Bus journey from HELL

The next morning we awoke early to book our bus ticket to the north-east of Cambodia, a town called Ban Lung in the Ratanakiri Province - off the beaten track! We booked a ticket from a little man who had a make-shift office (i.e. a table) next to the Red Sun Falling cafe. He spoke perfect English and assured us that he was the real deal - luxury bus, no diversions, no restaurant stops. Great!
Little did we know that we were embarking on the world´s worst bus journey ever!

We turned up at 12.10 to catch our bus in 20 mins. 12.30 came and went and our ticket salesman came over to tell us that he had just heard the bus would be an hour late as they had to stop for lunch because the passengers were very hungry... yes, he said that the bus stopped because the passengers were very hungry. Yeah right!! It was ridiculous, we´d seen him sitting in the same place for the last half hour without picking up a phone. "Maybe", he said to us, "you would like to buy lunch here while you wait?" We were very frustrated by this. The bus clearly always makes that stop so that the bus company can rake in the commission, our ticket salesman just decided to omit telling us that or else we may have taken an earlier bus with a different company and we would not have bought those drinks at his restaurant next door. God I could be the next Miss Marple. So if you ever go to Kratie and see this man don´t buy a ticket from him!: Anyway, the bus eventually arrived at 14.20 but we had to wait half an hour before we could get on. When we boarded chaos awaited us. The stench of rotten fruit and odorous bodies hit us like a minesweeper! This bus had clearly never seen a mop and dettol before. We walked down the aisle stepping carefully over the piles of debris, stepping on people´s luggage and pushing over stools where people were sitting in the aisle - no seatbelt laws here! We sat down in our hard leather seats to await the 8 hour coach journey. We began speaking to two tourists near us, they said they were heading to Stung Treng, a town which required a diversion from our course. We confronted our ticket salesman about this as he had promised us "no diversions", all of a sudden he couldn´t understand us. A man was sitting across from me eating an orange like an animal, chomping and chewing loudly and obscenly. I put on my ipod and tried to block it all out.

As we drove we noted how the colour of the earth changed from a light dusty beige to a deep red sandy colour.
A couple of hours into the journey a crazy lady with a moustache came and stood next to us screaming and laughing at the men sitting behind us for an hour. We thought she might be a hooker/ a druggie - she certainly looked like either. Not only this but a child infront of me was sick on my foot and we watched as a little girl stood up and peed into a plastic bag in the aisle. Another child was sick in the aisle and the parents mopped it up with a jacket. We were slowly being driven insane, it felt like a scene from the Far Side. After stopping at the town of Stung Treng and at a restaurant for half an hour we continued on an unpaved (very bumpy!) road for three hours. The sunset was at least beautiful as were the trees which were caked in red dust whipped up by the tyres of passing vehicles. We were quite concerned by this stage as we would be arriving in a strange town after dark which always makes things that little more difficult. As we neared Ban Lung down a narrow, dusty road, flanked on either side by forest, we noticed small fires all around us. At first we thought they might we controlled fires to clear the ground but as we drove on we could see that houses were surrounded by blazes and whole trees and even parts of the road were on fire! This made the journey even more eery. "What kind of a place are we coming to?!" we wondered in alarm...

Kratie

After a day of chilling out in Siem Reap, getting foot massages and recovering from our extensive exploration of the temples of Angkor, we decided that it was time to move on. The original plan had been to get the bus from Siem Reap to Bangkok but as we had enjoyed Cambodia so much we decided to discover more. We consulted the guidebook and caught a bus from Siem Reap to Kampong Cham, a long bus ride of 6 hours with Cambodian pop songs blasting in our ears. At the end of this bus ride we jumped into a tuktuk to the nearest place where a bus ticket to Kratie could be booked. The ticket was surprisingly expensive but we paid anyway (we didn´t have much choice) and awaited the bus which of course was late. While we were waiting Al nipped off to buy a couple of baguettes to share as we hadn´t eaten breakfast. The bus agent kindly offered to take our money and go to the local market to buy us some food but we politely declined. "Do we look like complete mugs!" we said to ourselves "here, take our money... no no infact take our credit card and pin number at the same time!" (as mentioned earlier - never pay for anything in advance!). Eventually the bus came so we bought some monkey nuts from a local sales woman and sat back in our seats munching away and watching a comedy show involving a midget castrati and actors dressed as European peasants - don´t ask.

We eventually arrived in Kratie and headed to a budget hotel recommended in the guidebook. Kratie is pretty small but a number of guesthouses have sprung up to cater for tourists visiting the famous Irawaddy Dolphins. We settled into the You Hong guesthouse and ordered some food, only to discover how dirty the hotel actually was - ants crawling everywhere, dirty sauce bottles, a kitchen where dishes were washed on the dirty floor and a squat toilet (used by the staff) which didn´t have loo roll or soap (work that one out yourself). Not nice! We did however have a great view of the market from our window:

The next day we arose early and explored the town. We investigated the mighty Mekong river and the busy market area outside our hotel.

While in the market we were approached by a tuktuk driver offering to take us to the river to see the dolphins. After some light haggling we agreed on a price and hit the road, 14 kms, upriver. We arrived, bought a ticket and were directed to a boat for our own private boat ride. Irrawaddy dolphins are incredibly rare, there are only about 70 remaining in the Mekong River and the small port of Kampi, near Kratie is the best place to see them. We were lucky. The dolphins are incredibly shy, unlike their show-off, Sea World counterparts, and don´t hang around much for photos. Through sheer patience we got some spectacular shots:



It was a lovely opportunity to relax on the river and soak up some rays too
Our driver was a funny one. Life can´t be too hard when all you do is sit around all day, waiting for tourists to be brought to your boat and taking the odd nap between rides... however we never met anyone lazier and more unwilling to do their job. We stayed in the same area for ages, which was good while the dolphins were there, but when they moved on we wanted to explore some more. "You want to go to the waterfall?" our guide asked. When we replied in the affirmative we were told "two dollar". Feeling a bit hard done by we declined but asked him to go further afield so we could see more dolphins. He revved up the engine, surely scaring the dolphins away, and headed a little up river. We circled around a small island and came back to the port. "No no no!" we called, "we paid for an hour not 40 minutes!" He didn´t look too happy but nevertheless turned off the engine and drifted us back to the middle of the river. He really didn´t look happy though and we soon found out why as he suddenly threw his head over the side of the boat and started vomitting. Eeewww!! We were sympathetic of course and told him he could go back to the port. We were also a bit worried, if the locals get sick from the food here what hope is there for us?!

We sat for 15 minutes by the side of the river watching the dolphins playing and the odd boat heading out into the river. As we waited we came across a rather bizarre sign stuck to a notice board - we couldn´t make out what it was trying to warn but if any of our readers have any ideas then please please comment and let us know!

On the way back the driver pointed out a famous ´mountain´with a temple on top. I wanted to have a closer inspection - mainly for comedy value as this truly was a mountain for the very flat Cambodian countryside, but by our European standards it was more like a small hillock. We climbed the mountain to the temple at the top. There wasn´t too much to see but we did come across this toilet which should definately win a prize for the world´s worst toilet competition!

We headed back to our dirty hotel where the staff were lazing around in hammocks in their pyjamas watching wrestling on TV. It´s a fact of Cambodia that everyone here wears bright coloured pyjamas during the day - they are that laid back here! I actually think it may be because pyjamas are cheaper than normal clothes... either way it certainly reflects the relaxed and happy attitude of the people here. But the people who ran our hotel... they were just lazy!
We whiled away the rest of the day in a cafe by the market
We also wondered through the inside of the market, a maze of clothes/shoe/food stalls - although with flies buzzing over the meat and vegetables being cut on the floor it didn´t look like the most hygenic place to eat!
and sat with a cool beer watching the sun setting over the banks of the Mekong.

Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom

We awoke early (4.30am, still dark) wondering why on earth we had decided to get up so early, but excited about seeing one of the world's most famous temples - Angkor Wat. We found our tuktuk driver and bundled into the back for a ride through in the pitch dark. As we left Siem Reap we became aware of a number of other tuktuks on the road - presumably all with the same idea in mind. We passed cyclists who still had an hour of hard graft ahead of them before they reached the famous temple. As we arrived at the entrance of Angkor Wat I was surprised to see some coaches parked and about fifty tuktuks - clearly a few people had had the same idea as we did. Luckily at such an early hour there were no children thrusting scarves or books into our faces.

We headed through the magnificent entrance and across the causeway over the moat, crossed a field past a separate building and moved towards the edge of the lake where the crowds had gathered. We still couldn't make out the temple as the sun had not yet risen, but that didn't deter people from trying to take pictures in the dark, which was quite funny. We stood at the lakeside with hundreds of people - I had envisaged us standing, almost alone, watching the sun rise - I didn't know that, for the Chinese especially, sunrise and sunset is seen as a prime time to view the temple. There was no peace and quiet, no time for meditation or appreciation of the view - just fighting for a space at the lakeside and listening to the noisy chatter all around. This (as well as Ta Prohm) was probably one of the first times I had witnessed the effects of mass tourism - and it wasn't pretty. We hung back from the crowds and watched as the sun began to rise.


We then decided to head into the temple itself to escape the crowds and get a feel for the place on our own. We didn't realise that we needent have worried - many coach loads of tourists head to Angkor Wat for sunrise and then go back into town for breakfast.

We walked through the huge entrance and into the corridors of the temple, listening to the squeaking bats that were settling down to sleep. We made our way to the back of the temple and stood watching the first of the sun's rays light up the facade.


Here I am appreciating the quiet moment we had in the world's most famous temple:
We found some more beautiful aspara carvings and were able to find someone to photograph us together


One of the temple courtyards contained a shrine to Buddha and we saw two orphan boys, who had benefitted from the care of the monks, playing there:



As we headed outside and round the front of the building, in search of breakfast, we looked across the lake where the crowds were still gathered. I began waving and making an Oscar acceptance speech as it seemed like the natural thing to do with all these adoring fans photographing us... and then we headed an area containing small restaurant/cafe stalls for some breakfast. As we neared we saw scores of stall owners standing near the entrance to this area and shouting and gesticulating at us and the other tourists... "oh my gosh - which stall do we go to then!" we wondered... we decided to go with the first person who shouted at us and headed with him, ignoring the others, to his stall. We ordered a delicious breakfast of eggs and bacon which was of a really high standard considering it was being cooked right in front of our noses on a tiny hob. We also watched them making ice - the old fashioned way!
Some cunning children tried to trick me out of 1000R (25p) as I headed to the loo in the nearby monastry, 'toilet costs 1000riel! you pay me!' - but I'm a wily traveller now and I know full well that you don't pay anything for a dirty squat toilet (with no light) in a Buddhist monastry.

Back in the temple we made a small offering for the orphanage and continued with our explorations.
We walked past dozens of asparas (which made Al happy) - for some reason the stone on their chests was highly polished, leading us to believe that they are often the victims of groping assaults.
Some of the carvings in the temple were beautiful and we spent hours wandering round taking everything in.



We finally decided to tear ourselves away from Angkor Wat and explore Angkor Thom (the ancient city of Angkor). Our driver dropped us off at the entrance where we walked around, dodging the tuktuks and elephants and coming face to face with the guardians of the city - you don't wanna mess with these guys... but we did anyway - haha!



Just as we started thinking it couldn´t get better than Angkor Wat... we were taken to the magical Bayon. This temple was one of the best we had seen. Each tower was covered in huge faces, smiling benevolently at the crowds of people milling around.

It really made you think how amazing it would have been to be one of the first explorers to discover this temple in the jungle, stone faces smiling down at you through the wild vegetation.


We took time to appreciate some of the detailed wall designs and temple architecture:



We walked round to another temple tucked away within Angkor Thom - Bauphuon. It looked amazing but unfortunately much of it was under restoration so we were unable to have a look closeup.

Next, within Angkor Thom, we walked to the Terrace of Elephants: a wall covered in detailed carvings of battle scenes, fighting animals and huge sculpted elephants.


We entered a narrow maze of high stone walls known as the Terrace of the Leper King. The structure of the walls had protected the engravings from the weathering elements and their quality was superb.

The only problem with Angkor Thom is that it is very open and we were being fried by the midday sun from which there was little cover. This, along with the early start and hectic schedule of the last few days, left us really tired and we decided to head back to Siem Reap for a late lunch before heading to our final temple to watch a beautiful sunset. We thanked our tuktuk driver and paid him for his service, arranging to meet him at 4.30pm. However we then made a mistake which we only realised after we walked away from the driver - we paid in advance for the evening trip. Biiiig mistake. Don´t ask why we did it - we didn´t have the right change on us or something... we should have known better. Anyway by the time 4.30pm came we were waiting eagerly in the hotel lobby for our driver. Tuktuk drivers are generally very punctual so we thought it was unusual that he wasn´t there waiting for us. Fifteen minutes later we complained to the hotel staff who knew the driver. They said they had spoken to him and he was on his way. Fifteen minutes later and still no sign of our driver, we were pretty worried - we had a sunset to catch you know! Eventually the hotel staff told us that our driver had been ´held up´while on another job in Angkor and they went onto the street to find us a different driver. We were preeeety p-d off by this point, especially as we had to take a new driver who we didn´t know and we had felt that we´d got to know the previous driver quite well. We felt betrayed... no just kidding, but there you go, tuktuk drivers are promiscuous, just don´t pay in advance for their services.

So off we headed (with our new driver trying hard to sell us a boat trip that we didn´t want) to Phnom Krom, an ancient ruin at the top of a steep hill, right next to a working Buddhist monastry.
We passed the monks on the way up, labouring on the road:

and, once we had reached the top of the hill, we cracked open our cans of Angkor beer and perched on a small outcrop to take in the view and the beautiful sunset that illuminated the paddy fields below.




And thus ended the visit to our final temple. Our time in Siem Reap and viewing the temples of Angkor was truly magical and we will always remember it. We saw so many amazing temples, all of them different, and despite the sometimes large groups of tourists, it wasn´t hard to find a corner or a rock to sit and relax - although it could be difficult to escape from the ubiquitous young souvenir sellers. We would definitely recommend the temples of Angkor to anyone of any age. There are plenty of budget accommodation options in Siem Reap, as well as a plethora of luxury, five star hotels for the more affluent traveller. The same goes for restaurants - you can eat noodles at the market or steak in the top restaurants. Siem Reap is easy to reach from Bangkok or Phnom Penh by aeroplane, or from Phnom Penh by coach.

Tuktuk to Angkor - day 2

We were up bright and early, a bacon baguette in one hand and our recent purchase of 'Ancient Angkor' from a young book salesman in the other. The plan was to make our way towards the beautiful Banteay Srei, stopping off at Banteay Samre along the way. We arrived before most of the big coachloads of tourists and set about exploring the temple on our own. It was very peaceful and nice and cool before the sun rose fully in the sky.

On the road to Banteay Srei - spirits high! At 20km north of Siem Reap the journey took an hour, but we enjoyed it thoroughly, whizzing past small villages and markets along the way and trying to capture the moment.


Banteau Srei was crammed with coaches and tuktuks which took us by suprise but we fought through the crowds to get to the best spots. The temple is small but extremely beautiful, decorated throughout with intricate carvings which are almost perfectly preserved.




The main temple was closed off to tourists which was a bit of a shame, but you could still make out the ape-men that guarded the entrance... no not Al, the statues behind him!
We had a bit of a celebrity moment - as we walked around admiring the carvings a group of Japanese guys approached us and asked if they could take a photo of us. 'Of course' we said, handing them our camera not realising that they wanted to be in our picture too! It was a little odd to say the least, it must have been Al's cool hat that did it.


On our way back to the main Angkor Wat area we popped in to the Landmine Museum, where the funds go into raising awareness of landmines and supporting local orphans. It is full of displays on the use of landmines during the Khymer Rouge era and the attempts to dismantle them. Designed to maim rather than kill, around 6 million landmines still exist in the Cambodian countryside and peoples' lives are still being destroyed by them.



