Merry Christmas from Ha Long Bay

This is just a short post to say a late merry Christmas to everyone who pays attention to this blog (feel free to comment any replies). This isn't in order, there is no detail and there is more to come in between Laos and Vietnam where we are now. Here are just a few pictures of how we spent our Christmas in Ha Long Bay.

Christmas Day morning on the deck of the Jolly Roger (3rd beer in hand at 8am)

 Some other travellers on the tour with us

 The private island out in the bay where we stayed all Christmas day

The type of view that goes on for miles: a surreal way to spend Christmas

Laos Part 1

We decided to enter Laos via a river crossing and then take the slow boat down the Mekong into the first destination we were heading for. This decision was based partly on the fact that it sounded pretty cool and partly on the fact 2 girls left taking the same route a couple of days before we were due to leave and it meant we didn't have to think or plan.

The boat trip took two full days in total most of which was spent chatting, drinking and listening to music (including a good few hours on 80s classics that seemed to win a few friends). To make sure we had good cold beer for the journey we bought bottles and polystyrene cooler (christened Coolio). After the first day on the boat we stayed at a small town on the bank overlooking the Mekong, not that we noticed quite how good the view was until the morning. 

 

 

The final destination of the slow boat was Luang Prabang in the North of Laos, as is our custom we went out and drank to much after the long time spent travelling (this way works better than doing it before journeys). The town itself was a nice place, though as with all of Laos there is a midnight curfew which meant drinking was forced into a pattern similar to the old days in England. Luckily a security guard in our hostel was willing to sell beers to us after this time for only a slight premium. The main attraction of Luang Prabang were the nearby Tat Kuang Si waterfalls, about a half hour drive in the back of an over sized Tuk Tuk. After the slight disappointment of the appearance of the falls around Pai we were hoping for something a little better here. As the photo below shows we got our wish.

The lower levels of the falls had pools where it was possible to swim and there was even a rope swing set up. At the top of the riverside path there was a huge waterfall that it was possible to climb over. The walk up took about half an hour through very steep jungle paths, when we eventually reached the top the path seemed to end. We figured out that we were supposed to paddle through the water along the top of the waterfall; about 30 to 40 meters up! Halfway across my flip flop decided now was the time to break leaving me to plunge into the water... camera in hand. Luckily the camera was off and by some miracle (and with the help of an overheating fuse box in our hostel) it dried off and started working the next day! I wasn't so lucky, managing the cut my toe and wrist, though the worst part was the view from the top was really not worth it.

After a few days we took a bus down to Vang Vieng - tubing town. Unfortunately the first day down there I developed a sudden sickness and had to take a day off from doing any tubing, opting for sleep instead. The day after I was ready and we got our tubes and went down to the river for just after midday. The river wasn't really as we expected, all of the bars were within 100 meters of each other and they were pretty much all seemed accessible by walking! This was confirmed by the fact that most people were tubing without tubes. We followed their lead after the first day as we only actually tubed for about 50 meters! The bars all have their own zip lines, slides and rope swings however a combination of hearing stories of death, witnessing bloody falls and seeing a broken leg occur meant that we steered well clear. We both agreed that though tubing was fun it is really no more than getting drunk in a different location and not the amazing life experience people had made it out to be!

Our next stop in Laos was the capital city Vientiane, really only on the itinerary as we needed to apply for Thai visas so that we could stay longer than 15 days on our return. The road there was fairly boring so the picture below is from the road to Vang Vieng. There really wasn't much to do in Vientiane and not many sights to see beyond a replica of the Arc de Triomphe. This was apparently built with compensation from America that was supposed to be to build an airport hence it's nickname the vertical runway. To say we actually visited would be a lie, the photo was taken from the taxi as we were leaving!

Pai

Our little trip to Pai was only short as it is only a very small place with not all that much to do. Pai was only 85km from Chiang Mai but took 3 hours on minibus thanks to the steep terrain in between the two towns. We didn't do too much on the first day due to a lingering hang over from the night before though we did manage to find an interesting place to stay; a small bamboo bungalow in the edge of the jungle right by the riverside. This seemed like a good idea in the day but after the sun had set it was ridiculously dark and inhabited with many insects and a whole load of ants.

The second day there we rented motorbikes as they were only £3 for a whole day including insurance, something we weren't expecting. The bikes were 110cc simple twist and go things but would be useful as the main sights of Pai were all out of town. 

The area surrounding Pai was beautiful and made for a very nice day riding. The main attractions we visited were waterfalls and whilst they weren't the most spectacular locations they made for a nice escape from the heat of the day. 

