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

News at Everest!

And now for some good news....

It happened the next morning after we arrived at Everest. We awoke to a cloud-filled valley and no sign of Everest, but it soon burnt off and we had blue skies and amazing crystal clear views. For breakfast we took our block of cheese and biscuits up a small hill overlooking our campsite and of course, Everest. I was feeling nauseaous and dizzy from the climb at altitude and all I wanted to do was rest. Martin on the other hand wanted to take more photos. Hadn't we taken enough?, I said. (Of course we had!) Did I want to take my big fleece gloves off?, he said. Why? They look silly, he said. OK, 'whatever', I thought. I was feeling quite ill at this point. Anyway, with the camera ready on its tripod on timer, Martin rushed over for the photo, but instead of standing beside me, he got down on one knee. I couldn't believe it! This photo was of that very precise moment. Of course, I knew what it meant but I was SOOOO shocked I didn't really hear what he said and it's a bit of a blur. For once I was lost for words... although I did manage to blurt out a 'yes' through my streaming tears. It took me a few days to get over the surprise, but it was nice to share it with Alan, and later with Amy and Sarah (who had stayed lower at the monastery). What a great location for a proposal! *Mush

And so to Everest! Tibet.

We steadily made our way to Everest through the lonely lunar landscape that makes up most of Tibet. Imagine empty and desolate gravel plains - a barren wasteland with no trees just patchy scrub - as far as the eye can see with an horizon of snowy distant peaks. Every so often we would reach the top of a pass or an edge of a glacier generally always marked by sacred stupas and tattered prayer flags flapping madly in the wind. The gravelly, pitted, bone-jarring roads left us exhausted after only a few hours in our Landcruiser. The dust was amazing too - even with our windows closed it still managed to filter into the car and stick to us. Add to this the heat from the intense sun and by the end of each day our hair would be stiff with dust and sweat. Urgghh!

Our first glimpses of Everest were of it far off into the distance but still really AMAZING. Another breathtaking moment of our trip without a doubt! We really couldn't believe it! We arrived at Rhombuk monastery that marks the start of the foot of the mountain in this region mid-afternoon. At 4900m - about 17000ft- we decided to take a horse and cart up to the base camp instead of walk - our bodies certainly not ready for anything remotely strenuous at this altitude. Don't worry, we weren't going to climb Everest - just going to camp overnight. Base camp was another 200m higher and was mainly made up of a row of large tea tents and guest houses. Unlike the Nepali side of Mt Everest this base camp was pretty clean and litter-free - probably because there are not as many expeditions from the north side of ther mountain. We set up our tent a bit passed the guesthouses with a wonderful, undisturbed view of the mountain out our tent door. The grey moraines and screes of rock leading up to the mountain were barren and bleak even with the sun on the snowy capped peaks. We watched the last of the sun go down at the very top of the northern face, and then the bitter cold set in. We wrapped up well in our layers and had a surprisingly warm night. *Mush

Gyantse Fort and Palchoi Monastery, Tibet

Day 2 began with a tour around Gyantse. It is one of the least chinese influenced towns in Tibet and it thankfully, still retains its Tibetan charm. We walked the streets past the old fort on the hill (in the background) and down to Palchoi Monastery, checking out the local street life. The chorten (big stupa-thing in the foreground) was huge in Palchoi and we were able to climb up the floors to the viewing platform near the top (Michelle, Amy and Alan pictured here on top). Cameras are not allowed inside, so I went to the neighbouring hill to take in these views back to town. A couple of cameras were snuck in, but the Nazi monk busted Alan with his up top, while Michelle found some sneakier tactics of escaping him.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time to climb up to the fort/castle as our driver was ready to leave. But it was a short day of driving today, only a 2 hours to Shigatse on which we entertained ourselves with a little game of "I Spy"!! (not very creative , I know!)

Shigatse, the second largest town in Tibet, has the very famous TashiLumphu monastery, home of the Panchen Lama. Panchen Lama is a title like Vice-President or Prime Minister that Tibetans give to the second greatest leader of Tibet. Panchen means "Great Scholar" and Lama is a word Tibetans use for a religious teacher. We were disappointed that we only had a short time at this monastery because it had an excellent vibe to it as we got caught amongst the flow of pilgrims when the doors opened. The pilgrims with their wrinkly old faces from decades of exposure to the elements, and dangling pigtails, wearing blackened sheepskin coats were excellent. We followed them on their circuitous route around the temples and dark shrines as they spun their prayer wheels or rubbed their prayer beads, yak butter candles and money donations at the ready to adorn each and every shrine. *Stub and Mush

Yamdrok Tso, Tibet, China

After some serious planning, many changes, gear sorting and translating to our Tibetan driver, we were off on an 8 day overland adventure with the highlight destination of Everest Base Camp. Michelle and I piled into a Toyota Landcruiser with Amy and Sarah from Australia, Alan from England, and Lhakpa, our driver.
Day one took us from Lhasa, up a really steep pass and to this location overlooking Yamdrok Tso. Another stunning colourful lake, and of course, all the locals up top wanting you to take photos with them and their animals for money. You can sneak a few shots in though! The lake is in the shape of a scorpion - 150km around. We had planned to camp in the valley, on the lake, but when we arrived at our intended location, the rains hit, so we decided to push on.

A super rough road followed, but with spectacular mountains and a fantastic hanging glacier behind a stupa with prayer flags. It was only a single lane dirt road, crossing rivers, along steep dropoffs and slicing through the mountains. I think our driver digs the offroad, as he seemed to go faster on the bumpy roads than on the flat asphalt! We did hit a bit of a snag when the single lane was blocked with a fresh load of dirt for construction. I gave them a hand shoveling briefly and then we pushed on 30 minutes later!
We arrived in Gyantse about 9PM, through some sort of dust storm and the skies were light and dark all at the same time. Very cool light. It was a good first day, but we found out our driver was a little finicky (sp??) and needed things his own way. This was obviously a little difficult as he spoke no English, but thank goodness for Sarah, as she was much more fluent in Chinese than she led us to believe. I don't know where we would have been without her - literally!!!! *Stub

Shooting Some Stick at NamTso Lake, Tibet, China

Mush and I joined an English friend Alan in renting a Landcruiser for an overnight trip up to NamTso Lake. Leaving from Lhasa at 3700m, I was a little worried about the altitude gain as we would be sleeping at 4800m that night. The drive up was quite spectacular, through mountains, plains with Yaks, and following the brand new Golmud-Lhasa train line (just completed) that they are testing trains on right now! As we were driving up to the pass, we heard a pop, and then steam came bellowing out of the engine. We had blown a rad hose, but no worries, the driver wrapped it in duct tape and some rubber strip, and we were on the move again one hour later! A pitstop at the pass at 5190m must have been my highest bathroom break to date. It did give us views over the deep blue lake surrounded by colourful plains and snow capped mountains.
Nomad tents throughout the plains led us to the tent town at NamTso. We booked in to the Sheng Shui Hotel and Tea Pub - tent hotel - for the night before wandering around the little settlement. Yaks a plenty, offering rides to the sparse tourists. We did climb up the hillside behind, an exhausting little walk at this altitude. The lake is quite large - (90km long) and in true Chinese style, they advertise it as the highest lake in the world. I guess it depends on what you classify a lake! The views were great as we were standing on a peninsula with the lake wrapped around.
Prior to dinner, I challenged Alan to a few games at the pool table with the best view I have seen!! Tibet was pool crazy, and there were outdoor pool tables in every town, village, farm, etc! While Alan and I were playing, we had to take a time out as a yak walked through! During this, Michelle was playing with a really cute little local girl, who was mimicking her every move. The girl joined us for dinner, kept warm by the yak dung stove in the centre of the room.
A cool night awaited us, and a brisk morning with excellent morning light on the flocks of sheep in front of the mountains. Mush's favourite little girl and her family were moving tent that day, so we helped them lug things about 200 ft to their new location. Funniest moment was watching 4 men lift a huge bag of dried yak dung on to a WOMAN's back, and she carried it across!! They were all surprised at our help, but thankful!