After a delicious Cambodian Amok curry for lunch we had a quick look at Srah Srang, a lakeside temple (baray).


We crossed the road and entered the temple of Banteay Kdei. The entrance is guarded by a huge face cut into a tower, very imposing. We entered and walked through a pasageway full of dancing apsaras - as you can see I did a rather good impression:
This temple was in a state of ruin which added to the atmosphere there. You could almost imagine how the explorers came across it hidden in the jungle.




Our penultimate temple of the day was the spectacular Ta Prohm. Famous for the trees that cover the ruins and its 'romantic' atmosphere - the only problem was that every Tom, Dick and Harry from California to Beijing had decided to come to visit that afternoon so the romantic atmosphere was somewhat missing. We still managed to get some great photos, and at times escape the crowds.




Here you can see a a number of tourist groups crammed into a tiny area all taking photos of each other infront of a tree. We just sat watching them for a while until they moved on and we had a small window of opportunity to take an uninterrupted photo.

Al ensured that I took another photo of him with one of the apsara girls before we left the temple:


After dodging the crowds of Ta Prohm and picking up a few silk scarves along the way we ended the day on top of the magnificent Ta Keo, a huge mountain-like temple built entirely of sandstone. It looks like a huge legoland creation, due to the fact that it was never completed and the stones were not carved into shapes.

The stairs were the steepest and narrowest we had climbed yet and we made our way up the mountain-temple on all fours, being careful not to lean too far back...


After catching our breath we watched the sun as it began to fall in the sky, covering the giant blocks in dark red shadows, and chatted to local children selling stone carvings.


This was our tuktuk driver outside Ta Keo, a nice and quiet man, and 37 years old - we couldn't believe it, he looked about 20 - but that's Cambodians for you! On the way home he stopped the tuktuk and pointed at the sun - there was a partial eclipse, we were careful not to stare directly into it but it was very exciting to see and ended the day on a very special note!

Tuktuk to Angkor - day 1

The next morning we found a tuktuk driver and headed off to the famous temples of Angkor. We bought a three day pass and decided to leave actual Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom (the 'city') til the third day, building up to a grande finale. But we did catch this glimpse of the entrance gates to the Angkor Thom area on our way to the other temples - pretty incredible!


At our first temple we were slightly taken aback by the amount of people and children who run up to you and try to sell you everything from postcards to bracelets to t-shirts to pineapples. We strolled around the first temple, Preah Khan, munching on pineapple pieces and making new friends:

Built in 1191, the immense Preah Khan was formerly a Buddhist university and city, much of it in ruins but amazing to behold nonetheless. We weaved in and out of the various rooms and corridors, some blocked off as they had caved in, walked around the ponds, relaxed on the ruins


contemplated the fearsome guardians of the temple
wandered through the hall of dancers (apsaras) to which Al formed a strange kind of attachment to, requesting photographs everytime he saw one.
and photographed the amazing trees which have made the temples their home (and in the process have contributed to their ruin).


Our next stop was the beautiful Preah Neak Pean, set in the middle of a lake:
and we found a small chapel where Alex nearly lost his hand to a hungry dragon


There were quite a few tourists in each temple and as we were there during the Chinese New Year period many of them were Chinese. There were always rows of tuktuks lined up outside each temple (which made it quite hard to recognise our tuktuk driver at times!).


On the road again, this time to Tasom, a small but stunning temple with great faces, partly hidden by the the huge tree roots that have taken hold:




We stopped for lunch in a slightly touristy, but very tasty, restaurant before moving on to the fantastic East Mebon, a huge temple built in 953BC, which you can climb to see panoramic views of the surrounding countryside.
Huge stone elephants stood at the corners of the temple


as well as lions guarding the entrance.


Next we headed to Pre Rup
...a temple with a very steep climb! We crawled up on our hands and knees, Al feeling a little dizzy from the height
After catching our breath we walked around the towers, admiring the views and stone carvings: I took the opportunity to cover up from the hot Cambodian sun:

We ran the gauntlet of underaged souvenir sellers and restauranteurs, jumped into our tuktuk and sped on to Preah Ko, part of the 'Roulous Group' of temples, some of the oldest temples, built in the late 9th century. These temples are based about 7 kms south of Siem Reap and not as frequently visited as those that are nearer to Angkor Wat. As we entered we gave some money to a group of children collecting for a local orphanage and spent time watching the ancient temples beautifully reflecting the golden afternoon sun.



Our last stop for the day was the amazing Bakong temple, also part of the Roulous Group, it is still used as a Buddhist monastry. We climbed up the neverending flight of steps and walked around taking in the beautiful views as the sun descended in the sky.


We watched Buddhist monks playing football and climbing palm trees to pick coconuts

As we left the temple we decided to buy two coconuts - a simple thing to do you might think. But no, we were beseiged by screaming women and girls all trying to persuade us to buy their coconuts. In the end it was a toss up between an older girl who was shouting the loudest and a machete-wielding woman to ran towards us - machete in one hand, coconut in the other, screaming like a banshee - we didn't dare to refuse!

We were exhausted as we headed home - so much culture in such a short day! As the sun set we entered Siem Reap, watching the truck loads of workers making their way back into town.
We paid our tuktuk driver and arranged to meet with him the next morning. We then had a shower as we were covered in dust from the journey and headed into town for a market meal with a few cold beers.

Siem Reap

The bus ride to Siem Reap was pretty cool. We usually complain about the long stopovers at the restaurant of the bus driver's sister's husband's second cousin, but this time we were loving it - fresh fruit, water, food, fried tarantulas.... did I just say friend tarantulas! Yes, they eat them here, along with cockroaches, crickets and a host of other bugs.
This girl is actually playing with a live tarantula (one that escaped the frying pan) she's pulling at it's legs, putting it on her head, in her mouth - usual behaviour for a ten year old girl in Cambodia I'm sure...


We arrived in Siem Reap, a vibrant little town in the West of Cambodia, a few hours later. The centre of town is very tourist-orientated, with lots of good restaurants, bars, internet cafes and market stalls. It's great fun. If you walk about five minutes down the river though you can see where most people live - a lot poorer than the five star hotels along the river, but far more picturesque.


We found a great little hotel located just off the main drag, next to the river - Angkor Park. It was a new hotel and really good value, extremely clean and seriously comfy beds with an ensuite bathroom, for only $9 a night. Round the corner we found a little cafe which did delicious breakfasts which we ate every morning, and right below our hotel was a little food shop that sold us bottled water at a different price every day - this just added to the charm.

There is quite a lot to see here. There are a few markets - the central market and night markets, these are geared towards the tourists and the stall holders are reluctant to haggle as there are enough tourists who pay without haggling. The markets are colourful though and there are a lot of high quality tourist goods.

I cannot fail to mention the not-yet-world-famous but immensely tickly fish exfoliators:
Yes - for just $3 these tiny little fish will eat the dead skin off your feet - brilliant! You get a tickly dead skin removal treat and the fish get fed! Everyone benefits!

We also came across the local's food market, hidden in the depths of the central market. Here the ladies sat on top of the tables where they sold fish and other meats:


As it was Chinese New Year the streets were alive with music, drums, parades, dragons and bright colours - really lively!


On our first evening we walked along the main tourist drag, people watching, peering into small boutique shops, donating money to landmine victims and purchasing counterfeit copies of Lonely Planet. We stumbled across a rather brilliant restaurant called ´Cambodian Barbeque´ where you are presented with a small, round aluminium hot plate and a selection of different meats which you marinate and place on the grill. The cool thing about it is the types of meat on offer - we sampled crocodile and snake and I have to say they were delicious! Better than chicken!

Pepe really enjoyed Siem Reap. However we ate in a cheap food stall every evening and he was upset that we wouldn't go to the touristy Mexican restaurant down the road. We tried to explain but found that while you can take Pepe out of Mexico, you can't take the Mexico out of Pepe.


