We managed not to get squashed and flattened by the swarm of oncoming motorbikes on the streets of Hanoi ( just because we closed our eyes, kept on walking and mumbled prayers 24/7 ) !!!!!!!!!!! After seeing the splendid water puppet show and getting lost several times in the narrow streets of the old quarter in the north of Hoan Kiem lake, we ( I didn't manage to get rid of the british chick yet) squeezed our fat bums into a tuc tuc to see uncle Ho's Mausoleum and his fancy stilt house. On thursday we decided to take an overnight train to Lao Cai, where we catched a bus up to Sa pa, well known for it's rice terraces and minority villages. We hiked through the rice terraces the following 2 days, stopping at different villages to meet the people of the H'mong, Dzar and Red Dzao. Lot's of kids were trying to sell wristbands, the first sentences they learn must be "You buy this from me", with an expression in their faces that makes it hard to resist. We visited a school and a family, the hands of the 96-years old granny were blue from coloring clothes with indigo. The chinese rice terraces around Guilin may have been more impressive and majestic, as they seemed to cover the complete hillsides, but the vietnamese people seem to be more hospitable and friendly. We left Sa pa on a stormy evening to head back to Ha noi- another overnight train.

Good afternoon Vietnam!!! The english chick called Lorraine and me made it to Hanoi! I'm finally able to write my blog again without having to guess what all those chinese characters may mean!!! So what happened since my last post??? - Back in Yangshuo, somewhere in China.....we spend our mornings with Tai Chi and Kung Fu lessons next to the beautiful setting of the river surrounded by those rugged hills, we always managed to attract an amused local audience, we should have sold tickets...it was an nice experience, though ( if it wouldn't show my ignorance of other cultures and that I'm the worst tourist ever ( who am I trying to fool anyway ) I would have said we looked like a mixture of a slow motion version of Phil Collins in this Genesis-video "I can dance" and chicken on speed). Yangshuo is a small but quite touristic place, lot's of bars and shops, but you still can enjoy the beautiful surrounding by hiking up one of the hills to get to a pavillion that overlooks the city (just make sure there's someone to help you down again if you decide to go further up than the slippery steps lead) or just sit by the riverside and watch people doing their laundry in the river while a few small cruiseboats make their way up the river, a horse plays catch me with his owner on the opposite bank of the river, people passing by-nibbling on bamboo sticks or trying to sell you postcards and books......on our second afternoon in Yangshuo we headed to the local food market where you could buy everything you could possibly eat: vege's, fruits, spices, all kind of fish and seafood, living animals and all kind of meat: goose, duck, pig, dog.....we went to a cooking school outside Yangshuo, cooked our own dinner, stayed overnight in a brick guesthouse in that village and made a bike tour through the surrounding villages the next day: we saw peasants working in the fields with their water-buffallos, people collecting mud out of the river for the rice fields, a bamboo-boat is floating down the river, we dragged our lazy bums up moon-hill, accompanied by an over-60-year-old woman, who hiked the whole way up with us just to sell us a bottle of water. The next day we took several buses to get to the "Dragon Backbone Terraced Rice Fields" and walked along the terraces to one of those wooden guesthouses of the Dazai village. Tired from doing nothing we sat around a charcoal- fireplace while women of the Yao minority tried to sell us embroidered wallets and bags. The next morning we trekked along the hillsides of the amazing rice- terraces towards another village, where we watched the Yao-women comb their floor length hair...we kept on hiking while the fog rose and soon covered everything around us, a peasant with a hoe over his shouder hiked up the hills to get to his field and vanished slowly into the fog, looking like death himself....in the end it didn't matter anymore that we couldn't see the surrounding fields anymore as we were occupied trying not to lose our footing on the slippery stones of the path....finally we made it to the village Ping'an, where we watched a cultural show in the evening - performed by women of the Zhunag minority, which seemed to wear tea towels wrapped around their heads as "hats". We left the Longji rice terraces at noon the next day to get back to the train station of Guilin, where we boarded the night train to Hong Kong. As I had to apply for the vietnamese visa in Hongkong, I wouldn't leave till sunday- enough time to explore the city: took the peak tram on Hong Kong Island up to Peak Victoria to stare into the fog, made a river cruise and stuffed our faces at the buffet while the skyline of Hong Kong floated by behind our backs, took the midlevel escalator through a quarter called SOHO, went to see the Avenue of Stars, Repulse Bay and the fishing village Tai-O, took the subway to Lantau Island where we took the Skyrail up to the Ngong Ping Village with the intention to see the huge Buddah statue, in the end we didn't even see the little toe of it, everything was covered in fog again...... we walked through plenty of markets: the Stanley market in the south of Hong Kong Island, the gold fish market, the night market in Temple street/Kowloon, not to forget the Ladies market, where we ended up almost every night, chased by women shouting "Missi Missi copy watch handbag shoes wallet", bargaining hard till the saleswoman shed some fake-tears ( I'm still wondering why they always punched me while they hugged the bloody little, cute, blonde english girl.) . Finally Sunday came up and we started our trip to Vietnam: we were able to buy tickets in advance for the train from Hong Kong to Guangshou and for the night train from Guangshou to Nanning. We went through the border formalities of Hong Kong, boarded the train to Guangshou-East, crossed the customs back into China, the quaratine department confisicated my fruits with an disapproving, highpitched "OOOOOIIIIHHH" , we took the subway to the the Guangshou main station and boarded the night train to Nanning, welcome back in the country of the fleming and spitting people. I can't still remember how, but somehow we managed to get some tickets for a funky train ( with people staring at us as if we just came from the planet of the apes) from Nanning to Pingxiang in the morning, where a we got a lift to the chinese-vietnamese border at the Friendship pass, that was a pretty giggly funny ride out of china , we were bumping along in this motorbike-cart-vehicle on uneven roads till we made it to the highway, where we tried hard to keep our eyes open with the wind cutting into our faces. We walked our way through the border and found a bus that took us to Hanoi, where we arrived 32 hours after we started- pretty easy!!!!!

