The South Island

Since our last post we have been traveling the beautiful South Island, we have been having lots of fun Tramping (Kiwi lingo for hiking!), nature watching, and enjoying the landscape. New Zealand doesn't have a lot of mammals, at least not many that are indigenous. But the sea more than makes up for this and on more than one occasion now we have been able to watch dolphins, seals, sea lions and penguins from coastal overlooks and bays. Its great to be able to look down and see the wildlife enjoying the aqua-marine oceans below.

The mountains here are just beautiful, we were lucky enough to see the Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers in all their splendor but our budget didn't allow us to do a heli-hike (helicopter ride onto the glacier then hike across it!) but we hope to be able to come back someday and do this. Milford Sound was a huge highlight for us, we paid out for a boat cruise and were again lucky with the weather, it had been raining the previous day which meant the waterfalls were in full flow, but the sun had returned and the mountains rising out of the fjord looked immense. Dolphins came and jumped out of the water next to the boat and seals were sunbathing on a rock we sailed past.

A couple of days ago we did a wonderful 2 day Tramp in the Catlins region on the South East coast, it took us along beaches, cliffs with fantastic panoramas, through native brush, over cow and sheep covered fields, past ghost forests and to our first nights lodging - a converted 1920's trolley bus, complete with kitchen and 6 beds! The views were incredible and the weather had been good to us the first day, our legs didn't even hurt too much. The second day however was not so good to us, the rain came overnight and within 10 minutes of walking through a field our trainers were soaked through, oh well only another 3 hours to go! We still made the best of it and kept on smiling and appreciating the nature surrounding us. The sense of adventure and achievement was definitely alive when we got back to the van and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone!

We're on our way to Christchurch now and will be hoping to sell the van for a good price, it shouldn't be a problem as it is the middle of high season here (although it so cold at the moment you wouldn't know it!) so there should be plenty of travellers about looking for bargain temporary home!

I'd also like to say a MASSIVE hello to my cricketing buddy Paul Harris who was kind enough to give us a tour of Auckland including lots of the great bars and my old friend Dave House who we met up with at Nelson Lakes and we hijacked the first day of his 2 day tramp. Great to see both you guys and I hope you are still both having a great time.

We didn't get to skydive last week...

So first the bad news (well not really that bad):

After our last update we were just waiting for the all clear to head to the airport in Lake Taupo and do our skydive, the only problem was when we called they told us it was too cloudy. Not wanting to waste a day hanging around (as it didn't look like it was going to clear) we decided to move on, so no skydiving :(

A couple of days later we were in the art deco town of Napier, so we consoled ourselves with a fun bicycle wine tour and sampled not only some of New Zealand's finest wines, but also some fantastic cider. We slept pretty well that night!

Our travels took us down through the capital Wellington, where we spent 3 days checking out the sights before catching the ferry to the South island. This morning we found ourselves approaching Abel Tasman National Park, the sun was shining, and there is a local skydive operation. So we called them and booked in for 1.00. Having arrived and had a little chat and decided what we wanted to do we were just about to suit up when we were told the wind had picked up and we would have to wait until 3.00 to see if it dies down again. AAAAGGH! Are we ever going to get to jump out of a plane??!

So we hung around town and called back just before 3.00, they told us to come back, when we arrived we were straight into our our jump suits and before we knew it in the tiny little plane and climbing! I was feeling really excited and Fran didn't look at all nervous! We got an awesome view over Abel Tasman's coastline and the day was just perfect for it. So strapped on to our instructor I was the first to go, man what a feeling! Plummeting towards the earth at over 200km/h from 13,000 feet, the wind just taking away your breath and the world spiralling towards you. 50 seconds later and the parachute is open (which is a good feeling!) and you drift back to earth taking in the awesome view, it feels like you are a bird. Fran and I both had huge grins on our face afterwards (we still do now!), she says she thought it was a fantastic thing to experience together, and her heart missed a beat when she saw me tumbling out of the plane, she felt more nervous seeing that than when she had to jump! Overall a fantastic day that we will never forget, I would recommend to anyone to shell out some of your hard earned cash to throw yourselves from a plane!

Travelling in New Zealand, in a VAN!

So I've decided on a change of format for the blog, we're going to keep it more up to date by posting what we are currently doing or have done in the last couple of days.

So here goes. we're in New Zealand now, and have bought a van, with a bed in the back. Its not quite on the same scale as the RV but it does the job. So far we've travelled over 1000km and slept in it mostly wherever you DON'T have to pay! Unfortunately this means that we sometimes have to put up with the sound of waves waking us in the morning, or pesky views keeping us up at night. Life is hard for sure.

New Zealand is just beautiful so far, its so lush and green and the people seem very friendly. Believe it or not we have seen more cows than sheep, which came as a surprise! Driving seems like the way to go here, navigating your way from beach to forest via winding roads that take in coastlines or steep hills.

I dyed Fran's hair a couple of days ago while staying on a campsite (we REALLY needed a shower!) its now bright RED and looks awesome! So other than that news we're waiting for the weather to improve, yesterday it started raining and to be honest its quite cold here, but we're having fun so it doesn't matter.

Anyway, we're off to go and do a skydive in an hour, so we better get going... hehehe

Our travels in Vietnam

Border Crossing and into Vietnam:

It's not just that the language changes, EVERYTHING changes. Literally as soon as we had crossed into Vietnamese soil, the landscape transformed from undulating hills to steeper ravines, unfortunately monsoon season meant that they were suffering from flooding and so consequently many landslides could be seen across the road and we got soaked. It was great to be able to read the signs as Vietnam has adopted western style script, so rather than the incomprehensible Chinese symbols we could actually read the words – not that they made any sense but it was an indescribable feeling of “thank goodness” after 7 weeks of confusion!

The buildings reminded us of old France, like you know the skinny tall buildings with balconies facing out onto the road. Except that I don't think they understood that the reason for the buildings being skinny and tall was that they didn't have much space in Paris, so seeing this type of building on it's own in the middle of nowhere is a bit weird, like it's supposed to have something next to it but there's just a rice paddy, and a water buffalo and nothing else for miles around. I also have to mention that the houses were decorated wonderfully but only on the front elevation, the sides were just left rendered making it seem even more like the neighbours juts vanished.

We thought we had left the scammers behind but our first encounter with a taxi driver left a sour taste in our mouths and reminded us to be wary. We had shared a taxi with a nice American couple to town as we got dropped off in the middle of nowhere cos the tour company think we'll stay in their hotel, luckily when we paid Karl had his wits about him and realised he'd been short changed by 100,000 dong. It took about 5 minutes for the driver to give us the money as he was insisting the change was right! This is only like 4 quid or something but they bloody well rely on people being exhausted from a super long uncomfy bus ride and dealing with a new currency at silly o'clock in the morning just to make that extra buck! Be aware!

All this was long forgotten however when we met up with Cris and Rich in Hanoi that evening. It was so lovely to catch up and get the news from home. The streets are hectic with mopeds and cars whizzing about all over the place so we retreated to a restaurant and had a nice dinner for 6 (the American couple joined us) and tasted the Vietnamese grub, it was delicious! Not a bone in sight which after China was a welcome relief! We chatted for hours and even had a nice drink with Cris and Rich by a lake which set the evening off perfectly.

The next day we headed out on the “must do” tour of the Perfume Pagoda which is the most famous pagoda in Vietnam where thousands of Vietnamese people go on a pilgrimage every year. I'd ask you to imagine a tiny tin boat, a lady rowing in the most peculiar way, and four bewildered tourists drowned to the bone going up a river to reach this sight. Now you have a picture of Cris, Rich Karl and I on that lovely rainy day. Cris and I were literally scooping the water out of the boat with our hands in a vain attempt to stop our shoes getting completely soaked! It was really very hilarious and the “sight” was not all it was cracked up to be to be honest but it was fun getting there! Karl and I met a lovely couple, Anne and Julien from Lyon, France, and we walked up the track which the guide was trying to talk us out of and saw chickens, puppies and a great view!

We had a bit of a splurge and went on a cruise with Cris and Rich on board The Bayha cruise ship which took us around Halong Bay which is a series of tiny karst limestone formation islands, it was top notch luxury all the way baby yeah! We had gorgeous scrumptious food, seafood and cheese for me and lots of meaty delights for Karl and we enjoyed being in the lap of luxury for a while! We even got up super duper early and did Tai Chi at 6am! Unfortunately the trip was spoilt ever so slightly by my camera being stolen from onboard which was a real downer on things. The previous night we had been partaking in a few drinks whilst watching the stars and I put the camera in our room and swapped it for Karl's as his takes better night time pictures, and the next morning whilst we were packing up I noticed I couldn't find it anywhere. Another lady had a phone stolen so not sure what happened but needless to say I wasn't very happy as Karl had just bought that for my birthday!

Anyway back on dry land and we had a great day touring the Hanoi sights with Cris and Rich before saying our goodbyes. Anyone visiting Hanoi HAS to go to the 10p a beer corner, we can't remember the road names but there's a famous crossroads where everyone goes to get cheap beer and meet up for a chat. The weirdest thing happened, we got talking to a girl and her boyfriend and it turns out that she used to be an Italian student of Daniela's years back (for anyone confused Daniela is my dad's wife) and so Cris and I were blown away by how small the world really is. Marissa and Del were now living in Bangkok so we took their details so we could meet up again!

Little did we imagine that we would bump into Anne & Julien (from the perfume pagoda) a few days later in Sapa and embark on a great walking tour (and the rest of Vietnam for that matter!) of the minority villages with them! We were followed by the women whose only goal in life is to sell you something. Their questioning always follows the same line; “what's your name, how old are you, are you married, do you have brothers or sisters?” followed a while after with “buy something from me, you make me very happy”.

This experience cemented our young friendship and we decided since we were going the same way south through Vietnam and we were likely to keep bumping into each other that we may as well enjoy the ride together. And what a great experience it was! We spent the next few weeks talking about, seeking out, or eating food! Oh yeah and some travelling in between too which was awesome. The most memorable experience for all of us I'd say is when we went on a motorbike tour with a Vietnamese guy called Trang. He took us all out from Nim Binh and we visited the lesser known sights around the area such as a new pagoda being built (to be the biggest in Vietnam), through loads of rice paddies and even to his mum and dad's house for lunch! A real once in a lifetime experience, devoid of annoying tour buses and big tour groups!

We also were fortunate enough to be able to celebrate Julien's birthday en route and that was really lovely as we went to a great french restaurant called Le Carambole where we indulged in great food and a yummy bottle of wine. The restaurant was really quaint and had a very cosy atmosphere which is sadly lacking in the majority of the other restaurants we visited in Vietnam.

Vietnam is a beautiful country but the people are a bit weird. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way it's just that they try hard to be really friendly to you and stuff but then it seems that the minute you don't want to buy something from them, they kind of change their friendly persona into one of indifference and it's difficult to seek out the genuine friendly ones to those that just want to make money. Like for instance both Karl and I and Julian & Anne (and other travellers we have met since) were befriended by a lady / family riding a moped whilst riding on the way to some sight or other and were invited back to the house on some pretext or other. We heard from some that once in the house they were given tea and asked to wait until the children came back from school so they could practice English and as the time wore on and no kids in sight made to leave only to be asked if they happened to have an English dictionary to give them as English books were expensive! Well obviously these things don't just happen to be in your pocket when you are visiting temples and the long and short of it is that they want money and you are compelled to give them something (which is never enough) before you can leave.

Anyway I have lots more stories like that but I won't bore any readers that are still awake with them because I don't want anyone thinking Vietnam isn't a great place to visit, because it is really lovely and we would recommend it to anyone! The night buses from the Sin Cafe are comfy and safe and drop you where they say they will. Accommodation is cheap and you can get a double room in a hotel with a pool for as little as $10.00 and the food is good, if somewhat a little bland in comparison to China!

We really had a great time travelling with our new French buddies and Anne and I even convinced the boys to get up on a rainy morning at 4am to go to the My Son Cham ruins for sunrise, which obviously was not spectacular since it was pouring with rain! The ruins were cool though, very old about a thousand years I think and they were a great introduction to what we should expect from Angkor in Cambodia.

Learning to dive in Nha Trang was awesome as well. Our instructor Jenz, from the Coco Dive Centre, was spot on and even though it was low season and the visibility was not great we had a fabulous time, we are now certified open water divers and we can dive down to 18 meters! We saw some great coral and loads of fish and sea life is even more amazing when you can just float along and look at it close up without worrying about breathing.

The only thing we regret about Vietnam is not being able to do the Mekong Delta, this is a little bit of bad planning on our part as we overran our visa by accident and had to leave Hoh Chi Minh city as soon as we got there! We were thinking we could do a three day cruise up the river but we had to get a bus straight across the border or extend our visa (which was not economically viable for a couple of extra days), so off we went! I have to say it was a tearful goodbye for us having travelled with Anne & Julien for such a long time but they were going home to eat cheese and chocolate and we were MOST jealous!

China Part 7 - Hainan Island:

After Hong Kong:

We left Hong Kong with the vague plan of heading for Vietnam, but we were still to early to meet up with Christiana and Richard. While on the train to Shenzen I was looking through the Lonely Planet when I remembered about a place that Simon had mentioned called Hainan. Apparently it is sometimes called “The Hawaii of Asia”, that was just what we needed so we booked our ticket to Ghangzhou, from where we could get a train to Hainan.

In Ghangahou we had no problems booking a sleeper train but it did leave us some time to spare so we had a look around the town. Its a bit of a strange place and has a lot of wholesale shopping outlets that seem to provide most of China with its cheap tourist tat. Both myself and Fran had commented that we had a strange feeling wandering around Ghangzhou (we only had small rucksacks on as we left our big bags in storage at a hotel) but we both thought at different points that someone had been following us. Just as we were getting back to the station I heard Fran shout out, I spun around to see her confronting a man whose hand she had caught in her rucksack only moments before – I started shouting at him to cause a scene, luckily we could see he didn't have time to get to any of her belongings and he made the wise decision of snaking away. Good on Fran for catching him in the act though! That was enough of Ghangzhou so we hid out in KFC until the train was ready to go.

Hainan Island:

As Hainan is an island the train to get there is rather special. We caught a regular sleeper train but when it arrived at the coast, they put the whole train on a ferry, which took it across the channel to the island, where it continued its journey! Only in China! It took most of the day to get around the island (its almost as big as the Northern part of Vietnam!) but we eventually arrived at the station, and got a taxi to Sanya. We were staying at Peters place – Blue Sky International Hostel, but we had a bit of trouble finding it. A few calls to Peter later and one of his staff met us and lead us to the hostel. It is a very friendly place only minutes away from the beach and Peter (his English name) the Chinese owner is a friendly, funny guy.

The beach in Sanya doesn't disappoint, with near white sand stretching out in front of an aqua-marine sea fronted by palm trees and sun loungers. The resort is packed with Russians, it is also growing in popularity with the Chinese who seem to think it is essential to dress as if you are in Hawaii, with matching shorts and shirt floral combinations! It does make you laugh to see whole family walking around in the same print. We spent our time sunbathing and relaxing, and eating great, cheap local food (Fran had lots of seafood). Unfortunately on only the second day I managed to nearly brake Fran's little toe when we were messing around on the beach, she spent the rest of the time hobbling around in pain. At the hostel we had met some great fun people and especially became great friends with 2 girls – Marlene from Germany and Astrid from Austria. We all hung around together most of the time.

Our original plan had been to stay on Hainan for maybe 3 or 4 days, but as it was so nice it became 5 or 6, then a Typhoon hit the island and we couldn't get a ferry so we ended up staying for over a week! I can think of worse places to get stuck though. There were a lot of friendly people staying at the hostel and one night Ian and Ping convinced half the hostel to go to a Karaoke bar! We had a great time singing for a few hours before moving to an odd dance club that had a spring loaded floor!

I have to cut into this story here and give you a bit of insight as to how good the food actually was here, it was not really Chinese food as we came to know it (all bones and no meat so to speak), it was varied, cheap, fresh and delicious. We had two favourite haunts, a local restaurant on a corner with plastic tables and chairs for furniture which you would not look twice at but for the hoards of locals eating there all the time. The second haunt was more touristy and was called the Summer Food Court which was a series of stalls selling fresh seafood and other goodies for such reasonable prices! Marlene, Astrid and I share a love of seafood and twice had huge seafood platters complete with crabs, sea snails, calamari, prawns the lot for only 60 yuan (about 6 quid!).

Our whole week was spent either eating, drinking or talking about food and although basically all we did was go to the beach, we will always remember Hainan as the place where we forged some great friendships. I really do think that when we look back on our travels, it's not just the places that spring to mind, but the great people that you meet! We are now keen to explore lots of places in Europe that we hadn't thought about visiting before simply because we have made some great friends who we want to make sure we meet up with again.

Next stop - Vietnam!

China Part 6 - Hong Kong & Maccau:

Hong Kong:

We caught our very first sleeper bus from Guilin to Shenzen, which is the departure point into Hong Kong. The experience was not a good one as firstly the horrible hostel workers in Guilin failed to tell us we could catch this bus from Yangshuo, so on the day in question we travelled the two hours back to Guilin, only to catch the bus back to Yangshuo before it continued on it's way! The bus drivers were on some kind of delivery racket which meant that we could not put our bags underneath in the storage compartment, and we had the seats on the floor at the back of the bus and the aisles soon got crammed with everyone's luggage. My seat was in the middle, was the smallest on the bus and was directly over the engine with no air con, bags on either side and I was feeling more than a little claustrophobic! I vowed I would never catch a sleeper bus again!

When we finally arrived the bus dropped us to the wrong part of town so we shared a cab to the train station with some nice English guys we met up with, one of which had a huge Chinese hat which he had bought as a souvenir for his dad. The thing was bigger than him, and he still managed to nearly leave it at the travellers bureau, luckily the girl ran after him to return it!
Hong Kong is a world apart from China in every single way, the trains were spotless and on time, we made our first faux paux when took to eating a snack lunch, wondering why everyone was staring at us, only to realise about two days later that eating is prohibited on the train! That afternoon we trailed around the famous HK cheap electronics stores and Karl bought me a camera for my birthday from Mr Li's store. Some sight seeing was in order so we wandered around the town and it's strange because there are so many westerner's who all speak English, the architecture is mostly modern with some old stuff thrown in there and you could easily imagine that you are walking around the back streets of London.

We had some hugely overpriced Kronenbourg 1664 in an Irish bar (which we had been missing terribly!) and then braved the outside of the Chongking Mansions looking for a curry house for dinner. The Mansions in a huge building with retail shops and restaurants, but not any conventional building you may be thinking of. Outside there are hoards of Indian guys fluttering their menu's in your face, and the second I took a cursory glance at one, all of them crowded round us offering us special prices on beers and food if we picked them. When we had selected one which we thought sounded good, we followed him up in the elevator and came out to what can only be described as a floor with flats which had been converted into restaurants. Anyone who watches Little Britain will know what I'm talking about; imagine the scene when Walliams comes home to find his Thai Bride has turned their flat into a Thai Restaurant! The food was good though and we had been longing for curry for a long time so we were satisfied!

If you're in HK and need some beach action, head out to Lama Island which is just a 40 minute boat ride away. You can catch the ferry to one side and head out of the other which allows a really nice walk across the island with some stunning views across the ocean to boot. The people on the island were all really friendly and relaxed and although we didn't test the water out it looked sparkly and blue and everyone was having a good time. That night we watched the famous HK light show in which about 20 large buildings across the river “perform” to music by showing off their high tec lasers and flashing neon lights for about 20 minutes, that was pretty cool but we thought it wasn't a patch on the great light and water show we watched in Xi-an, which surprised us as HK is so much more advanced in many ways.

We then decided to absorb some local culture by checking out the Fire Dragon dance festival in which loads of men light thousand of incense sticks and make the body and head of a dragon and then dance it through the streets. They also create huge fire balls and dance around with them. It was a real sight to behold and the locals were loving it but we were overwhelmed by the smell of the incense burning so only stuck around for half and hour or so.

Maccau:

The journey to Maccau takes around 1&½ hours by boat and although it is back on the China mainland it really does feel like you've travelled to Portugal (well what I imagine it to be like anyway!). It was colonised by the Portuguese for many years and they have their own currency and the religion is predominantly Catholic, which means there are some really nice churches to visit and the architecture is very interesting and quaint. The old fort which contains a fab museum all about Maccau's history was so well laid out we really enjoyed it as a refreshing change in comparison to stuffy old museums we had visited. Maccau is mostly known for it's casino's so we took a cursory look around one of the original ones which was all gilded gold and retro chandeliers and mosaics, to be honest the décor made us both want to puke so we just looked around and then used a free shuttle to get back to the ferry dock! It would have been nice to check out the bigger newer casinos on the other side of the bridge but we couldn't really afford to play any tables so we thought better of leading ourselves into temptation and got the ferry back reasonably early.

China part 5 - Guilin and Yangshuo:

Guilin:

We had taken our longest train to date – 18 hours! But it is amazing how quickly you seem to adjust to these things, it seemed to pass relatively quickly. Just before arriving in Guilin we noticed the landscape changing, instead of rice paddies we were seeing sharply pointed hills dotted around the landscape. This is the area that a lot of people imagine when they think of China, the limestone hills covered in greenery, and here it was laid out in front of us ready to be explored. Guilin itself is a nice little town and has a lot to offer, but unfortunately it seems that someone has realised this and anything that is even remotely touristy has an (overpriced) entrance fee, be it a park, hill shaped like an elephant, or peak that overlooks the town. We did part with some of our hard earned cash but the sights just didn't seem to be value for money, rumour was that Yangshuo 2 hours South is the place to be, so we booked our ticket. The evening before we left redeemed Guilin slightly as we had a nice time wandering the night market and then the tastefully lit lakes.

Yangshuo:


A short bus ride and we were in the small town of Yangshuo. The friendly staff from the guesthouse we had booked came to meet us at the bus station. They were really helpful with any questions we had and sorted out our first excursion – a bamboo boat ride from Xing Ping. We had to get a small local bus to get there over bumpy unmade roads past paddie fields and farmers. Our starting point for the boat ride was a famous Chinese spot, as featured on the back of a Y20 note! The bamboo boat turned out to be made of plastic but we didn't let that take anything away from the incredible landscape sprawled in front of us. It was so peaceful and serene, again our timing was good as on the return journey the sun was setting behind the limestone peaks. This was the China I had dreamt of seeing!

That evening we took to West Street, a backpacker haven of bars, restaurants and clubs that doesn't quite fit with the peaceful setting of Yangshuo. While wandering around we met an Israeli called Asaf who joined us for beers. The following day he came to our hotel so we could all go for a bike ride, at this point we were also joined by a guy we had briefly bumped into the night before, Simon from Ireland. So the 4 of us set off out of town into the dirt tracks between paddie fields and limestone peaks. It was nice to be back with nature after so many big Chinese cities, water buffalo wading the rivers, local farmers going about their business, and butterflies fluttering about. Fran and I both picked up punctures on the unmade road, but luckily there was a friendly Chinese man in his shack doing repairs. While waiting for him to fix the punctures we walked to the river and had a swim in the refreshing blue waters. What a great way to spend a day!

While in Yangshuo we also went to a show that is directed by the same man that put together the opening ceremony for the Olympics, the stage is the river that runs through the town and while parts of the show were impressive the time between scenes while they moved around the boats was a bit much. Fran also took a cookery lesson with Nancy from Hong Kong whom we had eaten with the night before, so you can all look forward to home made Kung Po chicken, spring rolls and beef noodles when we get back! Unfortunately we had booked our onward bus journey while we were in Guilin, otherwise we may well have stayed in Yangshuo for longer as there was still much to do and see.