On the way back to the hotel each night we passed the local ladyboys, looking for a bit of business. Don´t worry girls, they aren´t as good looking as the real deal.

Cambodia - Phnom Penh

Cambodia we love you!

The bus journey from Saigon to Phnom Penh (PP) (the capital of Cambodia) went smoothly, despite being minorly scammed out of a couple of bucks at immigration, but we're used to that kind of thing after Vietnam. As you enter Cambodia you can immediately see an increase in poverty and a drop in living standards.

PP is a large, vibrant city and there's lots to see and do. Along the riverside you find the expensive hotels and tourist restaurants and bars, set, slightly uncomfortably, next to a rough stretch of ground which is a lot poorer. I pictured this guy near our hotel - yes there is actually a man and a bicycle under all that stuff!

One thing we did notice immediately was the increase in poverty (families living on the streets, children playing naked on the roadside). In the west of the city is the lake where you find houses and cafes on stilts and backpacker hangouts. It's really cool here, great vibe and sunset views, however we learned that sadly the lake is going to be drained to make way for a large development... it will be a huge loss to Phnom Penh.

The Cambodians do everything (apart from short moto rides and some drinks) in US dollars, presumably because their own currency (the reil) is so fragile. We didn't know this however, and spent our first couple of hours trying to find a cash machine that gives out reil instead of dollars - that doesn't exist however so we eventually resigned and are now quite comfortable using the green stuff.

We immediatley found the people here to be MUCH nicer than in Vietnam. Despite their turbulent history they smile more and they don't shout at you in the streets or hassle you. There is a lot more begging though and it breaks your heart to see small children leading their blind or crippled fathers/mothers round, approaching tourists for money.

We went to see the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, where 17,000 innocent people were brought to die. At the centre of the sight stands a tall pagoda which houses thousands of human skulls, dug up from the mass graves which surround it. Some skulls are broken – these were the people that the Khmer Rouge decided to batter to death in order to save bullets.


As we wondered around the site we could hear the voices of children singing songs in the nearby school and we watched butterflies floating in the warm sunny air. It was strange to see this beauty and then read the information about the terrible things that happened there. We saw a tree where the soldiers attached a loud speaker which blasted out music so that the screams of the victims could not be heard.

Learning about these monstrosities that took place so recently was really disturbing, but we wanted to learn more and so moved on to the Tuol Sleng Museum. It was to this old school, known as Security Prison S-21, that the soldiers took thousands of people – old, young, male, female, babies, disabled/disfigured and anyone with an ounce of intelligence (even people who spoke foreign languages and wore glasses) – for detention, interrogation and torture. Some foreign nationals, unlucky enough to be caught up in the troubles, were also pictured.
Each person entering this place had their photograph taken – some of them even smiled for their picture unaware of their fate. It was completely heartbreaking staring into the eyes of the people whose photographs lined the rooms. Many of the victims were photographed after their torture and these gruesome pictures were also on the walls. Some rooms contained one metal bed and the sickening instruments of torture that were used there, on the wall of each of these rooms was a disturbing picture of the last prisoner who had been tortured in that room.
In another block we found rows of box-like cubicles where prisoners were detained. We both felt completely depressed after going here and I couldn't take my mind off it for days. How could something so terrible as this happen only as recently as the 1970s? And in such a beautiful country with such lovely people?

One room contained detailed information on everything that happened during the Khmer Rouge era. It was interesting to learn that Pol Pot was himself educated in France, that the Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh and other cities in Cambodia in just a couple of days by telling the people that the Americans were going to bomb them, and that they destroyed much of Angkor and its temples. We also learned that they received their weapons from Thailand and China and that the Western powers allowed the Kymer Rouge to retain its seat at the UN general assembly until 1991.

The children in the next door school came out as we were leaving and as we drove past them in our tuk tuk they shouted "hello!" to us.



On our way back to the centre of town our tuk tuk broke down - in the middle of rush hour traffic!!! He had to dismount, trying to rev the engine while all the cars and bikes beeped at us.


That evening we went down to the lake to enjoy the sunset




and buy a book from our new friend

I bought a book called "First they killed my father", an autobiographical account of the Kymer Rouge era through the eyes of a child.

After a couple of days we decided to up the cultural stakes and move on to Siem Reap to see the famous temples of Angkor.

Hoi An

WE LOVE HOI AN! This charming little town has restored our faith in Vietnam. The streets are lined with clothes clothes clothes! Tailor shops, ready to wear or custom design, are inexpensive, good quality and fast. The daily market, set on the banks of the river, is a colourful feast for the eyes and the senses, complete with karaoke competitions booming out from loud speakers. The restaurants here are really good and many of them also offer cooking courses in the evenings. And it's a great place to just sit on the balcony of a riverside cafe and watch the world go by – which usually involves watching Vietnamese women harassing the tourists to take their boat rides and eat in their restaurants!
The buildings along the river front flood by a few feet each year, it’s obviously not all that great for the restaurant owners but it does give each little place an amazing, artistic, derelict atmosphere.

The old Japanese-style bridge, leading from the old town to the artists quarter

Road works ‘Nam style

CDs as reflectors on bikes – genius!

I decided that I wanted a dress and jacket made and Al wanted some new shirts made, so off we went in search of a good place. It was a little daunting with a million places to choose from, but in the end we found a great little place with lots of material and enthusiastic staff. We had a couple of fittings and were both really pleased with the finished products. (Thinh Thanh, 53 Le Loi street).
Me and my dressmaker with brand new, made to measure dress:


In the evening we attended a cooking course (at Cafe 96) and learned how to make spring rolls, green papaya salad and steamed fish in banana leaves. It was really good fun and a great way to learn the basics of Vietnamese cooking.

Here’s one we made earlier:


We also had a private boat ride on the river, a great way to see the town (and not have to pay for taking pictures of people :-)


The local ferry:

Preparing for Tet (Vietnamese New Year):
our guide was pretty friendly but she did try and sell us extra tours, postcards and pictures... we politely declined each time – unable to run away down the street as we usually do.

Staying here was fun and relaxing. We really enjoyed ourselves. We took a cheap ($30each) flight to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) where we spent a day before catching the bus to Phnom Penh - Cambodia. Saigon is a biiiig city!
Al was still on the hunt for his Cannon D450, he's tried nearly every shop since we arrived in Asia but found them to all be more expensive than prices on the internet so he's resigning to wait until we get back to the UK. My little camera should hopefully do for now, though it's battery life is slowly diminishing as we use it all the time.

Saigon may be big but it has charm and we found the people to be much friendlier down here than in the north - something which took us by suprise and ended our trip to Nam on a good note.

'Nam in a nutshell:
We've had a real love-hate relationship with Vietnam. We heard quite a few reports beforehand from people who left after a few days, or people who were relieved to leave. It is definitely not the place to come for a relaxing holiday! The locals see you as a walking ATM (everyone wants a withdrawl) and you are constantly trying to avoid being scammed or fending off people trying to sell you stuff (whether someone shouts at you from across the street, or walks by your side for half a mile asking you a multitude of quesitons about where you are from, what tours you've already bought etc) it happens every time you step outside your hotel room, even in the hotel lobby (how long you here for? You want I book tour or taxi?) or in restaurants when you're trying to relax with a drink (we've been handed a few of the old 'little black books' full of travellers' written thoughts about a tour they're trying to sell). We learned to accept it, but it's just that the Vietnamese people aren't always friendly about it either, unlike the neighbouring countries where a smile is always for free.
All the kids here are very cute, but for some reason they ALL collect foreign money... funny that is't it?! Al cottoned on to that one early on and we haven’t added to any 'collections'.
We've slowly been getting used to the amazing sounds that come from Asian gullets, a sort of snorting/gagging/coughing sound, especially shocking when it comes from a female. It's hard to understand why people feel the need to clear their throats so vociferously, however it's just one of those things you just have to accept.
Plus, what is it with the long fingernails on men here... just creepy!

All in all we wouldn't recommend Vietnam as a holiday destination if you want to relax. If you like being hassled and holding onto your bag and money for dear life then come - there is quite a bit to see. However (and I'm writing this from Cambodia) I'd say there are better places to visit in Asia where they show a bit of respect for the tourists.