Our ride home was uneventful (no breakdowns), but we did stop at a hot spring at 4300m. A huge pool of hot water, right next to a really ugly geothermal energy factory - only in China!!! It did feel good afterwards, but not the most scenic, unless you look over the factory to the moutains! *Stub

The Roof of the World!

Greetings from the Roof of the World! Yes, we're in Tibet! We have to keep pinching ourselves to remind ourselves that we're in Tibet! Yeay! SOOOO excited to be here. The city of Lhasa sits at 3700m or about 12,000ft - that's 3 times the height of Ben Nevis (in Scotland, you non-Europeans) and about the same size as Mt Adams in Washington State (near Portland). So, we have been acclimatising and chilling out, touring some of the city a little. The very impressive Potala Palace looms high over the city. It is a monster of a place, and is apparently 13 stories high, but I'm not exactly sure where they measure that from as it is perched on a hilltop. We did a tour around the palace which was unfortunately under renovation so only half was open to the public. The Potala Palace is one of the most sacred, holiest places in the world. It used to be the winter residence of the Dalai Lamas until the recent one was banished to India by the Chinese government. So, we toured through some of the Dalai Lama's residences and saw some impressive tombs. The 5th Dalai Lama had the most incredible stupa, adorned with loads of precious stones and about 3700 kg of gold. And down below, hundreds of pilgrims were all circling the palace in a clockwise direction, spinning their prayer wheels as they walked. An interesting trip to the holy palace - it was seriously impressive!

For those concerned, Martin is doing better regarding his tummy problems, but he is taking it easy on the food front - nothing too fancy and exciting - just dull noodles and pasta with veg. Can't have him being ill at Everest! ...which we are trying to organise at the moment. It'll be an 8 day trip in a Landcruiser with a group of 5 of us heading to Base Camp at 5200m (about 17,100ft) and spend 2 nights in a tent up there - very excited about that prospect. Might be a little cold though! *Stub and Mush

Mixing with the Locals, Shangri La, China

We had had such a nice time that we were very sorry to leave Mama's and Lijiang. But it was time and we left to the usual loud departing words from Mama, "Lessa go. Lessa go", but this time she bundled us off with a bag stuffed with pancakes and bananas followed by a big hug and a "Gooda lucka. Gooda lucka". Now, here we are at 3200m - that's about 10,500ft above sea level - in the town of Zhongdian - THE Shangri La apparently. Though you wouldn't think it if you saw it!! It's small with a pretty standard chinese block-brick new town. As for the quaint 'old town' - well, it's small, quaint with lots of character.... and still being built!! Ha ha! We thought we had left the rain and cold of Lijiang where I wore long-johns and my down-feathered socks to bed on our last 2 nights, but no, the weather has been cold and wet here too. Thankfully, our guesthouse has electric blankets that have saved us! Scarily, early evening yesterday there was a power cut and we almost didn't get our electric blankets! Now that would have been disastrous for my feet!

The last few days we have just been chilling out and acclimatising at this altitude in preparation for Tibet - just watching DVDs, walking around town, mixing with the locals (note this lady's single, solitary tooth, and my nice new pair of sunglasses - pair number 6!), and watching them gather and dance in the old town square, visiting the local monastery perched on a hill, catching up on internet.... and taking Martin to hospital to try and sort out his persistent tummy troubles. He had been doing great for about a week and then it took a turn for the worse 2 days ago. Hospital was scary as no-one spoke english and we had to point to things in the phrase book. Lisa, one of our travelling friends speaks a good chunk of chinese and helped us out no end. She had also been to the hospital herself that week and so knew the procedure of doctors, stool test and blood test counters to visit, pointing out even the direction of what was to be Martin's second worst toilet ever (he was pleased about that!), and desks to hand over money, before getting treated... We think (!) he got some antibiotics and a saline drip, and then he got given a whole stash of other stuff to take for the next few days to bung him up, rehydrate him and settle his nausea! The whole thing was not a great experience - it was a bit miserable sitting in a cold and not very clean(!) hospital with a cold drip going through him for 2 hours. Hopefully though, this'll sort him out ready for Tibet!

