Cat Ba and Halong Bay

I had a wonderful birthday and Christmas on Cat Ba Island. I had many outdoor adventures! The flashiest one was Deep Water Solo Climbing, and also went kayaking through natural arches, swam, jumped off the tour boat into the water over and over, did a strenuous 5 hour trek, explored caves,

and hiked the coastline. I ended up spending a week on Cat Ba. It was well worth it.

Cat Ba, Vietnam

I've spent the last 4 days in Cat Ba, Vietnam having a wonderful time, and the best birthday. I went deep water solo rock climbing, kayaked in the lagoon and through natural bridges and archways, I jumped off the 2 story wooded tour boat into the water. I went trekking through the hot and humid jungle, spent the night out on the bay with hillarious fellow travellers who sang Happy Birthday to me, and even found some cake! I'm sore, scraped up, bruised, tired and have a headcold, but am having more fun than I've had in ages! Vietnam is excellent! I want to do some more climbing and swimming, I'll probably stay here for Christmas! The loud, Asian-techno-hiphop-remixed Christmas music is so funny! :)

Hello from Hanoi! Good morning Vietnam!

This part of the trip feels like flying by the seat of my pants. Moving right along, from a lovely rice terrace/Baguio market/Beach Paradise 2 weeks in the Philippines, then a quick stop in Hong Kong and lots of eating and beer with Phil, Ami and Lily Ann (yay fun British pals!), I'm already in Hanoi, surrounded by scooters, silk shops, Pho and the special chaos that is Hanoi. Check out these pictures :)

Palawan was pretty and fun!

Palawan was terrific. I had a lot of fun there, snorkeling on bangka boats that take you island hopping. I swam through a hole in a cliff, snorkeled in turquoise water and saw several families of clown fish, barracuda, angel fish, rainbow fluorescent fish of all sizes. I met hillarious travel friends from England, and lounged on the loveliest beach I've seen so far. I've already forgotten that I got really sick, we weathered Typhoon Pablo, El Nido has no hot water and the electricity is off from 6am to 2pm everyday.

Manila, Philippines

I flew from Hong Kong to Manila and am enjoying the hot and sunny weather! Manila is crazy. The people are friendly and kind, and it's a fun place with interesting history and current day dynamics, but it has a great deal of poverty, dirt, traffic jams, sex clubs, and sketchy-looking male tourists. I can't walk around alone at night, and I keep getting bitten by bugs: fire ants on my feet the other day, and other kinds of bites on my legs. I plan to leave Manila early tomorrow to go to see the rice terraces in the northern part of the main island, near a town called Baguio. The walls of the original Spanish settlement are still standing, and the inside part of Manila is tranquil and lovely. I couldn't help but let a local kid take me around in a bicycle with a sidecar (I rode in the sidecar), where he insisted I go in and visit every major touristy place, and pay the $1 or $2 entry fee every time, buy a souvenir from the kid's cousin's souvenir shop, etc. Many interactions to do with money feel like a scam in Manila, but this one was cheap, fun and interesting. I visited the huge Catholic church and museum of St Augustin, Fort Santiago, among other spots. My favorite thing to see in Manila are the jeepney vehicles all over the city, wildly decorated, many with Western person names on the front sign board ("Emma&Jeff" or "Joan"), carrying people in the place of modern public buses (of which there are none). If I could understand how to catch and board one, and where they go, I would love to ride in one. They have no wondows, and are a cross between a jeep, an SUV and a pick-up truck. People hunch to sit in them. I suspect I'll get to ride one when in another city, or when passing back through Manila next week.

Hong Kong skyline

I left China earlier than what was in my master plan, so I booked a cheap flight to Manila! I got a taste of Hong Kong for just 2 days, am on my way to the HK airport already, but I'll be back for 3 more full days before flying to Hanoi.
In order to get to Hong Kong, I took the train from Guangzhou to Shenzhen. Lonely Plant (LP) said I'd have to pay for a visa permit for Shenzhen and HK, but didn't pay anything in either place. It's also pretty easy and cheap to walk through a series of hallways, checkpoints and immigration booths and hop on the HK metro on the otherside. No help from LP on that part either, and I missed the right signs in the Shenzhen station, rode the Shenzhen metro for 2 hours, unecessarily. Need to read more and different sources in advance next time. Oh well, fun all the same. Shenzhen is a clean, modern city from what I saw, O thought it would remind me of Detroit, but no.

Hong Kong!

Hong Kong is bustling, and jam packed with wall to wall skyscrapers that would touch eachother from across the street if they were any closer, tiny streets like in Europe, double decker trams and double.decker buses, cars driving on the left side drive, neon galore, and a huge port. This place makes Shanghai look behind the times and asleep! WoW!

Guangzhou

Went around town today, and found some neat stuff: The Opera house, children's center, library and Asian Games (small time olympics) park, all in a new area with wild modern architecture and the nicest linear city park I've ever seen, koy, water lilies, children rollerblading, etc. I walked through some awesome upscale neighborhoods, and then saw a really run down neighborhood near a huge Catholic cathedral.

I also found a big seafood market/wharf by accident. Really cool. The air was a bit dirty and cloudy mixed. No trouble breathing. Construction cranes everywhere. I think Guangzhou is the cutting edge, building skyscrapers fast, modern city, more than Shanghai.