Hue

The night train turned out to be good fun. We shared a cabin with a quiet Vietnamese guy but met our new friends outside in the corridor – a German girl (Anette) and two Spanish guys (Carlos and Jordi).
Anette was heading the same way as us and the guys were getting off the train a couple of stops after us, renting motorbikes and heading to Hue as well. We went to the restaurant car and ordered some beers and noodles to help pass the time. We stayed up til around 10.30 when we were kicked out by the yawning staff and then headed off to our carriages to bed. Surprisingly we slept really well, it's amazing what a difference some earplugs and an eye mask make – trains are the way forward in Vietnam – much better than bus drivers who beep their horn every second of the journey and drop you off at their cousins' restaurants. Luckily we were able to avoid getting a taxi upon arriving in Hue as our hotel sent us a free pickup (www.ngocbinhhotel.com) – it was a cheap and cheerful place in a nice part of town.

Hue town is a UNESCO world heritage sight so we decided to take a day tour to take in the sights of three temples, the citadel, a famous pagoda and a boat ride on the river.
The group was quite large and Al and I were among the youngest there, but it was still a great way to spend the day and see all the sights for a couple of dollars.




This was our singing tour guide who, half way through the trip, announced that he would sing for us, whipped out his microphone and gave us a rendition of the latest Vietnamese number one!

Al relaxing in a cafe/market stall after a hard day's temple gazing::
The temples were really impressive but the citadel, which had been heavily bombed in the war, was very run down and they were rebuilding it with plastic (plastic columns and statues) which looked really tacky. Our guide told us that the inner section of the temple was a private area for the king and his concubines, the only other males allowed in here were eunuchs. Our guide made sure that he carefully explained to us what a eunuch is: “There are two types eunuch – one is man who has cut off his valuables. The other is same as a homosexual – you know homosexual? Person who is born with both a vagina and penis.” He clearly hadn't been listening in biology class.

Our evenings in Hue were spent playing pool and sampling different happy hours with our Spanish and German friends. We have been really impressed with Vietnamese food – it is seriously the best we have had on our travels so far. Each town has its own specialities and they are all imaginative and delicious. So all of the weight that we lost in China has been added on... back to the gym when we get home!

Our bus to Hoi An (the next stop on our trail), 4 hours away, was definitely interesting... you never quite know what you are paying for in this country until you are actually in the middle of it and cursing the travel agent. We booked a bus to Hoi An, complete with hotel pickup for a great price. However the hotel pickup consisted of a man coming to our hotel and leading us to the bus station... not quite what we had envisaged. And the bus turned out to be a sleeper bus, complete with fully reclined bunk beds and a 'no shoes' rule - which meant stinky feet all round.

Al was good enough to warn the bus driver: “are you aware that if I take my shoes off people will die!” but to no avail. Despite all this the bus ride went smoothly and we arrived on time (little detour of course to the cousin's restaurant included).

Haiphong – Cat Ba Island - a tale of woe...

We soon discovered that there isn't much going on in Haiphong. We found a cheap hotel, a noodle restaurant and whiled away the evening. The next morning we headed to the ferry terminal and jumped on a ferry to Cat Ba island... it wasn't straight forward, nothing seems to be straightforward here, but we managed to arrive within a couple of hours. Unfortunately we didn't see any of the scenery that Halong Bay is famous for, but hey you can't always win in life... we began to wonder if we'd ever start winning in Nam. Again there wasn't much going on in Cat Ba town... as it was off-season every building seemed to be under construction and it was pretty dead :-( We were a little miserable at this stage, but did cheer up after a stroll along the waterfront, a few beers and a beautiful sunset.
All we wanted was an adventure! We decided to book a ticket back to Hanoi via Halong Bay and we were told that it would take only three hours – awesome!

The next morning we boarded a bus with a group of other tourists and headed to catch the ferry. We ended up in a junk boat (old fashioned Vietnamese boat) on what was part of a tour. We enjoyed the boat ride very much and at last got to see the beautiful Halong Bay with its 3,000+ islands. Magnificent scenery - the islands just seem to rise up out of nowhere.
Half way through we had to change boats and ended up on a different tour – pretty confusing and by this time we realised that we may not be getting back to Hanoi within 3 hours.

On reaching Halong City, and dodging about a million sales people, we were told that we would have to wait for the rest of the group to eat their buffet lunch. It would take 40 minutes we were told. We waited for an hour and a half for the group to finish... then we had to wait for the bus driver to eat. By this point it was 2pm (we had planned to be back by 11.30am) and we hadn't eaten anything. We boarded the bus pretty p-d off and headed for Hanoi, via a cousin's pottery shop for half an hour, and arrived back at 4pm. Our plan to catch the night train down south that day was pretty much out of the window and we were so angry and the whole experience that we decided we wanted to leave Vietnam immediately. If they had only told us at the travel agent that the journey would take 8 hours, rather than lying to us and telling us 3 hours we would have been ok – it's just the constant lying, no respect, not giving you a straight answer and stopping by all the shops and restaurants that gets to us.

We booked into a hotel, another issue arose – our bed sheets were all dirty. They hadn't changed them from the last person who slept there! We asked for them to be changed which they did... by turning the pillow cases inside out and leaving us with no top sheet, just a dirty quilt. Then... wait for it... the little man looks at Alex and holds out his hand “tip for me! tip for me!” We just couldn't believe it and started laughing, the man was laughing too, until we told him "no tip!" (Hanoi Spirit House – not recommended if you like clean rooms!)

We looked into crossing the border then and there into Laos, but were told the bus journey would be 20-22 hours long... a bit of a nightmare, so we decided to reconsider, give Nam another chance and book a sleeper train down south to Hue.

The next day we took a tuktuk to the market area in the old town, we were strolling around taking in the sights when I felt a sharp tug on the side of my daypack. I turned round quickly to see a small Vietnamese guy in a black jacket, hands in pockets right behind me, at that point trying to walk past me. I confronted him – I won't repeat what I said cos my parents read this blog – he just stared at me. Al was way ahead of me and I shouted to get him to come over to help me, but by this point the guy had walked off. A side pocket of my rucksack was open but thankfully nothing missing. We've never had this in any other country we've been in! It's so annoying because we've been really really careful, but they're pretty sneaky over here so from now on I wear my day pack or handbag on my front. We walked to the lake in the old town which is home to some legendary turtles that no one ever sees. It was a sunny day and Al was talking to a caretaker of the temple at the lakeside. The caretaker pointed to the lake and showed Al where the turtles were sunbathing – pretty cool! This means we will have good luck for the rest of our lives!
Maybe it means that Vietnam will start to treat us more kindly...

Hanoi - Me love you long time!

Hanoi

Vietnam, well what can I say. It's been a turbulent ride so far – we've been scammed, lied to, cheated and pickpocketed... and that was just Hanoi. But we're surviving thanks to our savvy traveller hats which we are always wearing and enjoying ourselves in the process.

Let me start with our first experience on setting foot upon Vietnamese soil. The hostess on the bus kindly offered to help us with our taxis to our hotel. She even offered us accommodation at her great hotel should we need it – how kind of her. The bus from the border dropped us off, not at the bus station as one may suppose, but several kilometres outside of the town centre in a carpark – full of taxis. 'Well that's lucky!' you might think... you would be the same as our other fellow passengers in that case, spending $12 on a taxi which should cost $4. We tried to bargain down to this price but the drivers they weren't interested – so we made our way out onto the street to find a taxi, with the hostesses' yells echoing after us 'Why you not want my taxi? You want hotel, I have hotel!'

Our hotel, in the Old Quarter, was really nice – huge room, two beds, huge balcony with a view of the cathedral (Especen Hotel) at a reasonable price. We spent the rest of the day exploring the nooks and crannies of the old quarter, dodging the masses of motorbikes on the road and declining offers of food, photos, moto hire and copied books (you can buy your lonely planets around the country - they cottoned onto a good one there).

