Day 57 Ha long Bay

Like the many many other westerners here do, today was our day to see Ha long bay and we chose an overnight package which includes bus transfer to/from hotel to Ha long bay, 2 lunches, a dinner, a breakfast and a night on the Junk boat.
The weather for as long as I've been watching it over 3 months now has been rain and mid 20's for Hanoi. Till today we had the mid 20's and no rain great! Today we still narrowly escaped the rain (we weren't out in it) but it was cold like we are used to about 12-15 deg. The weather didn't really spoil any activity other than swimming but Rachel wasn't going in after the MASSIVE jellyfish we saw kayaking anyway!(see 2pics for size)
We did a bit of kayaking through some caves and around the very scenic karsts. This was near an area of a water village of maybe 100 people living on the water.
In the evening we had a 'sunset party' the sun was coming from the heaters, a bit of a cooking class teaching how to make spring rolls which tasted pretty good too, which was followed by dinner and some unsuccessful squid fishing.
Our room on board was our most luxurious of the trip yet we were up the front had windows both sides and were a bit lucky because ours was a triple room which gave us plenty of space.

Day 56 Hanoi

After breakfast at Ladybirds cafe again we posted off all 11kg of our coats/thermals and couple of souvenirs(tea set might have been a few kilos). It cost US$45 and as Rachel rightly predicted the box we were given and tape we used had to be paid for but to some woman who provided it not the post office and it took a bit of haggling to get to a reasonable price.
From there we walked past the military area to Uncle Ho's mausoleum and the one pillar pagoda. The pagoda was a tad disappointing I was expecting a fine piece of engineering, but it was probably the smallest pagoda we had seen so far.
While sitting admiring the pagoda we watched a slow motion military exercise (see pic) where the officers would in perfect unison walk a couple of steps and hold the pose before being commanded to do so again, it looked cool a possible huge advantage in the next war.
Lunch/Dinner was in a French restaurant, the French influence is still alive in the food with lovely bakery's and women walking the streets from the early hours with baguettes and doughnuts for sale.

Day 55 Good Morning Vietnam

Our soft sleeper train pulled in to Hanoi at 5am. The bed was fine with 4 rather than 6 beds per compartment but not the luxury we had read of power points and free noodles.
The 26deg heat at that time of the morning was nice to feel but did make a taxi tempting. The walk was about 30mins to our Atlantic hotel in the old town area, we were wrecked & luckily they had a spare room to give us till ours was free.
We had breakfast at ladybird cafe then started checking out the Halong bay trips originally thinking a day trip would do us then seeing the max 4hrs there we spent more and booked the overnight stay on a junk boat hopefully its worth it.
The picture of the street doesn't do the number of endless motorbikes justice but it is what the old town streets look like & the picture of all the birds stacked up was street food being sold next to the cafe we had lunch.
Warmth from now on so we got prices for sending gear on to NZ and walked around the central lake with an icecream where loads of newly weds were having photos.
With an extra week than planned spent in China we decided against the 3 day train trip down the coast of Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh and booked our flight for when we get off the boat trip.
Spring rolls & lemongrass chilli chicken for dinner then a stroll through the busy but fairly plain night market(China takes the gold medal so far for markets).

Day 54 Yuanyang to Lao Cai, Vietnam

On the move today, our hotel here may have had some interesting dinners but we loved breakfast pancakes, french toast,egg and coffee so much that we stayed for it and missed the public bus back to Xinjie. Not to worry though we flagged one of the many minibuses(the tiny vans) heading that way full of women dressed in the traditional clothes going to work with their baskets.
We had read the bus from Xinjie to the Chinese border town of Hekou could take 4hours and could take 7 hours depending on collections and drop offs. We had planned for the 7 hours that ours took and it was fine. A small bus wasn't fun back down the mountain, it was so rough also on the way up, but from there on we drove along the river side for the last 3 hours while the nice 4 lane highway was above us. We passed a couple of police check points which was funny to watch the couple of people without a seat get off the bus and walk through while we waited, then went through and collected them again round the corner obviously avoiding fines for overloading the bus. Then the military check points where ID was checked for most and our passport details recorded.
During the 1st hour the bus was very packed and a couple had a new cabinet inside with them(see pic) which latter got tied to the roof. This couple were dropped in a tiny village of 20 makeshift wooden houses put together with scraps of wood and sticks and a few roofing sheets. This was common for a few villages we past in what was a very tropical area with the river and endless banana trees all with bags over the fruit.

At Hekou we had our 1st too good to be true moment, a taxi driver who was so keen to take us he phoned a translator who explained where we needed to go and we got what we thought was a cheap/painless ride to the border. On exiting the cab a shop assistant wanting to exchange money showed the direction of the border crossing and on further checks turned out to give a decent exchange rate too for the little money we had left.
The crossing was painless and thankfully we didn't have our lonely planet china book taken as reported(Due to Taiwan shown as a separate country).
In Vietnam the in your face sales technique typical to these more touristy countries was instant as Rachel was swarmed while I was still getting my passport stamped, we got an oversized electric golf car to the train station, where we discovered our cash wasn't getting us to Hanoi.
I sat on the back of a bike after what seemed like an endless price argument to get back in to town to an ATM that worked. We got a soft sleeper bunk on the train for the night leaving at 7:30pm, which gave us time to sit have dinner in a cafe and discover Facebook is blocked here too but not blogger so I have functions back and can see again what countries are reading about our trip, Ireland is way out in front with the most 'hits'.

