From China to Vietnam

After all the fun we had in Yunnan province we felt a bit sad to leave China but we knew it was time to move on and head south. For one thing, the weather in Yunnan started to get a bit chilly and we thought that the beaches of Vietnam sounded quite tempting.

To get to Vietnam we took a 10-hour bus ride from Kunming to the border. At the border we had to leave the bus and cross the border on foot. This wasn't quite as easy as it sounds; our bus dropped us off at the bus station in the border town of Hekou in the darkness and nobody could speak enough English to tell us which way the border was. In the end I took my passport out and they seemed to get the idea. We walked in the direction we were sent and came to a barrier. Over the barrier we could see a road leading to Vietnam but short of jumping the barrier we could see no way in. Finally a friendly (no irony here) Chinese border guard came to our assistance and directed us to a small dark alley where the entrance to the chinese customs was found

The procedure on the Chinese side was pretty straightforward; the borderguard took our passports and asked why we didn't have Vietnamese visas, I opened the page of my passport where the visa was and she was happy, then she studied my passport for a while and asked me where I'm from, I told her Finland and she pretended to know that it's a country. Then we were off to get our passports stamped and stared at at another desk and motioned to go to Vietnam. As we had no idea which exit to take we asked another border guard where Vietnam is, she looked at us a bit funny and said 'you go over the bridge'.

We managed our way across the bridge and reached Lao Cai, the Vietnamese side of the border. There three different people stared and stamped our passports without a word, then pointed at a piece of paper we were supposed to fill in with no pens, reluctantly gave us one pen to share and finally stamped the piece of paper and made a point of not welcoming us to Vietnam

As we left the building there were a number of shifty looking 'taxi drivers' offering to take us to places we didn't know. After a bit of bartering we took one of them up on his offer to drive us to Sapa, a little town in the mountains about an hour's drive away from Lao Cai. We probably paid far more then was the going rate for this journey but we got to Sapa just in time for dinner and booked ourselves into a fairly nice hotel



Sapa is quite an interesting place after China. The town has a very European style of architecture and they sell lovely hard crusted rolls (both thanks to the French colonialists, I guess). After the tranquility of the mountain towns of China, Sapa is a bit hectic, everyone and their grandmother is trying to sell you stuff. In fact, they are selling such random stuff that their most common sales pitch is 'you, buy something'.



Sapa is a beautiful place though, and if you can ignore the hawkers and the millions of mopeds it is a nice place to spend a couple of days. We have done a couple of half-day walks in the area and the scenery is pretty wonderful. Last night we also splashed out and spent 30 euros on a meal and a bottle of red wine (the first time we had any wine since Finland!), which was a nice change from local food and weak lager



Tonight we are going to catch our first Vietnamese night train to Hanoi. We are travelling in relative luxury compared to Chinese trains since we are in a compartment of only four people. What that is like in reality remains to be seen...

Going South

From Pingyao we moved on to Xi'an, it's another big city famed for it's 'army' of terracotta warriors, built some 2000 years ago, apparently to guard the tomb of a dead emperor. So we went to check that out, it was a very impressive sight. Like with the Great Wall in Beijing, I'm fascinated by the scale on which the Chinese build things and the great effort involved, and I often find myself asking what was the point, and was it ever really worth the huge effort?! But they are really spectacular sights, so I'm not complaining, and we're definitely enjoying!!



Besides the warriors, Xi'an has some nice old city walls that you can hike or bike around, and a picturesque muslim quarter; it was nice to browse the shops and eateries there. There are also plenty of temples but we skipped most of them, having had a bit of an overdose of temples in the past week. Oh, we also got another massage! No scars or bruises this time; our faith in Chinese medicine has been restored :-)



Then on from Xi'an we faced a 27 hour train journey to Guilin. Due to the long time we would be spending in the train, we tried to get soft sleeper tickets (equivalent of 1st class) but they had sold out, so we went for the next best thing and they had sold out too. So, we had to settle for a simple seat reservation. At 220 yuan (about 20 euros) for a 27 hour ride we figured we had a bargain and we could put up with anything that 3rd class travel had to throw at us. Well, it was certainly an experience, I wouldn't necessarily want to repeat it but it was far more interesting and entertaining than travelling in 1st or 2nd class. The train was jam-packed full of people, we were the only tall white ones so of course we caused quite a stir! Some people had reserved seats (like us), but some didn't, so they either squeezed themselves onto the side of someone else's seat, or they slept on the filthy floor, or in one case, in the sink! (I wish I'd taken a picture, but it was 3a.m. and I wasn't exactly thinking straight...)



I've developed a huge admiration for the way the Chinese behave; everyone in the train seemed more than willing to sqeeze themselves into the tiniest spaces so that a complete stranger could have a bit of their seat. I didn't give up mine but I had one sleeping baby after another dumped on my lap so that they could get a bit of rest! Another thing I really admire is that they are always happy and smiling, and never seem to complain about anything. At one point I was getting really annoyed by one girl sitting opposite to me who never stopped talking and laughing, it was 6 a.m. and the whole carriage could hear her. But rather then coming and telling her to shut up, the other passengers were coming over to our seats to listen to her stories, we had a huge crowd and everyone (well, everyone except the two grumpy white tourists!) joined in the conversation. I really admire their positivity, and I made a mental note to myself to try and be more tolerant of people in the future... let's see how long that lasts!

