Into the Middle Kingdom

We are now in Beijing facing a day indoors as it is raining outside. We went out first thing this morning to the Mongolian Embassy & picked up our visas. Also booked our train tickets to Ulaan Baator for Saturday so we are well on the way. Got thoroughly wet for our troubles but it was worth it. So our passports now have an exotic lot of visas in them.

But as usual I am getting a little ahead, I left off in Hanoi where we had just arrived. I much preferred HCMC - the people in hanoi were really aggressive & never let you alone. "buy this, buy that, ride in my taxi, take this tour, eat my food" - it was quite unrelenting & some got a bit stroppy if you did not submit. Anyway I guess that they have yet to fully adapt to a true service economy. We ended up in the Old Quarter wich was quite atmospheric. Got a fairly ordinary hostel room but it was CHEAP & the owners were very gooid & helpful. The down side was that our room was uip 5 flights of very narrow stairs!!.

What did we do in & around Hanoi? Well first & foremost was a cruise on Halong Bay. A junk cruise at that. Well a motorised junk cruise - but very good for all that. HB is a world heritage site & it is pristine. All these small beautiful islands (1600) set in a sheltered bay - the mist swirls around early in the morning & it is just a stunning sight as things slowly appear. Islands are covered in trees with rock foreshores. We had a night on the junk then a night on the only inhabited island (Cat Ba). We did all the good touristy things - swimming, kayaking, trekking, caving (on a small island with this huge long cave) but the environment made it all really good. The junk never went that quick so you had plenty of time to see & appreciate
the scenery. So it was US $120 well spent. There were little floating villages permanently stationed in the middle of the bay. They had a great way of rowing their boats - they would stand up & then sort of scull backwards. One unusual person actually was rowing with their feet!!

Nextwas the Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi. It featured all the minority tribes in Vietnam - their customs, costumes & gave some video examples of their traditional lifestyle. One of the best museums I have seen. It had a great outdoor display in which some of their old longhouses & high thatched places were exhibited. If you are ever in Hanoi then this Museum is well worth a visit. Yoiu get the No 14 local bus from the old Quarter (D4000). It also had an excellent exhibition on the Vietnam subsidy economy (Bao Cao) in the 1980's ie when everything was under state control. It showed how people lived. For instance many kept a pig in their flats. THe back room (very small) was the pig pen. EVen in multi story block. People told their own stories which made it seem really immediate & certainly brought it to life.
Visited the mUseum of LIterature a very old temple complex which used to house Buddhist literary treasures. VEry nice peaceful place even with a horde of tourists. No monlks in evidence which was a bit of a shame. BUt lots of statues of Buddha in all his poses to make up for it. Many of the locals prayed very fervently to these statues. So religion was not stamped out by the authorities in the HCM days. MUch the same in China.

Finall we got our chinese visa (with not too many days left on our Vietnam one) so we hopped on a sleeper train to the border town of Lao Caio. THE idea was to visit SApa (a mountain village & apparently very scenic with lots of minority tribes) from there then come back after a few days & cross the border. Sleeper train was good - not much sleep as we played cards with an Aussie couple but we staggered out at LC & got a mini bus to Sapa. SCenery WAS great on the way up (mountains, rivers, steep valleys etc) but it was raining & misty when we got there & the place was chocker full of local tourists. So we turned around & came back & crossed into China the same day. Leaving Vietnam - no problems. Arriving cHina - we had our precious TRavel guide
confiscated by an overbearing officious customs guy. It showed Taiwan as a seperate country which isn't allowed - at least at this crossing. We met plenty of others who crossed at other places with no problem. Anyway we protested to no avail. He magnanimously took out the YUnnan pages though & left them with us. A great start.

Anyway ....... we booked seats on the overnight sleeper bus to Kunming. Now sleeper - I thought the seats recline a bit. Say like Sth America. But no. THe bus had bunks. 3 across & 2 high with a full width bench at the back. With that I thought that all my birthdays had come at once. Heres me with lEah & two beautiful danish girls at the back. I could see that I was in for a long night. But curses - at the first stop a chinese guy came up & ruined my nice little set up. It was acse of 4's company but 5 is a crowd. And it was esp as the road was super rough & the toilets the worst ever!! So another night without too much sleep.

Kunming was a nice open sort of city. It was hot & we spent most of our time exploring around the main centre & following the May DAy parade. We stayed at the YHA but never again. it was very ordinary & the 'loos were terrible. Filthy, smelly, doors broken, no running water - you name it they didn't have it.

We went from Kunming to DAli & Lijiang - both towns up to the north west. They were both completely overrun by chinese tourists - we picked a golden week, a weeks worth of national holidays for everyone. And it seemed as if everyone was travelling. A word of warning. Do not come to China at the beginning of May. You just can't move in the popular towns. Both towns had historic centres encircled by walls which were quite atmospheric. Lijiang had been rebult about 10 years ago after an earthquake. So it was a little new & somewhat "synthetic". But we only passed through there to get to the Tiger Leaping gorge. The TLG is on the Yangtze river. It is incredibly steep & deep (3,000m) & the walk along the high trail was a good challenge. We did it in two days which is about normal. Some take three & if you hurry & started early you could do it in 1. BUt you miss half the fun of staying in guest houses in little villages along the way. These villages are great - really picturesque, perched on the side of the hills in little valleys. Now they are reasonably authentic.

So that was a good experience & we went further north to Zhongdiane (Shangri La) up near the Tibet border. Nice place & I will tell you more about it in my next report.

We are off to Mongolia tomorrow on the train & from there we will head into Russia in about 3 weeks time. We have all our necessary visas so things should be smooth.

The hardships of travel in China

Travelling in China is hard work and it didn't bode well when entering the border from Vietnam,when this baby faced officious official confinscated our guide book. Why? because there Taiwan was printed in a different colour to the rest of China. Also English is not widely spoken so alot of sign lanuage is re'qd. Briefly, enjoyed Kumming Dali and LIjiang and esp two days hiking the Tiger Leaping Gorge. SW China has minority groups such as the Naxi cultures and their food is different and a nice change from Chinese food- one can get sick to death from rice and more rice!! Ablultions are on the whole disgusting. Not mind squatters but communal is beyond my comprehension and more often then not they haven't been cleaned since the Ming dysnasty, and whats more you have to pay! Its an ongoing complaint amongst us Westerners.

We are now in Xian and we have heard that getting a Russian visa in Baijing is frustrating and often fruitless but it is easier to get one from Shanghai. Crazy if we have to travel Shanghai. I was told in Sydney that we would have no trouble in Beijing? Somehow the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing!!

Well this leaves us taking off soon to visit the Teracotta Army and then deciding on our next destination which will mean another long overnight trip. The high and lows of travel!!