Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Pains, trains and automobiles...

Our last couple of weeks in Cambodia were action packed...so, we have selected a few highlights (in no particular order) that sum up our time in the north.

#1 Bamboo Train

Imagine a small bamboo raft of sorts plonked on top a of a few old train wheels, then add a glorified lawn mower motor and throw a rubber band in the mix and you have yourself a bamboo train. Pretty cool huh? We thought so anyway, and an hour long ride on this shakey hunk-o-junk is what drew us to Battambang. Cruising through the rice paddies at a lazy 30kph on Cambodia's one and only railway line, we often encountered oncoming bamboo trains which required us (or them) to stop and dismantle the train in order to allow the others to pass. Lots of fun!

We were a little nervous before our bamboo train began

#2 Slow boat to Siem Reap

Given the choice of a couple of hours on a bus or 7 hours on what is undoubtedly the most scenic boat ride in Cambodia, we opted for the latter... even if this did involve some seriously hard wooden seats. The scenery was stunning; rice paddies, floating villages and nature reserves passed us by. The width of the river fluctuated from around 20m to as narrow as our skinny little boat and out again to as far as the eye could see. At the narrow points, trees and branches scratched the sides of the boat, flicking spiders and ants on board and occasionally whipping us in the face... but even that was kind of fun.

Slow boat

#3 Sunset at Bakheng Mountain

Being the thrifty travellers we are, we used our amazing detective skills to discover that single day tickets purchased for Angkor Wat could also be used to gain entry to the wats at sunset the previous day... ok, so a tuk-tuk driver told us this and once we arrived at the mountain we realised that this was Siem Reap's worst kept secret - the place was packed! Luckily this didn't take away from the beauty of the sunset...

Sunset at Bakheng Mountain

#4 The Angkor Wats

Obviously a must for any trip to Cambodia and really must be seen to be fully appreciated. Rising before dawn, we (and our cameras) put in a hard days work covering the main temple ruins of the Angkor circuit. Surprisingly (or not), our favourite wasn't the famed Angkor Wat... it was the faces of Bayon and the tomb-raiderness of Ta Prom that took the cake for us. As amazing as all this was, after 4 months in Asia, we are officially templed out.

Angkor Wat

Bayon

Ta Prom

#5 The confusion between a car and a bus and how many people should ride in them

Here's another few bus stories for you... In order to travel from Siem Reap to Ban Lung (about 300 kms as the crow flies), we had to travel 13 hours... south then north then east, 'cos that's what travel in Cambodia often requires due to non-existent/terrible roads... and the mighty Mekong and a lack of bridges. From Siem Reap we took a 5 hour bus to Kom Pong Cham... no air-com and yet another broken seat made this yet another unpleasant journey. At Kom Pong Cham we were supposed to be met by a mini-bus to take us a further 3 hours to Kratie... Apparently the difference between a car and a minibus is a bit confusing in Cambodia, because the 'minibus' we were directed to was, in fact, 2 taxis... for 11 people to fit in. The two of us were quite happy to squish 6 people in a car (wouldn't be the first time), but some of the other foreigners weren't so keen on the idea and managed to argue for an actual minibus...

Enter "piece-of-shit-car".

Turns out that Cambodia's worst minibus was sent for us - bamboo poles propping the seats up and giant cracks in the windshield may give you a small idea if the condition of this rust-bucket... buuut we all piled in anyway and after over an hour of stuffing around, we were finally off... then the police showed up... words and money were exchanged between the cops and the minibus guys... we were given the nod to drive off... we drove around the block... back to the depo... police say 'everyone out'... we get out... not sure why... new bus shows up... much more road worthy... Phew, so we all piled into the new bus and off we went again. All was well until the boot sprang open and Amy's bag tumbled out at 80km onto the muddy road...no real biggie - just a muddy bag and wet clothes. Five minutes further down the road, an accident was narrowly avoided by a quick swerve to dodge a pair of amorous cows attempting to make baby cows on the road.
We made it to Kratie in one piece and arranged another mini bus to take us to Ban Lung the next day...we weren't exactly surprised to find that they crammed a few extra people on the bus (19 people in 11 seats) but we were a little shocked when even the driver shared his seat and attempted to drive a manual van on muddy, unsurfaced roads for five hours. We can't believe we made it alive!!
The mini bus with two people sharing the drivers seat

#6 Ban Lung's crater lake

If you ever get the chance to visit the North East of Cambodia, do yourself a favour and go to the crater lake in Ban Lung. Crystal clear, refreshing water enticed us to spend an entire day by the lake swimming with the locals...the photo speaks for itself.

