Day 231 - Walking back into the era of the Champas

Last night we had decided to book ourselves on a tour to the famous ruins of the ancient kingdom of Champa at My Son, with a boat ride back to town, and hoped that we would wake up to clear skies! Unfortunately, the rain was even heavier this morning, so we put on our rain jackets, and set off for another day in the rain. My Son is set amongst amazingly lush green mountains in Duy Phu village, and unfortunately over their hundreds of years of existence (some dating back as far as the 4th Century), the beautiful brick structures, just bricks piled upon bricks without the use of mortar, have seen better days. Just as nature bends an old man forward and greys his hair, nature has crumbled the temples and covered them in green. Add to that the devastation of the American bombing that left gaping craters in the ground when they missed the temples themselves, and you have the ruins at My Son - a stunning sight, as much as a sad reminder of the war.
We spent almost a couple of hours wandering the ruins, going in and out of the temple structures, wondering what the beautiful writing on the stone slabs meant, and imagining the beauty of the of what used to have been mighty towers but now remains partly carpeted by the jungle.

One reoccurring theme throughout the temples, is the presence of linga and yoni structures - the linga represents the male sexual organs and the yoni the female. These structures represented the Hindu god Shiva and had important spiritual value to the Cham people.

As the rain became heavier we arrived for our boat ride back to Hoi An - we considered staying on the bus instead, but figuring we were already wet, and that as we had paid extra, we might as well hop on and see the villages that were part of the deal (and the only reason we'd paid the extra cash in the first place). About half way through the ride our guide suggested that since it was raining that we might skip the visit to the villages. Adam gave a loud "NO!" that fell upon deaf ears as most of the 30 members on our boat wanted to go straight back, and we soon motored home.
We literally wandered down the river front, down a bustling market, and made our way home through a deserted town centre absolutely soaked all the way through! Where's the sun we came to Vietnam for?!

So another evening of sheltering from the rain began. We did run across the street for some local specialties and beer, as well as organising our onward trip for tomorrow night to Nha Trang beach - let's hope it's sunny down south!

Adlibing the ancient ruins in the rain.

Day 230 - Journeying with the locals to Hoi An

Beep beep beep beep, beep beep beep beep ... Surely it's not 4am already?!

Sluggishly, we got ourselves up and out of the hotel by 4.15am, and were waiting as directed on the corner in the dark at 5.45am, and whaddya know along comes a bus for Danang. After bargaining the price down we hopped on the empty bus and went on our way, and hoped that we wouldn't be dropped off in the middle of nowhere as experienced by other travellers in Vietnam we have met so far!

We soon realised that this wasn't going to be a speedy trip as we coasted down the roads searching for passengers, and before long we were packed to the brim with all the produce and their growers that were making their way to the markets in nearby towns. This was wonderful, as there was excited chatter even at this ungodly hour, and the bus soon filled with fresh aromas of freshly cut corriander and other herbs and veges. It was cool to see friends get together for their daily adventure, and we even witnessed some on-bus trading between a couple of passengers. One of the many older ladies even gave us a taste of her specialty: honey and ginger popcorn balls! Mmmm mmm!!

Around 8am we stopped for some breakfast of the Vietnamese staple of pho and baguettes (soup and bread!) and after 6 hours we were desposited at the bus station in the Danang. Here we had an even harder time bargaining down our fare to the nearby town of Hoi An to the correct price. We had been to the ticket office and asked the price (7,000 dong) and it even had 7,000 dong written on the side of the bus - so of course we hopped on the bus and gave them the right amount for the both of us, when they suddenly decided that the price had gone up and was now 16,000 dong per person! We pointed out the writing on the side of the bus but the conductor and driver wasn't interested.

Acting like we had tonnes of other options up our sleeves (which incidentally we didn't), we started to hop off the bus, but were met with a quick "ok, ok" from the driver. We once again began to worry where we would be dropped off. However, the traumatic bus ride ended at the Hoi An bus station, and we happily disembarked from the most ear shattering bus ride ever! Once at our hostel we learnt that other tourists had been asked 30,000 dong per person for the same bus ride, and had paid it - this left us with no doubt why everyone seems intent on getting every penny possible out of the 'foriegn ATMs': because if they try, chances are they'll succeed.

We headed off to lunch in the beautiful, but touristy, Old Town of Hoi An, but afterwards headed back to our room to escape the rain. We did venture out briefly for dinner too, but the even heavier rain soon sent us running home for cover. Adlibing it, the local way, for the local price!

Day 229 - Ambling the sites of Dong Hoi

After a rather restless night trying to sleep on uncomfortable seats, we were woken for the last time at 5.45am to be dumped, sleepy-eyed, on the side of the road, in the dark! It took us a while to wake up properly, which resulted in us walking around for a couple of hours in search of a cheap, but clean, bed. This lead us on several return trips up and down the same roads and over the same bridge before we settled on one nice family-run hotel on the sandy spit across from the main town - our energy was tried even more when the temperature began to rise along with the sun, and the hot weather we had been expecting in Vietnam finally arrived!