Other than waterfalls there was a bridge known as the World War II bridge built by prisoners of war to allow Japanese forces to transport weapons into Burma. Apparently the war had finished by the time route was ready and so it was not actually used. (Not just a boring diary but also educational now too!)

Though we didn't really get up to much we both enjoyed Pai as it was very peaceful making a nice change from the nights we spent in Chiang Mai. One of the best parts about the town was the 3 course steak dinner available at a restaurant for about £2!

Chiang Mai

Though Chiang Mai seemed like it would be a nice quiet place after all the drinking and not much else in Bangkok it turned out not to be at all. We met a group of people on the first day and ended up going out with them nearly every night we were there. On the plus side we did at least do things (mostly animal related) during the day as well! The first stop of our animal tour of Chiang Mai was the Tiger Kingdom; a tiger sanctuary not far out of town where they let you get in the cages with the tigers. According to the signs the tigers aren't drugged they are just hand reared and well fed! They split the tigers up into different size groupings and as the smallest were most expensive we decided to go for the largest (to make sure we got the most tiger for our money). They really are quite docile though it did seem they weren't drugged as occasionally they would make a quick movement, luckily the trainers were well armed... with a short piece of bamboo!

On our way out of the centre we got a bonus extra animal as a guy from the snake farm down the road was there with a small snake. He took great pleasure in putting on my head and then trying to make it eat my face. Later in the day we headed to the zoo in town (yeah another zoo). Though the animals themselves weren't that special compared to everything else we had seen the completely lax safety measures were worth seeing as was the fact that most of the animals could have simply walked out of their enclosures if they had wanted to!

A couple of days later we spent a whole day visiting a nearby elephant sanctuary. As we arrived we were handed a set of clothes to wear for the day including a massive pair of tie on shorts, a tribal vest and a head scarf. We started by picking the elephant we would be riding for the day though somehow I missed that this was going on, as a result I was stitched up with the youngest and craziest who would not stand still for one second. After feeding them a tonne of bananas to gain some trust we were taught various basic controls and then after lunch headed off up a hill riding on the neck of our elephants. It turned out that though my elephant (celled Dee) was smaller, when she had someone riding her she calmed down, stopped dancing around and as actually the best behaved of all of them. Pete seemed to end up with the worst deal as his elephant just constantly wanted to walk off and eat. When it wasn't allowed to do this it just picked up a 6 foot tree branch and swung that around a bit! 

The culmination of the day was jumping off our elephant's head into a watering hole and then splashing around with them. Being young and a little mental my elephant decided to run straight in and roll me off into the water, at one point I did fear for my life when I was surrounded by 4 elephants with my feet stuck in the mud but I managed to clamber out with my foot only slightly trodden on!

The only downside to Chiang Mai was the amount of times we managed to pick a perfectly nice looking restaurant, only to realise we were surround by crass older white men either with or talking loudly about their various Thai girlfriends.

Oh yer and I called a girl a prostitute.

Bangkok

This will be a short entry as we were in Bangkok only as long as it took us to apply for our Vietnamese visas. Most of the time we were there was spent drinking or recovering from drinking or a mixture of the two. Apart from that we did make it to the statue of a 40m long gold reclining Buddah but it was the middle of the hottest day since we had arrived so our enthusiasm didn't last long. That night we managed to get a bus North to Chiang Mai which will make a much more interesting post when I get around to it, at least I'm technically only 1 country behind now!

Shanghai and Hong Kong

The train to Shanghai and onwards was interesting. To save some money we had picked the 3rd class sleeper train. This was like the trains in Russia but rather than 2 bunks there were 3. As we had booked late the only bunks left were the top which meant us being about 9 feet in the air and having about 2 feet of headroom for the journey. The journey wasn't too bad as we slept most of it until at about half 7 in the morning the TV came on full volume and stayed on for the next 2 hours!

 
Shanghai was a fleeting one night visit for us as the train to Hong Kong ran only on the odd days in the month and we had a flight to catch. We spent most of the time in Shanghai on the river front called the Bund which looked out over to the financial district of the city. It seemed we were like celebrities down there with many Chinese people taking sneaky pictures of us.

 
The train to Hong Kong was the same as the previous one, only this time we had the middle bunks with (luckily) empty beds above us. When we arrived we found a place to stay in the misleadingly named Chung King Mansions. This was easily the worst place we had stayed in but it was only for 2 nights and was relatively cheap. On our first evening we (finally) put shorts on and had an ice cream on the sea front. Here they have a version of the Hollywood walk of fame but for Chinese/Hong Kong stars such as Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.

