World Trip

Russia

ivanci — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 03:37:00 GMT

Overnight train was comfy and quiet – we had four berth coupe for ourselves until last stop just before Mongolian side of border around 7am on Thursday 14 May. While stretching my legs on platform, I change redundant Tugriks into Rubles with a local “businessman”. He looks reputable, after all what options do I really have? Suddenly train gets flooded with local “traders” who will try to smuggle anything from socks, bras and jeans to shoes and handbags to Russia. Firstly we do not understand what is going on but soon we realize this almost childish routine must be taking place every day and for many this may be the only way to make few bucks for living. Mainly women try to conceal contents of large bags anywhere they can – one enters our coupe spreading her “hot items” evenly around … two pairs of brand new pants hang right behind me, many pairs of socks are lazily tossed across our beds and a mysterious gift box is placed on table amongst our breakfast leftovers. Everyone is very agile trying to put on as many pieces of clothing as possible. It is somewhat comedian to see them dressed in layers and layers of clothing in relatively warm morning with a smear of fear on their faces in anticipation of Russian custom officers later. Actually we feel sorry for them in a way, but unwilling to participate despite many ladies asking to hide some of their contraband in our backpacks. In meantime our carriage is disconnected from the train (which will return to Ulanbator) and taken by locomotive across the border only to be reconnected to a Russian train waiting in Naushki. It is 10am. We are in no doubt that Russian border check will be a tough one, firstly our carriage is searched through with police dogs, then few officers turn everything possible upside down checking even ventilation holes and then very strict smile-less woman officer collects all passports. We do not feel any pressure but these poor smugglers are very stressed and put under immense pressure from Russian authorities. Lady from our coupe and other two are taken away with all their possessions, I can see them from the window walking inside the custom building being escorted with officers and dogs. Finally we get our passports back, all smugglers undress, repack their bulky bags to quickly get out of the train and we leave Naushki at 3pm in our journey to Baikal Lake. We should not be surprised to see snow covered landscape from our window early morning with sunrise. We left tropical and hot south east Asia long time ago and this reality is somewhat chili. Well, this is Siberia!

We arrive to Irkutsk at 8am. Following directions to Downtown Hostel we hop on a crowded tram #1 outside of railway station, buy tickets from tram driver and few minutes later I instinctively check my left pocket … I have been doing this for some time completely automatically being almost paranoid since we lost two cameras … damn! My wallet is gone! … with 5000 rubles, two VISA cards and Australian driver’s license. I can not believe it! Swearing does not help much, I can’t get it back. Very chili morning indeed…. Welcome to Russia!

Luckily Iva has the second set of VISA cards so we can withdraw cash from nearby ATM, I do not want to imagine what we would do in Irkutsk without access to money. Finding Downtown Hostel was bit of a challenge and unattractive rear heavy security door to block of units was rather unexpected entrance to a hostel. Apparently owners converted their old three bedroom flat into two six-bed dormitories and shared bathroom plus kitchen. With very limited backpacker accommodation availability in Irkutsk we should not complain too much and this deal for 1000 rubles per night ($40) is the cheapest deal we can find around … far cry from private room in luxury Pink Hotel at Dalat (Vietnam) where we paid $10 with breakfast and internet included. Hey, stop dreaming and get back to Russian reality … we need to call our bank in Ausie to stop VISA cards before some Russian bastard runs for free shopping. And any cream on the cake? We need to register our visas in Irkutsk with local “authority”, of course for a fee ($25). This place sucks! Less then 24 hours in Russia and we start to regret we ever came … but we are already here so let’s enjoy whatever we can. Using our footwork and trams we explore Irkutsk for the whole day and though very cold we enjoy subtle beauty and serenity of the town, contributed to by its architecture and parks. Sashlik, beer and vodka elevates our spirit to higher level so by late afternoon we are more relaxed not discussing earlier events any more. We also stop at railway station to buy train tickets for Moscow ($650 both). One of main attractions in Russia is the Lake Baikal of course, so tonight we book a marshutka (minivan) from Irkutsk to Chuzir, which we are told is the well known touristy town on The Olchon Island. On Sunday morning we meet few other travelers at Vogzal (bus station) and soon we leave for a six hour drive. After short ferry crossing and one more hour on dirt road we finally arrive to glorified Chuzir and we are truly stunned. It is difficult to describe our feelings as we walk through village looking for Hostel Nikita. Looking around this ghost town and at each other we shake our heads … vast majority of timber houses are on the verge of collapse, fences have fallen down already, no people on streets, no animals in paddocks. In fact no signs of life at all except one or two lost dogs wandering around muddy pond, filled with rubbish in the middle of village. Scattered empty vodka bottles are the only evidence of grim night life here. After check in we are taken by English speaking staff through maze of various wooden dwellings to our room. Not bad at first sight, soon we figure out there is something unusual, almost spooky about this hostel, this village and this island. Nikita (owner) expands his little empire with new guesthouses, each one being built in different shape and colors probably more due to availability of building materials then to architectonic design. We are quite excited about our private bathroom with shower and chemical toilet just outside of our room until we discover nothing works – water is not connected, neither sewer and the toilet needs to be emptied manually every day, luckily by staff and not by us. Hmm, how do we wash ourselves then? Well, there is a bucket of freezing water inside our room … even more private bathroom! Ok, settle in and let’s go to explore village before dinner, hopefully on the way we can buy few beers. We found only one small grocery shop with very limited choice of goods; surprisingly we have seen no sign of restaurants, bars or any other public social place as we are used to. Now we understand why Nikita Hostel offers a package of three basic meals per day together with accommodation – there is nowhere else to eat! Tonight, after dinner served in common dining room, two local housewives dressed in traditional costumes will sing Russian folk melodies, accompanied with local guy plying accordion. Interesting flashback to our early childhoods while singing Kathusha and Kalinka with them…after all 5 years of Russian language at school back in old Czechoslovakian communist regime left few things in our memories. Other backpackers are somewhat surprised with our skills. What else can we do on this island? One day we explore on foot the coastline of beautiful Lake Baikal, the other day we join a full day 4WD rough trip to the most northern tip ‘Mys Choboy’, and one day we desperately want to find some form of social life in Chuzir… except five more mixed-goods shops we failed our mission. Majestic and breathtakingly beautiful Lake Baikal is undisputedly number one landmark in our Russian experience. Crystal clear turquoise waters reflect steep white rocks rising from the lake, distant light-gray mountains add mystic feel, and blossoming flowers present everywhere make this place very peaceful. It is early spring and we still can touch ice in few shady areas, water must be just above freezing point and dead quiet nature is just about to wake up from long and cold winter. On Thursday morning we leave Lake Baikal arriving to Irkutsk late afternoon… this time we stay at Hostel Baikal (we found only two hostels in Irkutsk – Downtown and Baikal). On Friday we need to buy life support supplies for our 96 hours train to Moscow (leaving Irkutsk 10pm) …. salami, cheese, bread, beer and vodka should do.

Two young Russian ladies share coupe with us for first 20 hours, the rest of the trip we have the four berth coupe just for ourselves. Eating, drinking beer and vodka, playing cards, reading books, joking with kids on train or just looking out of window fill our four days so at the end our trip has not felt that long after all. One evening we get invited by a local sport team to their coupe for stakan, or two. “Davaj po centimetriku i nebudem targovat sa!” one says with big grin on his face and we quickly learn how Russian drink vodka.

Moscow on Tue 26^th May at 4:30am is sunny but very cold and windy, the Metro does not start until 5:30am and we kill an hour by wandering inside train station… at 6:30 we arrive to Godzila Hostel run by an American guy. We are going to stay in private room with shared bathroom for four nights ($90 per night! This is easily the most expensive backpacker’s hostel in whole year), no breakfast, no coffee. At least it looks clean and recently refurbished. Need some good food to kick off metabolism soon and after walking around few blocks we find nice bakery with delicious ‘pirozky’. Back in hostel after 1pm… check in our room… warm shower is quite pleasant after four days on trans-siberian. Eating out in Moscow is prohibitively expensive, after having quite miserable one or two meals we decide for self-catering option utilizing hostel kitchen. Puzzled why Moscow has been officially voted as the most expensive city in the world we must agree. Over next few days Iva prepares very tasty pasta, pancakes and fried rice from supermarket ingredients and the only shop we re-visit is the one with pirozky. Wednesday morning is more pleasant and in short sleeves we head off to explore Moscow with help of efficient Metro. Red Square is an obvious target and not just for us – plaza is buzzing with tourists, we just have missed Lenin’s mausoleum closing hours and have to return tomorrow. For the rest of afternoon we leisurely stroll around remarkably colorful Kolomenskoe Park dressed up in blossoming tulips and lilacs. First item on our Thursday’s agenda is Lenin, then Museum of Cosmos Exploration. Unexpectedly we also witness unleashed celebrations of Border Guard Service Day – by mid afternoon many half naked drunken soldiers sing and dance around water fountain to our enjoyment, some taking their liberties perhaps too far. Something impossible or unthinkable in Australia but that is exact reason why we travel. Friday is very last day of our Round the World Trip, not accounting visit to our homeland Czech Republic, and we feel little sad that our adventure is almost over. But wait, there is more! Five more weeks in Czech and one week in Italian Dolomites before we fly back to Australia. Our departure from Russia on Saturday 30th May is not without a hitch – a two hour flight to Prague expands almost to ten hours when connecting flight from Kaliningrad to Prague is cancelled and instead we are taken via Paris landing at Praha-Ruzyne airport at 8pm. Not happy but finally home.

Despite magic Lake Baikal we were not impressed with Russia in whole, mainly due to lack of compassion and warmness from people, sometimes even bordering with arrogance. All they seem to be interested at or motivated by is money. Services like accommodation and hospitality are non-proportionally expensive as compared to average living standards of ordinary people, or rest of the world. Russians would like to be global players but they have not learned good manners and customs. Russia did not leave positive feelings on us and therefore we do not plan to come back.

