The world in a nutshell

First taste of Thailand

lucyandtim — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:50:00 GMT

After what felt like a very brief couple of weeks in Laos, we found ourselves boarding the slow boat to Thailand. With Chiang Mai in our sights we set off on what was to be an incredibly long two days up the Mekong to pastures new. It turns out that once again we had boarded the local's boat and several stops were made to unload small villages and enough supplies for what appeared to be at least a year - I've never seen a woman with so many umbrellas!

Eventually we made it, and after a few delays and an extra stop in Chiang Rai to sample our first Thai food at the walking street (we may have got a little carried away - it was amazing!) we landed in Chiang Mai with a plan to climb for four days before Sophie joined us. Alas, just to make us feel at home, it rained for two of those days and so less climbing took place than hoped, but this just meant we had even more time to explore the city and hunt out the best food and drink spots for when Soph arrived.

A weary Soph landed on our door step a few days later and rather than letting her settle in we dragged her straight off to plan the next few days. An elephant trek and some Thai cooking were the order of the day!

We all felt quite strongly that our elephant experience should be as animal-friendly as possible and none of us were keen to see any sign of sad elephants, so we were pretty fussy with our booking. The following day we set off in a truck to meet our new friends. Our driver warned us that we would soon be out of the city and on some bumpy terrain, followed by some "bumpy bumpy rocky rocky" terrain - none of us believed him until we hit it. Whether it was genuine amusement or histerics I'm still not sure but Soph seemed to find the experience hilarious and so we bounced (literally leaving our seats at every rotation of the wheels) along to the sound of her giggles...until the tyres left the concrete track and we were perched precariously on the side of a steep, very wet and muddy mountain road. "Everybody out, everybody out...now we walk" we were told by our driver, as if the events had been planned to a tee. It's ok, he soon salvaged our ride home...with the help of the elephants. So much for being animal-friendly!

Soph's luck was in for the day. Having been giving our instructions on how to instruct the elephants, we set off on our first mini trek with them. It was an amazing experience, perched on their necks heading off through the jungle with the help of their mahouts... Until we turned back to cheer Soph on, and were confronted by an expanse of jungle, without an elephant in sight. It turns out you can't rush a 68 year-old elephant, regardless of how many times you shout "Pai" (that means forward) and offer her encourangement! After a yummy lunch and some quality time with the elephants, whereby they mostly made us look like idiots by throwing water over us and covering us in muddy kisses, Soph and I swapped elephants - from the oldest to the youngest - and at just 8 years old our new friend was determined to have some fun. This time we were last to reach the waterfall, having been whipped by branches that our elephant was insistent on tearing from the ground and stopping to eat at every opportunity. It was time to bath the elephants, and this was definitely a highlight of the day. After plenty of soggy fun it was time to say goodbye and I think everyone was reluctant to leave the crafty buggers behind.

Day two of Soph's holiday and there was no rest for the wicked! The two of us (Tim opted out having done it before) set off for a little instruction in Thai cookery. What can I say...it's one of the best things I've done while traveling around Asia! Sim, our chef was great fun - always ensuring we swiveled our hips when squeezing our lime, and pounded our curry pastes like good Thai brides (always with a smile) - and the food we produced was some of the best we've eaten (at the risk of sounding big headed). Tim didn't miss out either as we made sure we took part of our seven (make that 14 as there was two of us) courses home for him to sample. I think he approved...although competition for head chef in the kitchen may have just got nasty!

To top off our time in Chiang Mai, and at the request of Sophie, we spent our last day doing the cultural thing by visiting some of the many temples. However, this wasn't enough for us, and in search of the trump card we headed to Chedi Luang for a chat with some monks. As highly revered members of society it was a privilege to chat to them, especially for myself and Sophie as usually woman are a serious no-go for a monk. Whilst Soph was busy being star-struck, with jaw open and eyes glazed, Tim and I got the conversation going and it was really very interesting to find out more about their lives and understand a little bit more about their role in Thai society. With our Chiang Mai boxes ticked, all that was left was to hop on (what we later realised was a plush) night bus to head towards Bangkok and Ayutthaya.

We spent just one day in Ayutthaya (ancient capital of Thailand) and managed to persuade Sophie to hop on a bicycle to speed up the sightseeing process. Once the wind was in her hair and she became familiar with the traffic whizzing past at high velocity she was loving it! Maybe that's pushing it, but she did agree that it was a nice way to pootle around the city and see the many temples and shrines.