Crater lake, Ban Lung

#7 Surviving the "death moto"

Lying in a puddle of mud, under a motorbike and a laughing Cambodian wasn't exactly what we expected from a morning trip to Ban Lung's waterfalls, but it's where we found ourselves on our last day in Cambodia. Normally, we try to avoid motos where possible (neither of us are the biggest motorbike fans), but in a town as small as Ban Lung, tuk-tuk's aren't an option and motos are the only way to get around...so we climbed on board with an experienced Cambodian driver (the fact that he had a strong cockney accent is irrelevant but highly amusing) and set off along the steep and slippery, muddy roads to the falls. Mistake, mistake, mistake. We slipped and slid all over the road and nearly fell off a dozen times. And then we did fall off...and it hurt...and it was scary, but we were all ok, just covered in mud and a little shaken. We pretty much decided that's the end of motorbikes and us.

#8 The people of Cambodia

We've banged on about this a bit, but we really met some great people in Cambodia. The smiles and greetings from people on the street and the Cambodian sense of humour, made us feel so welcome and truly enriched our time there, making Cambodia one of our favourite places so far. Go there. You'll love it.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

How do you say 'beach' in Hebrew?

Kep - It's a small town on the southern coast of Cambodia... well, town may not be the right word... two isolated streets converging on a roundabout and a handful of seafood restaurants may be a better description. After a lot of late nights in Phnom Penh, a change of pace was welcomed - even if we did feel a little too close to nature in our garden bungalow surrounded by frogs and roosters. We hired push bikes and rode down to the beach, dodging cows and dogs on the road along the way, ate the freshest seafood and chatted to the locals... that's about all there is to do in Kep. The next day we decided to move onto the next town. 40 minutes in a tuktuk later and we arrived in Kampot, having been greeted with cries of "Helloooooo!" from every villager along the way.

Kampot is a strange place. A riverside town in disrepair, the old French colonial buildings resemble something out of a ghost movie and the town is somewhat of a ghost town. Although Kampot is about 8 times larger than Kep, we still found that there was very little to do there given the mountain, that is the towns main draw card, was 'closed'... so we took a sunset river cruise in a little 'authentic' (read; crappy, un-sea worthy, leaky) boat, which was a highlight.

Most of the buildings in Kampot shared this state of disrepair.

Keen to step things up a little, we booked ourselves on a bus to Sihanoukville - the party beach of southern Cambodia. We were excited at the prospect of some beach time (and some human interaction after 3 days of barely seeing another soul), and we eagerly boarded our 7am bus to part-ay town (as eagerly as one can do anything at 7am). About 40 minutes into the trip, we looked out the window only to see our bungalow guest house in Kep passing by. Erm... this is the complete opposite direction to where we were supposed to be going. After a little confusion, we discovered that we'd somehow been put on the bus back to Phnom Penh... NO! We want beach!

A few phone calls later between the bus guy and the guest house guy in Kampot (who sold us the ticket), we were standing on the side of the deserted street waiting to be picked up by a tuktuk that our Kampot guest house had sent to collect us and take us back to Kampot. Once back in Kampot, the apologetic guest house owner had a share taxi waiting to take us to Sihanoukville at no extra cost. Nice guy.

Share taxi... now, there's an interesting experience. To save on costs, Cambodian taxi drivers aim to squeeze as many people as humanly possible into one car over a long distance. Our trip to Shinaoukville was luxury with our standard 5 seater taxi carrying 7 people the 2 hours to the beach. Of course, no journey of ours would be complete without a few fruit-cakes in the mix. This time we had; (in the back seat with us) stinky French guy and his Cambodian girl friend who liked to leaf through magazines pointing out all the white people and wait until we put our earphones in to start talking to us. Sharing the front seat we had "The Mute" and the red-bull-guzzling Cambodian granny who, after guzzling her red-bull, suffered from verbal diarrhea and profuse sweating... we're surprised her heart held out the whole trip.

