Friends Reunited

At the beginning of the journey, this time seemed a very long way away, but as we arrived in Yangshuo we had to start facing up to the reality that the next stop on our travels would be our last, so we better make the most of it.

Yangshuo was a bit of a change from what we'd seen of China so far and was definitely backpacker central. The town itself most closely resembled a French ski resort even down to a large quantity of wooden buildings. We were to spend nearly three days in Yanshuo and we intended to make the most of it. We already had a days cycling organised and quickly organised a cookery course, ready to put our skills to the test of Chinese cuisine.

The cookery course itself was in a bar/hotel owned by the same people who owned the hotel we were staying in. Siobhán, Kirsty and I were met at our hotel by a nice girl who firstly took us on a tour of the local market. Those of you reading who are of a skweamish disposition may wish to skip the rest of this paragraph . . . the market was quite impressive, with a large selection of vegetables, meat and fish much of which was still alive, it his here that those of you reading back in dear old blighty may find it a little unpleasant as a specialty of the region is dog and we could both hear them barking in cages as well as seeing one poor example hanging much like you'd see a piglet hanging in a butchers. We were advised by our guide that dog lovers should not despair as they don't east the cute ones!

Following the market visit we spent several hours learning to cook several different dishes, although Siobhán was a little peeved when one of the ladies asked expectantly if I did all of the cooking at home. What can I say, she just had an eye for talent!

The bike ride we were booked on was a fantastic day as we cycled around the karst scenery and paddy fields, plus the obvious advantage of the entire region being completely flat, excellent cycling terrain! The karst topography made for a stunning back drop, with lots of Sugar Loaf'esque mountains dotting the landscape.

Following Yanshuo we were finally off to our ultimate destination Hong Kong and a reunion for Siobhán with her friend Dima from JP. We didn't have a great deal of time in Hong Kong, just one night and Siobhán lost no time in getting straight into shopping mode.

First stop was to get a new pair of sunglasses, something she had deliberately not bought during our travels as it was only too likely they would have got broken or lost. We can't have been in the glasses store for more than five minutes and Siobhán was deciding between a pair of Channels and a pair of Ray Bans, when the almost inevitable happened and she managed to drop the Ray Bans. It would appear they are not the most robust of sunglasses, as they landed lens down and immediately shattered on the floor . . . I think it's fair to say this broke even Siobháns impressive record of breakage as we handed over the money for the already broken glasses :(

This wasn't going to get us down and the view as we reached the docks in Kowloon to head over to Hong Kong island was extremely impressive. We took the Star Ferry over and spent the rest of the day walking around most of the city and shopping at every available opportunity.
Soon night time had come and we met up with Dima, his wife Anya and their visiting friend who's name I'm afraid I can't remember, sorry, where we had been told to gather at the docks.

Dima had organised for us to head out to Lamma island, which entailed a boat ride to the opposite side of Hong Kong and some spectacular night time scenery. Dima has clearly been in Hong Kong too long as he complained of the cold on top of the boat, whilst cloaked in his big winter coat, as Siobhán and I sat there in our summer clothes thinking it was lovely weather!

Dinner consisted of a banquet of excellent sea food, including a dish of chilli clams that was so hot it honestly made me cry! A boat ride back and the night was over, so many thanks to Dima and Anya for a superb final evening, it was an brilliant end to our travels!

That's kind of it, the following night, just after midnight we boarded our final plane and headed for London where my parents were waiting to pick us up at 06:30 in the morning, thanks folks!
Thanks to all of you, whoever you may be, for reading. It's definitely helped us to keep track of what we've been up to, we hope you've enjoyed reading it even 1% as much as we've enjoyed our time traveling.

Until next time Zàijiàn!

Voyage of the Dam'ed

The journey to Chongqing, China's largest (and possibly ugliest) City, was a new experience. We had to take a public bus from Mount Emei, a rather concerning experience given what appear to be the rules of the road in China; I think we can sum this up as bigger is better, who give's a damn which side of the road you're on!

We weren't spending any real time in Chongqing, rather this was the embarkation spot for our three day journey down the Yangtze river to the Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydro-electric power plant in the world. I won't go into the arguments for and against the dam as they are largely the same as any other major dam ever built, but to give some perspective the river will have risen over 100 meters in places, displacing over 1.2 million people and requiring the manual transportation of of sturgeon up river each year by lorry to prevent their extinction. There are also concerns as to the build quality of the dam and if the worst were to ever happen and the dam failed, water would reach Shanghai over 1300km away!