From China there are several routes into Lhasa - some more $$$ than others. Zhongdian is really only a popular town because it is one of the hopping off points to Tibet by road. In the end, we finally decided that we would fly - a bit cheaper (at $250 U.S. including the elusive foreignors 'permit') than overland which costs about $700. We should be picking up our flight tickets this afternoon, so fingers crossed! Once we arrive in Lhasa it's a few days acclimatising - especially for Martin bearing in mind his previous altitude sickness experience. Then hopefully, it's a trip to Everest base camp possibly by jeep which takes about 8 days from Lhasa. Depending on the altitude and how fit we're feeling, we'd like to walk part of the way, but we'll see on that one... *Mush

Walnut Garden Village, Tiger Leaping Gorge, China

Our first night we stayed at a small guesthouse with a great view of the mountains across the Gorge, and in the morning the clouds magically lifted for only a few minutes to reveal wonderful sharp, craggy tops. By the time we departed, they had lowered again. The second day's walk was flat and easy which meant we could enjoy the views of the HUGE mountains and cool steep cliffs more. Still had to watch our feet, though, as there were some pretty steep drop-offs at times. 'Jade Dragon Snow Mountain' is just under 18, 000ft and we had a cool view of its sheer face from our guesthouse in Walnut Garden on the second night. The food and toilets left a lot to be desired at Woody's G.H., but you couldn't deny its superb location!

We wanted to try a different route home, but weren't able to find anyone to share a taxi with us to the ferry (Sandra, Eda and Joel were going the other way). We decided on the taxi anyway only to be told that there was only one taxi and the others had just taken off in it! Bummer. So, knowing that there were buses going that way we had to head back the other way - the way we'd come. We ended up hitching a ride with a man and his family in their little minivan going that way. Mum and the two little girls in the back while Grandma was in the front seat being carsick, hacking and spitting away. Nice! The girls were sweet though and we had a lot of fun with them - they kind-of made up for our disappointment. When we got to town we saw the minibus lady that had brought us up, so we flagged her down. We waited for her to eat lunch, and then we took off for Lijiang - or so we thought! She stopped a 100 yards down the road only to explain that she needed to wait to pick up more passengers! We were not very happy and weren't going to wait until she'd filled her bus! We found the local bus to get us home instead - good enough for us and better than waiting! * Mush

Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yunnan, China

Over the next few days Martin slowly recovered from his tummy troubles and felt strong enough to go for a 2 day walk through Tiger Leaping Gorge. So to the usual loud departing words from Mama, "Lessa go. Lessa go" (meaning "Let's go - it's time to catch the bus") , we left by minivan to 'Tiger' (as she calls it). Legend says that a big tiger leapt across this huge gorge for some reason, hence the name! If you're crazy enough to want to see the legendary rock from where the legendary tiger leapt, you can get to see it for a charge, of course, by the locals. It seems that this tiger did a lot of leaping from a lot of different rocks!