Arriving in Sihanoukville, we checked into a bungalow overlooking the sea and headed out for a relaxing day on the beach... or so we thought. Choruses of "lady, you want bracelet/ massage/ manicure/ pedicure... you buy from me... you promise me... maybe later... where you from? G'day mate... dingo stole your baby... etc etc" made the day a whole lot less relaxing and more expensive than we'd anticipated, but after we'd been massaged, manicured and plucked to within an inch of our lives, we enjoyed getting to know the friendly beach sellers and quickly made favourites/BFF's. An older woman named Annie became our Cambodian mum, and we now have a number of adopted little sisters. All good fun.

Amy with one of the girls selling bracelets and Annie our Cambodian mum.

The view from our bungalow.

Sunset on Serendipity beach.

As we settled down for a beer after dinner on our first night, we bumped into a few Israeli guys we'd met in Phnom Pehn (actually, I think they were following us). Alex/Bob - whose hair bares a striking resemblance to a blonde Sideshow Bob, and Nitzan/George - who is an uncanny cross between George Michael and George Clooney. We spent the next week bar hopping and beach bumming with these two and a brood of Israelis they'd met along the way (yeah, we're fluent in Hebrew now too). Many a Mekong bucket was consumed and many a sunrise was seen in Sihanoukville, making it somewhat difficult to leave... but eventually we did... nursing nasty hangovers.

Alex (side-show Bob) with Phil

We met George Clooney!!

Friday, August 28, 2009

Phnom Penh, Moi, Bee, Bey (1,2,3)

"Have you been to Phnom Penh?"
"Yes"
"How was it?"
"Shit"/"Dirty and disgusting"/"Hated it"/"I got robbed 4 times"...etc etc
"Oh..."

This has been the general gist of conversations we've had with people who have been to Phnom Penh. Combine this with the fact that the L.P warns of bag snatching rip offs and general dodginess in the capital, we were shitting ourselves at the prospect of spending much time there.

After reuniting from our week apart, we stashed our wallets, cameras and anything else of remote value in our hostel room and heading out with minimal cash for dinner, expecting to return battered, bruised and penniless. Luckily, we survived day one without any issues and after seeing the streets full of smiling moto drivers rather than knife-wielding gangs of thieves, we realised that, perhaps we over-reacted a little. Sure, PP can be a pretty dangerous city, but in our experience it actually turned out to be quite fun....so much so we ended up spending a week there all up.

Aside from the lack of visible muggings, the two things that really stood out to us in Phnom Penh were how friendly the people were and the abundance of info available for foreigners (and Cambodians) of the country's recent and difficult history. Admittedly, we weren't very well versed on Cambodia's history (we knew the basics, but nothing in great detail), so places like the S-21 prison (former Khmer Rouge torture prison) and the killing fields proved to be horrific, yet highly informative for us.



S-21 prison was quite confronting


S-21 prison

War remnants aside, Phnom Penh has some interesting markets, a stunning Royal Palace and a few nice Wats all complete with striking orange robed monks (with nicely accessorised orange umbrellas too!)

Striking orange robed monks....shame they didn't have their matching umbrellas

Royal Palace

Eight-legged lunch anyone?

Many would say the riverside in Phnom Penh is the place to be...but after trying at both the river and lakeside, we'd have to disagree. For us, the lakeside was a lot more relaxed and social, but more than anything, it housed #10 Lakeside Guest house/bar. Being the bar flies we are, this became our regular haunt where we would sit, drink, laugh and learn Khmer from the locals (we can mow say: "thank you" , "1, 2, 3, 5" (not 4), our ages, "what's the time", "eat", two different words for sex and "boobs"...all the important stuff.

Believe it or not - this is part of the bar at our guest house

It's fair to say that Phnom Penh exceeded our expectations (not hard, they were very low). We had an awesome time and were sad to leave our new Cambodian friends who made us feel so very welcome in their city...or crime...and dirt....

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Xin chào Vietnam!

Often when we arrive in a new city it can take a little while to feel comfortable - questions of; 'Is this place safe?', 'Is this taxi-driver ripping us off?', 'Will we like it here?' come to mind as we approach our new destination. Arriving in Hanoi, however, brought no such worries as it is a city we'd both been to before, during out study tour to Vietnam in 2006.

