an excellent hostel called Hump (hehe!) and have met loads of people here. A couple of days ago, we tried to go to the Dwarf Empire. Basically it's a little villiage in the mountainside where hundreds of dwarfs live, and they put on a daily show. As you can imagine, I was very intruiged, but after an hour's journey, we arrived to find a ghost town. It was raining, so the show was cancelled! I was devastated. Our driver tried his best to make us happy by going into the block of flats where the little people all live and banging on the doors to get them to come out and say hello to us! It was so embarrasing, and so so wrong. Like I've said before, it would only happen in China!