From Yuanyang we went al the way to Lijiang, up north. From here we hiked through the Tiger Leaping Gorge. A nice gorge to hike through but if the Chinese will decide to built a series of dams there is not much going to be left of this gorge, it will all be flooded. Even though this is more the countryside where we are, you can still see that they are building everywhere. Especially the infrastructure is being worked hard at. In Lijiang we were actually surprised by how many Dutch people come to this place. From Lijiang we will go to Dali and then more down south to Jinghong. Up until now traveling through China has been a lot easier than we expected it to be. Every time we got on a bus we managed to be on the correct one, but it does ...
We skipped Sapa in Vietnam to visit this place because they have even more rice fields here and fewer tourists. Hardly any English is spoken in this place. So it was quite extraordinary that we managed to make a beautiful hike through the fields without a proper map and without getting lost. In the end we got pointed the right direction by school children who understood we wanted to go back to the main city. Even though this area of China is not polluted and offers beautiful scenery the people however are something you have to get used to. The spitting thing is really disgusting, everybody does it, but after a while you just have to ignore it
From Hanoi on our way to China we took a sleeper train. Normally that is a moment where you have to really look after your stuff since a lot of things get stolen on these trains. But luckily a family stayed on the other two bunks in our cabin. Not so lucky was that they had a 2 year old with them so no sleeping for us on the sleeper train since the kid did nothing but cry. And being a good Chinese, the mother shouted at the kid the whole night. The border crossing was of course another adventure. We had put our lonely planet deep in on of our backpacks because apparently the Chinese customs people sometimes confiscates them. Something to with Tibet and Taiwan which they still consider to be China. Weird. We were not the only ones crossing ...
On the way to Hanoi we stopped in a couple of towns. And since the weather was still so good it involved a lot of beach time. In one of the towns we had some clothes made since it is really cheap to do that here. So after dumping a few old clothes we found a spot in my backpack which now weighs about 30 kg and gives me a hard time putting the thing on my back. In Hanoi we found a nice hotel in a very busy street. And since life starts very early here because of the heat we were woken up every day when the market people started, at 5.30 am. From Hanoi we went to Halong bay on one of those dreaded tours. But since the area is beautiful we did not mind too much. We met some nice people on the boat and enjoyed some relaxing time sunbathing. ...
From Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon. Not a very exciting ride but made more exciting by our never-use-the-break bus driver. Also the border crossing was rather interesting. You have to give your passport to the guy on the bus. He then has them exit stamped and them gives them to the customs guy. Who them shouts the persons name and looks if the face in the passport matches the face of the person entering the bus. A waterproof system? Then sort of the same thing happens when we entered Vietnam to get our entry stamp. You sort of stand in line hoping they do not lose your passport and one hour later we were in Vietnam.
At the moment we are in Saigon but are leaving for Mui Ne, on the coast, tomorrow the 6th Saigon is a ...
We did our homework before crossing into Cambodia because the people at the borders are notorious for their tricks and scams. So after dodging the bus in which they charge you rip of prices, not paying double for a short tuktuk drive to the actual border crossing and telling the guy who claims that the border is closed and only he can get us a visa (for more money of course) to stuff it, we thought we were doing a good job. So then when we reached the border customs we hit a wall. The going rate to get your visa at the border is 20 US dollars but the customs guys here insist that you pay in Thai bath, a 1000 to be precise. Now this is 30 US dollars. But since these are the guys providing the visa’s we had to pay them, hence welcome to ...
From Koh Tao we went straight to Bangkok. And for nostalgic reasons we went to the same guesthouse where Martine went 10 years ago. And although the city has changed a lot since then, the guesthouse was pretty much the same, apart from the name change, or better; they put the word “new” in front of it, indicating that the place had changed. After going to the Grand Palace and seeing the declining 45m big Buddha, a really impressive thing at Wat Pho, Bangkok is also a great place to shop!!! But since we are still not at the end of our travels we did not stock up on loads of stuff. Funny how our backpacks, even though we throw away stuff occasionally or completely wear our clothes until they are so worn they just disappear in thin air, ...
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