After 6 weeks of navigating unfamiliar China, a few weeks in Vietnam was going to be a breeze...after we battled our way through customs that is. The orderly customs procedure we experienced at the airport last time we came to Vietnam was the polar opposite of the land border crossing from China. Queues were non-existent as was air-con or any resemblance of order. Every part of your body was required to push your way through the sweaty crowd towards the customs window. Actually reaching the window was an impossibility, so throwing accuracy was needed to get your passport through said window and into the hands of a customs officer, who, rather than processing each passport as it came to him, decided to stamp dozens of passports at a time and return them at random, causing a frenzy amongst the waiting crowd. It was exhausting, but once finished we were back in 'nam and very happy about it!

Upon arriving in Hanoi, we found that the hostel we'd booked online didn't actually exist... awesome. We weren't exactly surprised by this, but the problem was quickly solved by our discovery of a nearby hotel owned by the same company who compensated us nicely for this mis-hap, by giving us a much better room than we had booked, for the same price! Whoot whoot!

Having covered the sites of Hanoi on our last trip, we spent our days leisurely walking around and consuming delicious baguettes and coffee in copious numbers of cafes. Basically, we were laziness personified... although we did manage to get ourselves to a water park where we spent the day floating around in over-chlorinated water, getting stared at (and mildly harassed) by locals. One middle aged man even tried to pull Amy's shorts off before insisting on a series of swimming races in the wave pool with Claire. Fun times.

One place we hadn't explored on our last visit to Vietnam, was the North-West town of Sapa, so we headed there for a few days to wonder around the beautiful mountain town and its surrounding villages. As usual, the weather was not kind to us and we spent our time in Sapa dodging storms, but this gave us more time to lazily sit in cafes and chat with the local hill-tibe girls selling crafts on the streets.

From Sapa it was onto Ho Chi Minh City, a place with some sentimental value for us as it is where we first met eachother back in 2006 (and despite what it sounds like, we're not a couple). We enjoyed re-visiting our old haunts and were amazed at all the changes that have taken place in the last 3 years.

The main reason we re-visited HCMC was to catch up with a dear friend we made in Korea - the one and only Tommy Yikes! Those of you who know Tommy, can probably imagine the hilarity that ensued. In addition to a lot of pub time, Tommy invited us to spend an afternoon with him at his school - so we went along curious to see the man in action. It will come as no surprise that we were tricked into teaching Tommy's class for an hour... Australian history to be precise. It's the kind of subject you need a little prepartion for, but as Tommy's middle school world history textbook failed to mention our country at all, we had to get creative with the facts. It was kind of fun to be back in the classroom....even if we did make up half of the things we taught! At least a whole class of Vietnamese kids now know about Kylie Minogue and K-Rudd.

Getting Tommy to act like a 'normal' person is not easy...
But we love him

At the end of our time in HCMC we were forced to do the unthinkable....we separated for a whole week!! In the last 15 months the longest we hadn't seen each other was 3 days (and once again, no, we're not a couple). Amy visited her grandparents in Perth while Claire was left to her own devices in Vietnam. Fear not though, we were reunited in Phnom Penh, Cambodia a week later!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

I'm a celebrity, get me out of here!!

In the 6 weeks we were in China, we spent a grand total of 173 hours (or, just over 7 full days) on long distance buses and trains.... and 9 times out of 10 this involved some kind of debacle or disaster, be it someone refusing to move from our reserved seats, lengthy delays, incessant staring (now we know what it must feel like to be famous), being dropped off in the middle of nowhere or just some out and out foul behaviour from fellow passengers - we've been through it all.  You may recall our "Hell on Tracks" post about our trip from Beijing to Xi'An.... little did we know then, that that trip was a walk in the park compared to what we would encounter over the next month.  

Here are our favourite stories from the road...

#1 THE RETURN OF BERTHA  (Bus: Kaili to Xijiang)

A one hour mini-bus trip to Xijiang village was supposed to be an easy trip, but, in China, things don't often work out the way they're supposed to.
A while ago, we told you about 'Bertha' - our train mate in "Hell on Tracks"... well, turns out Bertha has a twin from the Miao ethnic minority who is as equally creepy and gross as her sister... we call her Bertha II.  Bertha II also likes to stare at people and pick her nose, but, unlike her sister, she doesn't travel so well.. we discovered this when her breakfast splattered across our window as our minibus wound around the mountains.  Figuring we only had to endure the sight and smell for another 20 mins, we weren't too fussed, however, China, as always, had other plans for us.  Heavy rains had caused a pretty heafty mud-slide over the road just hours earlier, giving us an extra 2 hours to gaze at and debate about the contents f Bertha II's spew.  Awesome.