At the hotel we spent a few hours cringing at the karaoke music blaring from somewhere outside, and trying to snooze to give us energy required to go on an ablibing exploration of the town. Here is the view out our window:Dong Hoi is a town in central Vietnam, and the closest big city to the former Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), where Vietnam was semi-formally split in half at some stage during the war. As a result there are some stark reminders of the war with an old fighter plane and ruins of an old church that suffered from a bombing campaign that potmarked much of the country. Two interesting city gates have been restored after the war, and a statue has been built that depicts an old lady rowing North Vietnamese troops off to battle. In Vietnam so far we have only been to very touristy places, meaning that eating out had not been a problem as most of the menus have been in English, with prices. Dong Hoi is not that popular with tourists and we decided to dine with the locals, where managing to get some vegetarian dishes proved a bit difficult - however persistence paid off and we got a yummy lunch at a good price and we were farewelled with smiles, even though we had been extremely difficult customers. In fact at the first restaurant we tried, they refused to serve us, apparently because they were scared of the effort involved in serving the foreigners - though we can't really blame them as our Vietnamese skills are terrible!

We spent the rest of the day figuring out how on earth we were going to leave Dong Hoi. A trip to the bus station was only semi-successful as we think we got some information, but there was no one at the ticket office and we were getting information from a man who seemed more interested in finding out how old we were and how much our camera cost us!! After a few unsuccessful stops at cafes for help with tickets we ended up at the end of the street where we were dumped this morning, and managed to find out from some men drinking beer on the corner that we should be on that same corner at 5am tomorrow morning to wave down a bus! This is the closest to confirmed information we could find, so we'll just have to see what happens when we turn up tomorrow morning. In this part of Vietnam there is limited English spoken with the main phrases that can be spoken being "you want motorbike", "you want tour", and "come look at my hotel, very cheap" - so we were very grateful to the man who could help us!

In the evening we went to the beach for a wander, and felt like we had been transported back to Otaki beach back in NZ because of the long and seemingly never-ending beach, the sand dunes and the murky waves. We didn't stay long as we noticed so many needles around (drugs are a big problem here), and headed off to walk some red clay alleyways behind our hotel. Along the paths we were greeted by the residents, who probably don't see many foreign tourists, with cheerful "hellos". The walk was wonderful as we strolled through the neighbourhood past lovely houses and looped around to the river front where the fishing fleets are docked and small, round, weaved boats are kept for the night.

We went to the only open restaurant for dinner, where the waiter kept inviting Liv into the kitchen to look at vegetables! We ended up with a lot of different, but delicious dishes, including a plate of raw green chillies and spring onion - interesting!!

Back at the hotel we packed and had an early night - dreading the sound of the alarm that will go off at 4am!

Adlibing circles around Dong Hoi.

Day 228 - Riding in the rain

After our usual start to the day we hopped on another motorbike and set off with Anja and Lars with the intention of seeing some of the specific sites that Ninh Binh is famous for. What we got to see, however, was more of the surrounding countryside in the rain! We were told by our hotel owner that the morning rain should ease by afternoon, so we set off for Kenga floating village first, leaving the best till last. The 5km off road journey along the riverside was really enjoyable, despite the consistent drizzle, and by cruising along at 30km / h we really got to see river life and we often stopped to watch as the pointy hatted farmers did their work. Here are some of the everyday scenes we passed on the way: After missing the turn off to the village, we finally arrived at the bridge at the entrance of the village, only to be met by a group of locals waiting to scam us for some money to enter. We usually don't mind paying entrance fees, when it is official and we know who the money is benefiting, but when a few individuals decide to rip off tourists just because they can, we get a little annoyed. They even tried to make it look like the locals also paid an entrance fee, but we saw the "gate keeper" immediately return the money behind his back!!! So we jumped back on our bikes and headed for the back roads to destination number 2: Hoa Lu, one of the many ancient capitals of Vietnam. This second part of our journey left as cold and saturated as the rain became heavier - even worse for the guys driving as the girls on the back could shelter from the rain and wind!

Driving down one particular stretch of road we noticed that Lars and Anja were no longer following, and we backtracked to find them walking their bike with a local to a repair man down the road - flat tyres suck, especially in the rain! After a quick repair job, we all set off down the road in the direction of Hoa Lu (which also happened to be the direction of home that was looking more and more attractive by the minute)!

We made it back to the hotel and basically spent the rest of the day trying to get warm, drying our clothes, and getting ready for our overnight bus trip. Luckily we had great company in our travel buddies who we have been hanging with for the last week, so we managed to spend the afternoon and evening chatting and eating before saying our goodbyes and clambering on our overnight bus to Dong Hoi.

Adlibing it to nowhere!

Day 227 - Motorbiking the back roads to the jungle

Our day started a little later than planned after Liv conveniently turned off the alarm and went back to sleep - Lars' decision to buy a bottle of vodka last night might have had something to do with it! After breakfast we got our motorbikes for the day and set off in the direction of the Cuc Phuoc National Park.

In complete contrast to Cat Ba island, we spent the first half and hour on a crazy Vietnamese road, zig-zagging between cars, trucks, buses, and other motorbikes. We were relieved to make the turn off the main road to begin a much more leisurely cruise through small towns watching Vietnamese life pass us by.

The closer we got to the forest the more impressive the scenery became: the majority of the view was taken up by entire families decked out in pointy hats working the rice fields together, bent at the waist and nearly knee-deep in mud!

We stopped a couple of times on the way to the National Park to take photos of the amazing views, and arrived at the park gate after a couple of hours of relaxed cruising. We thought we had been spoilt for views already, but we soon found ourselves travelling through the National Park road amongst beautiful Vietnamese jungle.

