Today is October 25th....same day next month we will be landing in London...
We've now officially started counting the days of travelling left, feeling sad for ourselves !!! :)

But fortunately, we're finishing this great adventure by China. And after many many debates, we've come close to agree that China might well be our favourite country of them all !
Indeed, we've crossed the border only 2 weeks ago, and we feel like we've been here for months ! It's such a gigantic country with so much diversity, so many different cultures & traditions, so much natural and man-made beauty and so many incredible & warm people that we're feeling truly overwhelmed...

Getting here though wasn't an easy ride. It took us nothing less than 5 changes of bus only to make it across the border from Laos and first get to Jinghong, in the Yunnan province. Straight away, we faced major communication issues. Us unable to read or understand any mandarin, and most Chinese not speaking a single word of English.... Andy immediately dug out from the bottom of his bag his little images book so as to point out useful images of bus, train and toilets (!), while I tried my luck with my dictionary, joyfully mispronouncing all their complex consonant & vowel sounds... Fun though :) The best part is when they look at you, incredulous and amazed at your unability to understand them when they make the effort to speak slowly and loudly to you in chinese. Indeed, what's wrong with us ?! ;)

Jinghong was our first big surprise .... Somewhat naively ( & let's face it ignorantly !) we kind of expected outside Beijing and Saigon to see the China of our imagination : pretty little villages & quaint towns, peasants & factory workers with their traditional Mao blue cap. We discovered instead huge (& fairly ugly, let's say it!) provincial cities, a modern society of consumption in full boom, and a young & dynamic population dressed in the latest fashion !

Yet paradoxally, the sight of westerners still seems to be a novelty for them, and we have to get accustomed again to people literally staring at us, captivated by our every move !
But again, there is nothing aggressive about their attitude, they're just curious and most of the time they break out in a big smile (or laugh) at our attempts to salute them in chinese !
And those speaking a few words of English are spontaneously coming to us to ask us what we're doing here (or in the case of a young girl selling fruits near our hotel, to ask us to find her an English boyfriend when she comes to visit us in England....Mmmm, why not ! :)

Our second big surprise is the size of this country. You might realise how big China is on a map, but you truly understand what it means when you suddenly face a minimum 15hrs bus journey to go anywhere !!!
And 15hrs is when you're lucky. Our first long bus journey was to go from Jinghong to Dali. 27hours in a sleeper bus, which is basically a bus with 60 bunk beds in it. Travelling lying down would be a rather pleasant experience if it wasn't for the usually incredibly dirty and smelly state of the bed mattress and blankets. We spent the whole trip trying to avoid the blankets making contact with our skin, and spraying perfume around us. But then again, when you have 40 men around you smoking all night long in a closed bus, the smell of sweat doesn't bother you so much anymore. That's the sore threat and streaming eyes in the morning that become your main concern....

Although, not drinking water for 24 hours so as not to have to go to the public toilets during the bus stops is a close second on your priority list. Indeed, toilets in China are nothing short of horrendous. For one, there is often no flush so the stench is overpowering. And secondly there is no privacy (ie no door, even for the women). Having to crouch (they're not Western toilets) in front of a line of women watching you attently came as a big shock to me.... :))) And the fun part is that even when you're lucky to find toilet with doors, they prefer to leave it open !!! (understandable though, if you refer yourself back to point A relating to the stench...!).

But I'll stop there....:)

Let's talk instead about how amazing this country is !! Over the last 2 weeks we visited a few beautiful towns in the Yunnan province. First Dali and Lijiang which boast fantastically preserved old towns. Check the pics out. Those 2 cities are major stops on the Chinese touristic circuit and affluent Chinese come by thousands in big organized tour buses to visit them. But the good thing about Chinese tourists is that they are very disciplined and they all do exactly the same thing. So as soon as you step out 5 metres away from the designated tourist path, you're pretty much left alone to appreciate the beauty that surrounds you. We particularly took great pleasure in cycling everywhere over the last 2 weeks, exploring the countryside and observing the daily (& bloody tough!) life of the farmers, toiling away on their small patches of land .

From a weather point of view on the other hand, we haven't been very lucky. Rain, rain and more rain awaited us. Not great for taking pictures but particularly bad when it comes to trekking. In the cold highlands, nothing dry, so after spending a week putting on wet clothes & shoes every morning, we decided to invest in some new waterproof shoes and clothes after having destroyed ours through 10 months of wear... Bargaining for all those items was equally funny. The Chinese way of bargaining is to loudly shout, widly gesticulate and spit in your direction when not agreeing with your price. We're loving how theatrical they can get !! But with me playing the bad cop and Andy playing the good cop, they have it tough...we've got our negotiation routine well rehearsed !! :)

After LIjiang & Dali we headed off to Shangri-la. Our favourite so far ! The city is located at 3500m altitude in the Tibetan Highlands (a taste of Tibet without officially being in Tibet). The setting is beautiful : wide expanses of rugged land where herds of Yak graze peacefully, tibetain villages scattered around, somptuous tibetan monastery and magestic snow capped mountains ! What else can you ask for ?!

But the highlight of our trip to Shangri-la was undoubtedly the warm welcome given to us by Tibetan families we met. One afternoon I was walking alone in the countryside, I got invited more than 3 times to have yak butter tea and eat in 3 different Tibetan homes ! Walking alone is a dangerous business !!!:) I spent an incredible afternoon communicating only with signs, laughing, singing and mainly eating & drinking until exhaustion ! (the moment you take one sip of your tea, they refill it until the pot is finished !!!)
I particularly bonded with 3 young women whom I spent most of the afternoon with. Have a look at the pics.
2 days later I went back with Andy to visit them, and to thank them for their warm welcome I got some of the pictures taken on the day developped for them : the 4 of us but also pictures of them and their kids. They were incredibly moved, particularly since having photographs is not something they can usually afford. They made us understand that we were always welcome in their homes, and that now that we knew each other we were friends forever. Just like that.
Saying good-bye to them was hard !

We're now in Yangshuo. We got there after a 43 hours journey from Shangri-la. We spent 3 days here cycling amongst the beautiful Karst moutains and even treating ourselves to a hot air balloon ride to admire this postcard panorama from the top. Again have a look at the pictures, they describe it better than words. We're liking this region very much but it is very very touristy in comparison with the Western part of China. So we decided to shorten our stay here and return to the West, in the Sichuan province this time. We'll head first for Chengdu and then work our way through some smaller towns higher in altitude where we should find again the rugged countryside and warm people we came to fall in love with !

Hope you're all good back home, and we should see you all very soon !!!!!

Lots of love !!!!
Andy and Soph