Hoi An Part 2

Some more pictures from Hoi An, note my new tailored suit, I like it and hopefully it it will be on its way home as I type.

Scuba diving in Nha Trang, Vietnam

Today we went scuba diving, this makes our grand total of dives to 13. We dived with a company called Rainbow diving and had a local guide called Duc. He stopped logging his dives when he reach 4000, so we have a long way to go before we get to that standard.

We did 1 dive at Debby Beach and 1 at Moray Beach. We have no photos from the dives as our camera doesn't have a housing, but we took some whilst snorkeling in between.

We saw Moray eels, Puffer fish, Barracudas, Cuttlefish Parrot fish, Angel fish, Wrasse and some of the other usual suspects. The eel was mean looking, reminded me of the thing that lives in the asteroid in Empire Strikes Back.

After the big old fat rain

We left Ha Long Bay on Sunday and arrived in Hoi An via Hue yesterday. Its been an interesting few days...

Electric Shock #1 Parts A, B, C and D
The showers on our island retreat in Cat Ba were interesting in that every time you touched the tap, you got an electric shock. Shock part A was the discovery shock, at first I thought I'd just twinged my elbow, but then shock part B proved that it was more than that. Shock C was for fun and shock D for pleasure... After that we thought it wise not to have anymore showers.

Electric Shock #2
After we got back to Hanoi from our trip we went to our hotel to dry off. We had a nice relaxing evening and an early night. When I used the switch on the cord to turn out the light there was this almighty blinding flash. The cord fell apart in my hands and I was left holding what remained. Thankfully I didn't receive any current, but my finger was covered in black soot.

The Great Escape
Picture a 1940's bridge in Germany, with a couple of German soldiers each armed with a bayonet, stabbing at a farmers hay truck checking for escaped POWs. That what it must of been like for the Cockroach hiding in Kate's Vermichelli. With each stab of her chop stick, he must have been sweating more and more until it just got too much and had to make a break for it. Dispite the shock of the situation for us, I managed to capture the roach in my chopsticks to show to the waitress. Kate has come along way from standing on a chair, screaming at the sight of the little buggers running round our room in Australia. She received a new serving of Vermin-chelli and carried on eating.

The night bus for little people
14 hours on the night bus was easier for Kate, hard for Tim. The bus is made up with about 40 bunk beds, each with the head of one person, resting over the legs of the one behind. The concept is fine, but the designers must have used the height of the average local man when deciding how much room to give. Kate as a result had loads, I on the other hand had none. Add to this the fact that Vietnam doesn't have roads, and that the bus driver needs to beep his horn constantly to prevent him from running people over. The best bit was when the bus drive started praying at the front of the bus for a safe journey, that really made me feel comfortable.

Hue, tally ho, Barf Barf!
When we arrived at Hue, I felt really rough, so we had an hour or so sleep before heading off to see the sights. As the day went on I began to feel worse and worse, until eventually, just after we went to bed in our shared dorm room at 8pm, I started to be ill from both ends. This went on every hour all night, much to the delight of me and the poor sods I was sharing a room with. The next day, Kate looked after me whilst we decided if I could make the 3 hour bus journey to Hoi An as planned. I plugged myself up on Imodium and we made a dash for the bus. In the end all was fine, we arrived in Hio An without trouble and a very nice place it is indeed.

All this makes Vietnam sound like a place worth missing, but it just adds to the fun. Vietnam is really nice, the people are lovely for the most part and it's extremely pretty. Looking out the bus as we drove through the country side was so interesting, with School kids dancing in the playground, water buffelo wandering in the rice fields, a chicken legging it across the road, little temples outside the villages to honour the village founder, miltary graveyards from the Vietnam war, tiny shops selling everything from sugar canes and fruit to car parts, all of the them held together with Bamboo, a shop selling coffins in all sizes (big and, unfortunately, very small)...

Its an amazing place and really worth a visit.

Back from Ha Long Bay

China catch-up

Believe it or not, but the Chinese government don't like you visiting some websites whilst within their country. The ones we couldn't access were Picasa, Facebook and our Blogger site. In fact you would do well to access any blog site. Here in Hong Kong its not quite the same, they have different rules which means we can update the blog a bit more. Above are a collection of pictures we couldn't post due to not being able to access the blog site.

Thanks for all the comments on the blog, there will be more to come once we can access them better. On Monday we fly to Vietnam, its a whole other country...

HongKong, China lite with 10% service charge all round

Light shows to cheesy music, neon everywhere, bird markets mixed with IT stalls, its China light with Soho prices.

Our room is nice but has no windows and is about the same size as my car boot. Yesterday we took a ride up the Victoria peak to take a peak at the city scape. Today we purchased a new camera. Our old camera broke in Queenstown, our new camera has developed a spec of dust which is really annoying, not to mention ruining our pictures. The new new one is waterproof, freeze proof and shock proof. Hopefully it will take some pictures.

Tomorrow we're going to try and scrub up and have afternoon tea at a posh hotel, I'll be OK, Kate will need a lot of work.