At the end of the road we set off for a hike into the dense green forest but we're met by concrete steps and pathways half of the time! Our travel buddies decided to turn back and we decided to push on for a while longer, and when the hike was along dirt tracks it was really stunning and we were sheltered underneath the forest canopy. Adam even detoured into the forest and was soon hidden in the jungle. We didn't get to see much of the jungle life that is meant to live here, but we did hear some birds and insects - it seems that the leopards and bears know which part of the jungle to avoid!

When we returned to the beginning we remounted the bikes and headed for a quick lunch before making our way to the Primate Rescue Centre stationed at the entrance of the park. Although we normally avoid zoos, this is a legitimate operation that rescues many types of primates all over Vietnam. The primates are most often captured by hunters who hope to onsell them for medicinal purposes or food and our guide informed us that the most valuable can fetch around US$1,000 on the black market - which is more than most Vietnamese make in one year. The best part about centre was seeing a species that had only been discovered 10 or so years ago - a benefit of having a country with so much unexplored forest, although this is slowly changing as development occurs. Another highlight of the centre was seeing the 'semi-wild' enclosure where 15 monkeys currently live, some of which were even born there, with the hope that they will all eventually be returned to the wild.

On our journey home we ended up in rural back roads for the 2 hour meander back to our hotel, where we were greeted by children and adults alike waving and cheering at us along the way. We were surrounded by sugar cane fields, working buffalo, herds of cows ambling along the roads (like back in NZ!) and of course the rice paddies and huge mountains. As we went through small villages a third of the road was taken up by herbs and veges being dried for later consumption. It was hilarious to pass by (and then later be passed by) 4 teenage boys all piled on one motorbike! It was not so hilarious when we passed two poor pigs (alive) tied upside down on the back of a motorbike - presumably being transported home for dinner? The driving became terrifyingly harder as we turned onto Highway 1, where we had to battle for space in order to survive! Adam decided that the best way to get through it was to drive fast - Lars and Anja (the other 2 members of our motorbiking gang!) even witnessed a bus conductor leaning out the door and pushing away people on motorbikes!!

We made it back to Ninh Binh in the dark, and got a little lost making our way back to the hotel - but we made it in the end and settled in for a huge dinner and spent the night talking through the events of a brilliant day.

Adlibing Vietnam's Jungles

Day 226 - Leaving the paradise of Cat Ba

Today was primarily a day of travelling and eating! We began with a final farewell breakfast at our local before we heading along the familiar Cat Ba roads to the ferry to take us to Haiphong. At Haiphong we were transported to the local bus station where the four of us (and a couple of Australians) waited for our local bus trip to Ninh Binh.

The bus trip was our first real long distance bus trip in Vietnam and gave China's worst journeys a run for their money and left Liv petrified, especially when our bus decided to overtake a truck on a bridge with another truck fast approaching from the other direction - a maneuver like many more on this journey! However, we eventually made it to Ninh Binh and followed a fellow passenger to 'his uncles' Xuan Hoa Hotel down the road, where we bargained our room down to what we were willing to pay. The hotel is home to the legendary guide Xuan who provided us with a hand drawn map to help us with tomorrows adventures.

The afternoon was spent walking through the city, and planning our next few days of motorbiking around Ninh Binh.

Adlibing our way down Vietnam to Ninh Binh.

Day 225 - Cruising Cat Ba by motorbike

After joining Lars and Anya for breakfast at our 'local' we all set for our day on the motorbikes exploring the island. The day started with us immediately making a wrong turn, but after chatting to the locals we were soon on the right track and managed to stay on it all day - which isn't too hard considering the island only has 2 main roads!!! Our first stop of the day was Hospital Cave - this cave was used as a secret and bomb proof hospital during the American War (as the Vietnam War is known as here) by the Viet Cong. The cave was a surreal experience - as we wandered through the concrete bunker rooms where staff and patients lived between 1962-1965 our minds turned to what it would have been like to live here during the war. Although it is basic by all standards the Vietnamese managed to build a 'cinema' and 'swimming pool' within the mineral encrusted rocky cave. We were treated to a wonderful song "Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh" by our young guide, which echoed off the walls of the cave.

Reluctantly leaving the cave, we motored away to the coast, stopping to climb a hill to get a view out to the ocean. After only 45 minutes of driving over a winding, cliff side road that dived in and out of villages nestled amongst the wetlands, we made it to the end of the road - literally!! We backtracked our way to one of the small villages in a search of cheap, good food, and while it was cheap, the serving size and flavour left much to be desired - one good thing about the stop was that Adam got to be totally defeated in a rule-less game of "pool" with some local kids.
After lunch we took a different road back around another section of the coast which eventually led us back into the mountains. We crawled through a local village where the local kids called out hellos and extended their hands to give us 'high-fives' as we went by.

We continued our motorised cruise and soon found ourselves back in Cat Ba town, where we had a break from riding and walked through the local fish markets and ended up at our local for the girls to warm up with hot drinks. Our final stop for the day was to visit Cat Ba's 3 beaches, which were beautiful, but in a very untropical climate we decided against a swim and took an off roading adventure between the beaches instead. This allowed us to conquer all the roads the run through the island and also gave Adam and relatively traffic and stress-free introduction to motorbiking around Vietnam.

Back in town we ate and packed for our trip from Cat Ba to Ninh Binh tomorrow.

Adlibing the Cat Ba roads.