 
The next day we took a surprisingly cheap ferry ride to one of Hong Kongs surrounding islands to find a beach. After some lunch and a wander around the little harbour area we found a deserted beach and swam for a while; such a big change from the snow in Mongolia a few weeks earlier! 

When we returned to the city we decided to take a night time ride up the peak tram to the top of the hill behind Hong Kong city. They absolutely pack you onto the tram meaning I didn't get a seat, though it was a good way to experience how steep the route actually is. After a bit of time at the top admiring the views of the city we went to get the tram back down, however the queue was crazy so we decided it would take longer than walking down. We were wrong. We ended up walking down crazily steep, pitch black paths through jungle-like areas around the back of Hong Kong. After about 40 minutes of jumping at random noises we finally made it back to the safety of the city!

 
At Hong Kong airport the next day me and Pete accidentally decided to test the security enforcement. I left suncream in my hand luggage and Pete a cutlery set including a knife; of course with the world wide threat of terrorism neither of these items were discovered...

Beijing

Due partly to a mistake by us and partly a mistake by a stranger from the internet we would be spending quite a lot of time in Beijing rather than elsewhere in China. Our first experience wasn't great; a taxi driver (not having much luck with them!) tried to massively rip us off though we luckily managed to dodge his advances. We ended up staying on a really nice little street; a good balance between local restaurants and people with the occaisional hostel.

Since we arrived quite late we ended up just going for a walk and then out to an R 'n' B club called Mix in the grounds of the local football stadium in the evening with a group of people we had met earlier in Mongolia. With our first full day we visited the Olympic park which was very impressive except for the constant attempts to sell us kites and other tourist crap. 

The second day we visited some of the markets around the city and discovered how crazy the bartering is here! For example we were first quoted about £37 for one fake Beijing football shirt and ended up paying £15 for 2 shirts and 2 pairs of shorts. We also witnessed a lot of what appears to be the number 1 past time of Chinese people; clearing their throats and spitting... EVERYWHERE. The worst example of this was when a man actually got up and spat on the floor of a restaurant we were eating in! China was weird in so many ways; a simple example being the regular subway vents that appeared as mushrooms dotted all around the city.

 On our fifth day in Beijing my degree results were due to be released, though due to the time difference and the usual efficiency of Manchester University I was expecting this to happen at about 5pm Beijing time. Luckily I checked just before we left the hostel in the afternoon and discovered them already there (for anyone who didn't already know I somehow managed to swindle a Distinction). That made for a very happy Nelson so we decided to visit Beijing zoo the highlight of which was the Pandas though they weren't as giant as the name suggested and I didn't see any of the fall over all day.

The next day we decided to tick off a few easy must do's in Beijing since we were hanging from celebrating the night before. We had a leisurely walk around the Temple of Heaven park and located an acrobatics theatre to visit that night. The acrobatics was really as amazing as you could imagine with human bodies flying everywhere on various ropes, poles and other obstacles. The skill in controlling other props; such as drums with their feet and throwing hats was also impeccable and made the whole show well worth the money. Afterwards we decided to continue the theme and visited a restaurant for some Peking duck from it's home town. Though the price somehow managed to largely increase during the meal we were still satisfied as it was easily the best duck any of us had every had. Overall the food in China was really good and a nice break from both the expense of Russian and the blandness of Mongolian cuisine. 

 On our final full day in Beijing we finally made it out of the city to visit the great wall. To make sure it was a little more interesting and quieter we were heading for a section that was a few hours from the capital but had not seen any restoration since the 1500's. The views from the wall as it ran along the tops of the biggest hills in the area were truly stunning and Carl Pilkington was right it really does stretch out as far as you can see, just like the M6. Certain sections where we were we also almost vertical and required climbing using hands as well. The only thing was missing from the day were the Mongolians attacking; they must have been having a day off.

On our final morning me and Pete visited forbidden city and whilst impressive neither of us would recommend viewing it from inside. It is quite expensive very samey with the more interesting run down sections hidden from public view. Instead the best way to see it is from the top of a man made hill at the North end. Entry to this little park worked out at about 20p and from the temple on the top of the hill there were perfect views of not only the forbidden city but also Beijing as a whole. We also spotted a few older Chinese women dancing in time, with fans amongst the parks features. 

Before leaving the city we made sure to donate some of our winter clothes to a group of homeless people we had noticed not far from our hostel, they seemed very happy though quite confused to be receiving gifts from strange foreigners!