So i'm back to my old habit of forgetting to update the blog!oops! After beccas vague, hehe, blog entry we've been to Hue, and saw the tiny Vhin Moc tunnels in the DMZ, they go down as deep as 25m and were lived in during the Vietnam war. 17 children were born down there, thats a FACT! After that we made it to the capital Hanoi, here we booked our Chinese visa and a three day boat tour.
Tour was around the bay of Halong, were there are about 900 massive limestone islands, absolutely amazing scenery, although it would have been much nicer if it hadnt rained for three days. We were told that we needed our passports when we got to the boat, which of course were at the Chinese embassey. This meant we could'nt sleep on the boat overnight, so we were carted off to Cat Ba island, and we stranded, everysooften our guide would pop up and take us off to dinner. It was really badly organised but we did have a lot fun we got to do some more trekking, but got absolutely soaked, and i banged my head again whoop!who put that rock there?! We also did some kayaking and again got soaking wet, it was an adventure and we got to see some cool caves too.
We got back from the tour on Monday and jumped straight on the train from Hanoi to Lao Cai. We did a day trip from here to Sappa right up in the mountains, and saw loads of locals in traditionally hilltribe dress it was really nice!see photos, then it rained again and we drank some hotchocolate. As were running out of time we couldnt stay there and do a trek as we'd have like to, but it was nice just to see it at all.
After that tour we decided we better get some more money to buy our tickets into China, we were tod there are lots of Atms in Loa Cai, although none of these worked!PROBLEM! Luckily i managed to chamge a 20pound note a had which was enough to pay for our room and buy our tickets. So everything was going smoothly again.... or so we thought! We spent most of today waiting for the bus tonight at 5, come 5 the bus still hadnt arrived?! The tour operater suddenly exclaimed why are you still here? At some point wires were crossed, we had to make our own way to the border and catch the bus buy ourselves. No money left eek, we were so angry we had been waiting all day, we managed to haggle a motorbike to the border with our heavy bags. THrough passport control fine, but the Vietnamese tour operater forgot to mention the time difference, we'd missed the bus!
At this point we were on the verge of tears hehe! We were in China, we still dont know where in China exactly, with no money and a bus ticket that isnt Valid, we were screwed!
Fortunately a kind man who works at the bus station helped us to find an ATM that we tried and it worked phew! Now were here in the internet cafe, we have a room to go back to and a new bus ticket for tomorrow morning. Oh the drama! But a happy ending we feel so much better now.
Thats all the news then, its off to Kunming tomorrow, then Chengdu to see some pandas, and then Guilin. Il try keep this up to date. Hope your all good. Lots of Love B and B xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx