Minglava! ---Hello!--- Myanmar

Hey everyone,
Just got back from 3 days in Macau - an ex-Portuguese colony, now part of southern China. Nice small city made up of 3 islands all connected by huge fancy highway-type bridges. Pretty amazing. Big chinese influence there and not much Portuguese apart from the odd church and restaurant.
In about 3 hours we will be on our way to Myanmar - what used to be called Burma. It's surrounded by Thailand to the East and India/China to the north. Apparently, the people there are lovely (although their government isn't!). We will be there for 3 weeks and fly back to Bangkok on Friday 21st July. During that time we will be incommunicado as internet access is pretty sparse apparently so don't expect to hear from us in that time..
We just hope that we will be able to watch the World Cup somehow... It's England vs Portugal next which is a tough one for me being Portuguese and English all at the same time.. who to support? .... Both!
Come on England! .... Come on Portugal!

Michelle and Martin

Macau Tower and Bridge

On our only full day in Macau, and because it is so small, we did a walking tour around the city. This is where we could see the old Portuguese influence in churches, small alleys and the colonial looking Largo de Senado (main square in town). Lunch on the waterfront and up the hill to the historic Penha Church where we shot this view of the modern Macau Tower. AJ Hackett (originator of bungy jumping) has a cable freefall from the tower that is the highest in the world - 233m. Our traveler friend Earl (Over 60 and still going strong) took the leap of faith, but I don't need any more brushes with crazy heights after my bungy jumps in NZ.
Macau, being so dependant on the water surrounding it, has a good Marine Museum which was nicely air conditioned. So, we took a break from our walk. It had some very interesting displays and excellent models of old boats. While we were on the museum theme, we also made a visit to the all important Museo de Vinho (Wine Museum). Since there was such a Portuguese influence, of course there would be wine. History about wine making in Portugal, including Mush's parents home island of Madiera. Then it was on to the tasting!!! We haven't really had much wine recently and definitely not good wine, so this was a treat. Next stop was across the hall to the Grand Prix Musuem. Macau has had a Formula 3 race in town since the 50's I believe. It is a very popular weekend in town. There are some cars on display from previous winners including David Coulthard, Takuma Sato, Michael Schumacher's 1990 machine (complete with plenty of photos of a very young looking Schumacher), and even the car of the late Ayrton Senna - all of Formula One fame. There is also a bike race at the same time, so a few huge, powerful bikes with massive tires were on display. The oldest car was a 1950's TR2 from the first race, but I can't remember the drivers name.

The next morning, we walked up past the Ruins of Sao Paulo - all that is left is the crypt and the front facade - and up to the Fortaleza de Monte. It houses another interesting musuem, but also sports great views of the town from the fort's perch up on the hill. Busy mish mash of buildings all around, a lighthouse up on the hill, and the bustling harbour full of fishing boats. Of course, there was the many scaffolded skyscrapers/casinos that were under construction.
Off to Bangkok tomorrow for 'One Night in Bangkok' and then we've booked our flights to Yangon in Myanmar (formerly Burma). *Stub

Flashing Lights of Casino Lisboa in Macau

A short 1 hour high speed catamaran ride South of Hong Kong and we found ourselves in Macau. An ex-Portuguese colony, now part of southern China. It was returned to China shortly after Hong Kong was in the late 90's. A nice, small city made up of a piece of mainland with 2 islands (Coloane and Taipa) all connected by huge fancy highway-type bridges. Pretty amazing especially as a high percentage of land is actually reclaimed. Big Chinese influence there and not much Portuguese apart from the odd church and restaurant. Prior to it's return to China, Macau was the 3rd smallest country in the world (at 16 sq. km) behind Vatican City and Monaco (there may be a couple of Pacific Islands in there too).
It is however, the Vegas of Asia and there are plenty of elaborate and gaudy casinos with the typical flashing lights. The Casino Lisboa is probably the oldest and well known, and we went in there for a couple of hours - but just to watch. We're just budget travelers, so no room for gambling in our budget. There was an absolutely massive new casino under construction called the Venetian. I'm sure it will rival the Venetian in Vegas for size and extravagance.