China Part 4 - Fran's Birthday:

Chengdu:

When we had booked our overnight train from Xi'an to Chengdu there had been 3 options, we went for the cheapest which had times to suit us. While waiting in the communal area of the hostel we got chatting to another guy who was getting the same train, Frank from New Zealand. We spent so long talking that we almost missed the train due to the chaos at Xi'an train station (this is normal in China at the moment, as the Olympics were on they x-ray every item of baggage, which leads to horrendous queues entering the station). Once we had boarded the train we suddenly realised why the tickets were cheaper – no air con! Well it was only 30 degrees outside, still it was a better option than the train we got to Pingyao!

Karl pretended all the way there that we were staying in a 6 person dorm, so imagine my surprise when we pulled up outside this plush hotel in the centre of town! This was my first birthday surprise, and it was still a whole day before my actual birthday. Our room was pure luxury and we enjoyed it immensely after having been in dorms for a while! We mooched around town and bumped into Frank again randomly in the square, and that evening Karl told me to put on a dress cos we were going out somewhere! Yippee another surprise for me! He took us to the Chinese Opera which was a real treat. They have all sorts of performers doing various things, like playing with fire, spinning plates, a hand shadow show, puppets and a changing masks performance which was really cool.

The next day dawned bright and early for us as we had a full day planned, whilst I was getting ready Karl read out all my birthday messages from everyone and made me nearly cry – thank you to everyone who wrote to me, it was so lovely to hear from you all especially as I was so far from home and missing everyone, it was very much appreciated! We caught the bus to the Panda Conservation Centre, yes we saw real life Panda's! They were so cute but smaller than we had imagined they would actually be. There is even a nursery on site so we saw mini baby panda's being looked after by the carers. Panda mummies are not actually that maternal and it takes them a few goes to know what to do with their babies, which is one of the reasons the Panda population is dwindling (that and deforestation of their natural bamboo habitat). Also did you know that Panda's actually have to fancy each other before they will contemplate getting it on?! They are a seriously strange creature. We watched them eating their bamboo and lazing around in their enclosures it was a very special experience, one which we will always remember!

When we got back to the hotel we chilled out for a while and then my next last surprise came in the form of a beautiful bunch of lilies and roses (my favourites!). They were really gorgeous and this a a funny tale; that morning whilst we were leaving the hotel, I saw those flowers and commented to the guy that they were beautiful and nearly asked him jokingly if they were for me as it was my birthday but we were crossing the road at that moment! We did laugh!

That night we went out for a nice Mexican and a bottle of wine with Frank and ended up having a few drinks at Hooters, that was random! All in all it was a really nice birthday and well worth the extra 30 hours on the train we endured to get there and away! Karl did a fantastic job with the surprises which is not easy since we spend virtually every minute of the day with one another!

This is the story of the day which we nearly didn't get to see the Buddha, and nearly missed the train! We arranged to meet up with Frank at 12pm at the bus station to go 2 hours away to view the worlds tallest standing Buddha in Leshan. What we hadn't realised is that once we arrived to the town, we would have to travel an extra distance to get to the blooming thing! We were running out of time as our overnight train was leaving from Chengdu to Guilin at 7pm, we consulted our bible the lonely planet and it said we could catch a local ferry to an island which overlooks the Buddha, and it only cost 1yuan (that's about 10p). The “ferry” was in fact a rickety rusty pontoon with a motor and packed full of local people, which was a real experience in itself! After ingesting goodness knows how many petrol fumes, we arrived at the little island, quickly walked to the peninsula to take a picture of the Buddha and caught the ferry back straight away. The view of the Buddha was hazy (so much pollution in China visibility is not always that good!), but it was very tall and hewn into the side of a cliff so it's quite imposing. On the bus back, we got caught in the rush hour traffic which delayed us and we were cursing ourselves for undertaking a trip so far away on a day we were supposed to be leaving town! We finally made it to the bus station but needed to get back to the hotel to pick up our bags before getting to the train station. There was not a cab available so we ended up running all the way back to the hotel which was a good two miles away, arriving hot and sweaty we piled in the door to snatch our bags and then begged the people in the queue for the taxi's to let us go first. I think one look at our ticket and realising how late we were was all that was needed and the taxi driver drove like a bat out of hell to get us there in time, which we eventually did! Phew!

China Part 3 - Pingyao & Xi'an:

Pingyao (and getting there!):

Most travellers have never heard of Pingyao as it's a tiny little town in between Beijing and Xi'an with not much going on, but we heard it was a really cool place to relax in so off we went. Unfortunately we were unable to bag hard sleeper tickets on the train and could only get seated, for an overnight journey of about 10 hours this is not ideal. So imagine this, when all the seats are filled up, they proceed to sell people standing tickets and so the train was overcrowded with half of china blocking the aisles, ladies holding babies and huge laundry bags full of goodness knows what all over the place. We were stuck in the middle of all this chaos and when 4am came round and the conductor shouted “Pingyao” it was a frenzied rush to try to get our backpacks from underneath the seats and get to the door. Nobody moved out of the way and the door was blocked by about 6 people lying or sitting in front of it and by the time we finally got there the guy said it was too late and we had to get off at the next town!!! Luckily there was an English speaking girl on the train who explained this to us, and said the next town was only 20 mins away which was a relief because sometimes the train doesn't stop for hours!

We finally got off the stinky train and found a nice taxi driver to take us back to Pingyao. The only thing was that it took over an hour to find our hostel as the town has old style tiny streets made for carts not cars and he didn't have a clue how to get around it! An old lady picking up plastic bottles helped us in the end, but when finally reaching our destination we found that the hostel was fully closed up and everyone had gone back to bed (they were picking us up at the station had we got off the train!). So we sat on the doorstep like two vagabonds and watched the little town slowly coming to life and the sun rising over the the rooftops. Little old ladies were up and about first, going to the market to buy their vegetables and stretching and exercising. It was cool actually looking back but at the time we were just cold and exhausted!

Our hostel was in a building constructed for the Emperor when he was coming to visit (which in the end he didn't) so it was quite plush in an old sort of way! We had an old style bed made of bricks and period furniture, and it was accessed through a little courtyard, it was just lovely.

Pingyao has retained it's old city wall and we enjoyed walking on part of it. All the buildings within the city wall have been maintained in the old period style and we watched the smoke curling out of the little chimneys and spied on people going about their daily routine. We watched the sun setting from our high vantage point and it was all very romantic! You can go into many of the buildings which have been converted into museums describing what their use was such as the prison, bank (Pingyao was where the first currency was used), important peoples houses etc so we had fun poking around the dusty little town for a few days. When we decided it was time to leave we were told that lots of students were going back to college due to (another) Chinese holiday so there were no bus tickets left! We only got stuck for an extra 2 days and when we finally got a ticket it was at an inflated price because they were in such high demand! That is China all over, where there's a profit to made, you can bet it will be!

Xi'an:

Having finally escaped from the quaint Pingyao we found ourselves back in a large city. Xi'an is a big place as has all the usual hustle and bustle associated with a large Chinese city. The main attraction here of course is Emperor Qin's Army of Terracotta Warriors. Its hard to know what to expect from this well known tourist attraction, but one thing I hadn't considered was the size of the pits and the number of warriors. Other than the outdated introductory video (which could desperately use a revamp) the site is presented very well, getting close to some of the warriors and having a close look at the detail of the faces and bodies really brings them to life. All the warriors on display have been painstaking reconstructed as they were damaged either by looting or the roof collapsing, to try and imagine them as they were originally with colour and all standing in formation just blows your mind. There are still a lot to be reconstructed and also other pits to be uncovered but they are trying to find a way to unearth them without the sunlight bleaching their colours.

Surrounding the city is the ancient city wall, but don't let its age fool you, it is by no means modest. It protects a large part of the city and stands as high as most buildings and almost as wide. Walking around the top you get a view over the city's rooftops and can watch life on the streets far below. We also visited the centrally located Bell Tower, an ornate building in the centre of a crossroads. We were lucky as we got to see a traditional Chinese musical performance, with instruments of the olden days. We spent one evening visiting the Big Goose Pagoda, where at 9:00 every night they put on a fabulous light and water show, complete with 'Jingle Bells'! The show was spectacular and on a par with Disney shows I have seen, it certainly draws a crowd and you have to push to get a decent view.

China Part 2: Beijing

A great time in a great city:

Apart from the chaos at the train stations in Shanghai and Beijing the journey on the overnight train (10 hours) was almost enjoyable! Beijing was literally a breath of fresh air after Shanghai, namely due to the effort they had put in to reduce pollution for the Olympics, you could actually see the sun in the sky and buildings that were more than 100 meters away. Even though the Olympics had officially finished the town was still in full Olympic mode and on its best behaviour. Rumour has it that the residents of Beijing were given strict instructions of do's and don'ts including: no spitting, no begging, no wearing white socks with black trousers, and to smile at tourists, just some of the funny ones we heard. Visiting the Olympic village was a strange experience, to see the crazy styling of the Birds Nest and the Water Cube in the flesh (although you can't get that close!) makes you realise how much time, effort and money the Chinese put into the Olympics.

Our adventures took us to various temples and palaces including Lama Temple, which is a great example of Chinese Temple building at its best. The main building even holds a huge 27m giant standing Buddha carved out of a single piece of wood, which is quite a sight. We also visited the majestic Forbidden City, which for years was only accessible to Royalty and not meer peasants like ourselves! Tienanmen Square just outside of the Forbidden City is a strange mix, with more security cameras and undercover police than you can count – awaiting the revolution maybe? The Summer Palace was a highlight and is a must see in Beijing, it was built as a present to the Emperor's mother for her birthday, what a gift indeed! It encompasses a huge man made lake and numerous temples and shrines.

We were in a bit of a quandary as to how we were going to visit the Great Wall, there were plenty of tours on offer but they did seem pricey. After some advice from fellow backpackers we decided on visiting the stretch between Jing San Ling and Simatai, by ourselves, without the aid of a tour group. It meant getting a bus to another town, then a taxi to the wall. The bus journey was fine apart from the taxi drivers trying to pry us off before the final stop so that they could charge us an inflated sum to take us the rest of the way. We resisted and got off in the correct place to be confronted by 20 or more cab drivers all screaming for our trade. While negotiating a price we were found by a friendly guy from Spain called Poli who was also going to the wall, so we pretended to know each other so we could split the fare, much to the annoyance of all the other cab drivers who realised they were going to miss out. A fight almost broke out as they tried to stop us getting in a cab together and one of the other drivers tried to steal our keys!

We eventually made it to the wall having picked up a girl (Katie from the USA) on the way who was walking! So the four of us set off in the glorious sunshine and in no time found ourselves standing on one of the most incredible structures to be built by human hands. It was an extremely surreal feeling to look in each direction, to see the wall snaking across the hills and thinking of the history of how it was built, and what the Mongol's must have thought when they first saw it! This section of the wall is less visited, other than a handful of other tourists the only people about were locals trying to make a few Yen selling water, beers and souvenirs. It took us about 4 hours to trek the 10km, past parts of the walls that were nearly ruined, you had to dismount from the wall and skirt around the edge of the crumbling mess, but mostly it was in good condition. Near the end you must cross a rickety bridge across a gorge over a river, before taking a zip wire over the lake – what a great end!

No visit to Beijing would be complete without eating at the infamous Wanfujing Street market. You can buy a vast array of land and sea creatures, on a stick, deep fried. We joined a couple of Hungarian guys (Gabor and Andras) we met at the hostel, first of all we walked along to see what was on offer and whet our taste buds. Some of the different culinary delights included: Scorpions, starfish, silk worm larvae, bulls penis, sheep's testicles and I heard someone mention dog. Andras decided to try some snake, he said it was ok so Fran and I tucked in as well. We then tried some crickets, a centipede and Fran finished off with some Seahorses (yes that is Seahorses, 3 of the little fellas, and she claims to still regret it!). I have to say that nothing I tried was particularly nasty in taste or texture, but I wouldn't go out of my way to eat any of it again either!

Our last night in Beijing was spent with new friends from the hostel, Johannes twisted my arm into going out for a few drinks so we visited the area by a lake that is packed to the rafters with bars and clubs, many with live music spilling onto the streets. Being backpackers the cheapest option was to buy beers from a street vendor and soak up the ambience as we walked around. We finished the night with 2 for 1 cocktails in a bar, where we learnt a new dice game that the Chinese go crazy for!

