Travel map

The travel map is now up to date and if we have achieved anything on this trip, it has to be kilometers!

Beijing, China

From Xi'an, we had a delightful train trip to Beijing. The trains are so comfortable that we managed to sleep soundly until 10am, a few hours before arriving at our destination. It took a bit of walking around to get to our hostel but our efforts were rewarded by being greeted by our friends Marcin and Rose. Maybe our warm welcome had something to do with the 2 kilo box of muslim sweets I carried from Xi'an to share with them.

We split our time between finding a few things for the rest of the trip and touristing around the city. We started by visiting the "Forbidden city" which was really beautiful and impressive. It is much bigger than we all expected and certainly demonstrates the unlimited extravagance of the empire. From the front gate, one enters enormous open spaces surrounded on all sides by grand and elegant structures burnt and rebuilt many times over the years. As we progressed through the layers, the open spaces became smaller and the density of buildings greater. The constant crowds of tourists (mainly chinese) accentuate this change of scale.

We then contrasted our experience by visiting the Olympic site where we were able to see the "birds nest" and "watercube" in the flesh, so-to-speak. As always, it was interesting seeing these building in real life after so much coverage and hype. I'm not going to lie, we were a bit underwhelmed by the "watercube". Its best angle is from the corner where the bulging of the bubbles is quite striking but in terms of elevation, it is quite flat and the cleaning of the bubbles in such a polluted environment seems to not have been totally resolved. The most disappointing aspect were the entries into the building which seemed very under-designed and badly considered.



The birds nest was more impressive although we wondered about the proportion of structural elements versus purely decorative. We didn't go inside as it was quite expensive. We then tried to find the CCTV building but we only had a vague idea of where to find it and were unsuccessful. We were also very hungry which didn't encourage our determination very much. We eventually managed to find it on our last day and found it quite impressive. Unfortunately, the whole site is currently surrounded by fences which made it impossible to see more than glimpses of the adjoining building which burnt last year over Chinese New Year.

We also visited the Imperial Summer Palace which would have been surrounded by lush countryside once upon a time but is now in the suburbs of Beijing. We could only imagine the tranquility and serenity of this beautiful palace overlooking an gigantic lake as we were surrounded by thousands of other tourists wearing matching caps and following the soothing sound of a guide yelling through a loud-speaker. Nevertheless, nothing was too big or too much for the emperor so a huge lake dug by hand and a marble boat were to be expected.



The next day, we had an early start and headed out to see the Great Wall of China. We hiked along a 10km long section between Jinshaling and Simatai. Getting there was a bit of a mission, especially since we were "hoodwinked" by a sneaky be-atch who followed us around all morning trying to get our money one way or another. We didn't let her and eventually got there. The walk itself was not very long but in some sections, the steps were so steep that I had to use my hands and feet to climb up. Of course, it was worth the effort. The Great Wall is spectacular and at every twist and turn, it follows the ridge like a great big snake. We congratulated ourselves for our efforts by having Peking Duck that evening in a great little restaurant where an expert Peking Duck cutter artfully placed each little tender slice on a plate for us and covered it with thin crispy skin. Yum!



We spent our very last day running around, doing some errands before heading to Mongolia. Marcin and Rose had to go to the Embassy and we all met up for a final dinner afterwards. We went to our favourite restaurant, right next to our hostel and ordered all of our favourite dishes. Unfortunately, they didn't have "Hoodwinks the type to roast Yang Bang" so we had to content ourselves with "Hoodwinks the type to rip the muttons chop". We decided not to order the "Grandmother vegetable burns the pigs intestines" or "explodes the stomach" although it was tempting. If you have no idea what I am talking about, then it is time you go and read a Chinese Menu because I assure you I am not making this up!



On this note, we headed to the train station very early in the morning and were off to Mongolia. Stay tuned for more adventures!

Xi'An, China

After leaving Shanghai, we spent a few days in Xi'an. It was not quite the dusty array of bazaars and lamb kebabs we had created in our imagination but we enjoyed this bustling metropolis of 8 million nevertheless. To be fair, it did have a lovely muslim quarter where we spent a lot of time revelling in our favourite past-time : eating. The food there was quite different to other areas of China and we had a great selection of breads, lamb and ramadan type sweets. In the gaps between meals, we did manage to visit a few sights with the obvious highlight being the Terracota army.