Throughout the day, as we travelled further south, the scenery outside became more hilly and interesting, and kept us entertained. Still, when we pulled into Guilin I think we were more than happy to get out and stretch our legs, get some fresh air and have a good wash! :-)

The next day we explored Guilin. It's really nice and warm here (about 26 degrees) and it's much less hectic and more scenic than the previous cities. We climbed one of the karst peaks in the city centre for some nice views of the city, had a walk along the Li River and visited the Reed Flute Cave, Guilin's main attraction. It's the biggest cave I've ever seen, with some really impressive stalactite and stalagmite formations all lit up with eerie fluorescent lights.





Then it was time to leave Guilin and move on to Yangshuo. It's an hour and a half bus ride away, and it's supposed to be even more beautiful. We'll keep you posted!

By the way, we added some more pictures in the Mongolia Gobi desert blog. Thanks to Scott Appleby for taking and sending us the pics. It's probably a blessing that we had no camera in Mongolia because these photos are better than anything we could have taken!

Also, I'm a few days late, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my Grandma, Barbara Porter, who's an avid reader of our travel diary. She's just turned 85 years old. Congratulations, Grandma! xxx

From Beijing to Pingyao

All good things must come to an end, it was time for us to leave Beijing. The fact that our next stop was Datong, one of China's ugliest and most polluted cities, didn't make us too excited about leaving. But we were not going to stay in Datong longer than was absolutely necessary.

We took a night train from Beijing to Datong, which was quite an experience. We got "hard sleeper" tickets, which meant three storey bunk-beds in an open carriage (as opposed to "soft sleepers" where you get a cabin with four sharing. Luckily we had the bottom bunks, and didn't have to climb to the hat-shelf-like top bunks. The fact that the Chinese smoke everywhere (and constantly) made breathing a bit hard, but otherwise we managed a decent night's sleep.

We arrived in Datong at dawn, and were immediately caught by the tour organisers. This fit nicely into our plan because we wanted to visit the Hanging Monastery and the Yungang Caves, and then take the night train to Pingyao, without staying in Datong for the night.

After a booking our tour and train tickets (and a nice breakfast in a nearby hotel) we were on our way to the Hanging Monastery. Well, to be honest the monastery doesn't really hang. It is actually propped up on a hillside with wooden poles. But the effect is pretty impressive, though. You can very easily imagine the whole thing collapsing at any minute.



As monasteries go (and by now we've seen a fair few already) this was a good one. It does seem that you find monasteries in the strangest places around here: in the middle of a desert, behind a rock that doesn't quite look like a turtle, or halfway up a steep hill. Having said that, I don't remember seeing any monasteries back home, maybe those ones are even better hidden?

The next stop was the Yungang Caves. These were the first caves we have seen so far, and it was a strong start. There are loads of caves in different shapes and sizes, some with Buddhas still inside, others looted.



After the caves we had to face Datong. As expected, it was not a highpoint of our trip. To be fair we only explored a couple of blocks of the city since Julie's digestive system had been somewhat boosted by spicy Chinese food, and we had to remain within a sprinting distance from the only decent toilets in the city.

After a long day we finally boarded on our train to Pingyao. This time we were in a hard sleeper with a middle and a top bunk, but by now this wasn't too bad; we were tired and beyond caring.

We are now in Pingyao, a lovely little town with an ancient city wall around it. There isn't so much to do, but just walking along the narrow streets and looking at the restaurants and shops is good fun.



We also seem to be heading deeper into the country and as there are less and less foreigners around we seem to have become tourist attractions ourselves. It is now impossible to go anywhere without the Chinese tourist groups shouting "Hello!" at you and snapping pictures. It's all good fun, though!

Tonight we are heading to Xi'an on another night train. This time we are in a hard sleeper carriage with two top bunk tickets. Oh well...

3 days on a train!

So, after all the hassles in the last hours in Moscow, we boarded the "Baikal" Trans-Siberian train to Irkutsk. It's a 3 day, 4 night journey covering 5185 kilometers and crossing 5 time zones!

We were quite amazed how quickly the time passed by. I guess after 5 days of pretty heavy sightseeing and vodka-drinking we were quite ready for a few peaceful days of not-doing-very-much. We sat and watched the scenery go by, we chatted to other passengers, we read books and planned the journey ahead, and of course, slept a lot!

We shared our cabin with a very quiet but polite Russian man. Also in our carriage was an English bloke (in the next cabin down), a really cute little girl who kept coming by to chat with us (...I'm not really sure whether she was old enough to understand that we didn't understand a single word she said!). Oh, and a very tanned, very muscular body-builder type who like to wander around with nothing on except a very tiny pair of shorts :-)

Sometimes we wandered down to the restaurant car but the food wasn't really anything to write home about. There was much better food to be had from the old babushkas selling their homemade food from the platforms whenever the train stopped. I was particularly impressed with the cabbage and potato piroshki, which is hard to describe, but similar to a savoury doughnut. Other than that, we ate a lot of dried pot noodles that we bought in the supermarket beforehand. I can say without any doubt that I don't ever want to eat those again!

So now we are in Irkutsk. We haven't really had time to explore the place yet. But tomorrow morning we are taking the bus to Olkhon Island, on lake Baikal. It looks really beautiful there. We're hoping to do a bit of trekking, if only the weather improves a bit!

Finally, I am getting used to the idea that we are travelling. It never really sunk in until now. In Saint Petersburg and even in Moscow it just felt as if we were on a weekend break. But the further away from home we get, the more I'm starting to realise the enormity of the trip we've embarked on. And it's a great feeling!!

In the next blog I will try to add some pics of Mikko. In the last week he's grown an amazing technicolour beard!!