Tim and I had managed to cobble our way through various language barriers thus far, but whilst in Thailand Sophie proved to be a bit of a local when it came to pronunciation. Feeling excited by the prospect of steamed buns - something we were happy to see the back off when we left China but now found ourselves craving - Soph and I set off in search of treasure whilst our stomachs growled at the thought of it. We found our bun man and the following conversation took place:

Bun man: "You want inside (?)"

Obviously he was asking us if we wanted to eat in or take away, so we responded: "To take away"

He looked a little confused, "I don't understand". "Bicycles" we said and pointed frantically at them. Obviously!

It was at this point that Soph realised he was in fact asking us what we wanted inside our steamed buns. As soon as we said "pork", we were back in business.

We were just one bun from the finishing line when I made the mistake of asking for a vegetable bun. "Black bean?" bun man said. "No, vegetable" I confirmed. "Ah black bean!". Hmm, I could tell this was going to be tricky. I glanced at Soph just as she winced and said: "Veg-get-tabel". "Ahhhh veg-get-tabel!" the man said smiling manically. Obviously my Right-click to copy photo URL pronunciation was all wrong. As it turned out, they didn't have any vegetable and I had to settle for Black bean instead, but thanks Soph!

Feeling slightly sheepish, we returned to Tim with our prizes feeling slightly bemused by our encounter but ready for the next one. Little did we know that Bangkok would be a law unto itself...

Photos: Bangkok and the South

lucyandtim — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 15:21:00 GMT

Photos: Northern Thailand

lucyandtim — Sat, 4 Aug 2012 17:50:00 GMT

Elephants, cooking and monk chats

Photos: Oh Laos....we love you

lucyandtim — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 20:41:00 GMT

Laos

lucyandtim — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 20:36:00 GMT

Tomorrow we start our slow trip to Thailand, if the rains don't make the river impassable so it seems like an appropriate time to do a little update for our time in Laos! Unfortunately, due to where the weekends happened to fall, we have not been able to spend quite as long here as we initially would have liked, but I guess that just means it will have to move over onto the 'to be revisited' list!

Having eventually arrived at the peaceful island of Don Deth we were faced with a tough decision, stay only 3 nights and get to Vientiane on the Thursday with enough time to sort Thai Visa's before the weekend, or stay for 7 nights and get to Vientiane after the weekend.... With the prospect of potential climbing in Vang Vieng we were forced to choose the former option! We left early Wednesday morning on a short boat trip back to the mainland, where we boarded a rather full minibus to the nearest transport hub, Pakse 2 and a half hours North, where we spent 8 hours waiting for our night-sleeper bus! Fun!! The nightbus was fairly standard, 5 in a bed, heads being heated by the engine whilst bodies were frozen by the aircon, arriving 2 hrs late, the usual. At which time we piled into a tuktuk to take us the last 9km into the centre. After a rapid check-in we were back in a tuktuk heading to the Thai consulate with a midday Visa deadline, nearly two hours later we emerged successful (in that we had got the applications in on time, not that they had been approved yet! We had to wait til tomorrow for that!) though 2000 baht worse off and a little bit hungry having not eaten for about 20 hours at this point!

After 'breakfast' we explored the town, on foot, a poor decision as it was by this point pretty sweltering! However we did get to climb the Laos equivalent to the Arc de Triumphe, and visit the local bus station where after a fruitless 20 minutes we left thoroughly confused. The local bus was, according to the lady in the planning office as the bus station doesn't seem to do information, going to cost us more than the tourist buses (a fellow traveller later proved this to be right!) So tourist bus for us! Having picked up our Thai visas we prepared to head to Vang Vieng.... A notorious tourist town on the South East Asia route....

As we pulled across the disused airstrip into Vang Vieng we couldn't help but notice how beautifully sited it was, a pang of jealousy for the first travellers who came across this spot! The weather was hot, the guys in the climbing shops seemed confident that stuff was climbable, so we bought ourselves a guidebook and pondered over where to head out to the next day (an easy decision as only one of the crags was close enough to get to easily and had stuff that we had any hope of climbing having not done so in over 6 months not including the couple of days in Yangshuo) whilst in the background blared the subtle mix of the Friends soundtrack and the drunken cries of tourists being poured out of the back of tuktuks after a hard day of tubing.