Oddly, despite the impact, we failed to meet a single descenting voice amongst those displaced, with each and every person we spoke to thinking it was a fabulous idea. Personally I felt this showed the remaining power of the communist state, but what do I know?

The boat we were traveling on had been mercifully upgraded from what used to be used for the tour we were booked on, although was still a far stretch from the QE2 I'm sure. As we were nearing the end of our travels, Siobhán and I decided to upgrade to one of two Presidential suites for the grand total of about £50 over the course of the three nights, bargain!

We were joined on the boat by two other groups, approximately 20 Chinese and 40+ Russian Americans. The Chinese we could not communicate with, other than to be treated to the usual number of requests for photo opportunities that they seemed to love having with westerners.

The same could not be said about the Russians. Before I continue, I should point out that we were on the boat for the duration of the US Presidential election and our little band of travelers were the best equipped for communication with the outside world, making the Russians keen to converse with us. This led to some slightly animated debates, as it transpired that the Russian Americans were to a man (and woman) raging John McCain supporters and honestly believed that Obama was both a communist and terrorist all rolled into one, contrasting rather starkly with our traveling companions, especially Roger and Lynn who had bother personally been out canvassing for the Democrats!

Anyway, what can I say about the journey itself, it was pretty wet. The overwhelming theme of the weather for the three days could at best be described as gloomy and grey. Add into this a new characteristic we had not previously discovered about the Chinese, being their love of punctuality as we were regularly repramanded for being late for meals or indeed missing them in their entirety. The crew however, got their own back every morning, as they would play incessantly dreadful music from 06:30 to ensure that everyone got up and it was impossible to have this music turned off in your cabin!

We drank heavily to help numb the pain, an act which led one evening to us being introduced to the "Murdering Miners" as Siobhán liked to call them. We were informed by our tour guide, that some of the Chinese on board were an infamous group of mine owners where fatalities were a regular occurance. I therefore spent one very late evening drinking the head "Murdering Miners" congac, whilst he himself set about destroying an entire bottle of very decent Remy Martin XO by pooring green tea into it . . . I honestly felt like crying!

The trip finished with a visit to the dam itself. We were now rounding the final corner in our global travels, as we prepared to head for Yangshou!

Drunken Monks

After Chengdu we headed on towards Mount Emei, stopping en route at the Giant Buddha at Leshan, a huge Buddha carved into the side of a mountain. The trip to Mount Emei was yet another to fill us with trepidation, as we were to be spending the following three nights stopping in Buddhist monasteries.

We arrived at the first at the foot of Mount Emei and were shown into basic, if clean rooms at the back of the temple. A quick inspection of the bathroom facilities and I had made my decision to become happily dirty for the next few days and pray for constipation! To get a mental picture of the facilities think shed and hole!

The next bump in the road was that we were informed the temple would be closed up at 21:30, a little early as far as we were concerned, so we thought we'd better make the most of the time we had. So it was that Siobhán, Kirsty, Bing and I headed to the nearby five star hotel in the search of beer and karaoke. The night quickly regressed as karaoke became our new favourite hobby and Kirsty enamoured herself to the local head of tourism who had come to the same bar with is friends and spent the evening trying to impress our blonde haired little friend with duets and a kung fu demonstration!

One thing led to another and before we knew it, it was 23:00 and well past our curfew! A quick taxi ride back and we talked our way into the temple and swiftly to bed, like the well behaved guests we were. Things were fine, until a little before 04:00 when the bell ringing began . . . it wasn't until 04:00 that the chanting began and we started to regret the late night the evening before.

06:00 came around rather slowly given the constant chanting and with it the beginning of our day to head up Mount Emei. We spent three hours on a coach heading up the remarkably developed mountain, road all the way to the top, not exactly like the Inca Trail. From the bus stop it was a short uphill walk and cable car to the top where there was an extremely impressive Buddhist monument and stunning views of the entire mountain range all the way up to the snow peaks.

Before heading up the mountain, we had been warned that there is a rather aggressive troupe of monkeys. Now we hadn't seen any on the way up, but as we walked back to the bus stop, they seemed o be everywhere, stealing food and drink off tourists and generally making a spectacle of themselves, but nothing too sinister. This was until one foolish tourist had decided to feed the monkeys, not only were they only more than willing participants in the transaction, but once they realised she had no more left set about attacking her with surprising ferocity as she stood there screaming and frozen to the spot!