They are a reccurent theme all over the city but it didn't quite compare with seeing the real thing. Convinced that he would pursue his conquests into the After-life, the emperor got himself a whole army to guard his imperial tomb which, to this day, is considered too dangerous to excavate due to the complex traps built into it. In 3 main pits, still being excavated, stand entire battalions of soldiers of various ranks, horses and chariots. Most figures were badly damaged over time either by being pillaged or because of the rammed earth tunnels in which they stood collapsing and crushing them. What stands in front of us is the dedicated work of archaelogists over the last 30 years and there is a lot more to come if you can wait. The sheer number of them is striking but not as much as the fact that every single one is different. Their faces, hair-dos, postures, attire, weapons all differ in one way or another and the intricacy of the detailing is fascinating. Our army of tourists, loaded and ready to shoot dozens of photos didn't look like much in front of the Emperor's.

Heng Shan and Shanghai

From the moment we left Guilin all the way to Shanghai about 4 days later, we became the main attraction. The whole time, we did not see another foreigner and we were stared at without interruption. It's a strange feeling and it made me rethink my desires for worldwide celebrity. Some people, always in a very polite (although a bit demanding) way, asked us for photos with them (some also didn't ask and just took photos anyway), or wanted to chat and ask us about our country (America to keep it simple). When we had questions, we targetted young nerdy teenagers who speak the best english since they learn it at school but they tend to get pretty overwhelmed so it's not always successful. The attention was bearable although it takes a bit of getting used to as it was constant to the point where some people would interrupt their conversations on the street to watch us walk by...

A little bit off the beaten track, we went to Heng Shan (one of 5 taoist mountains in China) for a couple of days. The weather was pretty bad but we decided to walk up the mountain anyway, to the peak about 15km up from the starting point in town. It took a bit over 5 hours and although the path was very well constructed (it felt a bit like visiting Katoomba on the week-end so not especially adventurous), it was a bit tough going only in one direction...up. Even though we didn't get the forecasted torrential rains, the whole mountain was covered in fog and we missed out on some probably pretty nice views which was a pity. There are temples all along the way and we have a good series of misty-rious photos of various things disappearing into the fog...The winner of the day though wasn't us. A chinese girl managed to walk up the whole mountain in high heels and mini-skirt! It was a pretty good effort considering it was drizzling to pouring the whole time and the whole thing involved thousands of steps! We decided that her boyfriend must have been one stingy bastard since you can also catch a cable car to the top...

Chris pre-testing a Danish city bike

After Heng Shan, we caught a night train to Shanghai which took a little bit longer than expected. The night went very well but in the morning, we found that the train had been stationed for a very long time. There was a bit of a ruckus around our bunks and we worked out that people were looking at images of a train crash on a laptop. At that point, we worked out that we may not make to Shanghai by lunchtime...(Nota Bene: we are grateful that we were only indirectly affected by the landslide train crash which occurred somewhere ahead of us) Eventually, all the passengers were made to get off the train and stand on the platform. For a short while, it seemed that we would be put onto buses to another station and continue by train from there but in a very brief instant, chaos broke out, people started running around and screaming. The train company would not honor the tickets and we were on our own. We got on a train to NanJing which, to our surprise, took 10 hours to complete the journey. We arrived around 10pm and unsuccessfully tried to book tickets to Shanghai the next morning. No one could speak English and the ticket office was a mess with, again, people running around and screaming (a now familiar sight in China). We tried again in the morning and got on a fast train around mid-day. We made it to Shanghai a little bit over 24 hours late, c'est la vie!


Quirky Netherlands


Giant Mexican flowers


The beautiful UK sea urchin/fluff ball

Kiwis performing the Haka to a bemused crowd of Chinese tourists


The Elegant Danish pavilion

We spent 3 days in Shanghai visiting a few areas of the city which was fine but the most note-worthy thing we did there was to visit the World Expo. At first, it was pretty weird. The China Pavilion is suitably impressive and stands close to the main entrance of the huge site. Quite close-by were all the pavilions for Asia and the Middle-East. They were actually all pretty bad and sad except for Korea which was a surprise (North Korea had a pavilion too which we thought was strange since the expo is pretty much one big tourism promotion...). Surprisingly, Japan's pavilion was shabby and ugly. The middle-Eastern ones either looked like high-school presentations or airport terminals. In another zone a bit further from the entrance were the Americas and Europe. That was fun! The pavilions were a lot better and some were really cool although visiting any of them required patience. Chinese people demonstrated a great paradox. They refuse to stand in lines at train-stations but they are quite happy to line up for 4 hours to visit the "Pavilion de la France". We observed a lot on what makes or breaks a pavillion in terms of information, circulation and appearance. Some of our favourites were UK for its beauty, Holland for its quirckiness, Denmark for its elegance, New Zealand for its beautiful sloped roof garden and Mexico for showing an original Frida Kahlo. We gave thumbs down to USA for looking like an Audi dealership, Italy for it's monumentality and Germany for being BORING! We took 280 photos which we will arrange in a gallery and you can judge for yourselves.