The next morning we set off on our bicycles in search of our chosen crag! A few kilometres out of town we pulled off the main drag and headed down a dirt track before parking up at what we hoped was the correct spot. However the expected bridge across the river alluded us so after a short search we resorted to asking for help! An interesting game of charades later we were wading out to a bamboo raft that had been swum across the river by a man in his pants. On the other side, and after another game of charades where we hoped that we indicated we would be back in about 5 hours, we hoicked up our bags and headed off into the rice fields. The access description was to this point fairing us reasonably well, follow the rice field to the right, cross to the other side and continue to follow to the right, easy, through the stand of trees past the banana plantation and you're there. Right... So the stand of trees in front of us was behind a fence with the universal sign for keep out all over it (otherwise known as barbed wire). Helpfully a local family were lounging nearby so after some more mime action we followed a path to our right, for all of 20m before it turned into a mudbath. Ah well, we had come this far, so off came our shoes and we waded into the ankle deep mud. 50m further on we realised that we could have looped round this part, oops, Ah well a quick wash in a stream and onto the next barrier. Two gates with a very vocal dog at the far end. Cautiously we plowed on and as we approached the second gate we realised the dog was accompanied by a family that waved us past whilst shouting at the dog and indicating to us to be careful as the dog might bite! Fun! A final gate, a herd of cows and we approached what could only be described as a crag, bolts and all! Woop!! A short inspection later left us with the conclusion that climbing there would be something akin to scaling a waterfall, not so woop! So back we went cows, dogs, gates (round the mud this time), rice and river. The final blow for the day, the memory card had erased all the photos we had taken of the whole adventure.

This adventurous but ultimately disappointing day lead us to cut our trip in Vang Vieng short, and so after one more day (spent relaxing in the pools near some local caves) we headed North to Luang Prabang. There is not much to say about our stay here, despite it being a beautiful town. The highlight however was, believe it or not, rising before dawn to see the monks spill forth from the dozens of Wats to collect alms from the local citizens, and a few tourists (whilst many more did their best to try the patience of a monk by sticking an slr in their face and trying to blind them with the flash).

(To avoid any confusion, we have now been in Thailand for several weeks but increasingly poor and/or expensive internet has prevented me from finishing this entry until now, apologies!)

Cultural Diversities in Cambodia

lucyandtim — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 14:28:00 GMT

We arrived in Cambodia with a list of places to visit and grand plans for exploration. However we fast realised that we would have to make some snappy decisions and get selective with the amount of time we had.

Our first stop was Phnom Penh (the Capital), and knowing that we would have to re-visit this place a few times to catch buses, we spent just a couple of nights here to start with. One thing is for sure - Cambodia is a country of contrasts. The glittering extravagance of the Royal Palace and Pagodas sit precociously next to wooden huts that are barely big enough to house a family but jostle for space to provide a home to an extended family and their many businesses. The saffron robed monks wonder the streets appealing for alms, while street children frantically try to sell anything they can to fund their next meal. To top it off, the hustle and bustle of the lively Phnom Penh is bordered by the tranquil memorial 'the killing fields', where the bones and rags of the people murdered here still emerge from the ground after every rainfall to serve as a somber reminder of the atrocities that happened here not so long ago.

Leaving ourselves just enough time to take all this in and reflect on our findings, we headed for the coast. Rumour had it that the islands off the coast of Sihanoukville were something unmissable, and from the moment we stepped off the boat onto Koh Rong Island we knew they weren't lying! This really was a little slice of paradise - clear blue waters, white sand and a private beach all of our own! We made ourselves at home in a Rustic bamboo hut on the beach and enjoyed three days of eating, reading, eating, swimming, eating, sleeping and of course eating! It may have rained for a large portion of the time, but this gave us even more excuse to do nothing! And before we knew it we were back on our way to Phnom Penh for the next leg of our trip.

This time we were Siem Reap bound, on a cultural mission to explore some old ruins in that neck of the woods that are apparently quite famous! Keen to make it an unforgettable experience, we were up at 4:30 the next morning to watch the sun rise. It was cloudy! So sun rise was more of a dimmer switch affair, but hey! It is amazing how much you can get into a day when you have an early start and we certainly made the most of our time! The temples are really quite incredible and I don't think we truly appreciated them until we had left them behind us. In one particular temple we received a crash course in Buddhism as we were thrust towards a Buddha armed with incense whilst a lady chanted some prays for us. Before we knew it we emerged from the other side, branded with woolen bracelets, and waved goodbye to by the grinning gold teeth of the lady responsible. We wonder how many other tourists fell into this trap - of course we had to make a small donation to ensure we had a 'good day'!