We passed the Venetian on a local bus ride down to a very quiet little place called Coloane Village. Strange to imagine that this sleepy little place was only a few miles from the massive casinos. It was a nice break from big Chinese cities, but back to the city for dinner.

Our favourite place to eat was a little sushi place called Good Choice Sushi - a recommendation from Stiffler. Great sushi, 5 pieces for just over a dollar, and the people there were more than friendly. We would get take-away, and eat on the steps to the ruins of Sao Paolo church, watching the locals. Makes for a nice evening meal! *Stub

A Posh Brunch with Georgie and Alison, Hong Kong

So, we got a little spoilt when we were in Hong Kong. We met Alison way back in Oct in China. She offered us a place to stay in HK, even though she wasn't there the first night - how nice is that! A great little apartment with a fantastic view of the Hong Kong skyline. We met up with Alison and her crew on our second night. Thinking we were out for a simple drink with them, but we ended up staying out until sunrise, bar hopping our way around the Wan Chai district, watching the World Cup games (as they are live at midnight and 3AM here). Alison and her crew of friends are a blast and we had a great time with them, every night in Hong Kong.

We had told them about our recent engagement, and they were soooooo excited for us that Georgie and Alison took us out to the Conrad Hotel for Sunday brunch to celebrate. WOW!!! For us it was gastronomic sensory overload. We would have been happy with one of the items of the buffet but we were in for a treat with a massive buffet of foods we hadn't even seen let alone tasted in so long. Cheese, specialty meats, seafood, lobster, sushi, roast lamb/beef/ham, and the kicker was the flowing fountain of chocolate for dipping strawberries under (see pic on Flickr). Being the budget travelers, we got our fill for sure, making it our only meal of the day as we gorged ourselves and topped it off with the complimentary sparkling wine!!

We had also caught up with our Dutch friend Stiffler. We have been traveling on and off together for 2.5 months now! She joined in the festivities with our new found friends, and we also spent time at a local beach with her, chilling out for the day. We haven't seen a beach in a couple of months, so it was a real treat! We have thoroughly enjoyed Hong Kong again. Watching sunset from the Peak, overlooking the amazing skyscrapers below. Joining the ex-pat locals watching the football (Come on England!!), and hanging out in the local pub districts. It really is a vibrant city with tons to do! One of the only drawbacks are the many rules that regulate life here! Michelle and I joined a few friends at a hotel bar. The bar staff refused to serve me as I had flip-flops on, so our friends complained! After a few drinks and some silly, partying and dancing, the police were called by the management. Luckily, there was no real problem and the situation didn't escalate, but I said to Michelle "I can't believe I'm going to end up in jail for wearing flip-flops". *Stub

Back at School, Yangshuo, China

Eventually, we decided we should get out and explore the area so we rented out some bicycles and rode around the rice paddies and villages amongst the beautiful limestone pinnacles. Really stunning! Earlier in the week we had met some teenagers on the main street who wanted to practice their English, and they had invited us to their school. What a great experience! We disrupted things a bit, and were greeted to a class of 40-50 screaming, cheering and clapping kids. We talked to the class for a while so they could practice their English and then had a tour of the school (the dorm rooms sleep 14 people - some 2 per bunk!) Anyway, it was all a lot of fun. Next, we headed to the home village of Xiao Mo - the lady who ran the guesthouse that we stayed at in the Rice Terraces. It was a small village and it didn't take long for someone to show us where her family lived. It was a brief visit as her brother (and nosey neighbours) didn't speak any English so we 'talked' for a few minutes in my broken Chinese, then spoke to Xiao Mo on the phone, took a quick photo and off we went. I think she was pleased that we went to say hello to her family anyway.