Guidebook notes that Guangzhou sees the largest human migration in the world for Chinese new year. I could tell at the train station, they're set up for big crowds. Had some BBQ skewers in the night market, dinner for 6¥ (less than $1). Making up for 2 pints of Guinness and the fish and chip plate last night in Shanghai for 250¥ ($35), the most expensive meal by far. Dinner is usually under 30¥. Hostels are usually 60¥ per night. Prices are wacky and inconsistent.

Going to bed exhausted at 9pm. 9am train to Shenzhen tomorrow.

Super jazzed about the Philippines!! Glad I went for it. I borrowed a Chinese guy's computer at the hostel lobby to get the ticket, couldn't fill in all the stuff on my phone. He and his friend saw what I was buying and both said "wow, that is very cheap, good job, exciting trip!"

Shanghai is cool! I made it to Shanghai. The sleeper ticket was great! Hostel is fine. It's called Le Tour rest hostel or something, outside the touristy area, in a cool old building.

The air is cleaner, and so are the streets and everything. It's more like San Jose just with sky scrapers. I'd like to check out the Bund along the waterfront and People's Square before it gets too dark. Looking forward to some museums, the Urban Planning Exhibition Center, and some good food! I'll stay until Sunday. Want to book a flight to Manila!

I like this place the best so far. I'm glad I started in glum Beijing and worked my way up, so to speak. The waterfront is striking and nice, kind of reminds me of Chicago's Michigan Ave with old stone buildings all in a row. There are several art deco structures, one with a clock tower that rings every 15 min and at least one tour boat on the water will honk back.

The new, East side of the river is all recently built with sky scrapers and needle towers. It was apparently a swamp with nothing 15 years ago. There are still tiny buildings and not so clean neighborhoods peppered in, reminding me I'm still in China.

I see more western faces here than any of the previous cities. Tons and tons of stores, shopping madness.

Xian was fun and to see all the terracotta soldiers was a amazing. I'm off to Shanghai on the 15hr night train. I have a sleeper ticket and am loaded with raisins, bananas and cookies. They have hot drinking water on the trains, so I got a little thermos and hot cocoa packets, too.

Made it to Xian and headed for the Terracotta Army soldiers.

Beijing & Pingyao

Olympic Water Cube Swim Center

Then, made it to Pingyao. 13 hr night train from hell with no heat between 1am and 7am, no doors to block smokers in the between-car area, stinky bathroom... I would have taken a different train or gotten a sleeper if anything at the main station ticket office had been in English. That place was a zoo, totally bonkers.

Pingyao is a really cute city with an ancient wall all the way around it with watchtowers. Very 'Monty Python', nights of the round table, only very Chinese. The buildings are all small 1 story brick bungalows with a labyrinth of courtyards and funky interior spaces, exquisite woodwork and doors.

It's not as cold here as in Beijing. The only (deal breaker) downside is that the air is filthy. I don't want to breathe in deep, constant headache. It's like being around a campfire only 1000 x worse. Maybe it's bad because the houses are burning for heat, or burning trash... I need to leave China soon.

Tomorrow I'll go to Xian, and I'll look into flying to Shanghai. After Shanghai, I'm thinking I'll bag the rest of China and go hang out in the Philippines for a while. Then go to Hong Kong a few days before my flight to Hanoi, Vietnam. I've heard good things about all those places.

Otherwise, I'm safe, in a good hostel, had dinner and a shower, washing my clothes all the time.

I went to the great wall today, which kind of feels like an accomplishment. The wall has snow!

Beijing also has these really cool alley ways, called "hutong" with old 1 story buildings and red lanterns. The city is tearing many of the Hutong areas down to build modern, tall apartments.

Leaving for Pingyao tomorrow!

Bejing

A rainy shopping area just south of Tianenmen sq, and a pic of a light, uncrowded moment in the subway (tons of people)

The weather is even colder and windy, but at least it stopped raining. I bought leggings for under my pants, and a cheap puffy vest. I wear several shirts at the same time, hat, gloves, gortex jacket, puffy vest, 2 pairs of socks, and it's tolerable. I'm hoping I wont need warm clothes once I get down to Shanghai.

I met a spunky Chinese girl in the hostel, called Quan. She's a uni student in Australia for graphic arts, and she's on summer/xmas break. She's been so helpful, and suggested we go to a funky art district called 798. It was really fun, 100 galleries in refurbished, funky industrial factory buildings, and so cold I took 0 pics. Trying again tomorrow for the great wall. Xian and another city, Pingyao (sp?) are next, wiki wiki. Then straight for Shanghai.

The hostel is nice. I'm tired. Trash pick up has people yelling in the street all morning. Glad I came all the same. I'm healthy, have woolly hat and gloves.

Beijing:

So far, it's cold (tomorrow supposed to be rain, 45 deg), crowded, dirty, people are rude and hock loogies all the time. I get stared at even more. I'd hate to see it in summer w heat and crowds of tourists. They have xray machines and metal detectors before I can get on the regular subway, police everywhere. If "the word in Rome" is sex, the word in Beijing is "grey" or "big brother" or "control", "grim"... I went to the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Sq today which was cool. I think i'll go to the great wall tomorrow and then leave. Next stop is Xian, to see terra cotta soldiers.

Green Island