Day 53 Yuangyang

After a big day viewing mostly from afar or above the rice fields yesterday, we got amongst them today.

Ming had warned us that it was very easy to get lost because there are no paths so we were careful to seek landmarks of the odd tree on our way.

From a visual perspective they are certainly not as impressive from within, on an engineering note the place is massive and amazing but it's easy to spot which terrace isn't perfection with slightly more or less water flow shown by the colour of the water in each. 

The water which feeds all the terraces comes from a natural spring at the top of the mountain(pretty handy!).
It's an adventure wonderland for the ducks, we watched plenty of ducks having a great time on the terraces see pic I caught of a duck splashing in, it took him 10minutes to get the courage up to make that jump! before retiring to the hotel for Vietnam research and another dinner containing interesting boney pork in one dish, another was snails, a bits of chicken dish and on the good side a nice beef & veg dish.

Day 52 Yuanyang & Around

At age 60 which she looks every day of, the owner is quite the character. She is a mother figure to all who stay there. I was told off twice, made tea the wrong way and found a jar of coffee I apparently shouldn't have. With not a word of english both times she made me sit down and she would make & bring the drink over to me.
Run by her and her partner the hotel was a basic but popular stay in the rice terraces.
After breakfast of French toast, an egg & jam pancakes our taxi driver arrived to take us, Ming & Youyou around the best viewing sites of the rice terraces. Luck on our side again the best time of year to view them is while they are full of water Dec-Mar with planting in march so we hit the best time of year!
The driver took us to a few free sites,there are purpose built viewing areas but there is a cost for each we wanted to avoid.
We took what we hoped were amazing images of the terraces and the local people walking them in their traditional dress.
The driver, Ming & Youyou were absolutely invaluable to us especially when it came to eating, they brought us in to a small town where we sat down in the restaurant and Ming spoke with the owner/chef arranging a great meal(see pic).
These are small villages and high (1500-2000mts up) in the mountains food is all very local in this case before the 'Toilet' out back was a cow, chickens and a couple of workers washing veges.
After lunch we were taken to a few more sites on the way to tigers mouth a massive area of terraces with a viewing platform high above best for sunset reflections in the pools. We spent a couple of hours there because we needed to secure a spot to take photos at sunset when people line every available rail space.
Some cloud is needed to get the best reflections from the pools and we had very little but hopefully we got some nice shots, we took enough!
The drive back to our village was about 40min to our hotel where we had dinner which included a dish with chicken feet. I knew Rachel hadn't noticed when she went in for seconds somehow she missed the whole claw sitting on the plate!

Day 51 Bus to Yuanyang

Mothers close your eyes/ears another day and another exciting bus trip.
This driver was on a mission a bit of a speed demon plenty of blind
corner overtaking but his party piece was tearing up the narrow rough
mountain road till we came to a fully laden truck with a broken rear
axel & the two mangled wheels propping up a leaning truck leaving a
pretty tight space between it and the edge of the road, a solid
several hundred metre drop. Rachel's quiet plea in English of "oh god
please don't try that" didn't quite make it to the drivers ears as he
crawled past tyres on the edge and wing mirror sliding past the truck.
It was tight he did well to get past but it was pure luck the edge of
the road didn't collapse.
We arrived in Xinjie at 5pm to find another bus or taxi to yuanyang a
further hour away. We were quickly surrounded by locals some offering
a taxi & others just interested, luckily someone came up and showed us
to a bus going our way & cheap 20yuan each.
Our hostel is one of two places to stay in a village of maybe
100houses amongst rice terraces. There are many villages close by of
similar size but this one has a great view!
We had a number of strokes of luck meeting a Chinese American Ming and
his young Chinese friend Youyou who speak English when no one else
here does, they also organised a taxi to share round the rice terraces
tomorrow and it was looking like a diet of instant noodles only for
the last few days in China but they eased our cash problem since we
didn't bring enough(no banks or ATM out here)by exchanging Rachel's
60USD for yuan.

Day 50 Kunming

If 50 days on holiday is a milestone we hit it today. Does it feel
like we've been away 50 days, of course not but as we were finding
this hostel and two American girls heading the same place asked where
we had been & I rattled it off I'm sure their interest had ended
before my list so we have done a bit in the time passed.
It was visa day with a grand plan of arriving there early, well after
breakfast & inconvenience of trying a number of banks before moolah
was given out it was after 10am. We still managed the same day service
at 535yuan each a 145yuan premium on the three day service.
We took a bit of a flyer on our destination for today the LP was a bit
vague on it just saying an ancient town get off at last bus stop. It
wasn't the last stop so we walked back to it, but it was nice &
traditional buildings were great.
We have been to far more remote less touristy villages but the photos
& constant staring seemed a bit much here.
Visa collected, Nam is a go. We were there early to collect it and
they said no not till after 5pm because the general is coming to sign
them from Hanoi..... There were maybe 4 people working in the visa
office and at 5pm the passports started getting handed out. Perhaps
the general had his own secret lift since we didn't see him come in
but we were slightly annoyed we were there a little early and keen to
get home, they could probably saved the lie and just given us our
passports back.