Crossing the road is one of the greatest delights of Hanoi... the hundreds of motorbikes, mixed with taxis, cyclists, men with carts, whizzing past you from every direction seems at first like an impassable obstacle. However we discovered that the best way to tackle this is by simply walking slowly straight into the traffic, one foot in front of the other, watching the traffic dodge around you. This is the closest you will ever come to feeling like Moses when he parted the Red Sea.

We had our first taste of Vietnamese food, which is delicious, at the Little Hanoi restaurant. It's pretty hard to find restaurants here as there are many impostor restaurants which name themselves after the more successful ones – so while we were searching for Little Hanoi we came across about 4 others with the same name.

Even better... the beer costs only 30p here for a glass! It's craaazy, it really is cheaper than a small bottle of water! Needless to say our evenings were spent relaxing in rooftop bars: and checking out the mayhem below!

We took time to visit the Hanoi Hilton – the prison where John McCain and other American POWs were imprisoned and tortured during the Vietnam war. There were exhibitions detailing the history of the prison under French rule and punishments administered to the Vietnamese revolutionaries. However when it came to reading about the treatment of the American prisoners it was a very different story – photos showing the Americans receiving letters from family, eating a hearty Christmas dinner, receiving attentive medical treatment and socialising and relaxing.
Captions read: “You can see how well they were fed”, “they didn't want for anything”, “a home away from home”... we looked at the internet that night to see what it had really been like and read a comment from John McCain on revisiting the prison: “that's entertainment”...

We wondered the streets getting lost in the old French alleyways and marvelling at how many electric cables can fit on one pylon:
We also went to the Temple of Literature where ancient scriptures chiselled into stone were stored next to giant stone turtles.

There was also some kind of graduation ceremony going on, girls in bright dresses posing for their boyfriends, which was fun to watch:

After a couple of days we decided to head to Halong Bay and Cat Ba island, the bay contains 3,000 islands and Cat Ba offers a national park and trekking. We decided to go on our own instead of with a tour group and jumped in a taxi to the bus station. The taxi driver told us that his cab had a meter so we sat back and relaxed... He kept telling Al how cool his hat was – alarm bells began to ring (people only show interest in things like that or ask you where you are from when they want to distract you from something). It didn't take long to realise that we'd gone on a little detour... still nothing major... but it was the meter that didn't make sense, it was displaying the price at about 3 times what it should have been. Al began questioning the driver who seemed to panic and dropped us off in the middle of nowhere with no bus station in sight – bastard! We paid him what we thought he was due and stormed off in search of the station. We eventually found it and jumped on a bus to Haiphong. We paid on the bus, the correct price, and then we were told we would have to pay to bring our bags on the bus... we began to wonder what we might have done to piss off the people of Vietnam so much. After a couple of hours we arrived at a bus station in the middle of nowhere and told that this was Haiphong – great. We were greeted by a group of motorcyclists, keen to rip us off. We headed in search of the town centre, cursing our Lonely Planet for not providing us with a map or some idea of what a taxi should cost. After an hour of wondering the wrong way and turning many Vietnamese heads, we bumped into a German who told us where we should be going and how much a taxi should cost. Lucky! We jumped into a taxi and were taken to the town centre, the driver practising his English on us along the way.

China - summary

China is such an amazing country – we really only touched the surface and found so much to enjoy! It was certainly an adventure - we were often in towns and cities where we were the only Westerners, not a blonde hair in sight, and although at times it could be difficult we did pretty well on the whole. Everyone here wants to say “hello” to you so that you turn round, but most of them are quite shy and wouldn't sit next to you on a bus unless there was no choice. It is funny hearing little “hello”s wherever you go. Those who do speak a bit of English are extremely friendly and happy to help and really curious about where you come from, what you are doing in China – it's also a good chance for them to practice their Engish a little. During our time in China we met some really genuinely friendly people who really wanted to talk to us. Al had lots of women staring at him and lots of people – both men and women telling him how beautiful his eyes are – though on one occasion his 'strange' looks shocked a little toddler so much that he looked at Al and burst into tears.

There were a few not so great things of course – dog obviously, skinned, boiled, honey-glazed always made me sick to the stomach, and the spitting and nose emptying on the street is something that you just can't get used to, although you get that all over Asia.

Eating in China was quite difficult. We had made the decision to be vegetarian while we were here, but that went out the window pretty quickly – it's impossible to avoid meat here, it's sneaked into everything – dumplings, spring rolls, and the stock that vegetables are cooked in. We just made sure that whenever we ate out we either stuck to seafood or ate somewhere with an English menu (and Al avoided any more suspicious 'Chinese dumplings'). It's a good place if come if you want to go on a diet!

The people here don't seem to be as oppressed as we read in the English news, there were hardly any police officers anywhere unlike in Britain where you have them on every street corner and many Chinese we spoke to talked of holidaying or moving to different countries. Due to the one-child policy we hardly saw any children running around with their parents which was strange, in South America nearly every woman is carrying a child. There are definitely restrictions on what the people see on TV, all Chinese TV, even the English channel, only focuses on travel or history in China and is only produced by Chinese TV companies. But we were able to view hotmail and BBC Online with no problems, however Youtube was a no go.

The country is great to travel in because the transport systems are straight forward and easy to figure out, even if you don't understand the language you can ask for a ticket by simply saying your destination name and looking at the numbers on your ticket to work out the time, platform, seat etc. It's a very well organised country.

All in all we were very impressed by China and would have liked to explore some more, unfortunately we decided that summer time would be a better time to do this, when it is warm and the skies are clear... and maybe next time we'll speak a little of the language.

Pottering round Guanxi Province

At Guilin we said goodbye to Theo and jumped on a bus to Longsheng with the hope of reaching the Dragon Back Rice Fields before sunset. We didn't make it that far unfortunately and had to spend the night in Longsheng – a very untouristy town (i.e. nothing to do there and nowhere to eat), we ate pot noodles in our hotel room that night.
Al decided to take me on a walk and escorted me to what we later decided must have been a brothel, (dimmed lights, men wandering from room to room, over-attentive female staff) the lady of the house made some polite English conversation with us (“You are very beautiful”) and then overcharged us for coffee as we clearly weren't paying for anything else. We went back to our hotel room a little dejected and ate some more noodles.


Retreat:
Unfortunately the next morning it was raining and we decided that rather than getting wet and muddy and freezing to death even more it would be best to head back south – we had cleverly posted all our winter clothes home in Australia without thinking that it might be winter in China. So south we went, to the town of Nanning. It was our intention here to catch the a bus the next morning to Vietnam, however we discovered that we would need to buy a visa for the overland crossing so ended up staying another day to sort that out. There wasn't too much to see in the town but we did stumble upon the daily park activities of the Chinese: salsa lessons in the park - both men and women partook in this, although the majority of men were sitting round small tables playing cards and draughts in another park.

Massagey?
That night, as we were preparing for bed at the Railway Hotel, the phone rang. Al picked it up to hear a lady's voice on the other end: “hello, massagy?” “what?” “massage in room?” “Uh, no thanks, we're fine thank you.” We knew that the hotel offered massages but thought it a little weird that they were phoning us up at night for one. Then there came a knock at the door, Al went to answer it to see a lady standing there. “Hello” he said, “We don't want massage.” “Toto!” she said, “you want toto?” “What's toto, I don't understand?” “Toto!” she said again, making the international symbol for sex with her fingers. “Uh no thanks!” stammered Al. “Oh, but you so cute!” she said disappointed. Al quickly closed the door and ran back inside the room where I was laughing. Gotta admire her entrepreneurial skills.


