Hiya

Finally in China and we're loving it! It was great to move on from Vietnam where you just get constant hassle from everyone as soon as you get out of the door, it wears you down after a while and we'd both had enough! It sounds harsh but the people aren't starving or unbearably poor there, most of the bamboo huts have satelite dishes, they just see tourists as walking cash machines and want to fleece every penny from you, rip off alert at every corner, it's pretty sad really as I think it'll affect the tourist trade.

Since I last wrote we spent a few days in Sapa in the far north of Vietnam which was really nice though, it's in the mountains and the scenery is gorgeous, just what you expect of Vietnamese countryside, hills with rice terraces and lots of minority tribe women in traditional dress trying to sell you stuff! We decided to go trekking one day on our own rather than with a guide, got a map from the tourist office (which turned out to be worse than useless!) and set off for an 8 hour trek into the mountains. When we reached a village and had to endure about 100 women around us all shouting 'you buy from me' 'buy pillow case' 'buy my tablecloth' we soon decided to take a path that was off the main route in the hope of losing the women. Unfortunately we lost ourselves! It was really good in a way 'cos we knew roughly where we were, we could see the river in the valley, but ended up tramping through tiny hamlets and over rice terraces so got to see the real countryside away from the tourist trap. We ended up over the other side of the valley though and had to go back down then ascend about 1000metres at the other side in the baking heat having run out of water!

Spent a few days in Hanoi, which was OK, just another South East Asian city though really, they all seem pretty much the same. Great beer though, they have these Bia Hoi places which are little bars on the street, you sit on plastic chairs on the pavement (or the gutter!) and get a beer from a big metal barrel, it's sooo cheap, about 15pence for a litre so obviously we couldn't resist a few nights at them. Good place to meet the locals as well, met some really nice Vietnamese people there.

Got the overnight train from Hanoi to China (took almost a full day to get a ticket, they didn't seem to be that keen on selling us the tickets at the train station, every time we went the ticket sellers seemed to be on a break or at lunch!).

Culture shock again in China, much more civilized and sophisticated than south east asia although the English is a real problem, outside the big cities no-one speaks it and even in the big cities you struggle to communicate, all good fun though! Stayed in Guilin for a couple of days, the girl on reception in the hostel was the only person who spoke English there and it turned out she'd just spent 3 years at uni in Huddersfield! Travelled on to Yangshou which was nice but pretty touristy, there were a fair few westerners there. Hired bikes and went biking around the countryside, loads of karsts (those little rock mountains covered in trees) and the river was gorgeous. Went to an amazing light show on the river, 600 people took part!

We then moved on to a place called Fenghuang which was a real experience…. It's a Chinese holiday place, a really old traditional town with ancient buildings and tiny alleyways winding around. Didn't see any other westerners and didn't find one person in the whole place who spoke English! I went off to try to find a room with the trusty phrase book (which I've since left in a taxi, nightmare!!!) leaving Andrew trying to explain to the lady in a bar that he wanted a beer! After a bit of a struggle and a long discussion about airconditioning, involving a lot of pointing to the air-con unit and the lady in the guest house writing a lot of Chinese down - for some reason she thought that although I couldn't speak Chinese, maybe I could read it, I managed to get a really nice room with a view of the river. We spent a few days just chilling out and being the local tourist attraction, so many people wanted to take photos of us!

The food was another story… all the restaurants in the tiny streets had cages outside with badgers, pigeons, rabbits, snakes, rats, whatever you could think of in them, all ready to be cooked if you asked for them. Pigs faces were also hung outside the shops - don't know how you ate them never saw anyone doing it! Found a restaurant where we could see the food in pots so we could point to what we wanted which was great otherwise we could have ended up eating god knows what!

Moved on to Xi'an, staying in a really cool hostel that used to be a spa so has Jacuzzis and all sorts. Going to see the terracotta warriors tomorrow which should be good then it's on our way to Beijing.

Love Nicola x