I made it to Hong Kong on Tuesday.I'm leaving for a train-odyssey to Vietnam tomorrow, it will take me a while to get there!!! Gonna update about the last week and a half later on.

On early sunday evening, we took the subway to the Pudong district, and made our way up to the 87th floor of the Jinmao Tower to have several cocktails at " Cloud9", the swanky bar of the Hyatt, enjoying the stunning view of the bright lights of Shanghai. Later on, we went to a bar/club to dance the night away. We started with a little hangover the next day, just managed to buy some food for the 27- hour train journey to Guilin. Quite some pots of noodles and 2 sunsets later we arrived in Guilin and took a bus to Yangshuo. When I got out into the streets this morning I was quite impressed by those rugged mountains which surround the town ( couldn't see them last night), pretty amazing!!!!!

We took a local bus out to the Terracotta Warriors, I'm still wondering why they make the effort to paint lanes on the street. Back in Xi'an, I spend a lot of time in the muslim quarter, besides tons of clothing and souvenirs, they sell all kind of food over there- vegetable dumplins, meat sticks, fruits...we tried HOTPOT one evening, you get all sorts of food on a stick and boil it in the HOTPOT in the middle of the table, where you can choose between a spicy and a mild "liquid" to boil it in, that was quite an "experience". I climbed the Bell and Drum Tower, had a look at the "Great Mosque", climbed up the Great Goose Pagoda... unfortunally it was very foggy that day, so I couldn't see much of the surrounding.I walked along a small street where they sell everything you need for calligraphy, all types of papers and brushes, now and then you saw locals playing cards or other games....I climbed the city wall to have a last look over the city before getting to the train station ( and fighting my way in ) to catch the night train to Shanghai.

We started to explore Shanghai by walking along the "Bund" ( of course!!!), took the elevator to the roof garden of the Peace Hotel for a good look over the river and the Pudong business district at the other shore. On sunday we went for a stroll to find the YuYuan garden, we went around in circles in the quarter for about an hour before finally finding the entrance to the garden, but that way we saw a lot of small hutongs and "huts" , clothes hanging next to meat over our heads to dry ( soaking up the smell of those streets ) ....but also neatly restored shops in the Shanghai Old Street.