Street Food:
On our second day in Nanning we were preparing for more noodles in our hotel room when we bumped into a friendly local girl who directed us to a 'famous' restaurant street. We followed her instructions and came across an amazing maze of streets, hidden away, serving an array of foods from their market stalls. We walked along taking in the sights and smells of this place – live fish swimming in tanks, bright coloured fruit stalls, displays of meats, vegetables and fish outside restaurants, live crabs and lobsters... and dead, skinned (and sometimes honey-glazed) dogs hanging from hooks, some of them even set in a position where they look like they are snarling at you! – enough to give anyone nightmares. Al, who knows a good place to eat when he sees one, pulled me towards a little stall where four chefs were busy frying fresh squid kebabs – we bought a selection of tentacles on sticks, coated in spicy honey and sesame sauce, and ate them while walking around checking out the rest of the market. We chose from one of the many places to eat and sat down. A waitress brought us a menu, which was written in Chinese, so we opened our lonely planet book at the food section and ordered off-menu. It worked out pretty well and we got some of the best food we'd had in China so far. We tried to leave a tip at the end of the meal but as we walked away they came running after us with the money – we tried to explain and they eventually understood, although I think they thought we were crazy.

Crisis:
Unfortunately we had a bit of a crisis that evening – a computer in an internet cafe corrupted my USB stick which had ALL my blog for Hong Kong and China as well as copied photos to upload... needless to say I was gutted and it took me a few days to recover and begin writing all over again.

My Chinese photo pose (they're all into the peace sign over here):

China - an epic adventure

Lost:
We arrived in Guangzhou to find ourselves in a large square amid what seemed like millions of people – all staring at us as if we were aliens.
We needed to find the bus station but there were no signs in English and no one there spoke any English, at this point we were cursing lonely planet for not supplying us with a map of the city. We approached some policemen and pointed at the Chinese symbols for 'bus station' in our book, we slowly made our way in the direction people pointed and eventually found the station. We bought a ticket and hoped fervently that it was the right bus and we wouldn't end up in Outer Mongolia somewhere. We had a few hours to wait and decided to explore the town a bit. We strolled around a few blocks away from the train station, but were disappointed to only find shoe shops – nothing else – literally. It was very odd. We stumbled upon a mall but even that only contained shoe shops. Luckily we didn't have to eat shoes because there was a KFC... yes I know, it's shameful, but we did eat there, it was either that or shoes. While waiting in the bus station I began chatting to a friendly Chinese businessman who wanted to practice his English. While we were chatting a girl ran over and threw herself at Alex's feet shouting “What is your name?! What is your name?! You are looovely! You have beautiful eyes!” She then got him to sign his signature in her book and ran off again.

Harassed!
The bus journey was fairly comfortable, but very bumpy so we didn't sleep too well.
We ended up arriving in Yangshuo a few hours earlier than we thought we would, at 6.15am. We stepped, bleary eyed, out of the bus and into the freezing, dark air. A small man was helping us with our bags, “Welcome to paradise! I have paradise hotel!” he announced smiling. We weren't so sure and just wanted to find a hotel on our own terms and catch some sleep. We said no politely and brought out our guide book to look up the hostel we wanted. “Hey you stay with me! Student paradise!” “No thanks”, “Ahhh... honeymoon paradise!” “Uh, no thanks, we are going somewhere else”. He reached over into our book and pointed at a hostel listed there, “Where you going? Hey, there it is, that is my hostel!” Too tired to argue we agreed and followed him to the hotel. We were shown a decent room and he asked for a ridiculous price for it, showing us a little book which he had asked (forced probably) people to write in saying what a great stay they'd had. Rather fed up with the whole thing I bargained well and brought him down to a reasonable price. Matter sorted, or so we thought. Downstairs Al mentioned that we were interested in a tour... big mistake. He started a long sales pitch for two days of activities at a ridiculous price. When we said we'd think about it (i.e. no thanks not interested) he brought the price lower, however I wasn't even interested in what he was offering (cycling for a day – it was freezing!) and wanted to get some decent sleep before entering into any further bargaining. We said we'd let him know in ten minutes and ran upstairs before he could protest. We checked the guidebook to find that he was grossly overcharging us and Al went downstairs to say no. A few seconds later I heard a knock at the door... I opened it to see Al standing there with an apologetic look on his face, the tout (or manager if you can call him that) standing next to him. He pushed his way in and made himself comfortable on the bed (!) “I give you good price. You make decision now!” Al said “ok then, decision is NO” “no no you think about it and make decision now” “ok, decision is no!” We were going round in circles and managed to persuade him that we would make a decision in the morning and after a while he gave up and left. We went to bed for some well-earned rest in a freeeezing cold room. A couple of hours later a loud knocking at the door roused us from our slumber. We lay there frozen in shock – “you're kidding“, I whispered, “it isn't him again is it! I'm not letting him in here in my pyjamas!”, “don't worry”, whispered Al, “I double-locked the door so he can't get in!”
We stayed quiet until the knocking stopped and decided to get up to face the music downstairs, and attempt an escape to actually discover some of the town by ourselves. As we crept down to reception we saw that he wasn't there, just his non-English speaking receptionist, so we made a break for it out the front door. “Hey! You!” came her loud voice. She handed Al a phone with the irritating manager on the line. Al laid down the price then and there for one and a half days of activities. It was good, the deal was done.

Doggy Dumplings:
We went to celebrate with breakfast. Unfortunately as we had been told that we were staying in a certain hotel in our guidebook (which was a lie) the map didn't make any sense to us and we ended up walking round the streets for a while wondering why the map was wrong. Eventually we stumbled upon the main tourist drag and found breakfast in a Westernised Chinese restaurant. I sensibly ordered toast, egg, jam and tea. Al ordered the Chinese dumpling breakfast – an interesting choice and one he was later to regret.... when the dumplings came there were about 12 on the plate – so many for such a cheap price! How lucky! Al picked one up in his chopsticks, took a bite and a look of complete disgust overcame his face. That was the last bite of his DOG DUMPLINGS that he took. He said it tasted unlike anything he had ever tasted before and felt sick for the rest of the day. I didn't know who to feel more sorry for, Al or poor Lassie who ended up as a dumpling.

Stunning Yangshuo:
Yangshuo is a really beautiful place, the town is surrounded by the magnificent Karst countryside and mountains just rise out of the ground, seemingly from nowhere.
The old part of town is crammed with gift shops, restaurants and guest houses. It is a really pretty place and a great place to experience a taste of China with Western comforts – apart from seeing skinned dogs hanging off the back of motorbikes every now and then – well this is China after all!


Cave Escapades:
In the afternoon we met the manager at the hotel to take us on our tour to the famous Buddah Water Cave near by. He sullenly escorted us to the train station (no longer chatty and friendly now that he had our money) and put us on a minibus. We weren't sure where we were really going and what we were really doing but we just sat back and went along with it.
We somehow (after being dropped off, getting on another ramshackle bus, picking up more people along the way) managed to arrive at the cave (the real cave apparently!) and enjoyed a tour – boat first through the caverns and then by foot. It was a huge cave and pretty fascinating, they tried to sell us a photo in a cold mud bath at the end of it which we politely declined.



Cormorant Fishing:
Later that evening we met the manager again who escorted us via motorbike to the river. Two tourists on the back, mobile phone in one hand, cigarette in the other, navigating the crazy Chinese roads. We jumped on a boat and joined the cormorant fishing tour. This ancient Chinese custom sees fishermen using cormorant birds to catch fish with a rope tied round their neck, when the birds catch a fish the rope prevents them from swallowing it and the fishermen drag the bird back into the boat to empty the fish into their basket.




That evening we went to a pretty cool bar (Kaya Bar) and learned how to play the Chinese dice game with an American and a Chinese girl. It's a fun gambling or drinking game and a good way to spend an evening. On the way home we stopped by a supermarket to buy some pot noodles. Al was very anxious to avoid eating dog again and brought his pots to the counter to inquire whether they were beef or dog. The girl there didn't understand what he was saying so he began to make animal noises: “This is MOOOO, not WOOF WOOF?” The people at the supermarket were in hysterics, and one of them who spoke English came forward to give Al a break.