We took off with Joel, Eda and Sandra on the trail. It was a good, fairly strenuous walk. At one point we hit some switchbacks - 31 to be exact! We took our time and they were a lot easier than I was expecting them to be. Still hard work though. Phew! Earlier on the trail, I started to get quite annoyed with a local horseman who followed us with his mule hoping that we'd get exhausted and want a ride. The horse had an annoying clanging bell around its neck; so much for peace and quiet! "This is China", I reminded myself. After not too long I waved the guy to go ahead of our group making it very clear that we didn't require a horse, thank you! He went ahead only to clang along in front of us while he persistently pestered a chinese couple ahead. Of course, they didn't want a horse either, but he would not be convinced - although we all tried to convince him. FINALLY, he gave up shouting expletives (I'm pretty sure!) at us and the other couple, and horse bell clanging all the way back down the trail! * Mush

Red Lanterns Everywhere, Lijiang Old Town, China

Lijiang's old town has a great feel to it. Full of boutiques, cafes, bars and restaurants with lots of red chinese lanterns swinging away, it is a very lively town. It's a crazy maze of cobbled streets cut with little waterways and little stone bridges. It's really great. Being so close to Tibet, the locals have quite different faces. The local Naxi women - old and wrinkly, with toothless smiles - dress in their traditional blue and white dress selling their wares - mostly roasted pumpkin seeds, postcards and dried yak meat! (Haven't tried it yet - still plenty of time for that). Our timing wasn't great though, as we arrived during National Holiday Week - a week that most Chinese take off. This meant that it was super busy. Pretty nuts. People absolutely everywhere! Most of them making merry with lots of singing and dancing, competing with one another from bar to bar across the little waterways and streets. Pretty funny. Of course, the prices were jacked up for the week, but since we arrived at the end of the week Mama's prices were on the way down starting at 25 Yuan each down to 15 Yuan ($3-2! still pretty cheap). Even with the masses of tourists, Lijiang still manages to keep its charm and great atmosphere. Our favourite town in China by far - Lijiang gets the thumbs up! * Mush

Baisha, Yunnan Province, China

After a couple of days, Martin was still not well enough to venture out, so I spent an afternoon with Pelle and Ulla, a nice young Danish couple staying at Mama's. We rented a couple of rickety bikes and made our way to the small village of Baisha north of Lijiang. Views of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain ahead of us were fantastic as we rode along. The cobbled streets of Baisha were lined with stalls - people selling local junk - old Chinese coins, red Tibetan jade (not green like normal jade), batique dyed cotton tablecloths, and Mah Jong sets made out of yak bone. Nice! Another attraction about Baisha is Dr. Ho's clinic - a Chinese Herbal doctor made famous by the media because of his successes in curing people with various diseases such as leukemia and MS. Contributing to his fame have been visits by John Cleese and Michael Palin too (both of Monty Python fame). Anyway, his son, Hu Shulong, danced around a 'lab' of large red plastic tubs full of powdered herbs concocting a remedy for Martin's funny tummy. When I delivered my gift later on Martin was not particularly impresssed with it - it makes a pretty disgusting tea, apparently! * Mush

With Mama Naxi, Lijiang, China

So we're still in the province of Yunnan in the South. From Dali we headed to the town of Lijiang, but after about 5 minutes on the bus I realised I had left my lightweight, very expensive camping towel back at the guesthouse. Duh! To replace it in China would a) be difficult (not many outdoor /camping stores), and b) if we found one, would be very expensive! So after weighing it all up, we decided to get off the bus to retrieve the towel. Tickets for the next bus cost us $9, so not too bad and worth it for the towel.

The journey to Lijiang was stunning with amazing views over valleys, streams and mountains. The town itself is very quaint with a nice feel with lots of local traditional curly-roofed architecture. Interestingly, this area is populated mostly by the Naxi (pronounced Nashi) minority people -- which is perhaps the last remaining matriachal society in the world. Yes, that's right... women rule the roost here. Completely! The women own and inherit all property, have as many lovers as they wish... and 'own' their offspring as well. Any disputes are sorted by senior females, and their language even gives 'stronger' conatations when a word is prefixed/suffixed with female. (ie, a rock that is described as female is a 'boulder', whereas a male rock is just a pebble!). I think they've got it right! haha!