Mongolia

ivanci — Sat, 8 Aug 2009 02:59:00 GMT

Within half an hour of leaving Erlian the Mongolian authorities infested our train to start really thorough border/customs check. Our passports are taken away for stamping and we are not allowed to leave train for almost three hours. All doors and windows are locked, guards on the platform look very mean and we sweat at boiling 36C inside, and the restrooms are opened only when train is moving ... not happy! Around 8pm a sharp looking female officer returns with passports and we can finally walk out of our temporary prison. Train heading for Ulaanbaatar is going to leave in a few hours so we visit nearby restaurant testing our first Mongolian dish and local beer in company of Chinese girl journalist JD. Besides Cantonese she speaks Mongolian and English and that is very handy. We share 4-berth coupe with two Mongolian sisters returning home from study in Beijing and after good sleep and breaky they both get interested in our favored card game "Joker" which we often play to kill some time. Other Mongolian passengers get soon involved as well and by mid morning our coupe is full of Joker enthusiasts. We have a lot of fun and it is almost sad to see Ulaanbaatar station so soon saying good bye to everyone. Very friendly staff from Golden Gobi hostel is awaiting us at the station as promised, and soon after we check in a clean and spacious double room. This hostel is somewhat unusual in a way of its position and style – local Mongolian family transformed a couple of flats in a typical two storey block of units into one space with nice and cozy feeling. Later afternoon we are invited to join a 6-day 4-WD trip through central Mongolia. That sounds exciting, we are going to meet many nomad families and learn about their traditions and culture. We are in! Our group of six backpackers, driver and tour guide Pasca (she will cook as well) will leave tomorrow morning in a Russian jeep. Wow! Can not wait till morning, despite warnings of “no shower”, no toilets and lots of bumpy ride. We leave just after breakfast – Pasca needs to stock up cooking supplies while we take the opportunity to buy more vodka and munchies. First 100km in spacious jeep with hard Russian suspension is surprisingly not so bad but everyone welcomes first stop at Hustai National Park resort where we hear first time about almost extinct Przewalski horse. Soon we are on the road again. Suddenly someone spots a herd of horses coming towards us from a distance. Driver stops, we get out very slowly and in amazement we watch about a dozen of wild Przewalski horses galloping across the road some 20 meters in front of us. “Guys, you are extremely lucky!” Pasca smiles and we feel privileged to be here. It looks like horses decided to perform for us the best of their skills, we take many pictures while they play and drink from nearby creek. Back to jeep, lunch on the way and off we go – we still have 200km more to the first overnight stay with nomad “Bur” family. Rolling hills and valleys are occasionally spotted with groups of 2 or 3 round tents – gers, but mostly the land is bare and unpopulated. There are no sealed or sign posted roads here, our driver is skilled negotiating sometimes steep river crossings, all that without GPS or maps – he just knows which way to go. I am thinking myself “How would I survive here if I ever get lost? Hmm, that would be unpleasant”. We arrive to Bur’s family just before sunset; the weather has deteriorated with strong cold westerly winds picking up. While Pasca prepares our dinner, we all settle in one “guest ger”. There are six single beds inside lined up alongside the round wall and a smaller stove in the middle. Bur’s wife started fire and in minutes we feel warm again – this is a good time to unpack and get beds ready for night before dinner is ready. We’ll all eat, play and sleep in this unusual type of accommodation for next few days. After delicious dinner Pasca goes on explaining local customs; for example we need to follow clockwise direction when visiting family’s ger, she talks about harmony which exists between nomads, their livestock and the nature. We learn how families pack up their gers and move from place to place up to four times a year to follow seasonal changes of pastures. When I ask 79 year old Bur what makes him the happiest, he thinks for a while and then replies “When my animals are healthy” - Pasca translates with a light smile and adds this family owns over 1000 sheep and angora goats. He pulls out a small container from inside his heavy thick coat and offers sniffing tobacco as a gesture of friendship to all of us. Remarkable evening, perhaps few minds tonight will be thinking about values and priorities in life before falling asleep. Morning is freezing, literary. An overnight blizzard has covered this vast land with thin layer of powdery snow and temperatures dropped below zero. Brr… we supposed to ride camels today and it is still snowing by 9am! Hmm, but how often can we ride a camel in Mongolian outback? This is the only chance, so put on those heavy long sleeved coats and hop on! Bur prepares three camels (yes, we'll ride on seats) so split in two groups of three riders, each group having about half an hour of camel fun. Clouds have receded a little and wind dropped off slightly which makes the ride more enjoyable. Earlier this year Bur's female camel had her first baby and now three months old youngster does everything what small kids do - it madly jumps around but never too fat from her mum. On the way we encounter a group of mischievous billy goats who decided to explore the world outside their home boundaries, Bur knows how to handle such situation. The presence of livestock is overwhelming. With smile we watch hundreds of somewhat clumsy baby sheep and goats jumping on steep rocks never really loosing their balance. Few even come for a cuddle, perhaps we start to smell like their mothers. Lunch at noon and we need to move on soon, at 2pm we wave to Bur’s family from windows of our jeep heading further 200km west. Snow sprinkled landscape becomes more dramatic with steeper valleys and rockier hills. We also see first yaks, from now on we’ll see them everywhere and often they are domesticated as an alternative to here-non-existent common cow. A quick stop-over at Semi-Gobi desert gives us some impression of what Gobi might look like and by 7:30pm we arrive to a young nomad family of five – Mocho (husband), Turne (wife) and three daughters 2, 7 and 10. We’ll stay with this family for two nights and as before a single visitor’s ger is ready for us. We are invited to the family ger and our taste buds are put to the test when offered Mongolian tea. What is Mongolian tea? A green tea with salt and fresh creamy yak’s milk – close your eyes, imagine a soup and you have no problem. Imagine a tea and no one can drink it! An interesting play of mind. I passed the test on the first attempt; Iva needs one more day to convince herself. Few vodka shots after dinner will help good night sleep. It has been snowing all night and brief toilet visits to mother nature pose few challenges. Saturday morning is still very cold, skies are covered with thick grey cloud, wind sprinkles snow everywhere and horse riding looks even more uncertain. All of us seem to be sucked into this amazingly peaceful lifestyle and we take every opportunity to be part of it – we watch Turne milking yaks, we carry baby goats and sheep to an overnight shelter or we walk livestock to/from pastures. The weather little improves by late morning giving green light to horse riding. Mocho and his friend saddle eight horses and we are on the way to waterfalls. Well, maybe in wet season but now completely dry. Never mind, the sensation of horse riding with nomads in snow covered Mongolian outback is priceless. Back for lunch just in time, we are all very hungry – metabolic combustion is quite rapid at low temperatures. Pasca has proven herself as an excellent cook and also today we do not expect any less. She has not disappointed us and her Mongolian based meals taste great. Afternoon is filled with few activities – we three boys opt for another horse ride, Iva relaxed with a cup of coffee catching up with her notes and later this afternoon we all engage in game of badminton under blue sunny sky. Sunday starts with home made yak’s yogurt on pancakes, then Turne comes forward to our request to see angora goat shearing to produce Kashmir wool. Finally we sadly say good bye to this lovely family and move on to acomplish busy day ahead, including visit to a monastery hidden deep in forest hills. After four hours driving the Russian jeep struggles to finish last few kilometers on steep and muddy road, in one place it even slides sideways dangerously close to a cliff. We jump out of the car refusing to get back in again. “Not until you get off that edge” we insist on driver. He did and we continue up hill for few more kilometers however conditions get worse quickly as snow cover increases with higher altitude. Jeep dances on snow and mud like a yo-yo; too many times I hit the roof with my head. Finally the car comes to a stop – too much snow and mud for these tires, we need to walk from here. Pasca reckons we have 6km each way and it is 3pm already. My sneakers are completely soaked wet, snow gets deeper in shady forest and our enthusiasm runs thinner by every minute. Last drop and we call it off – me, Iva and Femke decide to bail out and we leave the group about the half way up to monastery returning to the jeep. Hopefully we’ll find the way through the forest.... All went ok; we found the car and quickly made a fire to dry our footwear. The rest of the group returned at 6:30pm, now we need to move really fast to reach our next overnight stay at hot springs, still at leats 100km away. It does not look good – did we say no sealed roads or sign posts here? The sun moves closer to horizon and something looks sus – our driver asks locals for direction and we seem to be going in circles around very large swampy flat lands. Suddenly we see where we do not want to be … jeep gets bogged in deep mud in middle of swampy terrain. It is now completely dark, no flashlights or shovels are at hand and no one can help but us. I am little angry with the driver because this could have been prevented if he did not drive like a fool. With the help of few members of our group the car is pushed out of the mud and we move again. Not for long though. A couple of hundred meters later he gets bogged again, this time the car sits on its belly and there is no way to get it on wheels again. “How could he not see the water in front of the car?” I ask myself when I saw reflection of headlights on paddles ahead of us just before it happened. Truly foolish, indeed. Furthermore, neither driver nor Pasca are really sure where exactly we are. It is 11pm, very cold and with moon shining over dead-quiet land we start to walk with our backpacks in hope to find some place to stay overnight. Pssshh! Someone can hear dogs barking in distance. The sound becomes more intense so we must be getting closer. Where dogs are, there are people. Or, are they? We do not know for sure, none of us is familiar with Mongolian outback at night. Keep walking, and then we see a silhouette of ger in about 200m distance. Pack of loudly barking dogs is maybe within 20-30 meters and we can see them, very nerving situation. David remembers how he was once chased by a pack of wild dogs. Whole group tucks down to prevent further dog’s aggravation. While we are quietly waiting for next action, our driver somehow passed guard dogs and knocked on ger’s door, asking family for a help. Few minutes later dogs go quiet and we are all invited inside; to our amazement this very young family with small baby offers us their ger as a shelter for tonight. We could not believe this - Wife made up fire in already cold stove, cooked Mongolian tea, rolled noodles from the scratch and cooked them with lamb meat while her small baby was happily sleeping in her bed. By 1am they dragged in few spare mattresses with blankets and tired all we fall asleep on the floor very quickly. Morning is fresh but at least it is sunny. At 6am wife milks yaks, we assist grandma to remove baby goats from their mums to a shelter while grownups go to pastures. In meantime our driver organized some local guy with a tractor to pull his jeep out of mud plains. Two hours later the rescued jeep arrives to load our backpacks and we are on the move to hot springs where we supposed to be yesterday. This is our first shower in five days and we all are looking forward hot water bath in a swimming pool fed with natural thermal spring. While Pasca is working hard on our breaky we indulge in hot swimming pool, wondering how we feel when we get called for the breakfast – air sits at chili 10C. Quick nap, then lunch and we are in jeep once more for the last destination of this trip - ancient capitol Kharkhorin. Soon after we leave hot springs we stop once more at our rescuer’s ger for fresh yak’s yogurt produced within few hours of milking. Five hours later we arrive to a touristy ger camp in town of Kharkhorin. Tonight a local musician will perform traditional music in our ger and few other tourists are welcome to join us. Last sleep in ger means the trip is almost over – not quite yet, we are going to see local monastery, then many, many hours on a mix of dirt and sealed roads to Ulaanbaatar, in total 360km. Apart from seeing herd of over thousand horses galloping by, the ride is tiring. Everyone just looks through windows and I know what is going through minds here in jeep - We all are sad that this wonderful encounter with nomads and their livestock has come to the end. Driving through streets of Ulaanbaatar makes us to think about real values of modern city life.

Tonight we all go out for last dinner and tomorrow I and Iva are going to board train for Russia. Our last day in Mongolia starts with a visit to local markets and the rest of afternoon we just cruise around town centre. With help from hostel staff we catch a taxi for train station but to our horror at half way Iva noticed she left her handbag at the hostel. Unfortunately taxi driver did not understand a word in English so when we say “Golden Gobi hostel” he takes us to wrong “Gobi Hotel” which happens to be located in a completely different part of Ulaanbaatar. Sweating and frustrated we stop another taxi - luckily this driver could understand few words so soon we squeeze through busy evening traffic heading back to Golden Gobi hostel (Murphy’s Law works here – Madona has a concert here tonight so traffic is unusually dense). Iva flies for her bag and shortly we are racing to train station again - some 40 minutes later. Well, we just made it in time and train starts to move while we organize our pack in the coupe. Hush! What a relief. We deserve a drink. Or two….

Mongolia is beautiful example of how people, livestock and nature can co-exist together in balanced harmony. This trip exceeded all our expectations. If there is such a thing as return to the nature then Mongolia is the place.

China

ivanci — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 08:52:00 GMT

Our last steps in Vietnam take us from the bus to Vietnamese custom building, then in rain we need to walk 200m bridge across the river which divides two countries. Chinese officials look very strict and while Iva is checked rather quickly, my passport seems to be rising many eyebrows; I am asked to sit down and wait for "few more computer checks". I have no idea what's wrong, however ten minutes later everything seems to be ok and I am also allowed to enter China. Oh, what a bummer! We've just missed our pre-paid bus (allegedly 9 hours of comfy ride) for Kunming because of these extra checks, but station attendant finds a quick replacement - next bus for Kunming leaves in 5 minutes. Sounds good? Hm, bit sus as this vehicle reminds chicken buses we used in SA and we squeeze in last few empty seats. Outside it's still raining, windows do not seal and floor is wet, many people lit up cigarettes and road is very bumpy. Iva's first toilet break is a shocker - no doors, no walls, only five holes in concrete sharing with locals, no privacy. Two more stops later afternoon are not any better and we start to think that China might be a challenge, not to mention complete lack of english so far. Views from window are very different to what we had seen before - roads are busy with heavy trucks (not a single motorcycle in sight), landscape is dotted with heavy industry and lined up with a web of high voltage electric lines. Late afternoon we are getting hungry, food offered in local shops does not look anyhow appealing and our diet relies solely on dried stuff in our bags. Finally after twelve hours we arrive to Kunming at 10pm, tired and with cravings for a nice chinese meal. Luckily we spot a reasonably looking hotel not to far from the bus station and by 11pm we are on street again searching for a good stir-fry. Not be able to find what we want we settle for a soup with rice noodles and bits of meat look alike substance. Considering our desperate position we really had no other choice and ate it all despite excessive chili content. Our first day in China is over and it is time to go to bed - we also need to put our wrist watch forward by one hour.

