More Photos

If anyone is interested in more photo's I have added some to www.ringo.com, under Jane Preston, because we are limited for space on the blog.

Hong Kong - Hanoi

So I left Hong Kong last night for Vietnam. Hong Kong was great, although it was overcast and raining the majority of the time, it was a much more beautiful city that either Rob or I expected and can easily see why it is such a popular destination.

After coming overland from China we had our first meal in McDonalds (the cheapest place to eat in Hong Kong). We then headed for the ferry where we coincidently meet up Willard and Vera (a Dutch couple we meet in Everest, and again in Lhasa, and again in Xi'an). With a population or said million people who would have thunk it. But the following day, while waiting to meet Willard and Vera for lunch, we bumped into John.

Eventually we arrived at Rebekka, Andy and Izzy's apartment (my cousin and whanua) which was a much appreciated (and in Robs case needed) step into normality. Bek was a fantastic host (thanks heaps, it really is appreciated) and I proceeded to have a very lazy couple of days (I did wander the streets a bit, but when your not looking to buy it can become a bit dishearting). We went to the races on Wednesday, which was heaps of fun and definitely recommended (apparently the cheapest beer in town) and Dim Sum for lunch before I left (yum).

Today I have biked around Hanoi. At about 10.30am it absolutely monsooned down (at one point the thunder was so loud it actually hurt my eardrums) so I jumped into a cafe just in time for a drink. Once it cleared it was great fun tackling the massive puddles covering the road. I managed to tick off the 10 must-does so tomorrow will be a more relaxing day and I'll head to Sapa (up north) by overnight train tomorrow.

DKNY - Dali Kunming 'n Yangshou

We finished up our stay in Lijiang, and set out for fresh pastures in the town of Dali a few hours away. Dumped by the bus at the fringes of the town we spent an hour wandering around in heavy packs and oppressive heat looking for the town, until we discovered that our guide book map was out of date and the bus station had apparently moved. Back on track we found a very nice room in a hotel with ensuite for $10 per night. Dali is another small town aimed at the tourist, it is very cheap (you can survive for $10-15 a day quite happily) with lots of markets and pedestrian only streets, but not quite as pretty as Lijiang's "ancient city". It specialises in stoneware and marble, which is very cheap to buy here, stone vases, birdbaths, statues and carvings, gems and minerals etc. We re-met John, a Tibetan fellow traveller from our Jeep and an NZ beekeeper from Geraldine called Craig and an Estonian who I am sure was called Renault (it's not just Germans who name people after cars), for cheap BBQ meat skewer dinner from a street vendor.

Following day we hired bicycles to cycle down to the huge lake (Taupo sized) a few kilometers away. This was pretty miss-able except for the entertainment of riding a bike with a seat made of leather covered masonry over rough farm tracks for a few miles and then carrying said bikes cross country over irrigation systems to try to get where we wanted to go when we got ourselves a little misplaced. We stopped for a quick snack at a warf where we had a "waterbird" - think roasted sparrow on a stick - while avoiding other delights such as a huge bullfrog, and dragonfly nymphs which the vendor assured us would give us the shits (with funny hand actions). Back to town we decided against taking the cable car to see Dali JAM (just another monastry) and had a lazy afternoon wandering the streets and markets.

Kunming came after a 5 hour bus ride the next morning and with a couple of hours to kill before katching a train to Guilin we went to the Bird Market which sells pets of all types and also has a fantastic arts market. Hectares of shops with amazing furniture, carvings, stoneware, paintings, glassware, antiques etc. If I ever become one of those boring and smug home-owning types I will be coming back here to fill a container with furnishings and various objet d'art. On to the train for Guilin and remet John yet again.

After overnighting on the train we finally left Yunnan and arrived in Guilin a few hundred kilometers from Hongkong in the middle of a monsoon downpour, the first rain we had encountered since entering china three weeks ago. We got wet waiting for the taxi to take us to the city. We got far wetter unloading from the taxi in the middle of the city in the middle of a large public square. We ran for an awning and planned our movements. 1st buy umbrellas (which process got the wetness level up to the point that umbrellas were basically pointless), 2nd look for accomodation. John and Rob wandered around for 30 minutes looking for anything reasonable (nothing under $10 per person found), and getting pissed off with the city, we decamped from our awning to a nearby McDonalds where we started to dry and gorged on bad food for $3 each. Decision made we left the city to travel to Yangshou, a tourist village an hour away and nestled on the Li River in amazing countryside with huge steep rock columns of 1-300m rising all over a relatively flat river plain, a bit like Monument Valley in the US (Favorite for Western movies) but wet.