Day 224 - Trekking through the jungle

After a hearty breakfast of pho and banana pancakes, we all set off to explore the National Park of Cat Ba island, which takes up half of the island and consists of an additional 90sq km of waterways around the island. The park has subtropical forests, freshwater swamps, coastal mangrove forests, freshwater lakes and coral reefs. Over the day we explored most of these things, starting with a bus trip across the island to the jungle section of the park. Along with our wonderful guide we spent our day covering 18kms, climbing the 5 peaks of the park, checking out Ao Ech (frog lake), which was really more of a swamp than a lake, and scrambling over extremely sharp rocks until we made it to the remote minority village of Viet Hai. Here we settled in for lunch and allowed the past 15km of scenery of the real Vietnamese jungle to sink in. It was great having our guide with us to explain things along the way - and as a bonus he acted as a Vietnamese tutor teaching us lots of phrases we know we will need over the next month here!

After walking the final 3km from Viet Hai village to the coast we boarded a brand new junk, which transported us back to Cat Ba town. This journey turned out to be the highlight of the day and even more impressive than our 'tour' to the island yesterday. If it wasn't so chilly we may have been tempted to take a dive into the waters that lap at the karst islands - however we settled just to gaze in awe at the remarkable scenic wonder with its golden sandy beaches from the deck of our boat.

As we got closer to town, we cruised through the huge floating fishing village, where fishing nets constantly surround each individual floating home and dogs race along the decks protecting their family's section. All the while adults prepare nets and deal with the catch of the day, while children play around in old bath-tub like boats.
Arriving back in town we set about organising motorbikes for tomorrow's adventures around the island. We returned to the same restaurant for dinner before going back to Lars' and Anya's room for beer and chatting the night away.

Adlibing Cat Ba National Park.

Day 223 - Cruising (kinda) our way through the karst peaks

We got up nice and early and made our way to the harbour in order to find a boat to take us to Cat Ba Island. Upon arrival at 9am we were told that the boats don't leave until 11.30am (so they told us), so after buying our tickets and eating some pho (noodle soup) for breakfast we set about waiting until 11.30am!

Around this time they came and took us to our boat, and we hoped that we would leave sometime in the near future, but this wasn't to be. In fact it wasn't until 1pm that our boat even turned on its engine, and after an hour of bashing its way out of a gridlocked harbour (all the boats decide to leave at exactly the same time!) we finally broke free and set off on what was meant to be a 4 hour cruise. We soon found ourselves anchored for half an hour in the middle of the bay before being ushered off to look at Dong Thien Cung (one of the biggest caves in the area). While the cave was beautiful and impressive, the artificial lights and tourist-isation meant our experience was slightly disappointing. Before long we were back on the boat and our "cruise" finally commenced. The scenery we drifted through was stunning to say the least and words can't describe it - the mirror smooth sea was interrupted by a maze of sharp craggy rocks jutting out - immediately our minds were reminded of our time we spent in beautiful Guilin and Yangshuo in Chinese. After an hour or so cruising the phenomenal bay we arrived at Cat Ba Island which is the largest island in Halong Bay, where most inhabitants live off the sea as the land is too rocky to be good for agriculture. Despite our "4 hour cruise" amounting to 3 hours stationary and only 1 hour cruising we have taken the mindset that "this is Asia" and you just have to take what you get and enjoy it!

On the boat we met Lars and Anya, a German couple who were the only other independent travellers on our boat (the others being part of a tour), and when we arrived in Cat Ba town after a cross island tour by bus we all ended up at the same hotel. We set our for a little tour of the town and stopped in at a travel information centre for some advice about onward travel from the island.

The four of us then set out in search of some food, and were delighted with the meal we had at a restaurant just a couple of buildings away from our hotel. Before dinner we had organised for the 4 of us to go on a trip to the Cat Ba National Park tomorrow, and in anticipation of the strenuous hike ahead of us we settled in for the night.

Adlibing Halong Bay.

Day 221 - Good Morning Vietnam!!

This morning we woke to the sound of our boat blaring it's horn as we arrived at Beihai harbour at around 6.30am. We spent the next few hours eating breakfast in a local noodle house and waiting for our bus to Dongxing - a border town of Vietnam. On the bus we were twice approached by some locals telling us that Adam was in their seat (number 5) - the rest of the bus thought it was hilarious when Liv (in Chinese) informed our fellow passengers that their seat number was not actually 5 but rather that was the gate number that we boarded our bus through, and then pointed them in the right direction to their proper seat!!

In Dongxing we battled through the crowds of people offering us rides to the border, in our usual stubborn way we decided to walk instead! On the way to Vietnam (!) we dropped into the post office to send some more gear back to Jinan - every little kilogram counts! At the border, while all the other tourists were buying some sort of ticket, we questioned this and got let through the back entrance (without a ticket!) and straight to customs. Before long the Adlibers had arrived in Mong Cai, Vietnam!!

And what an arrival it was! Even though Vietnam is just 1m away from China, the difference was obvious - it immediately seemed poorer and more crowded (how this possible coming from China, we don't know), and the fact that we can't speak any Vietnamese made it even harder as we have become accustomed to being able to ask for help and communicate in Chinese.

Finding money was impossible!! After walking around for over an hour looking for the bank, and finding 3 broken ATMs on the way, Adam finally made it to the bank only to be told that the bank was out of money!! So we did our first black-market transaction on the street in order to get some Dong to pay for our onward ferry ride to Halong City!