Kunming is pleasantly modern and clean capitol of Yunnan province. We wake up into cloudy morning but thanks god it is not raining. Spotting a fast food restaurant with mouth watering pictures of breakfast menu we order omelete and bread sticks. Another disaster! Flour based omelete is totally soaked up with grease and bread sticks have strong odour of ammonia. We pay (well, after all we have ordered the stuff) and walk out hungry. Few biscuits and coffee back at the hotel will keep our energy level up for few more hours. Later we find few bakeries and reasonable restaurants near lake where we spend the most of the time over next couple of days - getting around town is easy with dense and efficient public bus network. Strolling around the lake or walking through shopping boulevards mainly fills our days and we are happy to move further north in Yunnan. Buses for Dali leave every half an hour and bus station is only few hundred meters from our hotel. Easy! Just point to chinese characters in Lonely Planet depicting Da Li, pay tickets and hop on the first available bus for a five hours trip.

Dali elevates our spirit to high levels - cobblestone streets and beautiful old buildings combine with relaxed happy atmosphere to make this place truly unique. This authentic historical town surrounded by high stone walls has beautiful position - from one side you can take a hike to mountains peaking at 4000m, from the other a short walk to lake which spans over 40km. As usual our first day we spend strolling around, having coffee and basically absorb vibes created by large tourist crowd, by far the mostly Chinese. This weekend Dali will host spring festival (not easter though, chinese do not know of follow christian traditions) and many market stalls pop up everywhere. We would like to hike those hills and Thursday is the day - morning looks sunny with bright blue skies. After breaky we walk through markets trying to find the entry to national park and with help of hand sings we finally there. For 60 juan (12 AUD) we get in, for another 60 we take one way cable car to the hiking trail up in mountains. What a quiet and peaceful place compared to town below! With not many tourist around we truly enjoy few hours of mostly flat or downhill trek. Strangely enough the trail is fully concreted or paved whole way so city sleekers can "hike" here as well. By late afternoon all market stalls are opened and on our way back to town we are stunned by weird stuff on display - dry snakes and frogs, scorpions, herbs, animal parts and all sorts of black magic items. Hmm, no thanks! Friday is rainy, a perfect day for internet & photos sorting and we can use computer in our hostel free of charge (Four Seasons Hostel). I noticed unusual files with .exe extension appearing on camera memory sticks and flash drives, it looks like we picked up a virus. Not happy! All computers have operating systems installed with Chinese characters and nobody here is computer literate or speaks any english. Very frustrating, maybe we can fix that tomorrow in Lijiang where we are going next.

If Dali was "wow" then historical part of Lijiang is double "wow". First moments after we step off the bus we are lost and cannot find our way - Lonely Planet map is useless but people are very helpful and there is no shortage of assistance to us. Noticing how desperate we look, one local man leads us through maze of narrow streets to accommodation we pointed. The hostel is full, we need to find an alternative and soon we find one. From this moment we can start enjoying this magic and very picturesque village spiced with Tibetian essence. But stop! First we need to clean that nasty (Trojan?) virus. Here computers are also installed in chinese and not many have any descent virus scanners. At the end of the day we decide to burn existing pictures on two DVD's and format all cards - local Kodak shop cleaned the virus beforehand. Now we can relax! Time for dinner and after stressful day we deserve something above average - smart looking restaurant with one man band looks promising. Iva ordered fried rice with chicken, I picked one of more expensive meals - Sichuan style chicken with chillies. My impatient taste buds make me to frequently peek towards kitchen, and here it comes! Meals are served and I can not believe my eyes! Chopped chicken bones with handful of dried red chillies. Where is the meat? I like spicy and hot food but my mouth is burning and I am definitely not going to crunch those bones with my teeth! I complained to waiter, then chef came surprised with my reaction and at the end we walk out without paying for this particular dish. Iva's rice was very basic but at least edible, I lost all appetite for any more chinese cuisine tonight. Our time in Lijiang is almost entirely spent on browsing through endless web of streets, small craft shops and taking many pictures. Dried Yaka meat is local specialty, with its rich meaty taste we can eat only few pieces. Restaurant Praga and Lamus-House Of Tibet soon became our favorite cafes serving good chinese and western food. We explore nice views from surrounding peaks - walking up and down fills up one day, but of course the real gem in Yunnan province is Tiger Leaping Gorge, some two hours by bus north from Lijiang. After few lazy days in town we miss hiking and this is THE place exactly for that. We start from Jane's guest house about 3pm on Tuesday 14 April, leaving our large bags with Jane - for next few days we'll need only a bare minimum. If today's weather is any indication it should be nice hike - snow covered peaks contrast with deep blue sky and there is no sign of clouds. After 6km and two hours of easy walk we arrive to Naxi family GH where we are going to stay overnight. Views of many 5000m peaks from our bedroom's window are just stunning! Chat with other hikers before dinner and get good sleep before we attempt the hardest part tomorrow morning - 28 bends winding steeply up and we are looking forward to this challenge. Exhausted when finished but definitely awarded with even more stunning views while we continue to hike on leveled part of the gorge ridge. Last few km's seem to be even more difficult then 28 bends as we need to descend to Tina's GH through fairly rough path. Today's 15km hike was definitely not boring (waterfalls, goats hopping on seemingly vertical walls, amazing rock walls going up and down, and Yangzi river thundering down below) but apparently the best part Middle Gorge is coming tomorrow, as we are told by other hikers over couple of beers in Tina's GH. Hike through Middle Gorge is not very long, total of approx 8 km is usually done in 3-4 hours, but the elevation difference is the killer. Steep descent to the bottom of canyon is a definite adrenalin blast and we both struggle with both physical and mental reserves in our bodies. Breathing is heavy and fast from excitement when we look almost vertically down to raging river. Slipping here would be very unpleasant indeed, if not fatal in some places. Finally we make it to the bottom, few more big boulders still in way between us and Tiger Leaping Stone - an enormous piece of rock in middle of river where we take some breathtaking pictures. Ceremonial wash of our faces with water from Yangzi river completes our mission and it is time to ascend back to where we started hours ago. It is very hot and we have a long way up, water we drink seems to evaporate before it can cool our bodies and we stop frequently to catch breath. Oh no, do not look down - keep your eyes up! A 20m vertical ladder adds even more spice, by 2pm we are out of canyon and certainly we deserve a beer! At 4pm we catch bus back to Lijiang for one more night, then on Sunday, 19 April we go by sleeper bus to Kunming, directly to the airport heading for Shanghai.

Basically we have only one reason to be in Shanghai - get Russian visa. Presenting emailed invitation letters (colour print) and our passports to an officer at Russian embassy seems to be going without major hick-ups and after paying 1300 yuans we are asked to return next Wednesday for visas. Hm, but today is Wednesday so what can we do whole week in Shanghai? Hang on, somebody at Tina's GH mentioned Huang Shan south-west of Shanghai, so why not to spend a week around there? Sleeping train is comfortable and clean, at 6am we arrive to Tunxi where we spend a day or two, with one day visiting nearby historical village Hong Cun. Learning about daily Huang Shan national park entry fee 200 yuans p.p. and very expensive overnight accommodation at mountains (1300 yuans per night!), we decide for one day hike only. Early start at 6am will guarantee plenty of time and we should have no problem to complete east and west trails by 6pm in order to catch a last bus back to Tang Kou. First glimpse of Huang Shan range peaks leaves little doubt as to why this area has been proclaimed as the most beautiful mountains in China. Enormous crowd of Chinese tourist is the only nuisance, sometimes we queue minutes to scramble for a lookout, but as we progressively move to western trails the crowd significantly thins out and the nature remains just for few keen. Soon we realize why - easy eastern trails get more steep and difficult here, the most of suit-dressed Chinese tourists are not prepared to hike through Grand Canyon, negotiating 500m drop and many thousands of steps in both ways, down and up. Scenery of west range is simply amazingly spectacular, this is definitely one of top highlights of our world trip! Light gray vertical rock walls, in places 300-400m in height are made accessible by means of suspended concrete paths and bridges - our senses are tested when walking on a 1m wide space with hundreds of meters below. It is quite unbelievable piece of construction and one can only wonder how it was built. The hike through canyon was in fact more challenging then we thought and we just make it to the top cable car station minutes before its closing time. Twelve hours of strenuous hike was more then enough and we gladly take cable ride down to valley instead of walking further 1500 steps downhill. Tonight we will sleep like babies, tomorrow back to Tunxi where we catch sleeper train back to Shanghai. What a wonderful week we had!

Visas are ready as promised (though the pick up time is strictly 14:00 - 14:30! Not the friendliest embassy by any means) and immediately we board the fastest train in China "Maglev" reaching 430km/hour speed on the way from Shanghai city to Pudong airport, an 8 minute trip which took over an hour by bus when we arrived to Shanghai one week ago. We need to catch 17:40 flight to Xian. Why Xian? Terracotta warriors buried under ground for over a thousand years and discovered in 70's, placed this town onto world's travel destinations. As we do not have sense of days in a week, we pick the worst possible day to visit the site - 1st May is the biggest Chinese public holiday with thousands of locals having today the same idea - visit Terracotta Warriors. Almost an hour of queuing for bus, people just everywhere and it is almost annoying but at the end of the day we enjoyed every minute. Our Chinese visa expires in five days and we still want to see Great Wall, it is time to hop on another sleeper train this one to Beijing - we just love overnight trains.

Beijing is clean and tidy, many improvements from Olympic games are still visible. Staying in City Central Hostel was good choice due to its excellent proximity to public transport, metro and train stations are nearby. Normally an easy task to buy train tickets soon becomes our nightmare as no tickets (domestic or international) to Mongolian border or Ulanbatar are available before our visas expire on 5 May. How do we get out of China in time? It is still many hundreds of kilometers to the border and we are left with only one option - sleeper bus to Erlian (last town in China) and then we'll see. We hear about hefty fines for overstaying in China, in the worst case we cross border on foot and then we'll find a hostel on the Mongolian side. With clear instructions from hostel staff in our hands we manage to get to the Muxiyuan bus station only to find out that tickets can not be issued even one day before departure, instead we need to buy them the morning of the day we want to travel. F...F...F...!!! We have wasted another half day, some things here are very illogical. Ok, calm down, we have one more day reserved for The Great Wall. We select the least visited segment Simatai, three hours bus ride from Beijing but definitely good choice - only few tourists share this unusual but admirable construction with us. Few hours of walking up and down is enough, we return to Beijing by 6pm pleasantly tired and hungry. Any nice Chinese food tonight? Why not the famous Peking Duck? Tasty but little bit too fatty.