We had a great time riding around that day. Unfortunately, it had a miserable end when I took a bit of a tumble going too fast on the gravel (and following Martin's bumpy route - which I knew was a mistake, but it was too late). And I still had 10 miles left to ride back! So, now I have some new cuts and grazes and soon-to-be scars on my hands and knees. I suppose, I have been bruise-free for a few months so I was probably due for some new injuries! Oh well. *Mush

Back In Yangshuo, China

We were excited to get back to Yangshuo (the town where we spent Martin's birthday back in October). Not only for the fantastic scenery, but also to have a break from speaking Chinese (the people speak English here), which means, of course, it's touristy ....but wonderful western food abounds! Mmm! Heaven! That first Red Star Burger with all the trimmings (including CHEESE) was pretty fantastic! So the next few lazy days we didn't do a lot -caught up on internet, went out for nice food, walked around town (which would get quite sticky as it was so hot). We did actually make it a couple of times for sunset at Monkey Jane's Rooftop Bar, but mostly we watched movies in our air conditioned room (very luxurious for us!) and not only did we have a TV, but a DVD player too -the height of luxury indeed! We had splashed out a bit and paid more than usual - about $9 (5 quid)!

We were sorry to see that the town had changed a lot in the last 8 months -with more neon flashing lights and more glitzy posh shoe and handbag shops. But inspite of this it is still a small town (for China, anyway) with charming streets and fantastic scenery, and all in all we ended up staying longer than we intended. This happened to us last time we were in Yangshuo, and we met so many people that this happens to: as soon as you hit Yangshuo you slow down, take it easy, walk around a bit, chill out a bit more etc etc.. therefore needing more time to explore the area and have to keep adding days to your stay - we call it the Yangshuo Effect! It's great! *Mush

Dazhai Rice Terraces, Guanxi Province, China

At the city of Wuhan we said a rushed goodbye to my Ladies from the boat trip, and we went in different directions to catch various trains and buses. We had a long frustrating day after getting passed from pillar to post, and we were told that the train station we were aiming for was the wrong one - trains didn't go to Guilin from there. We decided to ask anyway at the ticket desk only to find that sure enough we could get a train to Guilin from there! Maddening! SO frustrating, so much so that we were feeling that the time for leaving China is getting very close!

Anyway, we made it to Guilin overnight and caught a couple of connecting buses to Longsheng rice terraces - a place where we had been last October. This had been one of our favourite places last time and we had wanted to visit the area again in a different season. This time the fields had been recently planted with rice seedlings and were water-logged - which made for great pictures. We stayed two nights at our old guesthouse who were pleased to see us again after so long. During the day we climbed up into the hills and walked along the ridges. How nice it was to be away from the cities and noise and all those communication problems, and to be back amongst the peaceful, relaxing surroundings of our tiny village and the terraces of Dazhai. * Mush

Martin the Fisherman, Yangtze River, China

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The star attractions of the whole trip (apart from us, Ha ha!) were the Three Big Gorges and The Little Three Gorges. These however, will be flooded soon due to the contoversial Three Gorges Dam - which is why we wanted to do the trip. The Dam was started in 1993 and has just about finished (2 years ahead of schedule). It's 2.3km wide. 185m high. Controversial because, not only will it affect the beautiful landscape and endanger species, but 8000 unexcavated sites will be lost. There will be soil erosion, rockslides, earthquake dangers, not to mention the 2 million people that have been displaced etc etc etc. It will however, increase China's energy production by 10%, reducing the need for burning coal.

The boat itself journeyed through the Three Gorges which were still pretty impressive even though the water level has risen some: The first, Qutang gorge was 8km long with misty peaks of 1,200m high with steep precipices. The second, Wu gorge was 40km long with 2000m cliffs on one side and lush green slopes and ridges on the other. Third, Xiling gorge - zigzagged for about 76km - lush and green and then huge cliffs. Unfortunately, the visibility was poor because of the smog, but it was still really impressive. We took a side trip on a smaller boat to the Little Three Gorges chatting with 2 other Brits onboard, David and Sarah. An even smaller boat to the Mini Three Gorges was brightened up by our Ladies once again, and we had fun trying on hats and taking lots of photos - they seem to take even more photos than we do! They all screamed with laughter when Martin tried on the jacket and hat (the driver wouldn't let us take our life-jackets off!).