This little show, acted as a smart reminder as to the danger of the monkeys, as the remainder of the day was to be spend walking about ten miles to the second monestary, through an area of forest heavily populated with monkeys. The walk itself was a much needed bit of exercise to combat the excesses of the previous evening and whilst a little steep toward the end well worth the effort and the monkeys were fortunately thin on the ground. The facilities at the second monastery, whilst in an impressive location on top of a mountain peak, facilities were on a similar par to the first, with the added advantage of damp rooms!

The walk back the following day was a speedy affair as we headed back towards the first monastery and our final night in my less than favourite accommodation. Siobhán, Kirsty and I did spend a very pleasant afternoon back at the five star hotel in the spa, with a choice of ridiculously hot and positively burning pools to "rest" our aching bodies. The most unusual of the therapies involved sitting in a pool around 40 degrees C with a shoal of little fish nibbling at you! A very strange experience and not one I would necessarily suggest. For those of you who are paying attention and remember the start of this entry, you will be glad to know that I did have a shower before I went into the pools!

We ended the day with an excellent meal of stir fried frog, we were even introduced to our dinner before hand as they hopped across the restaurant floor and we named the Pierre and Hénry!

Anyway, with that we had conquered what was likely to be the worst accommodation of our trip (other than the trains) and we headed for Chongqing, gateway to the Yangtse.

Bells, drums & a bear that wants to be left to die

So Xi'an was the second stop of our trip through China and the city our tour guide Bing had chosen to make his home; if I'm honest I can't entirely see why. It's a fairly average, not particularly attractive city and was the first occasion we have really seen high levels of smog.

We arrived very early in the morning, but were gratefully able to book straight into our hotel, a blessing when you spent the entire previous night unable to sleep on the train. We headed into breakfast in the hotel and quickly regretted our choice, so much so that five minutes later we were sitting in Starbucks, drinking coffee and eating pastries; nearly three months had passed and we had finally succumbed to eating in western restaurants!

In the city of Xi'an the only thing to really do was visit the Bell Tower and Drum Tower and the names kind of give away what awaits you inside. Siobhán & Kirsty were in far better moods than my good self, so gave the drums a good beating whilst I looked on. The most interesting area in town was the Muslim quarter, with huge numbers of Middle Eastern restaurants and a large market where Siobhán started to practice her bartering skills, which I have to say were pretty impressive.

The real reason to be here of course was to visit the Terracotta Warriors which are situated near by. The museum, if we can call it that, is split into three main buildings, but in my opinion they take you through them the wrong way round, as the first and main building houses vast numbers of pretty intact warriors giving a very impressive impact, whilst the second two are far smaller and would work better in build up . . . Chinese Tourist Board take heed! I'm sure they'll be reading our blog ;)

After just a couple of days in Xi'an we were back on a train and heading for Chengdu. This was the mother of all train journeys, being as it was 17 hours in length and to be honest the first train seemed like luxury in comparison to this one. We helped numb the pain by spending several hours in the restaurant car drinking and playing "guess what we've ordered" as the trains are one of the few places where no one seems to speak English and the menus are solely in Mandarin.

The reason for our visit to Chengdu was to visit a Panda reserve. Now don't get me wrong, they're quite cute, particularly the half dozen babies that had not long been born, but we really should be accepting the bloody obvious, that being as a species Pandas are neither meant to or indeed seem to want to survive!

Let's look at the facts, they are biologically carniverous, but can't be arsed to eat anything other than certain kinds of bamboo, a plant to nutritionally void that they have to consume it in vast quantities. Secondly they don't like sex and even for those that can be coaxed into having a go have the unfortunate hinderance of the males being so poorly endowed that they often can't quite make it . . . definitely not a species that would be comfortable showering down the gym!
Let's not blame it all on the poor men though, the women are so unaccustomed to child birth that when they do have a child (generally by means of artificial insemination) they freak out and frequently kill the cub.

I think it's time that we let evolution prove it's worth and take this unfortunately cute species the way of so many before it . . . maybe I'll setup a new group on Facebook "We the undersigned want the Panda to die!" and wait for the death threats to start rolling in!

Anyway, rant over, next stop Mount Emei.

