Rain season begins

Looks like the rain season has well and truly begun here in Vietnam. Today we hired a motorbike and headed out to the north of the island (Phu Quoc) only to have to go back after 10 minutes of riding as the rain was bucketing down. Luckily it cleared up in the afternoon, but this is telling us it's almost time to leave and go back to balmy London!

Gwen gets her own back

No matter how hard we've tried, it's been extremely difficult to like Vietnam. We have been constantly having to deal with the locals trying to rip us off at every turn.

It happened again this evening. We are in the small island of Phu Quoc and after dinner (where again the owner tried to over charge us), we went for a drink at a little stall in the night market. We looked at the menu and I ordered a fruit shake (where the price was listed), and Gwen ordered a "che" drink (no price listed but we had an idea of what the price should be from experience).

After drinking up we paid for the drinks without asking the price hoping they'd be one of the few honest locals. They gave us change which indicated they weren't, although that had already become obvious when a discussion amongst themselves started after we given them our money (knowledge of Vietnamese is not needed as they were clearly discussing what they should charge us).

After we inquired to the costs of the drinks, they gave us a price for my fruit juice that was higher than the menu (looking back now, this was so that the ratio of the prices of the two drinks would remain the same with Gwen's che being cheaper).

I pointed them to the menu price and they proceeded to give us some additional change admitting their mistake however we knew that they were still overcharging us for Gwen's che and she decided she was not having any of it.

So she simply got up, 'accidentally' knocked the table causing her empty glass to fall and smash on the floor. We then walked off with the Vietnamese a little shocked. We knew we were correct in our assumptions as they didn't chase us down or attempt to make us pay for the glass. That felt good! Bit evil though :-)

Huế

Huế used to be the capital of Vietnam back at the beginning of the 20th century. There is a forbidden city in the town but unfortunately, it's been mainly reduced to rubble from the war.

He looks like he should star in a Kill Bill movie!

Halong Bay

We did a 3 day cruise in Bai Tu Long bay - a less touristy area of Halong Bay. It was nice and most important of all, the boat didn't sink!

A another junk heading in the same direction

There were also some dry freighters

Our junk

View from onboard

Unfortunately (or fortunately), there wasn't that much to do

Bird of prey trying to catch some

We visited a floating village by bamboo boat

And had some beach time

Best of all, kayaking at sunset

Motorbikes

It had to be done - photos of motorbikes in Vietnam.

Fridge on the bike - no problem

Having a chat with his mate

But worse - texting instead

Hanoi

We spent about 5 days in Hanoi, although that was mostly spent chilling out observing the hustle and bustle!

Cyclos looking for business around the busy streets

Crazy wiring!

Vietnamese women seen through a street barbers mirror

Something so common in asia - getting your portrait photos done

Where ever there might be something to take a photo with!

Pho obsession

Hmm

Sleepness nights and long days

Looks like I am a gazillionaire again! We're back in Vietnam and cashed up - I have roughly 2 million in my wallet :-) (note 1 dong is worth a tenth of a US cent).

The last few nights have been pretty rough. We had a cockroaches and loud chinese in our hotel in China, mosquitoes galore in our first stop in Vietnam and a rat in our hotel in Hanoi! Throw in a sleeper train in there somewhere and we were walking zombies for a while! Oh and I forgot the extra hour we gained crossing the border :-)

To a lost friend

I'll forever remember the last time I saw you. Singing with all your heart.

And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

Rest in peace Walshy

More Chinese signs...

Saw this in Yuanyang and it made me chuckle. I'm guessing they told the person who spoke English, that they wanted name of the hotel on their sign. And the person followed instructions literally!

Last taste of China

After spending a bit too much time relaxing in Dali, we headed down to the big city of Kunming. It's funny how most Chinese cities are unheard of outside of China yet can contain populations bigger than some European countries. Kunming has a population greater than Sydney and the scary thing is that they are expecting the population to almost double in the next year!!

Unlike most big cities however, Kunming (and in fact most developing Chinese cities) is having trouble coping. This meant massive traffic delays, so much so that the cities main bus stations have been relocated to the outskirts of the city. It has meant now that the airport is located closer to town than all the bus stations! Very frustrating when you are trying to get around via land transportation! To add to our misery, we found out we had only 4 days left on our Chinese visa before we had to high tail it out of there!

We decided to go see the rice terraces of Yuanyang as it was on the way to the Vietnam border. With some complications (aka a broken down bus) we managed to get there after a 9 hour bus ride. And I would say it was worth it!

Sunset over the rice terraces once we arrived

Next morning - Gwen loves this photo. What seems like the sky is actually the sky reflected in the water of the terraces

Chinese pigs are different to normal pigs - they look like pug dogs!

Uggggggly!

Terraces through the mist

Terraces

Dehli belly in Dali!?

So after 2 months on the road, I finally got food poisoning! Pretty good effort except the frustrating thing was I got sick from eating in an Indian restaurant!! Trust me to get Dehli belly in the one Indian restaurant in all of Yunnan!

It was actually worse than that - both Gwen and I were sick a couple of days earlier from eating at an "authentic" (in this case nasty) chinese restaurant in Dali. I happened to draw the short straw and was sick again 2 days later. So most of our time in Dali was spent watching pirated DVDs in our hostel where only half the discs worked while the other half had suspect subtitling - like the 'fantastic' Tom Cruise action film "Knight and Day" translated to "Dangerous Love Spy Game" for the hearing impaired :-)

Oh well - at least India won the world cup! That got me through! :-)

Location:Dali, Yunnan Province, China

Around Shangri-La

Here are some nice pics from the area around Shangri-La.

Search for the black necked crane

We were lucky enough to be in Shangri-La at the time of year when the rare black necked crane would be in the area. They are found in Napa Lake, which is about an hours bike ride from the town. The lake is special in that the basin fills with water during the summer, and then dries up the rest of the year.

It meant we could walk in the basin of the lake in some parts although it was very very boggy. Our shoes came out worse for wear although the lake itself was quite pretty.

Gwen back on the bike

The mountains in the distance are of 5000m elevation!

Dry part of Napa lake with horses grazing

Black necked cranes

I had to be careful cause when I got too close to them (like 50m)...

they were up and outta here!

The lake where there was still water

Tibetan taster

Shangri-La! Well, actually Zhongdian, but the clever chinese decided that this town fits the bill for the mythical town in James Hilton's novel "Lost Horizon". So the name of the town was changed back in 2001 and now the tourists come flocking in (although probably not as much as they would hope).

Regardless, the place is beautiful and breathtaking - literally! Zhongdian is perched on a plataeu at an elevation of 3300 metres and at this elevation the air is noticably thinner.

One of many stupas we saw around the place

Songzanlin monestary

It was not warm as you can see

Tibetan monk