Public transport in Vietnam is nowhere near as efficient as in China, but nonetheless we were eventually put on a local bus that took us to a port, and then we were loaded onto a junk boat and ferried to our hydrofoil which was waiting for us in the middle of the harbour! Our boat ride to Halong city was great - we sailed through Bai Tu Long Bay and got our first glimpse of the island karst formations that Halong Bay is famous for. In Halong City we found a room and went our for our first dinner in Vietnam, which was delicious and a nice change from Chinese food. Our hotel wanted to keep our passports for police purposes, but when we refused, Adam scored a free motorbike ride to meet the police in order to fulfil the tourist conditions of this city. Before long we had crashed out, exhausted after a long day of travelling.

Adlibing it to Vietnam.

Day 221 - Goodbye sunshine

This morning we woke up to a beautiful sunny day and contemplated staying in Sanya for the next 6 weeks, but alas, Vietnam was calling! After filling up on breakfast we slipped into the routine of mounting our packs and finding some locals buses to get us back to Haikou and the ferry terminal.

This time we made it to the ferry terminal with ease (thank goodness!), however we hadn't anticipated such ease and suddenly found ourselves with an extra 5 hours on our hands. We managed to fill a few hours of these by sitting in a restaurant (and eating, of course) and the last few hours reading and people watching. It was quite funny to see the ferry employees stress about how to deal with these 2 foreigners - it soon became obvious that not many laowai catch the Haikou-Beihai ferry. Even though it was just a matter of waiting for the Beihai boat to be called and then following the masses, we were under strict instructions to "wait right here, we come get you"!!

Sure enough we were almost chaperoned onto the boat where we spent the night in our four-bunk bedroom, though no-one else joined us and we had the room to ourselves. The departure time of 6pm came and went in a flurry of inactivity as a swarm of yellow hard-hatted workers went about doing not much for a very long time. We ended up leaving the port at about 7.30pm, and headed out into the pitch black ocean, for a pretty good overnight journey to Beihai! Our only concerns were if the boat happened to come into trouble and the hundreds of passengers had to survive in 2 small lifeboats that looked like their lives began around the 1940s. Luckily we had stunning life jackets in our room, just in case!! Adlibing the ocean.

Day 220 - A hard day at the beach

Our day today followed a very similar pattern to yesterday: we woke, ate, went to the beach, and remained there all day, save an hour at lunch. Our highlights of the day may seem childish but we immensely enjoyed our freshly made mango icecream - we watched it turn from mango fruit, to smoothie, to an icecream heaven! We also got great pleasure from sitting on the beach sipping coconut juice from a fresh coconut and feasting on fresh strawberries to keep our sugar levels up and sustain us for a hard day at the beach! Our only decisions left for the day are: where are we going to go for dinner and whether or not we'll brave another massage! Oh, and the slightly annoying task of packing for the next step on the adlibing tour that starts tomorrow - do we really have to leave here?!

Adlibing it resort style (really just the same as yesterday!)

Day 219 - The beginnings of a few days of lazy holiday

This morning we woke up and out of habit we went to look out the window - but in contrast to our usual misty winter back home in Jinan we were greeted by sunny blue skies and the sound of waves crashing not far away! We needed little convincing to get our butts out of the hostel and to the beach! With free hostel beach mats and towels in hand we set about finding an securing a sandy spot on the beach to spend the day reading, swimming, chatting and dozing in the sun! After seeing several other beaches in China we didn't hold much hope that Sanya would be any different - but it is! Memories of the rubbish washed ashore at Macau's beaches haunted us on our 3 day journey south - but we were greeted with China's Hawaii: literally! Here men, women, and children seem to escape from the serious lives they lead and embrace the beach culture they rarely get to experience - and of course many end up looking very similar in full floral hawaiian shirts and shorts!!It is great to see people of all nationalities (the Chinese population is for once perhaps in the minority given all the Russian and Western tourists here) kicking back and having a ball.

We escaped from the extremely draining (!) life of lying on the beach by occasionally going for a refreshing swim in the stunning water. We even had to pull ourselves away for an hour or so in the search of lunch, but after filling up on seafood and tofu we quickly returned and remained until the sun set behind the mountains that surround this small piece of paradise. In the evening we went into town for a look around the markets but without wanting to increase the weight of our packs any more, we soon left in search of a meal. We ended up dining on spicy hotpot - a Chinese favourite but one we have yet to actually try in China - that we filled with numerous veges. The hotpot experience is one everyone who comes to China must experience at least once: imagine a cooker on your table and a pot fill of super spicy soup (as red as fire!) that you add the veges or meat that you have ordered into to cook just to your liking! For once Liv was having something that she didn't have everyday, so we went a little overboard on the ordering, but managed to finish of most of it! Our hostel advertises massages for 15 yuan an hour at a place in town, which was our next stop! Here Adam indulged in an hour long foot massage, while Liv's whole body got the going over!!! Adam's experience was painful to say the least, but hopefully will reduce the tension that builds up in his feet after days of walking through the adlibing tour. Liv's experience was, well, an experience: having never actually had a professional massage in her life she didn't quite know what to expect, and all the bone clicking was almost too much to bear. She had to chuckle though when the very slight Chinese girl was clambering all over her and twisting her body in not so comfortable ways. We're still considering a return trip tomorrow night - for under NZ$3 each, who can argue?!

After the effort of the day (we're kidding) we retired and slept peacefully awaiting the hard day ahead of us!

