Hello!

Well i am now in Hongkong, and today we move onto vietnam, so i thought i should update you again before that next section!!

We headed off from Pokhara up to Kathmandu and to Daniel!! after missing each other for and hour, him downstairs and us upstairs, we finally met in our hotel in Kathmandu! I was so happy to see him, i had been so excited telling everyone i was meeting my brother in KAthmandu. We went straight out for a wander around our area. We were staying in Thamel, the main market and backpacker place. there were hundreds of streets filled with open shops selling to be honest all fairly similar stuff!! but we had a quick nose around before heading back and joining our group for our last meal together. it was a lovely dinner, and we had a great time on the tour, our guide was great and most of our group were great!! there were a few frustating characters, lets just say the Finnish honeymoon couple left us with not the best impressions of the finnish nation!! Rude would be a good word i think. but the canadiand, the auzzie and the norwegians were lovely!!! and Atul our guide was great!! and i think i can say, with little shadow of a doubt that we were his favourites!!

The next day, emily and I with daniel explored more of the city. we headed to Bhaktapur, the biggest of the old centres and had a guided tour round all the temples and palaces. the pagodas and stupas were really impressive, and the karma sutra pagoda was just downright funny! on the bottom of all the roof struts they had carved images from the karma sutra ending with an image of a woman giving birth-16thcentury sex ed!! brilliant!we then headed back to Thamel and wandered up to the Kathmandu Durba Square and after deflecting guides-showing daniel some of our india learned techniques of simply ignoring people we headed to a roof top cafe and sat for 2 hours having drinks over looking the main pagoda-perfect!

then on sunday we headed over to Patan the third of the olf parts of kathmandu and agian looked around there old temples, only this time we couldnt be bothere to pay to get in so we wandered round the edge and up the main street. As we were wandering around looking at allt he small statues we started watching this lady throw rice at a statue and put some red stuff on it in their usual fairly reckless manner, when she turned to us with a lovely smile and said "you come back to my house now for some tea?" so we thought why ever not!! so we ended up following her downthrough the back allys away from this little temple and went to her house, which turned out to be quite a nice new built house, she evidently was the wife of a brahman priest, and we went in and had some tea! it was good tea too!! they were about to have a feast celebrating some festival but we managed to escape and headed back to another roof top cafe, where we waited almost 2 hours for lunch! But it was a great experience going to her ouse, her daughter spoke pretty good english, and they were amazingly welcoming and friendly-the nepalese really are incredibly friendly!! we then headed back again to look at stalls in Thamel, and after having a our fill headed back to our hostel with some beers and had a drink with the canadians and ashlea the aussie, from our tour. we had a brilliant weekend! it was so nice meeting up with daniel, him telling us some great stories of his trip and us telling a few of ours, but generally just enjoying drinks and laughs together-perfect!

After a rather tearful goodbye on my part we headed off to Hongkong and Emilys uncle!! we have had a week of family and it hasbeen great!! we had an overnight flight on which we slep roughly about 2 hours, so after a bit of a freshen up we headed out around hongkong!! we headed to the south of Lantau island first, where Terry, emilys uncle lives. It was incredibly green and beautiful, something which i hadnt expected at all!! and we ate the most amazing meal at a seafood resturant on the beach it was a oerfect introduction. after that we headed on a ferry to Hongkong island itself, and straight over to Stanley bay. we wandered around stanley market and failed to find the america club, where gandad was supposed to have lived! but chilled out and had a drink and enjoyed people watching in what is a very beautiful and calm bay in the south of hongkong island. Terry then showed us round all the main parts of Hongkong central so when emily and i returned the next day we could find out way round-he was anabsolutely amazing host! we then went on the old school star ferry , and back for an early night after our lack of sleep the night before!!

Emily and i were then free to explore and get lost ourselves, which we did do only once!! we headed straight for the peak tram, which to my suprise, because im clever like that, was actually an old school tram that heade straight up the hill!!! the angle that it acended t was something incredible! but despite the whole time feeling that the tram wouldnt make it and at any moment we would begin to slide slowly back down, we made it to the top with only slightly sore necks!! and the view from the top, with the slightly cleared smog, was awesome!! i have never really been to a highrise city before and it was incredible!!, especially with the sea right at the centre on the view. the rest of the day we spent wandering round, going on escalators that headed aproximately nowhere and getting lost heading back down. but hongkong really is a great city, and rates highly on out cleaniness counter-a nice change from India and Nepal!!

We now head however, back to the world of rickshaws and bargaining, heading off to vietnam and i cant wait!! shall be in touch soon, but check out the photos from india, i shall try to put more up soon! keep in touch, tell me ur news!!

much love x x x x