Anyway, the next few days we hung around Mama Naxi's - our guesthouse. Martin has been enjoying the delights of traveller's diarrhea on and off for the last 2-3 weeks (I'll spare you the details) . Anyway, it took a bit of a turn for the worse and we decided to stop and rest for him to get better. He has been drinking lots of salts and water and taking some of our medicine that we carry. Mama Naxi has been keeping an eye on him too and has given him some of her remedies. Mama herself is a wonderful, wonderful character. You have to see her to believe her! Once you've gotten over the initial shock of her loud and abrupt manner, the next thing that gets you is her english: although she understands you perfectly, her english is VERY broken and close to impossible to understand! You do get used to it after a while, but it's comical to watch the puzzled looks on the faces of her new guests. Above all though, the biggest thing that hits you about Mama - is there's no doubting her heart of gold. During the day she comes out with fruit and snacks and keeps feeding everyone, regardless of if they're hungry or not! Reminds me of my mum!! ha ha! Home away from home! She is great to be around, and everyone calls her 'Mama' and treats her with total respect. Dinner in the evening is cheap ($1) and crazy busy with everyone staying there all sitting down together at tables scattered throughout the central courtyard. The food is very tasty and never-ending (something that Martin is bummed about missing out on). All this, along with Papa in the shadows with his pleasant disposition, the girls that work for Mama doing the cooking /making the beds etc, the cats and dogs and new kittens gamboling everywhere, and the traditional Chinese courtyard setting, Mama's has a welcoming atmosphere and is a great place to chill out and get better. * Mush

Chinese Characters

So, after our horrendous start to our second stint in China, it's characters like this that made us realise why we came back.
We arrived in Dali Old City - finally, and the following day the sun came out. With Stiffler, we rented some bicycles and decided to tour the countryside. Our first stop was the 'Three Pagodas', but not realising the exorbitant price of entry, we gave it a miss and viewed them from afar. Good enough for us. Believe me, in China there are plenty of pagodas! We continued 18 km, and on the way we came across a market where we sat and watched the people. Some great, weathered faces, funny hats and toothless smiles. This fabulous guy was curious while we were getting Martin's backpack repaired for the 6th time at a little shoe repairman at curbside. He came up stared, laughed and smiled this great grin. How could I resist not taking his picture! He loved looking at his picture too as if he were a supermodel!! He was just so cheerful and pleased to see us.
We parted ways and continued up the road to Xizhuo (pronounced 'She Jo'). Riding through all the fields, the local Bai people were either planting rice or harvesting wheat. When they gathered the wheat, they laid it all out on the road, we think so that vehicles would help thresh the grain from the stems. It was tough to ride through and you had to clear your chain of wheat after each pass.
After a wrong turn, we ended up in a man's front yard right beside the lake. He couldn't have been friendlier, and welcomed us to have a drink with him. We sat in his drive way on little wooden stools trying to communicate. Through our broken Chinese and him pointing to our phrase book, he invited us to dinner. How sweet was that!! It would have been great, but we still had to ride back the 20+ km to Dali City before dark. Mr. Li was such a sweet man and Michelle wanted to take him home! So after such a nice afternoon we were reminded how much we liked the people of China. Good to be back! *Stub and Mush

So You Think Traveling Is All Fun And Games????

Try this day out for size: today we were heading from Sapa, Vietnam, across the border into China. We were staying up in the hills of Sapa and we rode a mini bus down to the border. As it was a big holiday in Sapa, the minivans were racing up and down the hills to get as many fares as possible. Michelle yelled at our guy to tell him to slow down or he would get his money, as the steep, winding road was a little treacherous. He did listen, but shortly after, a motorcycle in front of us skidded and then did an 'endo' and the man and woman went over the steep edge. Our van wasn't going to, but we shouted for them to stop, and I rushed out to find the lady face down the very steep hillside, and the driver holding on to her with one hand and a small bush with the other. I managed to lift the lady up to safety (I think she had a broken arm) with help of a couple of others, and then helped the man up, and eventually the motorbike. It was a scary scene on a pretty steep slope. After a while, we managed to persuade our minivan to take the lady to hospital (an ambulance was going to take two hours - we were an hour away from the big city) . We hope she was OK in the end, as she was half unconscious and in shock when we dropped her off.