Adlibing the Sanya sunshine.

Day 218 - Heading to the sunny south!!

Our train pulled in at Haikou station around 10.45am and within 15 minutes we were on a public bus bound for Xin Gang - the ferry port where we were aiming to buy ferry tickets either to Haiphong in Vietnam or Beihai (still in China) if the ferry to Vietnam wasn't running (we had heard rumors of this but had been unable to verify!). After an hour on the bus Liv finally said out loud what both of us were thinking: "I think we've missed our stop". We spent a few minutes trying to pinpoint our current location on our tincy map and then the bus suddenly stopped and turned around. After asking the driver if the bus would be returning to the port (and getting an answer in the negative) we stood on the bus not entirely knowing what to do! Luckily a very friendly local approached and offered his help, and after a very long time conversing in Liv's limited Chinese and his limited English we finally managed to convey that we wanted to go to the travel agent to check about tickets! Being the typical friendly local he walked us to the door and bid us farewell! Here we managed to get the information that the ferry to Vietnam was no longer running and they sent us on our way to the port where we needed to buy tickets to Beihai for in a few days.

The usually easy task of buying tickets was extremely difficult here, for no particular real reason, but after about an hour we walked out with tickets in our hand. It wasn't an hour spent in lines either - rather an hour trying to figure out why we couldn't buy Monday tickets from here!! Turns out that on Monday the 14th of January the boat leaves from a different dock, but they could still sell us the tickets. This seriously took us one whole hour to sort out!

By 1.40pm we were on our way to sunny Sanya - a beach resort town on the southern tip of the island (and of course, China in general). On the bus we met a couple of other travellers, and they joined us in the typical mission to locate the hostel we were after (quite a mission considering the small alleyway it is down) - which was worth the effort: it is about a 5 minute walk to the miles of sandy beach and turquoise water from here!!

At this point, we had realised that we had been wearing the same clothes and hadn't showered in 3 days - oh the traveller's life! So after cleaning ourselves up in order to fit in with the western crowd that has immerged out of nowhere, we hit the beach for an evening stroll before dinner nearby, where Adam began his seafood extravaganza and Liv dined on her usuals. Adlibing it to the beach.

Day 217 - Third time's a charm in Guangzhou!

Our train pulled in at the station at 10.45am in a much warmer Guangzhou than the Beijing we had just left - Beijing was hovering between a chilly -5-5 degrees, while we have just arrived in the 20-25 degree range in south China. As we stood in the wonderfully chaotic lines in the train station for the next hour or so, we almost wished ourselves back to the cold. Almost. With onward tickets for tonight bound for Hainan Island, we set off in search of food - what we found was a culture shock worse than what we found when we first arrived in Asia 7 months ago. The problem is that we have become so comfortable in our life in Jinan - we know where to go to eat, sleep, shop, drink, relax and we feel like we belong because we live there. Arriving here where we have no bearings, a huge pack on our backs, and no real plans is hard - throw in millions of people who all seem to be walking in the opposite direction as you, and you've got how we felt at 12pm today. Was it this hard the first time around - we both ask ourselves?

Not to worry, we checked our bags in at the train station, hopped on the metro (that we know so well, having been to Guangzhou twice before now), found some yummy food and an internet cafe to absorb some of our free time. With Liv's limited Chinese skills she's usually the one that has to buy all the tickets, order the food and ask for directions on our frequent trips into the land of the lost - but today Liv was even more reluctant than usual to pounce on an unsuspecting local for directions to an internet cafe! After informing Liv, rather forcefully, that she "had to do it because I can't" Adam waltzed up to a Chinese guy, asked him for directions to an internet cafe (in Chinese) and walked back to Liv proclaiming "it's that way"! After we catch up on blogging and emails we'll head out to find some more food before jumping back on the metro and heading to the train station for our train to the beaches of China in Hainan province at 9.30 tonight!

Adlibing it in our home away from home away from home - well at least it seems that way!

Day 216 - The adlibing train tour continues!

Waking and getting ready quick smart we zipped off to the visa office and walked out 10 minutes later semi-stunned at the speed of the process and that nothing had gone wrong!

We grabbed our packs from the hostel and our attempt at trying to get on the next bus heading to the other train station resulted in us standing on the side of the road for the next 45 minutes - before luckily squeezing ourselves onto the next bus. If we hadn't made it on we would have had to catch a taxi, which is a total last resort on our adlibing rule list!

We made it to the train station just in time, Adam almost taking out the other passengers on the train with his huge pack! With the bags safely stowed away went set in for our 23 hour journey and waited for night when we could sleep half of the trip away (well, almost)!

Adlibing the train - again.

Day 215 - Eating and shopping our way through our last day in Beijing.

Being our last full day in Beijing and already having accomplished everything we had set out to adlib (plus feeling the residual pain and exhaustion after our mammoth effort to the Great Wall and back yesterday) we took today very easily. We slept in like any good holidayer does, until we could no longer stand the suffocating heat in our room or the incessant blaring of the same Kenny G cd we have been hearing for the past week!!

Liv attacked the computer in an attempt to uplift our photos onto the blog for the last week, but it was a good reminder to us that internet cafes often throw paddies and refuse to do what you want them to!