Finally, we approached the dam on our last afternoon. Instead of doing a tour of the Dam we opted to stay on the boat and go through the lock system. Five humongous, impressive locks that could hold 4-5 big boats like ours and each lock taking about an hour: closing the massive doors, reducing the water level about 20 m (60ft) each and reopening to the next lock. Although we didn't get to see the Dam the locks were very cool (and anyway, we heard later that the Dam was just a enormous concrete wall!!). *Mush

Our Chinese Tour Group, Yangtze River, China

After a late night of football, we had a painfully early morning taking off to Chongqing - the hop off point for trips on the Yangtze River. The river, cutting right through the heart of China, is the 3rd longest in the world (after the Nile and Amazon) at 6300km long. Out of about 800 people onboard we were two out of 6 Westerners! The rest, for good or bad, were Chinese tourists and we were to be spending our next 3 days with them all! There had been, however, a group of ladies on our original bus from Chengdu, who took a shine to me - making motions of how strong I was to carry my huge pack (it is pretty big now as we are starting to collect a few purchases). Anyway, they were very impressed and took it on themselves to keep an eye on Martin and I. Onboard, as we left the dock that evening we had fun with them trying to communicate in our broken Chinese and their non-existent English while watching the crazy skyscraper lights of Chongqing.

Over the next three days we were to stop at different 'tourist attractions' which were pretty weak: temples, cheap chinese souvenir stalls, a 'Ghost town' with tacky halloween-like plastic skeletons and demons. On land, we were the only westerners in our group and we cringed at the thought of being in a tour group, and a Chinese tour group ( with its loud megaphones, talking, spitting etc etc)at that!! In the end it wasn't so bad and we had to laugh as we got dragged into the obligatory group photo (unfortunately, no group hats for us). Here I am next to my Ladies in the front row. Martin took this pic, but got dragged into the official one a second later. Thankfully, my Chinese ladies kept an eye on us and made it much more interesting showing us how to walk across thresholds of temples and bridges correctly so that it would bring us luck (e.g. three steps starting with right foot for women, three steps with left foot for men). If it hadn't been for them, the whole trip would have been pretty dull. * Mush

Pandas and Football, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

Chengdu is home to one of China's biggest Panda Research Centres. An endangered species - there are less than a 1000 Giant Pandas left in the wild in the high mountainous areas of this province. They are actually not that 'giant'- about 4 feet tall-ish, but big and round and cuddly. We were glad to see that they have a lot of space to live in and get treated fairly well. They get fed at about 10am every morning when they sit around eating masses and masses (approx 20kg a day) of huge bamboo stems, normally one in each paw until they've had enough, usually about an hour later. We watched them for ages munching away and then stealing bamboo off each other when there wasn't much left. They were very comical. When they'd had their fill, they literally couldn't move and would collapsed in a heap - crash out wherever they were: head flopped and flat on their fronts for a siesta that lasted pretty much the rest of the day - until tomorrow's feeding time. The smaller red Pandas, also very cute, were more like racoons and a lot more active than the Giant Pandas. Not as cuddly though!

Our hostel was quite busy and a few of us (including Alan from our Everest trip) joined up to watch the World Cup - the first England match was at midnight. We tried to watch it on a big screen in town, but they forgot to put the game on the big screen. It was on tiny screens instead so decided to rush back to the hostel to catch the rest of the match. Every bit of space in the courtyard was taken up, but the atmosphere at the hostel was nice with everyone packed in. Even though England beat Paraguay 1-0, we were not impressed. The Swedish girls in our group were disappointed that Sweden didn't score in their game, but we had to agree - at least they had played better football than England! *Mush

Grand Buddha, Leshan, Sichuan Province, China

An overnight train to another huge modern metropolis - Chengdu - another 13 million people. But a convenient base to do a few tourist attractions and a friendly, busy hostel to come home to every day. One of the attractions around is the largest stone Buddha in the world in the nearby town of Leshan. At an overwhelming 71m high the Buddha is carved into the cliff face and gazes serenely down over the confluence of two rivers. It was built by a Buddhist monk in AD 713 and took 90 years to build. Its ears are 7m long and apparently, you could picnic on his big toe nail! We watched all the Chinese tourists taking photos of each other trying to 'touch' various parts of his face from afar. Apparently, touching various features brings either good luck, good fortune, or good health, so of course, we had to do it too! We then walked down the steps alongside him to get a closer look from all angles. He was pretty impressive and had lots of vegetation sprouting from his chest! He is really MASSIVE! *Mush