Climbing Low Mountain with China Climb

A fun half day had by me! I took up a chance with the local climbing company Climb China to climb one of the many lime stone mountains. This one was called Low Mountain, which is odd as they are all the same size. I didn't climb all the way to the top, but I did 5 climbs on a total of 3 routes. The climbing was excellent and the guides Si, Katie, Joe and Andy were good fun.

Whilst I was climbing, Kate was drinking tea and shopping, she brought a lovely skirt :)

Kate and I celabrated our achievements with the thickest milkshake ever!

Li River Cruising

The winter smog didn't help too much with the photo opportunities, but the cruise was pleasant and interesting. The area is made up of a large number of limestone mountains, all the same height. They where created over millions of years from an old sea bed collapsing. The tops of the mountains which are all the same height are in fact the sea bed and all that remains from the walls of giant caves created by erosion. The mountains are still growing, this as a result of two plates colliding.

Lets go climb one!

Colourful Caving

The America's take you on carefully guided tours with Rangers who insist that you don't touch the cave walls to preserve the environment. The Kiwi's take you down a cave and then drop you 100m or make you climb a waterfall. The Chinese raid the BHS lighting store and place as many as they can, what ever colour all over the place. Throw in a bubble maker, smoke machine and lasers and you have a crazy experience.

The caverns in this cave were massive, and to be fair they did a great job with the lighting. The special light show in the main cavern (which was massive) was funny. It was good fun all round, if a little odd.

Guess the odd one out

Just a quick update, we're in Guilin at the moment. The Terracotta army are pretty impressive, and Panda's are cute! John Prescott is neither of these...

My head hurts!

Last night was fun, we had a dumpling party at the hostel. A group of us made and ate our own dumplings under the watchful eye of the hostel chef. We then proceeded to drink some Chinese spirit which can only be compared to brush cleaner. We both have a thick head this morning. There's no sign of our Dutch and Australian drinking partners, they are refusing to surface.

 

All Good Fun!

Its a great wall, but it will look alot better when it's finished

I think we had one of the best days ever for visiting the wall, the snow was being cleared by teams of Chinese workers so we could walk on it and the sun was out. We were able to walk about 1km along the wall, through several watch towers. All the towers had been refurbished along this section, but the wall still seemed to retain some of the original feel. The other benefit of piss poor weather is that there were very view tourists.

The lack of tourists and the cold weather did not deter the souvenir sellers who line the street leading to the wall. About 40 sellers, all selling the same shit, don't let you walk by without a 'Hey Lady! want to buy 3 T-shirts for a dollar!' or as Kate got: 'Hey mister, want to buy some nice looking shoes!'.

We caught the train from Beijing to Xi'an last night and all went well. We shared our cabin with 2 Chinese chaps who had their mate over from another cabin for a game of cards. I'm not sure what they were playing but it looked like snap. Every card that was played was thrown down like the last card to win a million. They were really nice guys and aside from the cabin being a bit hot, all was well.

Once we arrived at Xi'an we got chatting with an Irish chap and a English chap from Stoke on Trent. The Irish guy was really nice and told us about how he had fun at the silk market (dirt cheap place to buy knock off goods). He would go around the dress stalls asking to try on the dresses, the poor girls who run the stalls and are normally very pushy and irritating with their sales style were suddenly caught on the back foot. All they could say was 'Your crazy mister!'

The lad from Stoke said he had had a great day in Beijing, he had made friends with a couple of Chinese people who had taken him round town and then to a tea merchants for some tea tasting. At the end of the tasting he was presented for a bill for £140, not Chinese, British. He believed that it had been a great day out and that when we told him he had been scammed, he said "no way, they offered to pay for the tea tasting, but I insisted on paying", he told us he used to work for HSBC (that worldly wise bank), if I have any money with them I'd move it right away.

Off to see the plant pot warriors tomorrow, will keep you posted. My last note of worldly wise experience is this: If you see a burger on the menu that says, 'Bacon and cheese burger' don't assume it will have a bloody burger in it!

Team GB wins again at 2010 Beijing Winter Olympic Games

Despite the -12 degrees Celsius temperatures (wind chill -22), Team GB won gold in the Cycling and Snow Flake lifting. Team member Tim Burnett reported that they were challenging conditions and once he had stopped giving Kate a backie he was able to speed up no end. Kate Dunn said that she lifted 34 snow flakes without feeling any strain although the experience had left her hands and toes very cold.

 

Team GB celebrated with 30p bottles of beer and a warm bowl of strewed pig fat and noodles which seems to be very popular in Beijing.

Happy New Year from Shanghai

Last night we welcomed in the new year, similar to most in that we had a Chinese meal and a few beers. We then headed down to the Captains Bar which had a great view of the Pu Dong area. The sky was filled with Chinese lanterns (the orange dots in the sky) carrying the new years wishes of many, it was a beautiful sight. The roof top was crowded ready for the countdown and then on one of the 3000 skyscrapers a big clock appeared ready. The clock struck midnight and fireworks started, big rockets with big bangs, it was cool.

 

I hope you have a wonderful and safe New Year!