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, we were back on a bus heading to Ban Lung, Ratanakiri Province. This part of Cambodia is meant to be more off the tourist track, and the state of the roads supported this! Our 10 hour journey fast turned into a 15 hour epic adventure, including a nice long stop (2 1/2 hours) at the side of a dusty road whilst the driver/mechanic bashed about with stuff in the engine . To make matters worse, this was the first time we had travelled without snacks - an error we won't be making twice as breakfast was at about 6 and 'lunch' not until 4! We finally made it to Ban Lung and set up camp at the Tree Top Lodge - another beautiful setting to while away a few days. Other than a picturesque lake and some quaint waterfalls, this place doesn't have a lot going for it, which is what makes it so perfect. Everywhere we went we were greeted by cheery faces and children would run out into the road just to say hello and show off their english! This place has a genuine charm to it and is yet to succumb to the clutches of tourism! What a great way to draw our time in Cambodia to an end!

Photos: By popular demand

lucyandtim — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:43:00 GMT

an album for foodies - more to follow...

Photos: Wat sunrise?

lucyandtim — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 18:42:00 GMT

Angkor Wat and surrounding temples, and a trip to the far northern, Ban Lung

Photos: Goodbye Vietnam, hello Cambodia

lucyandtim — Sun, 1 Jul 2012 20:39:00 GMT

Saigon, Phnom Penh and Koh Rong

The real Vietnam

lucyandtim — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 14:42:00 GMT

We recently arrived in Da Lat. Having spent a steaming week or so along the coast of Vietnam, we thought it would be nice to chill off a little in the central highlands, and our 'trusty' guidebook assured us that Da Lat is the place to do it. In fact, it's a common myth that if Vietnamese people are married and do not honeymoon in Da Lat, they aren't really married at all. So, it must be good we thought...

Arriving during the tail end of a typhoon heading for Taiwan, the weather was much like that at home, and the city didn't appear to be all that. Feeling cold and a little deflated by it all (no idea why it's the honeymoon capital of Vietnam) we headed for the Peace cafe. Legend has it that the original Easyriders hang out here and we had heard it was worth a meeting with them. An hour later we (we have been travelling with a Scottish couple for a week or so) had arranged a day tour with four Vietnamese war veterans, and we stumbled from the smokey cafe wondering if our guides would have time to sleep off their beers before picking us up the next day.

This day turned out to be one of our most interesting yet. Each with our own guide, the four of us set off on our easyriders to cruise the local countryside and see what Da Lat is all about. Apart from the obvious tube tunnels that mark the booming flower trade and the coffee plantations, it turns out that the little houses that seem nothing more than shacks at the side of the roads house noodle factories, silk factories, black smiths, basket weavers, rice wineries and a myriad of other businesses. All very welcoming, our guides made sure that we met the locals and experienced a little bit of their lives. It soon became obvious that the war is still very present here - the veterans regailed us with stories of their encarceration having fought for the southern army, and the harsh realities of 15 years of strict communism. Their light hearted approach was great, but they were still weary of saying too much when other people were around us, and the impression that they are always being watched still plays on their minds and is, in reality, still an every day occurence.

We cruised the countryside for the day and ate some fantastic local grub, all the time learning more from our wise guides. By the end of our trip, we were firm friends and more than convinced that the best way to see Vietnam is from the back of a bike!

Photos: Four tourists, four war veterans and four easyriders

lucyandtim — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 14:19:00 GMT

The real Vietnam

Photos: Southbound to Saigon

lucyandtim — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 13:44:00 GMT

Hue city and Hoi An

Photos: Halong Bay & Cat Ba Island

lucyandtim — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:23:00 GMT

Good morning Vietnam!

lucyandtim — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 21:51:00 GMT

Our first week or so in Vietnam has passed fairly rapidly. Luckily there were no problems with our border crossing, and after an unnecessary 2 hour wait on a bus, we were in - it seems the Vietnamese approach to time keeping is similar to that of the Spaniards!

The heat in Hanoi is stiffling, so after four steamy days and with our toes still intact - the sheer number of mopeds in Hanoi is insane, and crossing the roads is a life or death battle - we sought relief in the Northern rice paddies of Sapa. This is one amazing place.