The Beginning of the End

I can't honestly say I wasn't looking forward to China, my idea of a pleasant end to our travels involved more time lying on deserted beaches in a remote part of Thailand, but Siobhán had been adamant that she wanted to travel through China and so it was we touched down in Beijing, not entirely sure what we were to be expecting on the other side of the plane doors.

Well, initial impressions were definitely good, no queues to speak of, shiny new airport and probably the most efficient customs checks to date; every customs officer even had a little pad with four buttons in front of them so that you could rate their performance, can you imagine the uproar by unions in the UK if such a scheme were to be implemented? Anyway, we gave our customs man a top rating, not just because he was quick, but also because we were slightly concerned he'd be dragged away by the authorities if we didn't ;)

As we left the airport we joined our first queue, that for a taxi, and we quickly discovered that queueing in China isn't quite the same as back in dear old Blighty. Indeed walking straight to the front of the queue if you can't be bothered waiting seems to be the order of the day. Despite this very un-English behaviour before too long we were ushered toward a taxi and our first challenge. The tour company we were using had provided us with details of which hotel we were to be checking into, but only in English! A twenty minute muddle of confusion ensued, with us trying to make ourselves understood, speaking to his friend on the phone who was trying their best to translate and me heading back to the taxi queue to ask for assistance, all failing to get us any the nearer to our driver understanding the destination. Finally, I had a brainwave and called the hotel we were going to, explained our situation to the English speaking receptionist and handed over the phone to the driver to receive instructions . . . first hurdle overcome and we were on our way.

The hotel was a pleasant surprise, it wasn't exactly the Ritz, but neither was it the slum I was expecting. Our first day in Beijing was our own and first order of the day, breakfast! We walked around in something of a daze as the confusion of being immersed in a culture with a different alphabet became all too apparent. We finally chose a restaurant at random, only to discover they specialised in curry. We were not about to let this change our minds, as we weren't entirely sure we would fare any better in any other establishment, so we set about enjoying a chinese curry as our first meal in the far east.

The remainder of the day we spent wandering around Beijing and visiting the Temple of Heaven, where we became aware of how many people there really are in this country. It was not possible to get a photo without their being hundreds of others in the shot and a school trip to the temple seemed to consist of more children than I think exist in the UK!

Our first evening meant meeting up with our tour guide and the rest of our travelling companions. The group turned out to be very small and consisted of a 21 year old blonde girl form England, a 70+ aged couple from California and Bing our tour guide. The following two days consisted of a walk along a 30 tower section of the Great Wall, trips to the Summer Palace and Forbidden City and a visit to a charitable project the tour company supports, which helps educate and employ mentally handicapped people from poor homes.

The walk on the wall would probably be the pick of the activities and we ended it by deciding to take a trip down a zip wire over a river. This all seemed like good fun until we reached the top of the queue. Now those of you who know me will realise I am not the most svelt of individuals, but whilst being strapped into the harness and being told "No, No" with a shake of the head I was thinking I would have to trudge down the path in embarassment rather than take the zip wire. Not at all, despite being told (or so I thought) that it did not seem like a good (and by good I mean safe) idea for me to go, due to the size of the harness compared to me, the lady in charge seemed to forget her earlier warnings and simply pushed me over the edge.

I will admit following our earlier exchanges I may have held on a little tighter than I would in other circumstances, but fortunately her terminal predicitions failed to materialise and 30 seconds later I was safe and sound at the bottom of the wire with the rest of the gang.

You can see a video of Siobhán and Kirsty (who were made to go together because Kirsty is so small) heading down the zip wire below.

We ended our three day stay in Beijing, by taking a mini-bus to the train station to take what was to be the first of four overnight train journeys. We were stoping in what is known as hard sleeper class, which basically consists of a doorless cabin the size of a postage stamp with six bunks, three on either side. I will spare the joyous details of one of these journeys for a later post and so it was we were headed for our second stop in China, Xi'an.

The Wizard of Oz

It's true to say that we were more than a little concerned about our trip down under.

First note of concern was the length of time we'd be travelling. We firstly headed from Rio to Santiago in Chile; this flight was only about four hours but was last thing at night so we didn't end up getting to our hotel until the wee small hours of the following morning, although it was fortunately placed. being as it was directly outside the arrivals exit!