Terra Cotta Warriors of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China

We flew from Lhasa to Xi'an - another small city of 7 million people in central China - to do a whistle-stop tour of its most famous tourist attraction - The Army of Terracotta Warriors. The lifesize warriors were built 2000 years ago by an Emperor in order to protect him and his tomb in the afterlife. The were discovered in the 1970s by a farmer digging a well. The place has been excavated in 3 main sites. Pit#1 is the largest, with over 6000 Warriors housed inside. Pit#2 has about 1000 and Pit#3 has only about 68 Warriors. Each pit is in different states of restoration. They have basically tried to piece the warriors together as they believe they were originally built - a long process with each battalion separated by supporting walls (thought to hold up a roof) . The cool thing about them is that they each have different facial features and costume. Apparently, they also carried different bronze weapons which survived (although not on display). There are conspiracy theories that the Terracotta Warriors are not as old as they have been made out to be and possibly even built as a tourist attraction! From all the restoration going on it is hard to really know which is true, but when we were in Lijiang, Yunnan, I met an Italian woman who was an archeologist doing collaborative work of other interest in China, but she did say that these Warriors have been proven to be authentic. Regardless, I have to agree that they were pretty impressive and really interesting to see and it was worth the trip North.

We didn't care too much for Xi'an itself - a big city, unfortunately, with its few remaining 2000 year relics generally hidden. There was a smog lurking over the city too and we weren't impressed with the big modern parades of shops such as Prada, Louis Vitton etc. After just 24 hours in the city we were ready to head on. Just as we were leaving the hostel we met an old travel companion, Lisa from Australia, who had helped us at the hospital in Zhongdian about 6 weeks ago, and THEN, at the train station, we saw Andy - a Canadian friend we had met many months ago in Laos and then Cambodia! How crazy is that! It was only after seeing these friends that we seriously wished we were staying longer in Xi'an. It's SO nice to see people you know when you're on the road, and we were bummed. *Mush

Everest Team, Tibet

We came down from Everest base camp a little sooner than expected as Sarah had developed a major headache and nausea - signs of altitude sickness - something that Martin is all too familiar with. We had to get down to the monastery where the girls and our Landcruiser (and driver) were. Easier said than done as we couldn't get a horse cart down and so had to walk the 8km (6 miles) over fairly rough terrain with our gear (tents, sleeping bags, food, etc). Even though we were going down - we could definitely feel the strain on our bodies and we were exhausted and weak by the time we got down. The important thing was to go down in altitude as soon as possible and we left immediately for Sarah. Thankfully she was better by the next day at a lower town.

The next few days were mostly spent in the car on rough roads that were sometimes closed by road works which also meant hanging around waiting for them to open. We took a detour up to Phuntsoling Monastrey with very cool ruins on a hill overlooking the glaciated valley and some amazingly high sand dunes - something we were not expecting to see in the middle of Tibet!

The Landcruiser developed a rattling sound, that Lhakpa, our driver soon solved by removing the offending piece! As is the Tibetan way, he didn't seem too bothered about it although it looked like an important piece of metal! We later discovered that it was from the suspension system and that of course it was important! So we got sent another vehicle with another driver a day later; all that was available was a 24 seater bus!! A bit of overkill but it meant we wouldn't be stuck in the middle of Tibet. It felt a bit like Cliff Richard's 'Summer Holiday' film - all of us bundled with our stuff on a big bus. We headed east beyond Lhasa passing more unexpected sand dunes, on our way to Samye Monastery - another monastery that we were interested in seeing. And then just before we reached it, even more surprisingly, we passed groves of poplar and willow trees. Not at all like the barren plains of central Tibet. We spent a night there and explored what there was of town and the monastery - mostly it made for interesting people-watching of all the visiting pilgrims. Then it was back to Lhasa for a good wash, rest, and yak meat stew! *Mush