4th May morning we go back to the bus station for tickets leaving our backpacks at the hostel so we can walk around town lightly. By 5pm we leave Beijing on bus which is not the cleanest and best smelling. Hmm, it is also very warm evening and it might be a challenging travel. Twelve hours later we are dumped into very cold morning in sleepy Erlian, no shops opened, no people around, nowhere to worm up and the border apparently closed till 8am. Brrr... we keep warm by walking and incidentally we find the train station, however cannot get any decent answer from staff as to what time any train would leave for Mongolia. Well, that should not be surprising, past thirty days we struggled to communicate in many ways - sometimes we felt that locals expect us to speak Chinese. Two hours later we make decision - let's cross the border on foot and be done with this drama! Big mistake! Uniformed border officer tries to explain something (in Chinese, of course) and from his body language we understand that he is not letting us walk through the gate. Standing there for half an hour we are confused and not sure what is wrong. Finally we take a taxi back to the train station from where we are navigated to some obscure street shop for Mongolian train tickets. Very bizare day indeed! We leave China on 5 May at 4pm with no hustles about passport formalities.

Our picture of China is marked with major observations - enormous industrial progress gives Chinese people high sense of pride and national identity but the same aspect seems to make them self-centric. We could not resist our feelings that China does not need to interact with the rest of world, they are self sufficient in every way. Very large tourism industry seems to be strongly promoted by local advertising but only for Chinese tourist - any needs of foreigners are almost completely neglected. People on street were helpfull when asked for direction, children were very shy when photographed, Chinese have the fastest train in the world (?) but toilets are the worst we have seen. Food did not come to expectations as to what we are used to, national heritage is amazing and admirable. China is country of extremes and we are glad to have chance knowing that.

Vietnam

ivanci — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:39:00 GMT

Young tuk-tuk driver gives assurances once more that he is going to take us directly to border, and the ride should not take more then 2.5 hours. Leaving Kampot at 11am we enjoy local villages, kids running towards us calling "Hello" and scenery of distant hills. Suddenly an hour in ride the tuk-tuk driver makes an unexpected turn into narrow dirt road going through vast rice fields, and without presence of any other traffic Iva starts to think about the worst - is he going to take us to some remote corner and with help of few accomplices to rob us? Or perhaps worse? Some 5km later he stops amongst few bamboo huts explaining that he is unable to drive any further due to very rough road conditions ahead. Instead few motorbike drivers standing around will finish last two kilometers for free. We pay him agrred fee and he is quickly gone. We soon realise that ten minutes earlier a group of two young couples from Finland arrived by the same means, they are astonished by situation. There are only four 125ccm motorbikes available and six of us to be taken to the border, and with all our bags! We refuse an option all of us to be taken on four bikes and they eventually agree to call for two more. Further confussion arrises as they want to be paid USD5 for each moto because border is 10km distant, not two. "Ohh, tuk-tuk drivers always lie" they laugh. Very frustrated and uncertain we have no other option then to agree, being stuck in middle of nowhere in south Cambodia, we cannot walk 10km with 20kg hanging of our bodies. Situation looks very fishy as locals are not allowed to help although few sit nearby on their own motorbikes - we realise our drivers are all Vietnameese and this gang holds power here. Finaly we are on the move and by 3pm we arrive to the first town in Vietnam - Ha Tien. Very hot and humid afternoon, we gladly take shower and leave hotel searching for delicious Vietnameese coffee which is not as easy to find as we thought - the town is neither "tourist friendly" nor interesting. Ha Tien border crossing has been opened to foreigners for only last two years and not many backpackers have discovered it, yet it is an excellent entry point to south-west Vietnam, Phu Quoc island and Mekong delta. We meet our new Finish friends at dinner (in the one and only local restaurant here) and talk about trip to Phu Quoc island over few Saigon beers. As usual we choose D.I.Y. strategy (gee, how many times we burnt our fingers!?) and on Tuesday 10 March we board a 9am local slow boat. Very slow and very authentic. Some may say very "rustic", seems to be flating because it's made from timber. Being the only foreign tourists on boat we are invited to share top-deck floor with captain and few of his mates. Soon they start to play cards, and getting excited about game captain sometimes forgets to check the course, steering wheel with his right foot. I quietly assume responsibility and make sillent but noticable signs when we head too much towards solid land. As weird as this boat looks we enjoy their company, being offered to join card game, cigarets or fruit, we accept only fruit. Finally we land at 4pm in far northern tip of the island and without any decent map we have no idea how we are supposed to get to Duong Dong, long beach with accommodation. Absolutely nobody speaks any english, we even suspect locals have never seen tourists before. Every our question is repplied with a laughter and we do not understand such reactions. No wonder we are frustrated and confused. Repeatadly saying "Duong Dong" over and over again, someone finaly shows signs of undestanding. Motorbike taxi pulls out two 100,000 dong notes (USD 12) indicating he would take us there but we think it is far too much. We paid such amount for whole boat trip! How far is it? Which way should we go? We do not have answers to our questions and instinctivelly we start walking out of the village hoping that some magic solution will materialise soon. As we walk on dirt road, a truck stops offering a lift to town for 150,000 dongs for both. Well, that is better then 200,000 and besides we have (once again!) no other option so we accept. Apparently it is 45km to Duong Dong centre and further 50,000 to Long Beach. Our total cost from Ha Tien to Long Beach amounts to 480,000 dongs (9 hours on move). Later tonight we learn that each Finish couple paid 430,000 for the same trip with speed boat (3 hours on move). When we came to the beach hungry and tired at 7pm they had already finished lunch, swimming, sunbaking and dinner. Morale of the story? Cheaper is not always the cheapest! Same same but different! Last 48 hours were realy exhaustive and nerve wrecking - Iva has cold sores all over her lips probably triggered by stress, but everything is fine now and we are determined to enjoy Phu Quoc. We will stay in nice resort bungallow some 300m from the beach (12 USD per night) for next four nights. Dinner on the beach is perfect gift for my special day as I am turning 55 today, and guess what? Young Finish quartet surprise me with candle, beer and Happy Birthday signing. Very nice, thanks guys! We enjoy their company many times again over next few days, including snorkling trip to nearby archipelago. Today is Friday the 13th, our last day on Phu Quoc. Hiring 110ccm motorbike we explore north-east side of this 100km accross island, passing through pretty rough terrain and shaky bamboo bridges. We can only imagine how difficult it may be here during wet season - parts of road are completely washed off leaving 10-20m deep mini-canyons. We are lucky to see few green peppercorn farms on the way, locals sun dry pepper on tarps and indeed little black balls have strong taste. Cashew nut trees are abundant, sun dried fish is not so pleasant. Completely covered with red dust we return bike around seven and after shower we end up in beach restaurant for farewell party with Finish quartet. At 6am two motorbike-taxis + minibus transfer us to speedboat which will take about 4 hours to reach Rach Gia on the mainland. Immediately we board 3 hours (squashed at back - very uncomfortable) minibus for Kan Tho, one of many town in Mekong delta. Tomorrow morning we would like to see floating markets and afternoon catch bus for Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), or Saigon by old name. Four hour boatride to floating markets starts at 7am when very tiny old man picks us from the hotel and takes us to very tiny old boat. What, such small boats are allowed on such big river? Yes, and he is very skilled dodging wash waves from large ships passing by. Mainly fruit and veggie products are traded, handreds of hands transfer goods from boat to boat and whole place sounds like large beehive. We can even buy hot coffee from floating cafe shop. We return back to town via few quiet canals, suddenly the river buzz is replaced with tranquility of green nature. It is only two of us, palms and happy grin on captain's face. He stops in one of local gardens for exotic fruit tasting and little educational tour. Here we see cinamon, palm fruit, lyches and many other tasty fruits of which we forgot names as soon as we heard them. We say good buy to tiny man and after lunch we heading off to HCMC. Approaching HCMC we are stunned seeing millions of motorbikes sharring road with large vehicles in very chaotic way - overtaking, dodging others and constantly pushing horns, they fill up gaps between large vehicles and we are amazed there are no accidents. As soon as we step out of our bus at terminal, a swarm of taxi drivers try to score jobs but we refuse $20 offer as we spot local bus going to Pham Ngu Lao area for only $0.50. Bingo! At 9pm we are dropped off and we immediately like this area with many cafes, restaurants and guesthouses of all kinds. We stay in Saigon for only two nights, mainly to enjoy food and city's flavour - and it is plenty of it here.

Tuesday 17th March we are taking bus to beach town Mui Ne on east coast of Vietnam where we hope to soak up some sun. Pleasant views from four hour bus ride offer green rice fields stretching to infinity and just before Mui Ne farms with dragon fruit cactai become frequent. Resorty Mui Ne welcomes us with hot and windy weather. One can find accommodation here from $10 to $1000 per night, guess where we stayed? Spotlessly clean room with bar fridge, air-con, hot water shower and TV for $10 is not bad deal at all. Looking for a cafe shop we see many menues written in russian azbuka and we hear many tourist speak russian - what is going on here? Mui Ne must have become popular holiday destination for rich russians and that theory is later confirmed by few locals. At dinner we meet a Czech couple Radim and Katka, we share many life views and our chatting ends around midnight. Next day we all four of us hire two motorbikes going to explore sand dunes, beaches and lakes. On short strip of a dirt road I spend too much time sightseeing instead looking right in front of me which does not pay off well - front wheel hits small rock and we loose balance falling on right side with bike resting over our legs. Luckily no bones stick out and we walk off only with few bruises, scratches and one blister on my right foot caused by exhaust pipe. Motor bike seems to be ok so no major damage is done, bit shaky we finish our trip in mid afternoon with a nice caffee on the beach. One more dinner with new Czech friends and while they are leaving at midnight by bus we go to bed for last sleep in Mui Ne - tomorrow to inland Dalat.

Road to Dalat winds up to 1500m through nice hills covered with coffee, artichock and many other vegatable farms - agriculture in Vietnam seems to be in very good shape as many farms have two-storey modern family houses. Dalat town also indicates relative well being of locals and we do not see any homeless people. We are nicely surpriced when bus dropped us off at luxury looking hotel for $10 a night - we expected some sort of scam but it did not eventuate, including unlimited free internet. Walking around hilly Dalat is relaxing but somewhat puzzling as roads and narrow side lanes seem to have no direction. Original plan to hire motorbike here is out of question as our wounds and bones have not settled yet so we decide to take it easy. I bought antibiotic cream for my right foot, the blister raptured and does not show any signs of healing. Highlite from Dalat? Hand silk embroidery is beyond our beleif, we spend two hours in local galery admiring the artwork - we are invited to vitness patient and highly precise work of girls in their classroom upstairs. Trully unbeleivable stuuf!

The first day of spring we head off back to coast and our next fun place is Nha Trang. Long town beach is lined up with palms and few expensive restaurants (although very tasty the coffee was more expensive then in Sydney), however we keep our choices much wider by stroling streets away from the beachfront. Roof-top sitting at our $10/night hotel offers magnificent views of ocean dotted with many islands. Apparently this is one of the best snorkling/diving locations in Vietnam so we can not miss opportunity to visit few main islands. Sunday we spend day on a charter boat (many more locals then gringos) taking us to four different coral bays. After traditional vietnamese lunch prepared by the crew we are invited for happy hour drinks in water - participants get floating tube and receive unlimited quantity of (drinkable) local red wine. Captain called Happy Hour off when some local guys started to drift too far from the boat, and we continued our happy sailing. The highlite of this trip must be live 2-crew-band entertainment: drummer played drums (and I mean real plastic drums of various sizes) and guitarist/signer was realy good.

Tonight we leave Nha Trang on an overnight sleeper bus (only bunk beds, no seats) to arrive in Hoi An at 7am after not so sleepy night. Bus stops in front of a nice hotel but we think $15 is too much so I search few streets around for an alternative while Iva stays with bags. Half an hour later we check in a hotel which is just next door from where we stopped this morning. All the same same but different. This time I managed to bargain down to $12. What is this town famous for? Virtually hundreds of tailors and shoe maker shops, they measure and deliver in 24 hours! Girls beware! We see many travelers buying extra suitcase for custom made garments. We limit ourselves to one pair of sandals and Iva bought custom made long silk pants. One day we visit ruins My Son (bombed by US forces in the war), another day we just walk around munching on vietnamese meals - our favoured are Wontons at Mr.Hung's stall at markets. Absolutely delicious! We could easily stay here for many more days but time is runnig out and we need to move again. On Thursday 26 March afternoon we leave Hoi An to Hue where we immediately transfer to another sleeper bus going to Ha Noi overnight.

Arrival to rainy Ha Noi at 7am is somewhat mellow and we ask ourselves "Is Ha Long Bay going to be the same?", but we have few days up in our sleeves so hopefuly weather may clear up. Taxi from bus station takes us right to town centre and we are offered simple and cheap room (not so clean) in almost perfect position near lake. Coffee is a must, we realy like Vietnameese brew, and after breaky we start to explore lake side and maze of streets around. On the way we buy new camera Lumix TZ5 (we still have the old crapy Samsung though) as we always wanted this model. With its 10x zoom taking pictures of elusive local faces will be even easier, but it's not always me who chases exotic characters -group of gigling Vietnamese approached me to be part of their photos. It looks like we must be exotic to them as well. And what else do we see in Ha Noi? Of course, famous Ha Long Vay which is about two hours bus ride away. We also need to organise 30-days Mongolian visa, however tonight we receive a reply email from the embassy - opening days for visa applications are only Tue and Thursday and today is Friday! Missed by one day - not happy! That means we need to stay in Ha Noi until next Thursday to pick them up. Well, it is not so bad after all, we'll have plenty of time for fun and we may even visit uncle Ho's mausoleum and war museum.

Hearing many different stories about Ha Long Bay packages we decide for a middle range two-day/one night boat cruise (USD70 pp). Sunday morning we join other 10 travellers in a pick-up minibus and we are on the way! Can not wait to see this natural wander! Unfortunately weather has not cleared up and heavy grey overcast hangs over the bay. By midday we are transferred to beautiful and stylish sailing boat where we enjoy a wellcoming drink before we receive keys to our private cabins. Very luxurious room with en-suite is a nice surprise, meals served on a middle deck resturant are excelent and this trip looks very promising. Few hours sailing are needed to arrive at spectacullar cave Hang Sung Sot which we explore for about an hour. Afternoon ends with two hours cayaking to nearby islands and we are realy hungry by now. Multi course delicious dinner including seafood, salads and fruit provides ideal setting for a chat with our new companions. More sailing after breakfest, Iva gets foot massage and by midday we return back to Ha Long Bay town. After last meal together we all board minibus back to Ha Noi. Tuesday morning we take local bus (#53) from the lake and twenty minutes later we talk to Mongolian ambasador (well, he looked like an ambasador), fill up neccessary paperwork and pay USD30 each. Searching for good vietnamese food we come accross 'Little Hanoi' restaurant in a narrow lane, later we discover more 'Little Hanois' around the town but only two (No.9 and 14) serve outstanding food. War museum and Ho Chi Min's mausoleum provides small insight into history and national psyche of Vietnamese people, the rest of our spare time we just walk around streets and enjoy wibes and colours of this charismatic metropole, though very noisy. My foot does not look better, it appears to be infected and walking in full shoes causes some discomfort. Today 1st April (!) we saw glimps of sun but for only short time and afternoon it is raining again. As we need to kill more time we resort to 'Water Puppett Show' in local theatre - a traditional, cute almost childish show makes us laugh though. Thursday, our last day in Ha Noi we pack up bagpacks, buy sleeper-train tickets to Sapa and afternoon we need to pick up passports with visas. After last dinner at our favoured Little Hanoi restaurant, with bags on our backs we head off to train station where we board overnight train to our last destination in Vietnam. Crossing rail tracks we finaly locate our train on platform #9, and we hope that we'll sleep in one of those few luxury soft-sleeper 4-berth cabins which we paid for. To our dissappointment female train conductor points our direction to a shaby looking carriage with 6-berth hard-sleeper cabins. "Is she correct?" we are asking ourselves. "This is not possible, we have paid for soft beds, and only four people in each cabin". "No, that is what ticket shows" is her reply in a body language as she does not speak any english. Now we understand! The guy at the desk in 'Hanoi Centre One Hotel' pocketted difference between what we paid him for, and what he spent when he went to train station for our tickets. Big mistake - we should have bought tickets ourselves. Interestingly enough, it was the same guy who organised our Halong Bay trip with what we were very happy, but this time we were not coming back from Sapa and he knew that. That is why he took the opportunity to cheat us. Anyway, other then tossing on uncomfortable hard bed the trip was ok and four other chineese guys who shared the cabin with us did not snore or misbehave. We arrive to Lao Cai at 5am, from here minibus winds up to SaPa in high mountains. Much cooler morning (12C) then we are used to from the tropical coast and hot breakfest is quite handy while we wait for hotel rooms to become available.

Sapa village is located on slopes of beautiful mountain range in north west Vietnam. Local H'Mong tribes living in suurounds come every day to town, dressed in traditional colorful clothing and offering their handmade craft on streets or at markets. Many young mums having babies wrapped in blankets on their backs are very friendly and frequently ask lot of questions about us, they are very sweet and keep smiling even if we do not buy anything. My foot is not fit for any long hikes so we spend first day walking around village and taking pictures of valley with its rice field cascades, in times shrouded in mist and rolling clouds. Of course, there are ample opportunities to photograph natives from all possible angels and I actualy quite enjoy that. Next day after stormy night we walk up to a lookout hill within local national park, passing through many beautiful gardens and landscapes. It is unbeleivable that after sooo much rain during last night skies clear by ten and we have nice sunny day.

Tomorrow we'll take one hour bus to the border with China and say good bye to Vietnam. About one month ago our entry to this country did not start at the best but today our views are different and we regard Vietnam as one of the most beautiful, colourful, charismatic and friendly countries in our world trip. Despite many previous negative warnings from other backpackers we did not experience any major troubles and positive feelings overweigh everything else.

Cambodia

ivanci — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:53:00 GMT

Entry to Cambodia on Thursday morning is easy, some custom officers relax in hammocks while others stamp our passports with smiles and greetings. By 9:30am we all are back in bus, this time different one which will take us to Kampong Chum and there we stay overnight before continuing to Siam Reap on the next day. It looks like this ride will be a lot of fun as conductor asks everyone out to push the bus - the battery is flat. Dry season is quite evident, landscape has brown color, it is very hot and air-con would be nice. Few hours in ride a big bang wakes everybody up as bus is filled immediately with rusty dust. We both sit right above the rear axle and the bang was very loud and scary. One guy sleeping behind us jumped into middle isle because he thought someone was shooting. Right hand side rear tire blew into pieces. There is no shade and we all wait in 52C mid-day sun for guys to replace the faulty tire with one which does not look much better. My bet is no more then two hours, I am thinking quietly. And I was right! Mid afternoon Iva turns to me "I can smell burnt rubber" and few seconds later we hear another, this time smaller bang and the replacement tire is flat. Hm, how many spare tires do they have? None! Driver continues slowly to the nearest tire-fixing shack and with help of few locals the tube is patched and re-placed. It is getting late, by now we almost should be at our destination but we have not had lunch stop yet. At 5pm we have 30min break for 'lunch', one more push start and three more hours to go. Ok, everything seems fine just that we are tired and covered with dust and sweat. Guess what? Around 9pm Iva smells rubber once more and before I can scream at drivers the same tire goes again! Outside is pitch black, no houses around and with no spare tires we apparently have ten more km's to Kampong Chum. At this point no surpise some people get quite edgy. How are they going to fix this one? Well, there are four tires on rear axle, both on right are busted, both on left are still good (ha,ha). Simple! It does not take Einstein's brain to put one good and one bad on each side of the bus! By 11pm we are on the move again and with slow motion we make it to the hotel which is full. Hm, we have to walk around town to find one really soon, we desperately need shower and bed. Next morning a replacement bus comes an hour later but this time we make it to Siam Reap without problems, and on time.

Siam Reap is like an oasis, sipping Anchor drought in company of Swiss girls which we meet again, we quickly forget about tires . View from our hotel balcony is very unususl - backyard is filled with huge crocodiles partly submerged in muddy pool. Hey, do not fall over the balcony railing or they will have you for lunch! This crock farm is in middle of town! Our mission in Siam Reap however, is not only drinking beer but we came here to visit Angkor Wat. Over dinner we get an ingenious idea to share one tuk-tuk between four of us, hence saving some valuable $$$. Sarah and Christine are excited so next morning we form Swiss-Czech alliance to hunt for reasonable tuk-tuk driver. It deos not take any hard effort because streets are full of them and they are happy to negotiate. A $15 deal is struck soon so by 8am bumpy and slow ride to ruins begins. Wow! No words can describe our amazement when we stand in front of Angkor Wat. No wander many Cambodian couples come here for their special wedding day having photos taken in two different garments. One can spend hours in this temple admiring its majestic size and fine Apsara figurines carved into stones but we need to move if we want to see more today so an hour later our tuk-tuk driver continues to Angkor Thom, which is the largest ancient city here, surrounded by walls streching 3 x 3km. Many monuments and lot of walking. The Bayon temple with its 216 stone Gargantuan faces constantly watching over visitors, is the most impressive structure in this large complex. There is one more famous temple to see today and its name is Ta Prohm. Wow again! Authorities left this temple for mother nature to take over, roots of large ficus trees consume stone structures slowly destroying what people slowly built hundreds years ago. Trully amazing. Scenes from movie Tomb Rider were made here. And what makes perfect finish for a perfect day? Delicious traditional food Amok for dinner followed by full body massage. Next day see more temples but one is really worth of extra 18km travel with jerky tuk-tuk. Its name is Banteay Srei (Citadel of the Woman) and its beauty is much larger then its size. Elaborate carvings in pink stone doorways and walls are unbeleivable. Ever present adorable sweet local kids of every age offer souveniers but we can not please everyone. It is almost heart braking to walk away but they always greet us with many smiles as our tuk-tuk drives off. On way back home we learn how palm sugar is made, play with wild monkeys and stop in five souvenier shops to score few litres of petrol for our driver. Tonight we also attend cello concert performed by Swiss pediatrician in local childrens hospital Kantha Bopha. He dedicated his life to provide free medical care to all Cambodian children, funding his annual budget mainly from donations. We are touched by his life story so much that we will come back on Monday to donate blood. This is especially difficult for Christine as she never gave blood before but on Monday she does not cry! Walking out of hospital we feel we have done something small but special for those beautifull, often very poor kids. Today Tue 3 March we take 6-hour bus to capitol city Phom Phen, here we need to organise visas to Vietnam. From bus station we go directly to embassy leaving our passports untill next day afternoon, and from here to Okay Guesthouse which is very nice, reasonably priced and positioned near Mekong river walkway so looking for a local food is easy. The town itself is not that exciting except its dark history from 1975-1979 horific Pol Pot's regime. Everyone visiting Phom Phen should make an extra effort to see high school converted to prison where classrooms were used for interogation and torture. This shocking evidence continues to shake our minds later afternoon visiting Killing Field where thousands of innocent people were slaughtered and burried in mass graves. We are shocked and in disbeleif what could happen in 20's century! At 4pm we pick up our passports, then try to buy new pair of sandals for me without any luck - girls at shops gigle when I ask for size 46, and before going to bed we chat with locals over jug of beer. Cambodian people are very warm, open hearted and appreciative of foreigners visiting their country.

Next morning we leave for a small beach town Sihunakville on south coast of Cambodia from where we hope to continue our adventures to Vietnam - I do not know how yet but we will work it out later. In meantime we enjoy this relaxed place and that can be done in number of ways - sitting in 'satelite dish' beach chairs doing really nothing, or hiring a 125ccm motorbike exploring other beaches where we can relax and do nothing. With large plate of BBQ seafood for $3 and $0.50 beer on tap it can not get any better. Ahh, almost forgot - we were told by group of Czech travelers about Czech guesthouse/bar in town so we search and find the familiar flag. It is hard to leave this laid back town but four nights is enough and we need to make next move towards Vietnam. Preferring D.I.Y. approach we buy minivan tickets to Kampot which is still 45km from the border, and from here we negotiate a tuk-tuk to the crossing. At this stage we have no idea what is ahead of us...