Dragon's Backbone terraces : Ping'an to Dazhai

We arrived in Ping'an from Guilin in the early afternoon and were immediately impressed with the scenery. As Chris described it, it was like "Sapa on steroids". Driving for a couple of hours, along windy roads, the mountainous landscape looked like a giant version of one of our architectural models, with thousands of curvy contours stacked on top of each other forming beautiful reliefs. Within the contoured land lied the picturesque village of Ping'an. Wooden houses with slate tiled roofs laying within the valleys, revealing and hiding themselves depending on the angle.

We spent the afternoon exploring the maze of stepped paths between the identical looking buildings, trying to keep track of the location of our own guesthouse. Worried that we might experience the same type of hysteria as in Sapa from the local residents, we were glad to see that the people were a lot calmer and less insistent. The village is well set up for visitors without being overwhelming. We enjoyed a delicious dinner in a restaurant overlooking the rest of the village and valley below. The local specialty is to cook rice inside bamboo sticks over a fire. The result is smokey tasting sticky rice. It was quite good and we had it with braised tofu and eggplant. We had an early night preparing for the walk we planned on doing the following day.

We set off at a reasonable hour after a quick breakfast. The weather was pretty wet and unstable going from drizzly rain to showers. We didn't let that stop us and we started the 4 to 5 hours walk from Ping'an to Dazhai which goes through the villages of ZonghLiu and Tiantou. The walk was stunning and although we had to be careful with the camera in the rain, we couldn't resist taking photos of the mist over the submerged terraces reflecting the cloudy sky. We made it to ZonghLiu in good time and had a bowl of noodles there. We then continued on to TianTou, or at least tried but didn't get there until much much later that evening. We must have made a wrong turn at some point leaving the village as we traveled up a very long, steep and slippery trail of rock steps leading us all the way up to a pass over one of the mountains.



Once at the top, our head in the clouds, we started getting confused about which path to take as the one we were on started to disappear. Like an apparition, a black cow was standing in the mist and she lead us to her master, an old cow herder with a dozen of animals. We asked for the direction to TianTou and started to sense that we may not be on the right track. His hand gestures seemed to point in bizarre directions and after much hesitation, debating whether to continue and get hopelessly lost or turn around, we decided to keep going with the logic that a path would lead somewhere even if it was the wrong place. Our logic worked and eventually we arrived in a village but it wasn't TianTou...

Chris asking a local for directions....

We will never know for sure where we were but it was the wrong side of the mountain and we would have to walk back up and down the other side to get to our destination. At that point, we were tired, wet and hungry. We asked for help from some long haired women. Thanks to our phrasebook and a bit of imagination on both sides, we agreed that we would eat something and that one of the women would guide us on the two hour trek to TianTou and then Dazhai. They fed us a stir-fry of pork (mainly fat and some tasty chunks of meat) and bamboo sprouts. It wasn't half bad and we also had a cup of rice wine to give us some strenght for the road. Around 5pm, we were off again, dreading another round of slippery steps in the mud. Our guide wasn't too fast but she was agile as she managed to stay completely free of mud splatters while we were slipping around, caked in mud up to our knees. We took a few tumbles even thinking for a moment that I might have broken my elbow. Luckily, my butt took the bulk of that fall. Eventually, drenched to the bone and exhausted, we made it to a village and into a house which turned out to be her mother's. Her daughter, sister and nephew were there too and they welcomed us warmly. We were forced to take our clothes off and change into borrowed ones until the next morning. They then gave us a cup of a sort of fermented rice drink. After a few moments trying to work out what was going on, we were taken to a hotel where we could have a warm shower and a comfortable bed. Relieved to be having a nice dinner rather than sleeping in the wild, on top of a mountain, we ate lots and then fell asleep like rocks.

The next morning, it was only a short walk to the bus stop from where we would go back to Guilin one day later than we expected. Once back there, we had nice showers and hung out at the hostel before catching a night train due to depart at 2:20am to Heng Shan, Hunan where we were going on another long walk up a mountain...we called it stamina training for Sweden.


The view from our hotel room...It wasn't all for nothing!