We had been warned that the weather here can be hit or miss, but we couldn't have had more luck. After an initial misty and rainy start we were blessed with sunny spells and some more of that stifling heat - even standing in the shade makes you drip with sweat!

On our first day in Sapa we decided to head to the local minority village of Cat Cat (there are many minority groups in this area). About 100m down the road from our hostel we were both acutely aware of an addition to our expedition... A tiny local lady (55 years) had decided to become our guide, and despite many attempts to shake her off with visits to just about every shop in town, she remained 'loyal' and patiently awaited our return just outside the door of each shop. It seemed we had no option but to accept her assistance, whether we wanted it or not! It was drizzling a little and she kindly led us around the muddy paths and held her umbrella over our heads to keep us dry - well mine anyway. Tim was a bit too tall, and even I had to duck when she decided to turn around for fear of being decapitated. Our tour guide cost us a 'silver' bangle that has since bought me out in a rash, but the trip to her village was so beautiful that we signed on to a two day trek through the valleys to meet more minority groups and stay at the home of a family.

We set off on our tour and by the time we left Sapa our group of 8 tourists had transformed into 8 tourists and the entire women's population of the Lao Chai and Te Van villages (our destinations for the day). We later learned that these shrewed women each select their own victim - I mean, tourist - and shadow them to their destination, offering a helping hand when the terrain gets steep or muddy (we learnt not to underestimate their strength when it came to 90 year old women hauling big Israeli lads down a slippery cliff). En route they whip you up a heart or a horse out of bamboo as a 'gift' and you daren't reject it in case you offend them...but seriously, where are you going to put a bamboo horse for four months?! They aren't exactly flat pack-able! It turns out that these gifts are their way of marking you with an IOU - when you reach your destination you are confronted with "I help you now you help meeeeee?!", followed by a display of handy craft that they whip out from nowhere. Needless to say we ended up with some extra bags and purses, but we drove a hard bargain so it wasn't so bad. And, despite their persistence these women are very sweet and keen to tell you about their lives as well as learning more about yours. The landscape in which they live is incredible - the face of each mountain has been transformed with step-upon-step of rice paddies, and every where you look the local people are tending them to perfection.

After an interesting experience in a home stay, with the odd obligatory shot of rice wine and Tim being challenged to several more by a rather drunken member of the family, our time in Sapa came to a rapid end and we were back on a night train to Hanoi - this time to organise a trip to Halong Bay. We had been warned to bargain hard and take everything we are told with a table spoon of salt. Even our short time in Vietnam has taught us one or two things about the locals that aren't complimentary, so we went armed with our budget and a serious helping of stubborness!

After a quick whip around the manytour companies, we settled on a tour and bargained our best for it. At the time we were happy with our price, but we later learned that we probably still paid too much and were kicking ourselves for not having learnt our lesson yet. Never-the-less, we were set for a three day tour of Halong Bay and looking forward to escaping the muggy heat of Hanoi once again.

Halong Bay is beautiful and it was very relaxing to cruise around the 1969 islands on an old junk for a day or so, intermittently coming aross floating fishing villages and jumping off the boat into balmy waters here and there (avoiding the odd jelly fish of course). Our second day saw us left on a pontoon on Cat Ba island, awaiting a lift to our next destination. After a very humid climb to the top of the jungle for some awesome views and a nip across to Monkey Island (yep, full of monkeys), we were left at our next night stop - a bamboo hut perched on a beautiful beach with the waves rolling in...what more could you want?! After the few locals left for the day, we were left with a starry sky and a beach all to ourselves.

Our Halong Bay trip came to an end and we were hurtled once again from our little paradise into Vietnamese chaos. We eventually made it back to Hanoi on a very cramped bus, only to board a night bus to our next destination... Hue. I'm not sure if you are familiar with night buses but they pretty much consist of bunk beds that rattle around on very bad roads. We quickly noticed that all the westerners were given the pleasure of the top bunks, while the locals slept soundly on their positively more stable bottom bunks. At least they have no shame in descriminating over here! Needless to say, we arrived in one piece (just about) so look out for the next instalment!