So, from the hospital, we got dropped off at the train station and took motorbike taxis to the border with our big packs on our back - Michelle almost fell off trying to get on the bike from the weight of her pack! It was Saturday, but we had been reassured that the banks in the big city would be open. Not so. Even the Money Exchnage inside the Border Control was closed. So I had to exchange our remaining Vietnamese Dong to Chinese RMB at some shady black market exchange area off to one side of the border control building. Here, there were about ten ladies sitting on plastic chairs with huge bags of money, doing much larger transactions than mine. Anyway, I got a good exchange rate - almost too good - so I had to hope I wasn't getting ripped off. It was either that or not at all, and we would lose $70 by not trying to exchange it. Crossing the border was probably the easiest part of our day. Even then after giving Michelle's passport back with no problem, we had to wait for a scary10 minutes while they took mine into the back room - a little stressful. All fine though, and out front to get ripped off on a little golf cart ride to the bus station which turned out to be just around the corner! Unfortunately, we didn't have a map and our chinese travelling skills/communication are a bit rusty!

So, there we were at the bus station in Hekou when some guy claiming to be the 'manager' tried to help us, but was really no help at all! He was a real pain! We were cautious, but we couldn't get rid of him. He found us wherever we went in town, and eventually we let him take us to his friend's restaurant where he put us in some little back room he called the room for foreignors and ordered us some food that was a disaster. When he left before the food arrived, he said something like 'If you leave before the food comes, they will hate you' which was a little weird. He also tried to get us to pay for his beer, but we certainly weren't having that! Somehow, in the whole situation we must have been scammed for some money, but at least not much, I think.

So, we took a horrible 13 hr sleeper bus (they actually have beds in the buses) from Hekou to Kunming. Right out of town we skidded to a stop and got a flat tyre that held us up for an hour while they repaired it. Michelle had hassle with some guy claiming she was in his bed, but the numbering was so random, she just played the 'stupid foreigner' card (pretty easy, ha ha). Then at some checkpoint, the police took our passports and we waited and waited. Next minute, the bus driver starts to take off and we didn't have our passports! We had to yell at him to stop. Of course now, as we were over an hour late, the bus driver figured he needed to make up time on the windy roads so we got very little sleep. It was bumpy and I almost fell out of my top bunk many times. I awoke once to the guy beside me attempting to throw his cigarette out my window, but I just got a shower of sparks in my face and legs as the cigarette lit up when it hit the fresh oxygen - idiot. I was yelling at him for being so stupid, but he just closed his eyes and faked being asleep. I got a few choice words in though.

We arrived in the morning to a big rainstorm in Kunming which continued for the rest of the day. From Kunming, we decided to just keep moving and got on another 5 hour bus to Dali City. Even though we checked multiple times and had the correct city on our ticket, the bus didn't take us to the right town! So we had to get yet another bus. To put the icing on the cake, we boarded the local bus with all our stuff. A lady beside me had a little grocery bag on the seat next to her, so I motioned if I could sit down there, but she yelled something in Chinese and ushered me away angrily. Welcome to China! For the other people that got on the bus, she moved her bag with no problem so that they could sit down if they wanted to - Bitch!!!

As if this whole day was not enough, I was also dealing with a case of travelers diaorrhea to boot! Right now, I'm thinking "WHY" did we come back to China again. Hopefully things will get better. If not, we won't finish out our 2 months here and we'll come up with a new plan! *STUB

My Favourite Hmong Lady, Sapa, Vietnam

Sapa in the mountains was a welcome, refreshing change - not just in temperature or scenery, but in the people. There are lots of different hilltribes around Sapa, all of them have different dress or head wear or embroidery with silver or bells etc. They were friendly, fun and had a great sense of humour. Very different from the Vietnamese people in Hanoi and the north. On our hike through the rice terraces down into the valley to the village of Lao Chai, the children were adorable and the ladies selling their wares were good fun. I couldn't resist a brightly coloured, beautiful embroidered blanket from one of the ladies (double click pic for photo) - it cost about $12. The only problem about buying stuff, and large stuff at that, is that I have to carry it. It's worth it though - where else would I get this souvenir blanket?!