Yang Shuo, Guanxi Province, China

From Guilin, it is a quick and easy bus ride to Yangshuo in the province of Guanxi. A favourite with young Chinese tourists, the quaint town is the gate to awesome scenery all around it. The landscape is like an inland version of Halong Bay, displaying similar vertical Karst formations. The Li River runs between the cliffs while the flat sections surrounded by the gigantic rocks are used for pocket-sized agriculture, where rice and vegetables are cultivated. It is quite a rural area and the contrast between its inhabitants and the domestic tourists visiting it is perhaps even more striking than our own presence.



We spent our first day in Yangshuo mostly walking around the small town. A portion of it is very touristy while the surrounding streets are not particularly interesting. Nevertheless, it seemed full of good eating options and looked like a nice base to explore the area from. For dinner, we decided to try a small eatery nearby, owned by a family of Muslim Chinese. They had a whole wall of photos of meals but we wanted to see what other people were eating and point when we found something appetizing. We must have looked confused since a young man came over to help us and, probably, practice his english, which incidentally, was pretty good. Eventually, after some slightly awkward chatting, he invited us to join his group of friends for dinner. Not able to refuse, we went over and became the focus point of 8 pairs of eyes. They had ordered an absolute feast and we were invited to try it all. It was really delicious food which one wouldn't necessarily associate with Chinese cuisine. We had curries, fried jalapenos, soup and the highlight : home-made flat rice noodles, it was sensational. Towards the end of our meal, our new friends decided that it was time to name us which began an animated discussion on what names and characters would suit us best. I was named Mo Li, which means flower and is the title of a famous opera which they all sang in unison at our table. Chris was named Gao Jian which has a less straightforward translation but refers to being strong and healthy, buildings and having valued opinions. By the time we said goodbye, we were pretty happy and in love with the warmth of the Chinese. To thank our hosts, we slipped a note attached with a kangaroo pin under their door the next morning. It was signed Mo Li and Gao Jian.



On our second day there, we decided to do a popular walk between two villages, from Yangdi to XingPing, which follows the Li River whilst going through farming land and rustic villages. The walk is supposed to take about 5 hours so we arrived in Yangdi fairly early, ready for a good day of walking. On arrival though, our plans had to change somewhat. Due to heavy rains in the previous days, the level of the River was a couple meters higher than usual and was covering up the first section of the path. Initially, it seemed that our plans were foiled and that the only way to get to Xingping was by boarding a bamboo raft all the way. The rafts can only carry a few passengers at a time and are ones of those tourist traps one tries to avoid at all cost since they are expensive, slow and boring. Deadseat on walking, we attempted some negotiations with raft owners to take us to the other side of the river where we thought we could see a path going up towards higher grounds. These efforts were in vain and after much gesticulating, we were ready to give up and hop back on the bus to Yangshuo. As a last resort, Chris asked a young man standing nearby if he spoke english and from there, our luck changed. Eager to help us, our interlocutor reinitiated the negotiation process and after a few minutes of yelling followed by total silence, a raft owner agreed to take us to a point we could walk from, all that for a portion of the price we were being offered. From then on, we were travelling with Qing Ta and a couple of his friends who took care of everything for us. The walk itself was worth the effort. The landscape was lovely as it went from following the river to going more inland and walking through fields of rice and villages. It took a little bit longer than we expected as Qing Ta, a post-graduate student whose name means "post-graduate student" and his friends were obviously not accustomed to any form of exercise and although the path was pretty much flat the whole way, had to take regular smoking breaks to rest their "very tired" limbs. Once in Xingping, we shared a big bowl of noodles as a late lunch and parted ways with the promise that we would send him some photos we took.



The following day, we decided to hire a pair of bicycles and explore another area. We planned on doing a 20km loop from Yangshuo, along the Yelong river, over a 600 year old bridge and back along the other side of the river. As usual, mapless and following the vague directions of the "Lonely planet", things didn't go exactly as planned but were good anyway. The first half was absolutely gorgeous. The Yelong river is much smaller and was quiet and clear. (the Li River was quite muddy due to the heavy rains). The scenery was stunning and the route took us through very small villages on mud tracks through rice fields. Old men with water buffalos were plowing their tiny fields while kids ran around with chooks. Although the scene seemed iddylic, it was obvious that these people were very poor and that there was nothing easy about their life. We saw a 89 year old man walking up the hill to get oranges while his wife was selling them on the side of the track. We reached the bridge after a couple of hours and had a short rest there before setting off on the other side to complete our loop. The path started to deviate from the river and thinking nothing of it, we powered along. Eventually, we crossed another Western couple coming the other way. As they passed us, they asked where we were heading and when we said "Yangshuo", they yelled the dreaded words "wrong way"... Grrr, we were lost again and after some discussions, we turned around and headed back to the bridge. We had already cycled for a few hours and we were already dreaming of steamed buns and dumplings so the idea of going back the way we came was a bit depressing. Instead of going the same way, we took the quicker main road rather than the slow picturesque path. It was 10km and we got it done pretty fast since it was a slight downhill and we were keen to get back to town. We finished off with a big bowl of wonton soup, picked up our bags from our (crappy) hostel and caught a bus back to Guilin, the main city in the province from where we would go explore another stunning area called the "Dragon's backbone terraces".