Day 49 Kunming

Had a very light pink tinge to my arms this morning I wore sunscreen
but can assume my now Irish complexion didn't appreciate the sun
yesterday as much as I did.
We did feck all today really, had an afternoon wandering(for Amy) the
city markets.
Rachel is over excitable about the chance to have a dog when we have a
place in NZ so we went through all the puppies in the market again
today.
With the night train and whatever else probably going to bed too early
in this case I was up & about at 5am bonus was though the Internet is
fast at that time of day & I got 130 pics safely uploaded(about 1800
of the backlog to go!). Rach got a fright when I walked back in the
room, she was playing games on her phone trying to be quiet while she
thought I was still asleep in the bunk above.
Nam visa tomorrow.

Day 48 Arriving in Kunming

Bah, yea the bed was nice for space on the train, the stop at 2am &
lights on for an hour before & after wasn't great but still much
better than the hard seat cattle class.
We arrived just before 8am and walked to our hostel out from the crazy
busy rail station.
Our room wasn't available so early so we had breakfast and managed to
upload a few photos before checking in then heading out to wonder the
streets.
We checked out some markets including a bird & fish market and well it
was just a pet market since it also had snakes, rabbits, turtles,
mice, tarantulas, squirrels, scorpions, chinchillas and lots & lots of
cute puppies which were very hard to tear Rachel away from.
As well as the market pictures I've included a sign which yes is
obvious to its real meaning but also on the funny side it looks like
it prevents Harry Potter from coming through here!
We also took in a walk round the city park, being a nice Saturday it
was packed and apart from the welcomers of the seagulls back to the
lake(numbering hundreds) there were many groups of Tai Chi exercisers
the bigger groups were well in to the hundreds!
So while writing this unlike the blistering cold of the last 7 weeks
I'm sitting with a free beer in the roof garden sunshine of roughly 21
degrees.
Miles up in the photo of blue sky is a kite being flown by the guy in
the following photo holding the reel to control it requiring gloves
and a strap. You cant see in the photo but high rise buildings are all
around, it didn't seem the safest place to launch a super high flying
kite.

Day 47 leaving Chengdu

After breakie & stocking up on noodles we got on the train to Kunming.
Instantly we appreciate the extra room we have by having the bed we
missed out on for the last two trains.
We past the time with planning activities in Kunming, our boarder
crossing to Vietnam and a rough overall plan for a two week stint
there.

Day 46 Chengdu

Yes the regular readers have noticed no posts on the blog for a week and even not being able to comment caused by a combination of a poor internet connection, problems with the user keyboard interface and a nanny state which almost seems to have cracked down on us, the usual methods were not working but at least its only a week till we hit internet freedom oh and Vietnam!

Dad has come to the blog rescue and unlocked the email upload so as it was wet outside today we spent the day deleting/uploading photos we took over a thousand in the national park and 400 odd got the chop. 

Now armed with a secret email address to upload the blog to, we put up all the blogs that we were missing. we had written them all and had them ready to upload...promise!

Another long train tomorrow but.... its going south so getting warmer aaaannnddd we have a bed on the train this time!

Day 45 Bus back to Chengdu

Familiar faces greeted us on the bus with some people we had talked to
heading back also.
During the steep climb up out of the valley it started snowing, parts
of the road had quite deep or compacted snow already and the forecast
was for it to continue for 3 days so we timed our trip well getting in
and out.
Passing through the earthquake area again was an exciting bit of the
bus trip with the new highway and various work in retaining walls and
clearing the river plenty of trucks are on the road, it's narrow &
windy and overtaking is done on blind corners & if things look close
ie. the on coming car is slowing but not slowing fast enough then the
overtaker toots and the overtaken car is too slow and let him back in.
There were many close calls & plenty of suicidal drivers.
Factual moment(Credit Wikipedia) the quake killed 90 thousand many of
those were children at school who died in the 7000 school buildings
that collapsed. Those who spoke out over the shoddy construction "Tofu
Buildings" were either paid off or arrested & jailed on destroying
social order charges. The parents who lost their one child were
offered procedures & fertility treatment to 'replace' the lost child.
The other exciting moments of the bus trip was the dust in the tunnels
which made for zero visibility keeping Rachel on the edge of her seat.
It's quite normal for a bus to refuel at any time even if it was a
short trip don't expect it to be full and ready beforehand. I saw the
diesel price today was 7.41yuan per litre €0.90 pretty cheap!

Day 44 Second Day in Jiuzhaigou Park