We eventually went out and decided to find lunch. The Lonely Planet recommended Wanfang Snack Street, which sounded great to us as we had been struggling to find the Chinese street snacks that we had become accustomed to everywhere else in China. Unfortunately what we found was not what we wanted - yes there were snacks but they were 5 times the price we pay in Jinan and elsewhere in China, and overall disappointing. We mentioned more than once that living in China has made us more picky - which was even more evident when we saw other tourists looking satisfied with their snacks. So, we set off for a cheap Chinese restaurant, and were immediately given a nice looking English menu - they were a bit shocked when we asked for a Chinese menu straight away where we could compare the difference in prices!!! One dish was 8 yuan on the Chinese menu and 24 yuan on the English!! After ordering from the Chinese menu (even trying a new vege dish!), we ate our food and went in search of the Silk Street - which is actually just one huge shopping mall that sells everything including silk!

We wandered around for a good couple of hours, but as we are setting off on a 6 week backpacking trip we don't really want the extra weight (in fact we had just sent 2kgs worth of stuff back to our home in Jinan) and most of the stuff we can get in Jinan we didn't do much shopping - our only purchase for the day was one pretty pink Burberry watch for Liv (genuine fake of course)!

We rested at home for a while before heading out in search of another cheap meal - and the bargain we got wasn't what we had planned! Adam decided that he wanted a meat dish so instead of the usual 2 vege dishes we get to share, I ordered fried noodles and Adam took a random shot at the menu! Unfortunately for him his meal was cabbage! So Liv found a dish with the word 'beef' in it and asked the waitress if it was yummy (which of course she said it was)! About 2 minutes later Adam's dish come out and he started attacking it with his chopsticks. About 10 minutes later another meat dish was placed before us - uh, hang on a minute! We knew we had only ordered 3 dishes in total! In the end they realised that the first meat meal they brought to Adam was not meant for us, but Adam had already eaten half of it!!! So they rushed that back to the kitchen (we suspect straight back into the wok) and Adam got to sample his third dish of the night - though at this stage he was pretty full and already struggling to get through his beer!!

We went to bed with our fingers and toes crossed that our Vietnam visas would be ready in the morning. We packed at night, because it will be a rush to get back from the visa office to the train station across town for our noon train!

Adlibing the last sights of Beijing.

Day 214 - A mission to the Simatai section of the Great Wall.

Our adventures today took us all the way to the Great Wall of China - the wall itself stretches from Liaoning province to Jiayuguan - literally from ocean to desert - and was started over 2000 years ago with an original purpose of keeping out nomads and invading armies. The part of the wall that we decided to travel to is at a place called Simatai, which is a mere 19km section of the wall and has 16 watch towers (unfortunately we could only trek to 12 of them because the government has deemed the next sections too perilous for public access). An interesting feature of the wall at Simatai is that there are "obstacle walls", which are small walls within the main wall itself - this is for extra protection for those crafty ones who make it over the initial wall. We were thankful for the amazing views on arrival - especially given the huge effort we went through to get there! The hostel was offering transport at a price of 180 yuan per person, but we managed to do it for just over 200 for the both of us - though it required a 6am wake up, 3 subway trips, several kilometres of walking to the bus station (including lots of back-tracking), a 1 1/2 bus, and then an hour long mini-van ride through the snowy mountains to get to the wall itself - what a mission!!

When we finally arrived the excitement that had been brewing during the hours of travelling overflowed, and we took off at a rapid pace to get some of the wall under our feet! We spent the next 3 hours scaling the unbelievably steep, slippery and icy wall - one of the bonuses of coming to the wall in winter is that you trade hordes of tourists for a cold, snow-lined wall - it was nice to have a tourist attraction almost all to ourselves for a change!! On our way up we only saw 2 people and on the way down, a handful more! Walking to the east of Simatai we were faced with gruelling steps, crumbling watch-towers to explore and the barren but beautiful view to keep the camera clicking. To one side we had views of mist covered mountains, and to the other side we could see the winding wall that snakes up the Jinshanling section of the wall - whatever way we looked got the same reaction: wow!
At the top Adam conveniently 'overlooked' the sign prohibiting further exploration and the fine that goes with it if caught, and set off to claim a 13th watch-tower and climb along a part of the wall that was only 1 brick wide at parts and sheer drop-offs on either side. Due to time demands Adam's foray into the forbidden was limited and he had to turn back after 10 minutes of running!
The journey back down brought back memories of Tai Shan (Trinket and Wally will understand), though our descent only took an hour instead of half a day! We also cut some time off the walk back to our car by taking a flying fox over the river that separates two parts of the wall - though Liv took some serious convincing and had Adam do double checks on all the equipment (you never can be too sure!).

On the last leg of the walk we past a couple of men fishing through a hole in the ice that had taken over the bottom section of the river.

After a reverse trip back to Beijing - much easier when you know what you're doing and where you're going - we literally collapsed after a 10 hour adlibing mission.

Dinner tonight was at the nearest possible cheap restaurant where we ate under the watchful eye of Chairman Mao himslef!

Adlibing the Great Wall.