Sapa : Last stop in Vietnam

We chose Sapa as our final destination in Vietnam and did not regret it. We considered skipping it but after calculations on when to enter and exit China, we had a couples days to fill in after coming back from Halong Bay. Sapa is an overnight bus trip out of Hanoi in the North West direction and we arrived there early in the morning feeling bleary eyed but excited by the glimpses of landscape we had caught in between winks of sleep from the bus windows. Apparently, while I was sleeping, in another impossible position, the bus driver hit a scooter who was thankfully more shocked than injured. After long and loud negotiations, the bus driver gave him a small amount of cash and waved him off. Blissfully unaware of what was happening outside, I enjoyed the stop thinking that the bus company was very kind to give us a bit of extra sleep time.

The area around Sapa is a hilly/mountainous region which is home to various ethnic minorities. The hills have been sculpted into an infinite number of terraces cascading down and used mainly for rice. The terraces are cultivated by hand, with the help of water buffalos pulling small mechanical plowers through the mud. Whatever is grown on those hills is then taken to the market in Sapa along with various arts and crafts more directly targeted at tourists who are well on the way to becoming the main industry in the region.

Shortly after getting there, we managed to find what would become our best room yet. It was spacious and elegant but mainly, we had our very own balcony overlooking a magnificent valley. To top it off, breakfast was included and it was actually good. We probably allowed a bit too much time in Sapa but we didn't mind as it was a pleasure just sitting outside, having a couple beers and watching the sunset.

In order to keep drowsiness at bay and to make the most of the rare good weather, we hired a scooter and went exploring the mountains. We drove along the steep undulating road and reached Tram Ton pass, the highest mountain pass in Vietnam at 1900 meters above sea level. The pass is also the starting point to the climb to the top of Mount Fansipan, the hightest mountain in the country. After a quick lunch back in town, we continued our explorations and unfortunately this was to become one of our worst experiences on the trip so far. We made the mistake of heading for a hilltribe village a few kilometers out of Sapa. The drive there was stunning and when we got to the gate we accepted to pay a fee and continue into the village. As soon as we got there, we instantly regretted it. Naively thinking that we could have a quick walk around the village, we soon realized that we had become the main attraction. We had barely stepped off the scooter when we were instantly surrounded by a dozen women of various ages vying for our attentions, whether by speaking robotic English or grinning toothless red and black smiles, trying to sell us anything from silver jewelry to embroidered bed spreads. As I tried to get Chris' attention, my voice was drowned out by the constant pleas for money. After a few minutes, when it became clear that we weren't going to buy any pouches or pillowcases, we literally ran away, hopped back on our scooter and drove off as quick as possible. The feelings that flooded me after that were those of disappointment, disgust and anger. Those feelings weren't directed at them but rather at the system that has trapped these people into a way of life that is similar to slavery. Unable to develop into a more modern lifestyle, they maintain these supposed customs to attract tourists while poisoning what was fascinating in the first place. They are completely dependent on the tourist trade and have turned almost entirely towards it. The problem is that they don't look so much like farmers as beggars and they will lose their way if they do not regain control of their independence and create a sustainable way of life for themselves which does not involve entertaining curious tourists like monkeys in a zoo.

We had planned to hike to another village on the next day but of course, we changed our plans and suddenly had plenty of times on our hands. That was fine, we made the most of our last Vietnamese pleasures. We had lots of coffee, watched people walk around and live their lives, spent some time on the internet and sat on our balcony. We knew that the easy lifestyle of South East Asia was quickly coming to an end so we soaked it all in.

After 3 days in Sapa, we were on our way back to Hanoi where we spent one last day before heading to China. Chris had to get a Mongolian visa and we just had a few things to organize before the big move. We celebrated our last night in Vietnam by having a sensational meal of fresh spring rolls and cold beer in a cute restaurant in the heart of the Old Quarter. The next morning, we packed up our things and boarded the bus with that feeling of excitement and anticipation one gets when something big is about to happen.