River Cruise:
The next day we woke up early to embark on our cruise of the Li River. We went with a German guy, Theo, who was also staying in our hotel. Theo didn't speak much, but we hung out with him for that day and the next. He had arrived on the same day as us, but earlier in the morning. He was meant to take the bus to Guilin, a city two hours north of Yangshuo, but was woken up in the middle of the night to be told he had arrived at his destination – Yangshuo... and he even speaks Mandarin! He was met by the same tout as we were and brought to the YHA hostel in Lonely planet (at least he thought he was) and then coerced into booking a tour as well. Poor guy. We had to point out that our hostel wasn't the YHA in Lonely Planet and show him round town as he wasn't really orientated and had completely missed the nice parts.

We reached the River Li by minibus and tuktuk, a great journey that took us through the Karst countryside and some small villages where we were able to observe people going about their everyday lives.

We had the boat to ourselves which was great and the views of the countryside from the boat were spectacular. We saw the amazing mountains, local women washing their clothes
and water buffalo crossing the river. The mountains were stunning in the winter mist, it looked magical. We figured that summer is the best time of year to come here as it's very cold in winter, however on the plus side we there weren't many other tourists around and the river wasn't crammed with boats.









After the boat tour we returned to town in another minibus - we witnessed the capture of this poor piggy (someone's having sausages tonight!):
and climbed one of the big hills to get a great view:
It's winter here at the moment so you can imagine how beautiful it is in summer.

Gambai!
That evening, after some Chinese dumplings (not dog this time), the three of us went back to Kaya bar to play some more dice game with another Chinese girl we met there.


Al attracted the attention of a rather drunken Chinese man who bought our table a bottle of beer... (beginning to sound like Bolivia all over again). He then came over and filled up our small glasses shouting “Gambai!” We were a little confused by this but our Chinese friend, Frang Fang, informed us that this meant “Finish” and is what Chinese say in place of the English “down it!”. Al obliged the man and swiftly finished his beer. “Gambai!” he shouted again, this time it was a race, Al won. “Gambai!” this time it was Al shouting... it went on for a while like this and by the end our new Chinese friend (Wan, “number wan!”) was completely inebriated. Al was pretty merry but seemed to be able to hold his drink a lot better. The rest of us were just laughing and Al found an out of tune guitar and began to play and sing for our Chinese friends, much to their amusement. In the end we had a drunken little karaoke going, sustained by delicious barbequed beef and spicy tofu kebabs that Frang Fang bought from her restaurant next door. We were also introduced to her dog, Shushu, a very cute labrador, I was glad to see that not all Chinese want to eat dogs.

Moving on:
The next day we decided that we'd seen enough of Yangshuo, beautiful as it is, we wanted to continue the adventure elsewhere. We met with Theo and we all had lunch at Frang Fang's restaurant which turned out to be the best food we'd had in all China (restaurant called Frang Fang's Special Yangshuo Food, just opposite the English school). We hurried along to the bus station and jumped on our bus to Guilin, the nearest big town. The following bus journey was an interesting one. We were all sitting in the front seats watching the road and the crazy Chinese driving. Suddenly the bus swerved to the left and crossed to the opposite side of the road! It then quickly swerved back again. We all looked up in alarm to realise that our bus driver had actually fallen asleep behind the wheel! We watched him as he struggled to keep his eyes open, every now and then his head would drop to his chest waking him up again. He opened the window, shuffled around, trying to stay awake. We were all fearing for our lives, especially as truck after truck headed towards us on the other side of the road. We started talking very loudly, and every now and then shouted at him when his eyes looked like closing. It was probably the most hair-raising bus journey we've had yet.

Hong Kong

We were amazed by the vibrancy, noise and bright lights of Hong Kong. After being in Australia and New Zealand for so long it was good to be in the hustle and bustle of an Asian city.

We stayed in a rather overpriced hostel on Hong Kong Island on the first night which set the tone for most of our time there. The hostels here are different from other countries – due to lack of space everything is built 'up' and the hostels are spread over different floors and different buildings in the same area – our hostel reception was on one street and the room on another. On our first evening we walked around our local area, full of shopping malls and teenagers beat-boxing/rapping on the streets (that photo is taken at night, believe it or not, it's 24/7 hrs 'daylight' here!)



The next day we decided to move to Chung King Mansions in Kowloon (the mainland across from the island and only a couple of tube stops away from the island) where the accommodation is much cheaper, although very basic and the beds as hard as a rock. Great area though, alive with markets, shops, restaurants and lots and lots of people.


One thing we noticed about Hong Kong is that everything looks great from the ground, but when you look up you notice the real state of the buildings which contain apartments, restaurants, guesthouses or small shops.

On New Year's eve we had a couple of overpriced Hong Kong beers:

and then headed down to the river to see the fireworks. Hong Kong island looked amazing from across the channel, the skyscrapers were illuminated with bright neon lights and there was an air of festivity.
Al and I bought a couple of beer cans from the local 7/11 (we seemed to be the only people drinking which was a bit weird) and squeezed through the crowds, dodging policemen who were attempting to send people away, to get a good view. The fireworks were a little disappointing... we were expecting something to blow our minds, instead we got a few shoots of light from the tops of the buildings, the biggest building (with a few more lights) being hidden from our view.


Should have stayed in Sydney maybe, we saw their display later on TV and it looked amazing. But hey, it was great to be in such a vibrant, colourful city for the start of 2009.

The next day Al decided that he wanted to buy a professional camera, and where best to buy one that in Hong Kong?! We spent much of our time over the next couple of days like this:
and traipsing round various camera dealers – until we realised that there is no such thing as a good bargain in Hong Kong. Al went into one shop on Nathan Road, was offered a ridiculously low price for a camera, accepted and asked to see the camera in the box before he handed over his credit card (to check that a). it was there and b). it was the right camera). The shop assistant started to get angry and shouted at Al calling him a fraud! Needless to say Al had a lucky escape from this con-artist. Another place he went into offered him the camera at a good price but it turned out that they didn't have it in stock and then they wanted to try to sell him something else at a higher price. Ridiculous, we wasted an hour of our time in that shop waiting for them to get the camera that they didn't have. All the recommended shops we went into offered us the camera at a higher price than Dixons online, so after all the searching and bargaining Al decided to leave it until he gets back home. The lesson learned – people who say Hong Kong is good for buying cheap electrical goods (especially cameras) either haven't been to HK or got ripped off and still don't realise it.


On one of our walks round the city we saw hundreds of people camped out in a cardboard city, eating noodles and chatting with their neighbours. It didn't look like they were homeless people as many of them had Louis Vuitton bags, it seems they were just waiting for the train

We also saw an anti-communist protest - controversial!

On New Year's day we caught the ferry across to HK Island
and headed up the mountain on Hong Kong island by tram to get some great views of the city:



And that night we went to a non-English speaking restaurant for some (Japanese) Shabu Shabu – you are given a pot of boiling stock and a plate of raw meats, fish, tofu and vegetables. you place the raw food into the boiling water and it cooks in front of you – genius! The staff were more than happy to help us choose the most expensive type on the menu of course ;-)


On our last night we went to the night market, strolled round looking at the various stalls and restaurants and had some nice noodles.





The next day we decided that we needed to move on from Hong Kong, to somewhere a bit more economical. We jumped onto the tube and headed up to Shenzen which is the frontier between HK and China. We just about passed through immigration – I was stopped at passport control as they didn't believe that my passport photo was a convincing enough look-alike... I haven't had any problems at any other countries so was surprised about this. They asked to see some different ID and as my driving license was in the bottom of my backpack I took out my PADI diving card and showed them the photo on that. He looked at it, looked at me... and waved me through! Entering China using my PADI card – not bad!

So we entered China at Shenzen, checked out the big communist square

walked round looking into dentist surgery windows (oddly enough) and found the train station. We queued up at a machine and (with a bit of help from the lady behind us) bought a train ticket to Guanzhou... please bear in mind that everything here was written in Chinese symbols and we managed to find our way around with the smattering of English that was on the ticket machines and the numerical system (Chinese numbers are thankfully the same as Western numbers so deciphering your train departure time, carriage number and seat number is actually possible even if you can't translate any of the writing on your ticket!).

The express train was pretty comfortable and we gazed out of the window at the beautiful communist countryside... haha! Luckily not all China was like this, we saw some pretty spectacular countryside, but that's in the next chapter...