#2  KEEP YOUR FLUIDS TO YOURSELF, PLEASE (Train/Bus: Kaili to Fenghuang)

Usually when we travel on trains in China, we opt for the cheapest tickets... the hard seat (or hard sleeper for long journeys).  It's certainly not the most comfortable way to travel, but we got pretty used to it.  In addition to the hardness of the seats, the people on these trains can also tend to be pretty 'hard'.  Usually, the carriages are crowded with farmers and peasants, and without exception we were the only foreigners in sight.  On this particular journey, we got on the train to find our seats occupied by a gang of ticket-less peasants who preferred to sit and stare at us struggle to find a place for our bags rather than vacate our seats. Cheers guys.  One incredibly grubby little girl, did, however give up her seat.  Not out of politeness of course, but because she was terrified of the two funny looking foreigners standing before her.  The rest of the journey became a game of musical chairs (and stares) as every time one of us got up to go to the toilet, we'd return to find some new curious onlooker sitting in our seat.  Four hours had never passed so slowly and it was an incredibly uncomfortable journey... you can't underestimate how exhausting it is to be stared at by a carriage of people for 4 hours solid.

Adding insult to injury, after getting off the train we immediately boarded an overcrowded bus to Fenghuang.  Again, it wasn't a long journey, but by God was it painful.  

Aside from the terrible condition of the roads, the lack of suspension on the bus and a broken seat, our bus mates ensured we were grossed out for the entire journey.  As the bus pulled out of the station, the guy sitting next to us got a blood nose - not just a little one, but torrents of blood pouring out of his face.  Rather than use the packet of tissues in his hand, he chose to drip blood on the floor, just centimeters from our feet, which he didn't bother cleaning up at all, leaving us to stare at his pool of blood on the floor for the next 2 and a half hours! Joy!

As if this wasn't enough, the obligatory spewer on our bus was a little girl a few seats in front of us.  After the poor little thing had soaked herself and her dad's t-shirt with vomit, her dad resourcefully used the fabric cover of the seat head-rest to clean her up.  Needless to say our bus didn't smell or look good at all.

#3 THE CREME DE LA CREME (Hotel in Huaihua & Train: Huaihua to Guilin)

This story would have to take the cake as far as our disgusting travel stories go...

Unable to get on a train before morning, we were forced to stay overnight in a dodgy little city called Huaihua.  After a bit of searching, we managed to find a hotel that was both cheap and clean.  Perfect! As the sun was setting, we checked in and went out for a few hours, but upon returning to our room, we found our hotel was not so perfect after all.  There was one little problem... or more like 10 big problems.  Cockroaches.  We turned on the lights to find these dirty bastards on our beds, in the bathroom, under our bags and on the walls and floor.  Being too late to change hotels and given we had a very early morning train, we considered spending the night in an internet cafe, but decided we had to harden up if we were going to survive the next 4 months in Asia.  So we stayed and faced our demons...  Well, we left the lights on and pretty much spent the whole night sitting up, dispersed with periods of fitful sleep in the foetal position until we could get up at 5am for our train.

We'd never been so happy to check out of a hotel, nor had we ever been so eager to get onto a train, and we were so looking forward to the next 11 hours of roach-free sleep.  You can imagine, then, our exhausted disappointment when we got on the train to find that (a) it was from the dark ages (complete with coal powered hot water urns), and (b) that there were two women sitting on our beds who refused to move.

Tired and shitty we began the process of trying to negotiate our way onto the beds we'd paid for.  It was during this process that w noticed one of the women was holding a baby between her legs.  The baby was pant-less.  The baby was pissing and shitting all over the floor of the cabin.  The mother had removed it's nappy to allow this to happen.  The floor of the sleeper in which we were to spend the next 11 hours was covered in piss and poo. Well, that was the last straw... we lost it.
Eventually, the women got the picture that we didn't want baby crap on the floor, and removed the offending nuggets, before spreading wee all over the cabin floor with a piece of newspaper.  

With our bags safely tucked up on our tiny beds, we waited for the pee on the floor to dry and looked on in horror as people unknowingly stepped, barefoot, in the puddle before stepping onto our beds while climbing up to their own.