In the town of Sapa itself, the women were persistent in trying to sell their emboidered clothes and trinkets, but they were always pleasant striking conversation in fairly good English. My local Sapa lady, here, from the Hmong people (who have only been around for a couple of centuries) didn't have great English and kept on saying" ok, ok, ok," while trying to sell me stuff. As you can see, she was teeny and the teeth that she did have were black as anything! Anyway, she followed me around Sapa town for big chunks of time showing me her stuff for sale, going "ok, ok, ok". For some reason she didn't annoy me at all - I just thought she was cute! * Mush

The Rice Terraces of Sapa, North Vietnam

We took a cramped overnight train on hard sleeper bunks, from Hanoi to the mountainous region of Sapa in the north. We waited for Stephanie (now called Stiffler) as her train came in about an hour after ours. Because the road up to the mountains was windy and steep, we had to take a minivan to get there. The usual when we get into a new town is to find a roof for over our heads. Martin went off enjoying the welcome cool climate for his search. He did well - the view from our room was spectacular . The valley below us full of terraces with rice and different crops - beautiful different colours; terraces filled with water for seeding. Overlooking us from across the valley was Fansipan - the highest mountain in Vietnam. I chilled out on the balcony in awe at the amazing view, while Martin caught up on the sleep that he didn't get on our journey up. All this for the price of $6 US per night.

The next few days we explored the town with Stiffler, and did a fairly strenuous hike to one of the villages in the valley - Lao Cai. We briefly saw Amanda and Wes after their quick tour, before heading back to Hanoi. Lydia and Jim came into town and we were able to show them the best 'Bia Hoi' places in town, and our favourite restaurant, Gerbera. Back together again, we all hired motorbikes to explore the hills. Unfotunately, we got caught in a storm, so we sought shelter in a local cafe. We ventured out again, but the storm got worse. This time we sheltered with some local Hmong tribe women also seeking shelter, but this made us prime target for buying stuff! Thankfully, Jim is a soft touch and he bought a second new hat! Finally, needing to get home we headed back the 15km to town through the rain. Martin and I picked up a couple of local hilltribe women walking along the road in the heavy rain and dropped them off at different destinations along the road. The last one was grateful for the ride into town - it was seriously wet and cold at this point. For us, it was back to another favourite place - 'Baguette and Chocolate' to warm up, play Scrabble and have a delicious potato, bacon, onion and Gouda cheese sandwich. Yummy! * Mush

Paddling Halong Bay's Caves, Vietnam

So, a little slow in the morning, but we were awoken by our guide to eat breakfast and then get out in the kayaks. We paid a little extra to have a full day of kayaking, but after the first paddle, our arms were pretty sore and we were dreading the next ones. It was a great way to see the area though, paddling through caves and around some of the floating villages. As we were on a 3 day trip, we bid farewell to the unfortunate ones on a 2 day, and took a ride up to a beautiful little beach. After kayaking around that area, they set up a table and umbrella on the beach and then served us an amazing lunch of seafood and other dishes on the beach. It was a stunning setting and we loved the experience.

After some swimming, Wes, Amanda, Michelle and I went out again in the kayaks through this cave which actually led to a secret lagoon, that only had one cave entrance and steep cliffs all around. We floated around the tranquil lagoon for 30 minutes listening to peace and quiet of nature and our echos. Back to the boat for a relaxing ride to Cat Ba Island where we spent the second night. A little town on the waterfront with a good selection of Bia Hoi's.

The third day was basically a travel day back from Cat Ba, on the Santa Maria back to Halong City. We just chilled out on the decks enjoying the scenery, reading books, and chatting with our new friends. A great trip to Halong, one we will remember for years to come! *Stub