Yangshou is a great wee village of waterways, rocky spires, and cafes. We found cheap accomodation, though we had to endure the hard sell on tours from our hotel patron for an hour. Eventually got through to him that we didn't want them, and certainly not at 4 times the market rate. We went out for dinner, where we were treated to the amazing sight of two hot air balloons dipping down over the steep rocky hills surrounding the village, one of which touched down on a pond surrounded by restaurants before lifting off and flying away again. We came back to massacre the 30 mosquitos that had made it into our room (very satisfying in purported malaria country), then watched american cheerleading competitions (think synchronised gymnastics) with chinese commentary on TV, and listened to a scottish guy doing his nut at the aforementioned hotel patron at 1am about how he wanted his money back after being ripped off on something or rather.

From Xi'an to Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge

So we left Xi'an in the evening for a 2 night one day train trip to Panzhihua. We had initially booked a hard sleeper and a hard seat taking turns at having a sleep. The train was nothing compared to the luxury of the Lhasa to Xi'an train. I took the first turn in the sleeper only to wake the next morning to find that Princess Robina had upgraded to a soft sleeper and had a complete compartment (4 beds) to himself. We were dropped off at Panzhihua at 4am and proceeded to negotiate with the bus drivers outside to take us to Lijiang. It was only when we were dropped off at the bus station that we realised we had been talking to the wrong people. We managed to make it Lijiang thought and what a great city. It has an old quarter which has pretty much become a tourist haven and at night there are a row of bars along either side of a narrow little canal which is lined with red lanterns and becomes very lively at night (with singing battles between patrons and staff of opposing bars, judged principally on volume).

The chinese tourists (which make us pretty much 90% of the tourist population in China). Some of the bars have got pretty good music and it is a lot of fun. You can even order Chateau Lafette Rothschild (a snip at over $650 per bottle) and NZ lamb chops ($10), however we opted for Tsingtao beer at the outrageous price of $2 per bottle ($0.50 in shops).



The day after arriving in Lijiang we headed to Tiger Leaping Gorge which is about 2 hours away from Lijiang. Arrived at around 11.30am and headed on our merry way. And we were lost. We asked some locals were we were and we had missed the turn off. Not surprising when there are no signposts, only occasional advertisments for the next guesthouse painted on rocks. The walk follows the gorge along at a high level so you get great views of the mountains. A fantastic walk the first day, but very hot in the sun. Lunch was at the Naxi Guesthouse and then a night at the Teahorse Guesthouse. The teahorse was kind enough to treat us to 2 spiders that must have been about 8cm's across as we were about to go to bed. They didn't last long, being no match for vulcanised footware. I also woke in the morning to find a centipede like insect that was about 5cm long about to nestle itself into our clothes. Again bested by the awesome kinetic power of the sandal.

Tiger leaping gorge is a steep rocky gorge between two 5000m mountains with a river level of about 1500-2000m. They are threatening to dam(n) it in a few years, which will be bad for a few thousand tourists and good for a few million chinese electricity users. It gets its name from a point in the Yangtse river where a very large rock has fallen into the middle of the torrent and divided the river into two flows of only about 15m width each, legend has it that a tiger once evaded hunters by leaping from bank to rock to bank. It is very spectacular, with steep rock cliffs rising 1000-1500m up on one side of the river. A rock-climbers wet dream and a roadbuilders nightmare.

On day two we descended 200m into the gorge on a private-enterprise track which we had to pay 10 Yuan to go down ($1.60) and dipped our feet in the mighty Yangtse. The walk up was a bit scary, stung for another $1.60 at the bottom before we are allowed to ascend we climb up a cliff face on hewn rock stairs that at one part includes a ladder made of 6mm steel rod welded into a lattice and bolted, glued and tied to sticks stuck into the cliff face. Again very hot and exhausting, but definitly worth it. We stayed a Sean's guesthouse on day two which had a great deck to sit and view the stars and sunset and the massive 1000m high cliff faces on the opposite side of the gorge, we were a little dissapointed that there was no rain as there were markings for waterfalls of at least this height as well. The power seemed to be an issue in the gorge due to slips etc and the only meals on the menu where chicken vegetable burrito (very good) and fried chicken vegetable. Basically the same thing, just served a different way. The menu also boasted that "for our very special friend we have Real Good Stuff" which would tend to back up our observation of a particular plant that seemed to grow a lot around the toilets of the guesthouses. We had a great night there with lots people to have a few drinks with and enjoy the scenery. An Irish guy we were with tried to start a fight with the only English man within probably 30km which was pretty funny, but hostilities were abandoned due to a lack of firearms/interest.



The trip out was a bit scary, so say the least. There have been two massive (and some minor) landslides across the road the preceding week (we ran into a German Chick who was there for this, who had to run along the road due to lack of vehicles and fear of falling rocks). We had to take 3 minibuses in a relay to get out, with drivers of a somewhat kamikaze bent, swerving across the narrow road to avoid boulders at 60km/hr on blind corners over shear drops. Who knows how the minibuses got in there in the first place. The most scary bit was the fact that the road in many places was pretty shear and there were a ridiculous number of smaller slips and boulders on the road with the odd bit of gravel still coming down (the one thing the drivers would slow for). Didn't give us overwhelming confidence. We did get out safe though and back to Lijiang for a great burger at an English pub and a night out on the canal.