Claire unhappy with the piss covered floor

From sharing stories with other travellers along the way, it's pretty safe to say that we've been unlucky with our travel companions.  We've seen some pretty gross things and seen a side of China we didn't quite expect to see! While some tried our patience, they've given us some very real experiences that have kept us laughing along the way and that we're unlikely to forget.

Xie Xie, China! 

Monday, August 3, 2009

May the Hot-Pot have mercy on your ass

Our last few weeks in China were hectic compared to our slow-moving 1st month. In the 1st 4 weeks we averaged one city a week, but in our final 2.5 weeks, we managed to visit 10 cities/towns/villages in the southern half of the country.

Our first stop after the wonderful Tibet was Chengdu, capital of the Sichuan province and known for it's spicy food and pandas. To be honest, we didn't do all that much in Chengdu aside from get our visas renewed, but here are some photos of what little we did;

Panda

Our hotpot!

The owners of the Tiny Mao Museum

On a whim, we decided to head South East from Chengdu to Guiyang - theft capital of China and gateway to a number of small towns and villages we wanted to visit. Guiyang didn't have a great write-up, so we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually quite a cool place - a lot of energy and vibrancy with an awesome public park complete with wild monkeys!

Wild monkeys

Our next stop was a small city called Kaili. Aside from a busy internet cafe and a small night market (where you can watch the nightly outdoor group dancing classes), Kaili isn't exactly action-packed... and the people there are unusually short... but it's a good place to base yourself for day trips to the nearby minority villages. we chose to visit the Miao minority village of Xijiang and spent a day wondering the cobbled streets and admiring their unique wooden houses.

Xijiang

From Kaili we headed to the stunning riverside town of Fenghuang. After a long ordeal involving cockroaches, a train, a bus, a thunderstorm and getting very lost, we eventually found our gorgeous little hostel nestled along the riverbank of this amazingly beautiful town.

Fenghuang

What could be described as the Venice of Asia (but better), Fenghuang is a town you instantly fall in love with - despite the hoards of Chinese tourists and overpriced cafes and bars (hey, at least it has cafes and bars!!)




After barely seeing another foreigner for over a week, our next destination, Yangshou, and it's crowds of Western backpackers was a surprisingly welcome sight. The town itself is beautiful and set amongst karst mountains, but rain prevented us from doing many of the activities on offer in Yangshou. Instead, we indulged in long breakfasts (that turned into long lunches) and drinking cocktails with some great people we met along the way.

Yangshou

While our time in Yanghou was laid-back and relaxing, we also saw something there that nearly reduced us both to tears/vomit. This involved a farmers market and some very mis-treated animals, in particular, dogs... If you don't want to know more, we suggest you don't read on.
This market had a large section where you could chose your meat in live animal form. We understand where meat comes from and all of that, but the way these animals were treated was pretty horrible. Cages crammed with a mixture of live geese, rabbits, chickens, pigeons etc lined the aisles of the market. Other aisles displayed random animal bits such as intestines, feet and testicles and there was an aisle of dead geese with their slit necks hanging off the edge of the tables. While all of this was a little unpleasant, it is something you get pretty accustomed to seeing in Asia... but we weren't quite prepared for what we saw in the back of the market. Several stalls were selling dog meat... we're not talking just a chop or a fillet here and there, but whole dog carcasses hanging from hooks, dog heads lying on the table, dogs being skinned and gutted on the floor, and worst of all, terrified looking live dogs squished in cages awaiting their fate.
We found it difficult to conceal our anger and disgust at this, but experiencing different places, cultures and practices and dealing with them even when they upset you, is part of what travel is all about, right?

From Yangshou, we headed to nearby Guilin. By this stage we were tiring of Chinese cities, so we spent our time exploring a cave on the outskirts of the city with some super tacky lighting and hung out at the nearby Longji rice terraces.

Longji rice terraces

In 6 weeks in China we saw some truly amazing things and had an amazing time... but, China can be really hard work at times, so we were kind of ready for a change of scenery. We had originally planned to head back West to Kunming in order to get down to Sapa in North-West Vietnam, but, as we tend to do, we changed our plans at the last minute and went South-East to Nanning to get our visas for Vietnam and jump the first bus to Hanoi.

Photos!

We can't be bothered going through our past photos and adding them to our old blog posts so here are 2 links to some facebook albums Amy put up.

China

Tibet

Enjoy!