The following day we put our luggage into storage and got a taxi into town. We spent a glorious day in Santiago, wandering round, eating fresh fish in the market and drinking (big shock I know) some nice wine. We also got chance to visit a museum where there was a special exhibition on allowing you to watch the artists at work, plus some slightly bizarre neon and fluorescent heads and little bodies all covered in pins.

We made our way back to the airport at the end of what was a lovely, but quite long day, we thought very early to make sure we got good seats for the dreaded plane to Oz. Imagine our surprise when the rest of the plane already appeared to be in line before us. It slowly dawned on us that the reason was that the airline is notorious for over subscribing this particular flight (although we're not sure why everyone is so keen to leave the continent!) and so it was we were asked if we would mind switching flights to the following day if we were put up over night and given some travel vouchers. A quick confab later and we had agreed not to give up our seats for anything less than an upgrade to business class. Unfortunately this was also over subscribed the following day and so it was that their pleas fell on our deaf ears and we headed for departures.

The flight to Australia via Auckland was not too heinous, most flights tend not to be as long as work does not lie at the destination, although we wouldn't be particularly recommending the airline LAN to any of you. Siobhán made a new friend on the flight, a four year old Kiwi boy with an Argentinean mother, from where they were returned following a visit to Grandma and Grandad. Siobhán finally seemed to have found her intellectual equal as she set about entertaining him for the length of the flight (or was it the other way round?) but she was finally beaten when her new friend wanted to play hangman in Spanish . . . he seemed rather confused as to why Siobhán was not more able to help him!

Melbourne finally reared it's head, following a transfer from Sydney and we set about deciphering Aisling's directions. We did not actually have a house number, rather a description, which she later claimed was a mistake, but I wander whether she really wanted us to visit . . . ;)

Now, those of you who know me will realise that I am already enamoured with Australia from an earlier trip to Sydney and the East Coast, with their beautiful weather and friendly people even managing to out weigh their rather irritating ability to beat us a pretty much any sport you would care to name and Melbourne did not lesson this. It was a stunning city, easily navigable by foot from side to side thanks largely to its flatness and friendliness towards pedestrians. Siobhán and I spent many a pleasant hour wandering round the city, suburbs and Vic market, an even more impressive food market than our dear own Borough.

The highlight of our travels to Melbourne was obviously catching up with our old friend (no comment on her age I promise) Aisling, who has taken up this fine city as her current abode. It is here that lay the root of our second fear for our trip to Australia. The issue was, that when Aisling was living in London she was rather insatiable from a socialising point of view and many were the night that Siobhán and I would have to retire, tale between our legs, as Aisling and her more energetic friends would continue on to yet another club or bar in the early (or sometimes even late) hours of the morning. We were fearful therefore of not being able to keep up and being rightfully chastised for our lethargy.

Little should we have feared as it turned out as Aisling would seem to be broken! No more is the non-stop party goer, she is now one of us! Happy to end the night with the date the same when she returned as when she began and even (on rare occasion) requiring a night off!

Joking aside, whilst the nights were not filled with loud music and clubs as we had feared, we had some great evenings out dining on fine food and wine and meeting up with all of Aisling’s lovely new friends, including Joe a very amiable and generous Canadian who even welcomed Siobhán and I onto his birthday dinner.

One of the more memorable nights had to be the evening we had arranged to meet up with Rachel, a girl Siobhán used to work with at JP and who is now good friends with Aisling. The night in question was to a show in the Spiegeltent (http://www.spiegeltent.net/) where we endured, and I'm afraid that is the only way to describe the show itself, a small white man giving a performance as Grace Jones, the famous Amazonianly statuesque black woman . . . it was bizarre to say the least! That being said we did have a fantastic night getting to meet up with a large group of Aisling’s new friends and partying away into the early hours of the morning.

The highlight of the trip, was without doubt the road trip the three of us enjoyed down the Great Ocean Road. We had hired a car and stocked up with fabulous food and drink form the Vic market and spent three days driving down and back to visit the 12 Apostles (some big rocks in the sea) and spending the nights in holiday camps, where for a change copious quantities of wine were consumed and the two girls lost themselves in 8 year old versions of themselves on a large inflatable pillow!

There is a nasty rumour circulating that I myself succumbed to the guilty pleasures of jumping on a large cushion of air, but I'm afraid such scandalous rumours will not be tolerated on this site, particularly without photographic evidence!

Anyway, no sooner had our time in Oz begun than it was over and we caught our penultimate flight of the journey, as we headed into the unknown that is China . . .