Overall our experience of Beijing was very memorable, we would definitely recommend a visit as it is a beautiful and exciting city, which retains its historic integrity whilst also embracing the future and making tourists feel a part of it all.

Our first taste of China...

Arriving in Shanghai:

Coming to China from Japan is a massive culture shock, even more so if your first stop is Shanghai. The culture and psyche here are a world apart from that of the Japanese and you can feel it from the first time you step off the plane. Coming from the quiet, reserved, clean world of the Japanese into the loud, bustling, booming world of the Chinese is an incredible contrast. There can't be many other neighbouring countries with so vast differences. The populous here are very forward (even though English isn't very widely spoken) and not afraid to ask for a picture with the 'crazy' different looking Westerners.

Our first notable Shanghai experience was trying to get to the hotel we had booked. We had the name and address (but not in Chinese), we decided to get a taxi from the Maglev station (400+ km/h magnetic levitation train - cool!) as we weren't familiar with the town. The taxi driver started heading in vaguely the right direction before shouting at us in Chinese as he didn't know exactly where we wanted to go! Eventually we managed to direct him using the poor map in the Lonely Planet, but I wish I knew what he was shouting at us!

Shanghai is a city undergoing massive change due to the amount of money pouring into China, everywhere you look there is either newly constructed skyscrapers or building sites. The pollution is a huge issue though as even on sunny days you cannot see the sun but just the grey haze hanging chokingly over the city. The buildings around the Bund are a sight to behold, and some of the most modern and interesting architecture I have seen. The beggars and street vendors however are a pain, women holding small children and tugging your clothing repeating “money, money” remind you of the vast gap that exists in China between wealthy and poor.

Our highlights of Shanghai were the Yuyuan Gardens and bazaar, a crazy world complete with loud street vendors waiting to haggle and serene landscaped gardens hidden away from the bustle; the French Concession with its swanky and trendy bars and café's, and the incredible show Era which left us with jaws hanging open in awe of the strength and balance of the performers.

Our next stop was to be Beijing, just days after the Olympics finished. Rumours from other travellers were that the city had undergone a massive facelift and was trying hard to impress.

Shanghai in pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/phase_k/tags/shanghai/

Further adventures in the Land of the Rising Sun

Photos from Japan click here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phase_k/sets/72157606704526761/

Mount Fuji Area:

After our exhausting climb up Mount Fuji it was a relief to check into the most gorgeous hostel we've been to, K's. They had a beautiful kitchen, comfy sofa's looking out onto a garden, a TV den with more comfa sofa's, and a Japanese style area with low wooden tables and huge cushions on a tatmi mat, a perfect place to chill out!

The area around Mount Fuji is beautiful and worth a couple of days of sightseeing. One cool thing we did was get a cable car up a nearby mountain to look over to Fuji, unfortunately the day we did this it was really cloudy so we couldn't make out the mountain but we did learn a very nice story about a farmer, a rabbit and a raccoon. The Farmer worked very hard to toil his land, one day the raccoon deceived the farmer and the farmer was very upset. The farmer asked his friend the rabbit to help him, and the rabbit agreed. He sought out the raccoon and they went to collect some firewood together. When the raccoon had the firewood on his back, the rabbit set fire to the wood and the raccoon also caught fire. The next day, the rabbit went fishing with the raccoon, but his boat was made of wood, and the raccoon's boat was only made from mud, so the boat sank with the raccoon in it. Now the farmer was avenged and he was happy. The end!

It was time to move on from our mountain paradise and there's no better place on earth (I think anyway) to travel around than in Japan. The trains are always on time, clean and oh so comfortable! Expensive too but it's worth buying the Japanese Rail Pass which lets you do wherever you like! The bullet trains are extremely fast, topping out at about 300km an hour (when they have passengers), arriving at their destination in no time, the countryside whipping by in a blur.

Homeless in Kyoto:

So far along the trip we have pretty much always booked our accomodation a few days in advance and then turned up at the hostel and everything has been fine. Not this time! Try as we did we could not find a hostel within our price range for the first night in Kyoto, but we thought we'd head there anyway as there was bound to be something right?! Wrong!!! But all was not lost, we went to the Pig & Whistle Pub and played darts with some really nice people who were studying Japanese, and got roped into going for our very first private Karaoke room experience! It was all we could drink for two tune belting hilariously funny hours. We were with 2 Japanese girls who thought our rendition of Queen's "Bohemium Rhapsody" was the funniest thing on earth, who would have thought that one western girl and 4 western boys all red in the face from singing at the top of their lungs and jumping up and down with so much enthusiasm could be funny?

At 4am after singing our lungs out everyone else had to go home as they had work in the morning so Karl and I booked another Karaoke room and had some more fun singing (very badly I think) before trying to get some kip (that's the done thing when you have nowhere to stay!). Then we really were out of ideas and just strolled around the town, that was OK until the alcohol had completely worn off and then we saw some people down by the river, so we thought - why not? We actually slept by a river people, and we did feel a bit like tramps especially in the morning when the people came out to walk their dogs! No dark night to hide behind anymore! All in all Japan is very safe so we didn't feel in the least worried about that, it was just the next day was a blur cos we were so tired! We did check out a great art gallery in Kyoto and wandered around some beautiful gardens though so it wasn't a waste!

There are literlly thousands of shrines and temples to explore in Kyoto and explore we did! We walked for miles and miles and gazed at the wonders built so many years ago to protect people against various ominous happenings. One shrine which was especially beautiful was thousands of small statues built to protect children, it's really a sight to see there are so many of them. Unfortunately they are so old that many are crumbling but people still go there becuase you can see fresh flowers in various places. People can go there to pray for their children and I am sure it would be a great comfort to some people in their times of need. All over Japan there are little shrines and people can often be seen praying to them, lighting some incense or making a donation to their deity, it's pretty cool.

Newsflash! We ate at a revolving sushi bar, it was OK and nice for the experience but everything tasted pretty "samey"! And YES! Karl tried some Sushi too! Unfortunately the bit he got was full of Wasabi (really hot green spicy stuff) and ruined the flavour but he tried it, I'm so proud!

