Vietnam - Hanoi for Christmas

Our introduction to Vietnam was at the border when our train pulled in at around midnight and where we were herded off the train with our luggage into the border control room which doubles up as the ticket office, waiting room, staff canteen and duty free (closed).  There were around 60 of us on the train, mostly Chinese and Vietnamese with a sprinkling of westerners.

Yangshuo - Part 3 - Conversations with Chinese Students

We started our lessons with the students the day after we moved in to the school apartment.  We were to spend an hour a day from 4.30 to 5.30pm, which generally comprised two half hour sessions with (usually) a single student but if it was early on in their course and their English was limited, they would attend in pairs.  On one occasion we had a group of 6 students each for the whole hour and they are an excitable lot but we were, on the whole, able to control them (although dragging them away from their mobile phones was a constant battle - it seems students are the same the world over!).

Yangshuo - Part 2 - The Rise and Fall of the Wooky's Cycling Career

Once we had settled in at the school apartment we trundled off to hire bikes from Bike Asia, conveniently situated next to Kelly’s Café (where we were seeming to spend most of our time) on Huigai Lu, the quieter and nicer road which runs parallel to West Street (which is all a bit noisy and sometimes a bit too much hassle constantly fending off the hard sell hawkers trying to sell you yet another bamboo boat trip). 

Yanghsuo - Part 1 - Last Stop in China

Our journey from Zhangjiajie was not without difficulty but given the days we have spent travelling on the Chinese Rail Network, we were genuinely surprised we had encountered few delays, not bought tickets to the wrong destinations (easily done in China), missed any conncections or simply got on the wrong train or bus.  In fact we were always slightly bemused each time we reached our intended destination. 

Wulingyuan - An Other Worldly Place

Just one of the awe inspiring views across
the park

Wulingyuan was stunning.  Cold and damp for some of the time but stunning nevertheless.  It really does live up to the description "other worldly" - there is no better way to describe it.



There was low cloud and mist when we arrived by bus from Fenghuang but it was really atmospheric.  We still hoped for better weather as we would be spending a lot of time traipsing about and we really weren’t equipped for the cold and rain (and didn’t want to buy any more clothes that, we hoped, would be redundant for the rest of our trip).  We were lucky and we did have a few days of clear blue skies and sunshine and no rain.

Fenghuang - A Charming Riverside Town

After the bus trip from Dali we checked in for one night at The Hump Hostel before catching the train to Huaihua the following day.  At The Hump we bumped into an American guy, Benny, who arrived at the same time by train from Dali and who is now our friend.  He was lovely.  He recognised us from The Jade’s barbecue and pool night.  Although he had been staying elsewhere in Dali, he had been persuaded to join in the pool completion and I somehow remembered it was mentioned that he was from Wisconsin.  It’s strange the details you remember you have eavesdropped about other people!

Dali - Warm days and Cheese on Toast




The bus journey to Dali took us through stunning Yunnan countryside – if we had caught the train we suspect we would have missed much of the scenery as when we took the train from Kunming to Lijiang, passing through Dali on the way, the train seemed to spend 90% of the journey in tunnels.  However, the road through the mountains south from Lijiang to Dali was beautiful, marred only by a peppering of heart stopping moments.