To be continued...

Laos

ivanci — Mon, 2 Mar 2009 09:43:00 GMT

Having a choice of staying tonight either in Chiang Khong (Thailand) or in Huay Xai (Laos), we decide for the latter because slow-boat leaves tomorrow 10am from Laos side of Mekong river. At bus stop we catch tuk-tuk going directly to Thai immigration office and then we board narrow water taxi to cross mighty Mekong river to Laos. At small window we buy entry visa for US$30 each and basicaly this is it. We are in Laos now! Small and tidy village Huay Xai is a starting point for two-day down stream trip to Luang Prabang with a slow boat and there seem to be many other backpackers with the same idea. We stock up on few munchies and $2 lao whisky for emergencies, then to bed. Two eggs and toast for breakfast before we get transferred to river bank where we see many slow boats, not sure which one is ours. With help of locals we manage to find the right one (we hope!) and according to rule "first come-first served" we can select from many hard wooden benches. Which one is the best? Ha, ha, they're all the same. At 10am there are no signs of leaving soon as owners keep filling the boat with more passangers untill it is completely packed and many even sit on the deck. Finally at 11:30 old ex-truck diesel engine is started and we start rolling down the river. And what an amazing scenery! Lush jungle comes down from hills, water bufalos share river banks with local kids, always smiling and waving, and many large boulders scattered accross river test navigating skills of our captain. Hope he has done this before! Sunny weather, cold beer and good atmosphere on board, all blends together making our first adventure in Laos almost perfect. Perfect, untill we stay overnight at Pak Beng which is about half-way between Laos border and Luang Prabang. This small village full of guest-houses and restaurants is flooded every evening with new travelers going downstream Mekong river. Finding a room is easy, a nice lao meal even easier and at 10pm main electricity generator shuts down so whole village submerges in complete darkness. At 11pm we still sit at the guesthouse veranda by candlelight having a few shots of Lao Whisky with Craig from Canada (guy we met on the boat) before we go sleep. We make shocking discovery first thing next morning - our digital camera is gone!!! (This is another camera we lost after the first one in Honduras). We do not quite understand how this could happen but after summing up events last night things start to make sense - few teenage boys were giving us too much attention while we sat enjoying drinks and one of them must have sneaked into our room while the others distracted us. We were told by many travelers about Lao people honesty and this is complete shock to us. Sure, we cannot judge country by action of few crooks. By 9am we need to be back on slow boat and soon after departure we can overhear someone else beeing robbed last night as well, this time one guy lost camera with all pics and few hundred dollars cash from his hotel room (different hotel to ours). No pictures today and mood is again down but soon we realise insignificance of this problem and we enjoy our life again. I spot wild elefant on river bank and the boat almost tilts over as everyone moves to one side to take picture. Except me, hmmm. That's enough, stop winging. Beatifull sunset over Mekong River welcomes us at Luang Prabang at around 6pm. Soon we realise very touristy nature of this photogenic town (due to many suitcasers arriving by air), prices are higher and hotels are fuller. We spend over an hour to find reasonable room which will be our home for next few days. Buying new camera here is not an option, prices are more then double of market rates and after full day hunting we give up tired and frustrated. Luckily our new travel friends let me to copy their pics onto my flash drive, and there is no shortage of nice people. Delicious spicy food, sticky rice with coconut cream and mango in abundance, tasty Lao beer and nice river view restaurants make this place very enjoyable and relaxing, perfect for Valentine's day this saturday. On Sunday we take a trip with swiss girls Sarah and Christine (and few others) to nearby Tat Kuang Si waterfalls - multi tiered cascades tumbling over limestone creating turquoise green pools. Colours are absolutely amazing and we can not resist to jump in. Monday mobile phone alarm rings at 5:30am as we want to vitness food giving to monks by locals and tourist on early morning streets of Luang Prabang. This is apparently an old tradition where hundreds of monks dressed in orange robes march daily through streets receiving food of any kind, including fruit and water. After simple breaky we get by tuk-tuk to local bus station and at 8am we leave Luang Prabang for Vang Vieng for big fun called TUBING! For what? Tubing? What is it? Imagine yourself sitting in a large tractor tube, drifting down the river and stopping in numerous bars on the way without any presence of Big Brother. That means alcoholic and other drinks ("happy" does not mean extra cherry on a shake) can be mixed with zip lines and monkye swing flying over river without limits. The only catch is to get back to town by the dark with or without help of your friends, and we saw many who seriously struggled with this. Vang Vieng is not an ordinary town, it is a hippie town and besides tubing it is also known for video bars with patrons comfortably lying down on lounges, sipping drinks (some happy) and watching constant sctreening of Friends. So comfortable, so lazy! But hang on, we have not come here to watch Friends, visiting nearby limestone caves is much better alternative. As I am slowly recovering from diarhoea which came about two days ago, Iva gets seriously stomach sick emptieing herself from top and bottom for the whole night. Oh, this Laos has few bugs, we suspect water or ice. But she is brave girl and on Thursday morning she insists to go tubing. After all, she will be floating in water, ha? Total half a litre of Lao whisky consumed over many bars should destroy all bad bugs in my intestine, but there is no hope for Iva to enjoy any drink today. Friday I am so,so ok, Iva is still not eating anything, thoughts of any food make her sick. Today we leave Vang Vieng for capitol city Vientiene where we need to buy new camera, obtain police report about incident in Pak Beng and organise visa for Cambodia. Unfortunatelly all offices are closed on Saturday and we need to wait till Monday before we continue further south. Cheap and practical Samsung digital camera sounds good enough for time being, we hope to buy nice Panasonic Lumix TX-5 in China, so we spend A$160 and immediatelly we start to document our travel again. Monday is busy as we leave passports in Cambodian embassy, report camera theft at tourist police office, buy tickets to 4000 islands, pickup passports late afternoon and at 8pm we board an overnight sleeping bus to Don Det. The bus is very unusual in a way there are no seats, only double comfortable bunk beds, good sleep whole night. Don Det is one of many islands on Mekong River near southern Lao border with Cambodia. Scenic and relaxed with somewhat overpriced accommodation may be a quick summary of our last destination in Laos. We are appologetic to small cheating here and there, for example an old scale used to weight clothing for washing showes double weight (later we check 1.5L of water weighs 3.5kg! What?), the same story in next door shop so this is not an isolated incident. Food here is rather basic, we are probably spoiled by previous kitchens and are not willing to settle for a below average asian food. Hm, just joking. All that gets compensated with nice day bicycle trip around two islands (joined by old rail bridge) and refreshing dip in Mekong River later afternoon in a company of many backpackers and buffalos. Yes, buffalos, this is not a typo, we swim with them. Two nights here are enough and on Thursday 26 Feb we make a move accross border to Cambodia.

Thailand

ivanci — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:52:00 GMT

Oh yes! We indulge on delicious swiss chocolate on board from Barcelona to Zurich! Seats are comfy with plenty of leg room, so far Swiss Air is one of our best flights. After ten calm hours we land at 4pm in warm and humid Bangkok, then catching bus to Khao San Rd which is our starting point in search for accommodation. Traffic today is very heavy (or just today?) and we do not get there before sunset. Khao San is very noisy, full of bars and night clubs which is good for parties but no so good for sleeping and we rather settle in next street Rambutri. Finding food is also very easy and we do not have to go too far. Plenty of stalls around our street offer all sorts of meat on sticks, ussually presented as chicken. Well, we do not want to know any more, nibbles are yammy and spicy so who really cares. Chang beer becomes soon our daily companion, later enhanced with excellent thai rum Saem Sam. Our main mission in Bangkok is to organise chinese visa and basically we have two options: easy and challenging. Passing challenge exams in South America we refuse to buy visa from next door travel agency (1300 Baht per person) and instead we spend many hours on taxi/public transport going to Chineese Embassy which happens to be outside the town centre. Here we are told that visa will cost 1100 Baht p.p. so our net saving is $10 if we deduct all travel costs. Great, ha? Ok, not so great but we still feel good and we have seen parts of Bangkok on the way, including Grand Palace and Sleeping Budha Temple. Today is Thursday and next week the embassy will be closed due to chineese new year celebrations. Visas will be ready the following week Tuesday which means we have about ten days for south Thailand. Learning our lesson from self-organised visa experience this time we buy bus/boat ticketts to island Kho Tao from next door travel agent saving many hours running around large Bangkok for $2-3 extra. Not worth it. We leave Rambutri St on Friday 9pm by an overnight bus arriving to Chumphon at 4am where we wait till 7am for ferry.

Beautifull sunrise on the way to Kho Tao makes this morning especially nice but soon we realise "dark side" of Kho Tao. The most expensive taxis in the world must be here, they ask 200 Baht (~$10) for about 1km distance. "Guys, are you kidding me?" is my repply as we walk away. Many decent guesthouses, bungallows and hotels at all price ranges are plentifull so within 10 minutes we find a home for next few days. Omellete and coffee for breaky, we cannot wait to explore the island's beaches but it starts to rain! Hmm, finding a hideway in the first bar we wait for weather to clear but today is no chance. Writing our stories on internet is also not an option because charges here are rediculous ($6/hr). Later we find from a "local" gringo that prices are fixed by some sort of mafia and as result all internet cafes are empty. Sunday morning does not look much better and we rather walk around the small town on foot instead of renting a scooter. "Hey, I can hear someone speaking czech", I am looking around and here they are. We chat with Mirek and Dasa from Prerov for almost an hour before we continue our search for a restaurant serving good thai food. Tasty thai seems to be in shortage here and we do not quite understand why. Having a beer in one of many beach restaurants we joke with kitchen staff promissing we would come back for dinner tonight. We did and it was absolutely the best thai in whole island. Monday morning is sunny and that means scooter ride around the island! Initially bit wobbly but quickly we gain confidence and our speed sometimes even exceeds 30km/hour. After all, renting 125ccm motorbike was not that smart idea as we soon realise. Terrain is very difficult and we need to negotiate rough road. Steep hills, water erroded rocky roads and two people on one 125ccm bike do not mix. Many times Iva has to walk a long way up and after three hours we end up exhausted on beach in the front of our hotel. What a waste of effort! Anyway, we have seen a little bit of island. Return bike, pick up backpacks from hotel and after dinner near wharf we board full-berth overnight ferry from Kho Tao to Surat Thani. This very unusual ferry does not have any seats, only two rows of 50 thin mattraces closely lined up on the floor. One big floating dormitory. Sleep was quite comfy with constant gentle rocking movements reminding a pram from my babyhood. Honestly I can not remember that far but it must have been like that. The best overnight travel we have ever had. Boat docks at 5am and from here we get shufled few times between tuk-tuk and sawngtaews before they take us to final bus heading for Krabi. These sort of transfers are swift and without warning or explanation so you can say good-bye to things you leave behinde. One more minivan today and by 10am we arrive to Ao Nang beach where we settle for next several days. Krabi is very touristy destination and guesthouse prices are almost double what we paid in Bangkok but we have good news - scooters can be hired at $10 for 24 hours and no hills! One day we ride scooter to Tiger Cave (no tigers here anymore, only monks live in caves) where we feed cute monkeis with bananas and climb 1237 steps to a temple. Next morning we really feel our legs from the climb. The other day we just cruise around searching for a tourist-less beach and to our surprise we found one. Perhaps we try a skinny dipping? More realisticaly priced Krabi town is some 30km from Ao Nang beach and scooter is quite handy for basic shopping so we stop there for a couple of hours. Definite highlights however are two separate daily boat trips to nearby locations. Speed boat to Phi Phi islands takes only 45minutes so more time we can spend enjoying spectacular views and snorkling in sparkling clear water. Brief stop at beautiful Maya Beach gives us good feel on where movie The Beach was shot. Hmm, Hollywood guys had very hard time working here. Buffet lunch, more snorkeling and return by late afternoon trully made our day. Reiley beach is best reached by long-tail boat and what a view! White limestone rocks contrast with torquise blue water and it is hard to select whether to splash in 26C water or just relax on sand admiring the landscape. After adding thai massage and many tasty pancakes on streets we should start thinking moving back to Bangkok before we get spoiled too much, if it is not too late already.

We wonder why travel agency picked us from the hotel at 3pm though the overnight bus to Bangkok does not leave before 8pm. Again without any explanation they shuffle everybody between many (sort of) waiting shelters but somehow the bus managed to leave on time and we arrive to Bangkok at 5am. Fortunately the bus drops everyone off near Khao San road and we are very familiar around this area. It is still another hour to sunrise. There is nobody on street except few rats searching for leftovers from last night food stalls. Heading straight to our previous guesthouse we hope for an empty bed to catch up some sleep but room is not ready yet and we need to wait half an hour more. Few hours resting is enough to regain energy and by midday we are back in action to organise overnight train tickets to Chiang Mai. And how do we get tickets? Of course D.I.Y. from train station! The use of public transport by a non-thai speaking person is real challenge and we soon discover why. There are zilions of buses with few more zilions people moving in all possible directions but our bus is not arriving. What's wrong? After waiting an hour we decide to catch a cab. Tickets are indeed cheaper at station, we saved about $20 and we can sellect beds from the computer screen. Girls at information desk (this is the only one independent information desk in whole Bangkok we could find) are very helpfull and in good english explain which bus connects Khao San Rd with train station. Now we know! (It is bus No 53). Being more confident with public transport we take another bus from station to Si Lom, the fun place and of course we cannot leave Bangkok without seeing much talked about ping-ping show. Tomorrow we pick up passports from Chineese embassy and evening by bus 53(!) back to train station but first I need to buy new sandals as my TEVA fell appart. Well, it is not that simple to find size 47 in Asia and we walk many miles before I settle for Diesel copy slip-on's . Maybe in China. Our first sleeping train experience was somewhat mixed. It is definitely more comfortable then sitting in a chicken bus but carriges rattle and jerk for 14 hours so the possibility of good night sleep without Valium or bottle of rum is almost zero. Still good fun and highly recommended. Chiang Mai is quite charming town mainly due to its historical square centre. The best way to explore surrounds is with a motorbike, and since we are now serious bikies we ride a 100km loop through scenic mountains around Chiang Mai, visiting Tiger-kingdom on the way. Yes, we saw many tigers. Food in northern Thailand is almost better then in Bangkok and nothing here blows our budget, not even three days trekking through mountains and villages. Our trip starts with a visit to Long Neck village where women traditionally wraped thick wire around their necks as protection against tiger bites, but nowdays tigers are gone and tradition remains. Elephant riding, waterfalls swimming, white water and bamboo rafting are real fun, the rest is hard hiking. Ok, not that hard but it is hot and mostly uphill. At least we burn some of that good coconut curry calories. Our group of 12 people are lead by two excellent local guides. We all share not only fun in days and evenings but also tables and bamboo huts for sleeping. Monday 9 Feb is special day for Iva as she is presented with birthday card signed by everybody, a large air-dried toad instead of cake (she refused to even touch it, let alone eat it). We sing Happy Birthday and she is very touched. We see smile again on her bruised face after a nasty fall yesterday. After return to civilisation we stay last night in Chiang Mai and tomorrow we leave Thailand crossing mighty Mekong River at Chiang Khong for Laos.

Barcelona and Madrid

ivanci — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 08:25:00 GMT

Few days stop in Spain will be cold and cloudy as we gather from the sky all over Europe. Further chill comes from security officers at Frankfurt airport (connecting flight to Barcelona from here) who confiscated our two bottles of premium Mexican booze - one Tequila Reposado and one Mescala with coconut flavour. They claimed dangerous items cannot be carried on board despite both bottles had original seals from the shop. Very very unhappy! We give both bottles to girl in a coffee shop instead throwing it into dispose bin. I bet the security guy would fish it out of the bin later. Why people take stuff from us? Really upset. Landing in Barcelona after dark we follow instructions on how to get to the hostel in historical part of town. First bus, then metro and ten minutes walking through narrow gothic streets we knock on a spooky-grafity covered door which nobody would ever guess is the hostel entrance. We learn later the most backpackers hostels are disguised like that. A drink or two would be nice before sleep so we put on warm jumper and beanie to keep our body temperature above freezing and scroll out to nearby bar. Morning is sunny but still very chilly. I can hardly hold coffee cup still, my hands are shaking with cold. We are certainly not used to these low tepms being spoiled by warm tropical clima of Central America. With a map in hand we keep walking around town, partly for reason to see few landmarks and partly just to keep warm. First impressions from La Rambla are very nice and soon we get absorbed by architecture and landscape. Number one on our sightseeing walk are buildings designed by famous architect Antonio Gaudi (never heard of this name before), everything in Barcelona seems to have some Gaudi flavour and to be honest his creations and designs are quite interesting and definitely unusual. Although all architectonic gems are scattered around central Barcelona at the end of day we are really tired after whole day walking. We deserve some good nutritious dinner and recommendation is Paella and Piadina. "What is it?", I ask. Ok, we need to try to know so today Paella and tomorrow Piadina. Both are surprisingly tasty especially with glass of Sangria or local bear. Next day we again walk many miles visiting Park Guell (guess who designed this park? - Antonio Gaudi), and today is very sunny with at least 15oC. After dinner we take metro to famous musical fountain Montjuic at Placa d'espanya but to our dissapointment the fountain is closed for winter maintenance. In fact many attractions are closed and January might not be the best time to visit any european city. From Barcelona an overnight bus to Madrid so by 9pm we pick up our bags from the hostel and head off to the bus terminal. Having two hours to the departure we either play games or observe buzz around. Suspiciously looking guy sits next to Iva and in some premunition I ask her to get her day pack closer to her body. She already suspects something is not right here and stares at the guy. Shortly he moves to another seat next to group of young Asian tourists and I just notice he tries to grab one of their bags. I jumped up and loudly screamed at him, and he ran away. Few minutes later one of the asian boys realised his daypack was replaced with a boggy one but it was too late to catch the guy. Poor guy lost his laptop with all holiday pictures and no surprise he is close to the tears. I check all our bags are still connected together with carabinas and from now I leave my eyes wide openned. About one hour later two spanish guys take seat next to our bags and one tries unlock carabinas. This is just too much for me! I yell at him so load that all people look at what is going on. I keep pushing him away as my adrenalin shot up high until he runs away. Security officer just happened to be somewhere else so these crooks have free hands. We have been travelling through Latin America for six months and have not experienced anything even close to this. Quite surprising!

Glimpses of snow on the way to Madrid are leftovers from cold snap which swept recently accross Europe and morning arrival is even colder then yesterday. Brr!!! A street thermometer shows whole 4C! But wait, there is a compensation. Freshly baked pastries Churoz dipped in hot creamy chocolate elevates our mood on this freezing and foggy morning. Finding pre-booked hostel is easy, the central heating inside is very cosy. Put on everything warm we have and off to Sunday morning market as this one is highly talked about. Main Madrid attraction however is Prado Museum with exhibits from Goya, Velazguez, Rubens and Raphael, and we'd love to see them. Free entry after 5pm saves few euros and half an hour queue is small sacrifice to put up with. Museum closes at 8pm giving us enough time to enjoy these masterpieces. Tomorrow afternoon Jan 19 we leave Spain for Bangkok by Swiss Air via Zurich. Wandering if they serve some of yammy Swiss chocolate on board?

We trully enjoyed five days stopover in Spain despite constant shivering from cold. Barcelona is purly magic. Walking through web of narrow streets in the Gothic part of town feels like being lost in a maize but never too far from a cosy and warm cafe shop or bar. Strong european feel makes us nostalgic and reminiscent of young years back in Prague or Brno where we are from. Only next time we would come in late spring.

Guatemala and Mexico

ivanci — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:19:00 GMT

Without smiles and camera we cross the border to Guatemala at 7am, Sunday 4. January. Walking between many abandoned buildings we cannot spot any uniformed personel and the only custom officer we can see looks like more a taxi driver. He opened our passports and without words he waves his hands towards Guatemala which we understood was the signal to go. No stamps, no computer check, no forms to fill, no questions asked. Supposedly direct 1/2 hour collectivo minivan to Rio Dulce stops at another village for one hour and some 50km takes almost three hours. Hmm, by now we should be immune to fibs and tricks drivers use to get customers. Nevermind, today we have no appointments. Need some local currency so visiting ATM and cafe bar fills an hour we have before next bus to Flores-St Elena. Six hours on not so comfy bus is enough for today and by late afternoon we relax in lake-front restaurant having tacos and cold beer. Before we take a tour to nearby Tikal ruins we need to buy new camera so we can start taking pictures again. Flores-St Elena is very nice to visit but would be the last place in the world to buy decent digital camera, but we have no other option. With limited shop selection we settle for an overpriced and simple "cheapie" at $250, far cry from our compact Canon we had before but at least we have smile on our face again. Tomorrow we are going to visit famous Tikal ruins which is the main reason to travel to northern Guatemala. Another sleepless night, we can compose a list of reasons for lack of sleep. This time we can add "firecrackers at 4am due to national celibration", but we still hate roosters! Why would someone start this noisy frienzy before dawn is not easy to understand. Sunrise breakfast on the lake is actually quite nice complimenting many previous sunset dinners. Tikal ruins hidden in jungle are trully magnificent and magic. Stone built towers rise up to 50-60m above ground and views from tops over jungle canopy takes our breath away. We climb almost all of them, sometimes on very narrow and steep steps leaning against the wall to defy vertigo feelings. Jungle is surprisingly quiet (except some tourist, of course!) and we are lucky to see few monkeys and the best of all - TUCANS in wild!!! Beautifull birds. This very rare sighting was waiting for the last minute of our latin america travel. At the end of day we are tired, but at the same time we are filled with sensation of beauty, tranqulity and peace.

Now we have only one more week for southern part of Mexico before we leave latin america for good. Leaving Flores-St Elena by 5am (this night was short but at least not noisy) by mid-morning we arrive to river which forms border between Guatemala and Mexico. About 30min ride on narow and wobbly boat through strong currents and whirlpools is half fun and half nightmare exadurated by unreliable engine shuting down few times in hairy situations. Luckily boat driver managed to restart overboard engine always before river took complete control of our boat. Glad to be back on solid ground! Another collectivo and by two afetrnoon we are in Palenque. Day trip to turqoise water cascades Aqua Azul turn out better then we expected from printed posters and we can even take a dip here! No words can describe colors so look at pictures. Here we meet nice couple from Germany with whom we find easy to connect and we make a date for dinner tonight at local pizza. Funny enought next few days we run into each other several times until our paths take different directions. Friday 9 Jan we had off to St Cristobal simply because everyone talked so nicely about this town. Oversupply of hotels and restaurants make this place nice stopover except perhaps it is very cold here. Next morning we leave St Cristobal and about an hour later a chicken bus drops us off at the highway near Canyon del Sumidero. Well, we still have to walk 4km or hitchhike to get to boat pier before we cruise on river between 800m tall canyon walls. Very impressive! Later in arvo we have quick coffee and then catch collectivo to the last mexican destination Oaxaca which is famous for great markets and best hot chocolate. We cannot miss meka of chocloholics! Oaxaca looks very sleepy on Sunday morning arrival and except few taxi drivers there is no one on streets. Hostel recommended by Lonely Planet is located in poshy part of town (hotels $200-300 per night which is ten times more what we ususally pay) so we need to walk 8-10 blocks to find something more reasonable. It actually works out nicely as cheap hostels are near markets and before midday we enjoy our first cup of delicious hot chocolate before we watch an afternoon concert at main plaza. We like this small but lively town, also we feel very safe and relaxed here. Very soon we learn about another product this town is famous for - mescala destilate in all sorts of flavours. I like coconut and one 0.7L bottle at $10 is a steal. Another bottle of premium Tequila will provide excellent internal heating while we stay in cold Barcelona next few days, now we are ready to leave Mexico and Latin America. Seven hours bus trip from Oaxaca to Mexico City takes us for the last time through dry and rugged mexican mountain range where only cactai can grow and by late afternoon we check-in our bags at Lufthansa counter followed by last and very tasty mexican Fajita and Tacos with Corona bear. Adios Mexico! Adios Latin America! Adios todo amigos!