Day 213 - A winter's day in the Summer Palace

We rose nice and early, which was just as well because it took us 2 hours to transport ourselves just to the other side of Beijing to make it to the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace is where Emperors and Empresses took refuge from the summer heat that roasted them in the Forbidden City. On arrival we were much more impressed with this Palace than we were at the Forbidden City a few days ago and we spent the next four hours thoroughly enjoying ourselves as we strolled through temples, corridors, gardens, pavillions and a gigantic lake that became our playground for the day. Adam could hardly contain his excitement when we saw from high above amongst the Buddhist Fragrance Pavillion and Hall of Benevolence and Longevity the tiny dots of people slipping and sliding their way over a frozen Kunming Lake. Much to his disappointment we still had almost half an hours walk through more Palace grounds before Adam could partake in his share of icing around!! On the other hand, Liv decided to obey the sign telling us not to step on the ice (mainly out of fear of spending the rest of the day in freezing cold clothes if she happened to fall in!). Adam skated his way right out into the middle of the lake where he was rewarded with wicked views of the palace grounds above, pagodas off in the distant hills, and he slowly became weary of the growing cracks in the ice, the ever warming sun shining on the ice and the frozen fish only centimetres below!

When Adam eventually joined Liv on more solid ground, he convinced her to ventured just a few metres onto the lake, but soon we were both wandering around the lake. We walked across the 17 arch bridge to the temple on South Lake Island where the Empress traditionally prayed for rain during the summer. We had to pause for a few moments during our walk to stare at the crazy man in his speedos going for a dip amongst the ice! We strolled along a causeway and over numerous stunning bridges to eventually make it around the entire circumference of the Lake.

One of the great things about this palace was that it wasn't under reconstruction and it actually looked liked the real royal China of a past age that people imagine when they think of China.

After making our way around the lake we found ourselves amongst the Qing boat houses and staring at an immobile marble boat that rests on the northern shore of the lake.

After the better part of the afternoon we once again found ourselves on the 2 hour journey back to the hostel where we rested for an hour before making what was meant to be a simple journey to a Beijing Duck Restaurant. After getting completely lost (already a recurring theme) we settled for the first restaurant where Liv could read the characters for the famous Beijing/Peking Roast Duck - a meal that had been on the top of Adam's list of things to do (and nowhere on Liv's) since the beginning of this adlibing tour.

We returned home to plan and pack for our big day tomorrow when we venture out to the Great Wall!

Adlibing the wintry ice of the Summer Palace.

Day 212 - A journey to Tianjin

Today we decided to venture out of Beijing and head to Tianjin a special municipality just like Shanghai and Chongqing (destinations already covered during the adlibing tour).With Tianjin only an hour train ride away, we were soon lost as we tried to make our way to the Ancient Culture Street. The first thing we noticed about Tianjin was that it was still China - unlike the very un-Chinese Beijing we had spent the last few days in - with hectic roads (and people crossing anywhere they like), and numerous street vendors selling everything from Olympic trinkets, maps, food, and tuk-tuk rides!

We disembarked from the gong gong qi che (public bus!) and ambled up the first interesting looking street we found.This amble turned into a long wander through a maze of market stalls selling everything you could possible desire and soon Adam had a new bag to show for the wandering. In the maze we indulged in some street food (savoury pancakes stuffed with fried batter, eggs, spring onion and chilli) and some egg (for Liv) / meat (for Adam) "McMuffins".

We eventually stumbled into the Ancient Culture Street, which was a brand new old street filled with expensive souvenirs (including many of the treats from the markets we had just left but at 10 times the price). In contrast to the markets, the streets here were clean and sign posted in English so we managed to find the Jade Emperor's Pavilion and the Tianhou Temple with ease. After strolling around the temple and enjoying the incense-filled aromas and tranquil halls we walked out half an hour later to see other walking in with tickets clutched in their hands. Around the corner we saw the ticket booth ... whoops!

After leaving the brand new old street, we soon found ourselves in the Old Town, which much to our dismay was actually just a brand new old town based around the restored drum tower! The highlights of the old town for us was Adam sneaking onto police property and purchasing some Peking Opera masks to remember our previous night's experience and decorate some of our barren walls waiting for us back home in Jinan.

Finding ourselves utterly lost again when trying to make it to Jiefang Street, which is famous for its 20th Century European architecture. After attempting to ask one lady for help (she literally screamed and ran in the opposite direction when she saw us), another offered to help us. Soon enough we were surrounded by a crowd of helpers who eventually sent us on our way - however all their help was in vain as we soon became lost again, so we had to resort to a tuk-tuk ride in the end.

When we finally arrived on Jiefang Street we wandered past dozens of beautiful old banks, warehouses, post shops and churches (and even peeked inside some of them) - all survivours from when European forces dominated the area around the turn of the 20th Century. Inside the now Bank of China we got to gaze upwards at the stunning stained glass ceiling, and later at an old Anglican Church. Some buildings were restored to almost new, other basically left in their original state, but in the case of the Church it was basically in ruins.

When the time came to catch the train home, Liv decided to use her navigation skills so we could walk back and enjoy some scenery on the way. Well, we certainly got more scenery than we had counted on - first walking over a frozen river reflecting a pollution shadowed sun, then along a street where we could hardly see or breathe for the amount of dust, dirt, and rubbish that floated in the air and on the street. Liv's constant questions of "we should be able to get there from that road, so why is it blocked off?" were soon answered after we decided to go down one such road anyway: we soon found ourselves in a jungle of hard-hat wearing construction workers and a half demolished train station ... obviously this wasn't the train station we had arrived in and nor was it the one where we would be leaving. Continuing our tour of the construction site we made it to the other end and navigated our way to a main street from where we managed to catch a bus to the current train station just in the nick of time!

Back in Beijing we purchased our train tickets for Guangzhou on Wednesday and feasted on 2-minute noodles for dinner!

Adlibing it back into the real China.