Himeji Castle:

Whilst we were on Mount Fuji we met this lovely Australian girl called Alicia who said we must absolutely check out Himeji Castle, check it out we did and it was SO worth it! The area around Himeji is really well kept also and we had fun walking down to the castle, and we had the most delicious spinach and cheese pastie EVER! We so miss regular food at home sometimes!

The castle has huge grounds with lots of different bits of garden, some of which have been turned into a lilly pond with coy carp (very peaceful) a rose garden (my favourite!), a tea garden and a lush green lawn which would have been fun to sit on if it wasn't so hot, you couldn't sit in the sun even for a minute! The castle itself has 6 stories you can wander around and explore and it has the traditional Japanese style tiles roofs which turn up at the corners. Any renovation which has been done has been done in the old original style and building materials from back in the day so that it really does look so authentic you feel that any minute now an emperor is bound to come walking around the corner. It was amazing to look at the different tiles as they are embossed with the markings of the tradesman who laid them and it was a great honour to be able to work on such a grand building. As a castle, you have to say it rates highly as no-one ever managed to penetrate it's walls, in fact no-one ever tried as it looked so imposing! We tried to imagine people approaching it with a view of attack and then thinking - no maybe not!

Osaka:

We had lots of fun in Osaka playing in the arcades and taking silly pictures with Japanese people in those funny boards with the hole you poke your face through! Apart from that I think we were staying in the wrong part of town so we did not think much of the architecture or anything, just another town really and we felt it was a little anticlimactic as our final destination in Japan after the magnificent architecture and wonderful sights that we had seen up till then.

Japan is really a wonderful country which I would not hesitate to visit again. At first it was a little bit of a culture shock as it was our first asian country but the people are so proud of their nation and there is evidence of this on every corner. Everywhere you look there are people cleaning everything, the streets are filled with so many people going about their business in a quiet non pretentious way, people wait for the green man to cross the road, apologise a million times to you even if it was your fault you bumped them by accident, stop and ask you if you need help if you linger on a street corner for more than a few seconds, they are just so very welcoming to foreigners it's brilliant.

Music Festival Japanese Stylee:

MY OH MY, we forgot to write anything about Summersonic! How could we forget our first ever music festival abroad? It was an experience that was for sure! We went whilst we were in Tokyo, a huge splurge on the budget but worth every penny. We saw (amognst others) Vampire Weekend, Perfume (a japanese girl band who sing to dance music), The Verve, Prodigy, Alicia Keys, Coldplay it was awesome.

The festival itself though was not much like we're used to. For starters, the Japanese people only clap for maximum 5 seconds after a song or even when the bands finish playing! Also no-one really dresses up funky like we do and the venue was really strange. It was set across two areas which were divided by a main road, as the road was so busy you had to walk to the nearest bridge which was a good 1/2 an hour away and back up the other side of the road. If there were bands back to back on different stages there was no chance of seeing both as it took an hour to get across! Aside from that it was very well organised and they even had a beach stage on the beach which was awesome. It's given me the bug to go to more festivals abroad, I hear there are some great ones in Europe so looking forward to those in the future!

Climbing Mount Fuji

While in Japan, we thought it would be rude if we did not conquer its highest peak, that of Fuji-san, standing at 3776m. “But isn't that an active volcano?” I hear you cry! Well yes it is, it last erupted in 1707 and as therefore is possibly due to pop but as luck would have it, it kept quiet during our visit.

The climbing season for Fuji is very short due to the peak being snow-capped for most of the year, most people climb in July and August. The normal routine is to ascend in the middle of the night and reach the summit in time to view the sunrise. We left our bags at the train station and got the bus to the 5th station, which is where most people start. There are 10 stations in all which are at intervals all the way up the mountain and offer accommodation, food and refreshments. You can climb all the way from the bottom, which is where the pilgrims used to begin, but it is more of a woodland stroll to the 5th and adds 4 hours to the ascent. We arrived at the 5th around 17:30 and set off for the 7th station where we would have a quick nap and dinner before setting off for the peak.

The climb was fairly easy going, a back-and-forth hairpin trail which affords you views back down the mountain at the town below. At points it was more challenging and almost like rock climbing with only a chain to hold onto and seperating you from a big drop. We made good progress and were at our accommodation by 19:30. We had a Japanese style dinner before settling in for a sleep until midnight. I have never climbed a mountain in the middle of the night before so this was somewhat of a unique experience. We shared a torch between us and set off for the summit, sunrise was just before 5:00 so we had plenty of time.


It was fairly busy going up so all you had to do was follow the torch in front of you to see where the trail went. This part of the climb gets a lot steeper and you need to use both hands to pull yourself up the large rock formations. From the side of the mountain we could see the twinkling lights of the town lying asleep below us. The stars were also available to help guide us and they were out in their thousands! It had also got cold by this point so out came the hoodies and waterproofs to keep us warm. We reached the 9th station by 2:30 in good time, all that was left was one more station, easy – or so we thought. Turns out that everyone had the same idea of reaching the peak for sunrise and half of Japan had turned out to climb and we found ourselves standing in a queue on a mountain trail, lit up by hundreds of torches, at 3:30 in the morning. Only in Japan!



Because of this we didn't make the summit until just after sunrise, but as we were on the Eastern side of the mountain we still got to watch the sun slowly emerging from behind a few clouds, lighting the sky gradually with beautiful morning cololurs. At the peak the atmosphere was buzzing, we had a hot tea and warmed ourselves up preparing for the descent. It did feel rather surreal to think you are standing with thousands of others on top of an active volcano that is due an eruption!

The climb down was not as enjoyable, the trail was made up of broken up volcanic material – almost sandy. This meant that every step you took was a battle to stay on your feet, not easy on a flat but even harder when on a slope. Our legs felt like they couldn't take any more and we were both feeling tired anyway. It didn't help that the views on this side were also rather boring! But we made it and got to the 5th by 9:30, our adventure complete and one that we will remember for a long long time!

For the full set of photos for Fuji click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/phase_k/tags/fujisan/