Photos: Hanoi and the Perfume Pagoda

lucyandtim — Wed, 6 Jun 2012 17:22:00 GMT

Photos: Sapa

lucyandtim — Wed, 6 Jun 2012 16:53:00 GMT

Minority villages and sales women

Photos: Yangshuo

lucyandtim — Wed, 6 Jun 2012 09:48:00 GMT

A little bit of countryside

Toy soldiers, Giant Pandas and cool crags!

lucyandtim — Mon, 28 May 2012 23:35:00 GMT

We waved goodbye to our local speaking guide in Beijing and headed off in search of Beijing West Railway station armed only with our train tickets and a page of useful phrases the reality of being in a 'proper' foreign country rapidly dawning on us. Having survived our first meal (thank you picture menus!) and made it past the security checkpoints only loosing Lucy's batiste (a sore blow so early in the trip), we navigated our way through the metro system and before we knew it we were boarding our first Chinese night-train with a luxurious 16 hour journey a head of us. On hard-seats as sleepers were sold out (literally a bench with a thin bit of foam padding!). Woop! Despite the clouds of smoke, spitting, slurping and staring courtesy of our carriage-buddies, not to mention very numb derrieres we arrived in Xi'an in one piece the next day, and after a quick nap and a shower we wandered off to explore the town.

We ticked off many of the tourist sights on our first day (not actually entering any of them as chinese entry prices are a little steep to say the least - but having a good look at the outside of all of them!) and on returning to our hostel that evening arranged to go and see the old terracotta warriors with some of our roommates the next day. The verdict, lots of statues of soldiers all with unique faces, kinda cool, worth seeing but the chinese sure know how to charge for these things (and love golf buggies - who wants to walk 100m when you can take a golf buggie?!). With our time in Xi'an rapidly running out we just have time to discover a delicious stew in the muslim quarter and to meet up with some of Jonathan's friends before we are curling up on our hard-sleepers, a vast improvement from hard-seats for the train to Chengdu to see some pandas! (Sorry Pete.... you could have come with us!)

Our time in Chengdu passes in a blur of tea in the park, giant pandas that really are adorable as they appear on tv and of course food. Punctuated throughout it all by Mr Panda himself, our slightly crazy but very friendly hostel owner who, having only opened his hostel two weeks before, was full of enthusiasm for his guests! This proved to be incredibly handy when our Taxi driver attempted to play us for fools whilst taking us to the train station, driving way out of the way in order to rack up the meter and charge us well over 4x what it should have cost. A quick phonecall to Mr Panda, a lot of swearing in chinese, and the taxi driver left with only the fare it should have cost us, and a lot less fuel than he started with!

Our last stop in our brief tour of China found us in Yangshuo, a strange combination of hoards of tourists, neon lights and beautiful countryside that don't quite sit right together but provided us with a place to relax for nearly a whole week! And to top it off this is the climbing hotspot of China, with dozens of crags, hundreds of bolted routes and all accessible within 10 minutes by bicycle from town! Woop!! The only downside being that after more than 5 months with no climbing, and even longer with no climbing outside, the first routes we tried pretty much chewed us up and spat us out. We got a bit braver after this and started to get back on track - we just wish we had longer to enjoy what was there! We're looking forward to finding some more crags on route that will whip us into shape for when we reach Thailand.

To get off the beaten track and find some real countryside around Yangshuo, we also hired bikes for a day. It was really beautiful to travel through rice paddies and local villages with such an amazing and dramatic back drop (pics to follow as soon as we leave the Chinese firewall!). What's more, we only had one run in with the locals who tried to make us pay to use their road. Unfortunately for them, they were on foot and we were on bikes. So after a small confrontation we ploughed on through, half expecting to look back and see villagers chasing after us with pitchforks!

Our search for the real China also lead us to experience Cormorant fishing by a local resident. Actually quite disappointing - it certainly wasn't like the HSBC ad anyway! I'm not sure if it's always that disappointing, or if we just had an unlucky day when the birds didn't feel like fishing but we were grateful we didn't splash out more than a fiver for the experience! Despite this, our week in Yangshuo was blissful and we were very reluctant to leave this morning. Holed up in Nanning we are eagerly awaiting a bus to take us across the border to Vietnan tomorrow so hopefully you'll hear more from us when we reach the other side. Fingers crossed for a safe crossing!

Hasta pronto!

Photos: Terracotta Warriors and Giant Pandas

lucyandtim — Sun, 27 May 2012 21:45:00 GMT

(Xian and Chengdu)

Photos: Beijing Beauties

lucyandtim — Sun, 27 May 2012 21:33:00 GMT