From Panama to Honduras

ivanci — Sat, 3 Jan 2009 01:02:00 GMT

Landing in Panama City on Sunday 14 December morning is hot and humid. Colourfull bus is quite packed and one hour from the airport to town is an experience of its own. We need a cup of coffee while making sense of Lonely Planet because it appears some referenced places do not exist. Around 2pm we are lucky enough to find a hostel dormitory after an hour walking in scorching heat. Our backpacks seem to be heavier then ever. Iva is not very happy to share the room with other four people but that´s tough life girl! Grapefruit juice with cubano rum is very refreshing in this still hot and humid evening. Famous attraction Panama Canal easily reached by public bus is on our agenda next day and what a piece of engineering! Watching large ships going through locks is an impressive sight for anyone. Ships are rised or lowered by at least 20m in two sequential locks depending if they come from Pacific or Atlantic ocean. We learn that water levels in locks are controlled only by valves without using any pumps. Simple and effective. Three hours at observatory deck is enough so we walk back to bus station. On the way few crocks showed up in river but these are only small cousins of their australian relatives and I do not think they will eat us. The rest of the afternoon we spend on Internet writing story about Cuba. Good news at the hostel - we can have private room for two following nights. Toboga island is just 28km off shore and next morning we take ferry to explore its apparently beautifull beaches. Well, they would be much prettier if locals did not use them for dumping rubish. Dissappointing and sad sight. We eat tasty fried fish for lunch if that can be seen as any compensation for filthy beaches. Our next destination Bocas Del Toro islands are too far by the road so we decide to fly tomorrow instead. After one hour in air we land in small and still non-touristy tropical village Bocas Del Toro. With its Jamaican flavour I thing for next few days we are going to enjoy it here. Although frequent recent storms caused some damage to islands the laid back atmosphere here is quite likeable and infectious. Plenty of backpackers in hostels and bars will garantee late nights and indeed the first evening we share few drinks with czech couple Denisa and Honza from Prague. We explore the opposite side of island next morning on bumpy bus-ride where we can see some of the weather damage done to this amazingly beautifull carabian coast. We cannot get enough of palms lined up beaches so next morning we take a boat day-trip around islands involving snorkling, walk through red frog jungle (yes, these are small red frogs highly poisonus used on darts to kill - we are lucky to see one on the way) and delicious fried fish for lunch in straw huts built over green-blue crystal clear water. Just another paradise with fresh and cheap seafood. It could be nice to stay here few more days (weeks?) but we have to go and tonight we finilise islands in night-bar disco and tequila with our new czech friends.

It is Saturday 20 December and getting to Costa Rica involves a 45min fast boat followed by bus to unpleasant looking border with rubish everywhere and the border bridge near collapsing. Some 15min later we have passports stapmed and by 3pm we arrive to coastal village Puerto Vjacho with few unusual black sand beaches. Life here is pretty Jamaican with not much to do other then to indulge in sun, sand, seafood and coctails. Next day we hire bikes to explore coast some 12km out of town visiting white sand beaches lined up with jungle. While having a beach lunch under cocos palms I noticed slight movement in trees and guess what! We have visitors from wild - over ten howling monkies hop from branch to branch just above our heads probably expecting to share some of our fruit. No, find your own! We are very lucky to see our close relatives within meters. As Christmas is getting closer we would like to settle for a few days somewhere further on the coast and next place is Montezuma which we do not know anything about but sounds good because 2-3 backpackers recommended it. After a super hot night in Puntarena (aircond from a room opposite to us was blowing hot air directly over our beds so outside 26C rose to 31C inside) we catch ferry at 7am to arrive to Montezuma just before lunch. Settling quickly we start to soak up relaxing mood (hey, what´s new?) with many friendly locals and backpackers. Too hot and humid for push bikes so this time we search on foot and spend much time on surounding beaches. Well, after all it is Christmas and we should not do any hard work, right? Juicy lobster with a bottle of savignon blanc for Christmas Eve dinner cannot be beaten, except we miss our children and we feel little sad. Leaving Montezuma on 25 December was not that smart idea despite assurances from travel people simply because no transport worked as supposed to and getting to bus stop at 5am was complete waste of time. Maybe not, as small white faced monkey provides early morning entertainment climbing fence and eating banana retreived from the ground. Very cute! Finaly bus arrives two hours later at 7am and from here we will travel for the whole day by nine different types of transport to our final destination Isla De Omotepe in Nicaragua (minibus-bus-ferry-bus-bus-taxi-bus-taxi-ferry).

Only two ferries go to the island today (remember it is Christmas Day) and we just missed the first one at 2:30pm which means we have to wait at St Jorge till 5:45 for the second boat. Fresh water Lake Nicaragua is quite choppy and while waiting we watch locals having fun on dark sand beach next to wharf. To be honest we are not tempted to jump in - the amount of plastic rubish being rolled by waves in and out is quite revolting. Widely spread littering is real problem in whole latin america continent and they do not even realise it. Ferry lands almost two hours later in small island port Moyagalpa after very choppy ride. Hostel Finca Magdalena is located on the other side if the island and it would take two more hours on the road to get there. And guess what? No buses tonight! Hmm, it is too late now and we stay tonight at Moyagalpa, there is another day tomorrow. Ex coffee farm Finca Magdalena lies at foot of the smaller vulcan Maderas with views of its larger brother Concepcion from verandah. After rough bus ride there is a little catch - last 1km walking uphill at noon is exhaustive with tepms around 30C and humidity pretty high but it was worth every breath. Million dollars views, good meals, friendly staff and affordable prices make this place very special for any backpacker and no surprise the hostel is packed. Even before checking in our room we make new friends meeting Michael from Florida and Myshka from Montreal. Over next two days, appart from the dining table we share few bottles of smooth 7 años aged rum. Not enthusiastic to climb the vulcano in rain and muddy terrain we opt for a hike around parts of island through banana plantations where few authentic locals give us many smiles. Bunch of friendly kids run down from their house to meet gringoes but unfortunately this time we have no caramelos to give. Afternoon we hitch-hike a flat-loader truck as there is no reliable bus in sight and the return trip we jump like a yo-yo on the back of the truck. Tomorrow we need to catch one and only bus at 4:45am so tonight we need to go sleep earlier but with so many cheerfull backpackers this option fades away as evening progresses. Walking 1km downhill to a bus stop at 4 am in pitch dark jungle is something! We can hear our own breathing and small hand held torch helps us not to trip over rocks and roots. After 20 minutes we are down exhausted probably more from tension and fear then from physical movement. Few village hombres still drunk from last night fiesta are trying to initiate friendship with us but we are not at ease. One tries to explain wrongness of USA and Russian involvement in Nicaragua making gestures of shooting. He is too close to me and I can smell his bear breath. This situation is not comfortable, no one else is here, it is just us and them and the bus is already one hour late. At last the sun is coming out and more locals appear on street. Bus arrives around 7am (supposed to at 4:45am!) and the drunks disappeared into village. Glad to be on the bus but somewhat upset because we did not have to get up that early. Today we make it to Pochomil which is a beach resort for middle class Nicraguans on the Pacific Coast. It is Sunday 28 December and many locals enjoy christmas break here munching on delicious and cheap seefood. So do we tonight having fried fish on the beach while sun goes down with its colorfull show. The romantic night is only spoiled by a rooster running free in hotel grounds making his kykyrikee right in front of our window at 4am. This is the second early morning - hate roosters! Sunny morning starts with breakfast in a beach restaurant followed by a dip in ocean before we board chicken bus back to Managua. Our next bus Managua-Tela (Honduras) leaves at 3:30am from a bus station which is only six blocks away from our hostel. We are strongly advised by locals not to walk this easrly hours but to take taxi instead for safety reasons. As opposed to previous early morning buses this time we depart spot on and by mid morning we cross border from Nicaragua to Honduras without any hickups. Changing to another bus in capitol of Honduras in mid afternoon it is still another 6 hours before we arrive to Tela at 8pm. This has been a long day but we made it in time to enjoy celibracion of end of the year tomorrow. Town does not look impressive at the first sight but longer we stroll through streets we start to discover special vibe of this relaxed costal spot. Afternoon on beach is once again refreshing in this tropic weather and the only task we have today is to find a party place. Considering Tela is not top touristy destination it looks like we are going to join locals in one of many rather dodgy bars but luckily we find a restaurant run by Canadian couple hosting a New Year Eve party tonight. With great meals and drinks we have a lot of fun dancing till 4am with only one break at midnight when we watch fireworks from the best observing spot - this place was built on 50m (the only) hill in town. After less then 4 hours sleep and still not fully recovered we take a day boat trip to Punto Sal, some 45 min ride from the coast. Amazing scenery here was proclaimed as National Park and we are blown away with its beauty. As jungle grows right to the beach monkies come to observe us from the safety of canopy and we are not sure who is more excited. Snorkeling over reef and swimming through caves in crystal clear water is just priceless. Only two indegenous families are allowed to live here and we are fortunate to be invited for lunch - fish with fried banana and coconut milk rice. Mnam, very delicious and rejuvenating after last night. Lack of sleep takes over and we need a little nap when we get back before we are able to spend few hours on internet. Today is 2nd January and we are going to another day trip, this time with jeep to see Garifuna people in their village and kayaking throuh mangroves. Many birds and few aligators on this tranquil river provide exciting sight and we also taste jungle fruit and fresh coconut snapped from palms by our guide. Afternoon we learn about Garifuna people´s African origin and their cuisine - coconut bread is tastefull. When we arrive back to hotel my so liked pocket knife is gone from the bedroom. Not happy!!! Next morning 3rd Jan we pack up bags and leave Tela for Quatemala. Late afternoon it is clear we will not make it by the daylight so we decide to stay in small village Coriento just before the border. Taxi driver suggests quite nice and clean sigle level hotel with private backyard. Everything seems perfect so we check in by 6pm and walk few hundred meters to one and only very simple restaurant. Being charged double for beer does not spoil our spirit, locals learned how to squeeze travelers. When we return to our room an hour later I discover our camera was gone from my day pack I left on the bed. We cannot beleive it!!! Complaints to manager did not go too far as nobody in village speaks a single word in English and our spanish is way to simple for such a situation. We strongly suspect young female maide with her boyfriend which went missing after our grim discovery. We are devastated because we lost all our pictures from Central America which were to be burnt on disks in about ten days. This is the third time when hotel staff is strongly suspected from stealing our stuff. We were prepared for this sort of mishaps on the street and therefore we took all precautions but not inside locked hotel rooms. Hmm, we need to re-think that and we need to make much more frequent pics backup. Our antipathy for this place is magnified by having another sleepless night caused by three howling and barking dogs behind our room and more roosters. Gee, we hate roosters! The only photo we have from this trip is the one we emailed to our friends as Christmas greeting.