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24 Hours late, Noodle Soup, Dodging Bikes & more...
Its been a busy week!! We left Xi'an for Kunming on the Thursday evening train expecting to arrive the following morning at about 11am. Getting the train in China is a funny thing. It's kind of like going to a concert. You are all herded around in enormous groups, everybody is in a great mood, and we are all carrying way more food and drink than seems practical. Being old hands at train travel in China we, like everybody else, were armed with enough bowls of instant noodles to get us through the evening. Every carriage has a boiler in it to provide hot water required for what the chinese people seem to enjoy most: Noodles and Tea.
The next morning we awoke at about 9 o' clock and, after a quick bit of breakfast we packed up our stuff and waited patiently for the train to get in. At 3 that afternoon we began to get suspicious that maybe we had made a small miscalculation on what time we were due to get in at...
The following morning we awoke at about 9 o' clock and, not being able to face any more instant noodles, packed up our stuff and waited patiently for the train to get in. We were a whole day longer on the train than expected!! 
We decided we would rest for a day in Kunming before undertaking the sleeper bus. With regards our hotel, we definitely landed on our feet! We got a huge room with towels, hot water, cable tv, big telly and would you believe it we even had complimentary toiletries 
I even managed to get a steak sandwich in Kunming which was a massive treat after all the noodles - yummy!
The bus trip from Kunming to Hanoi was not like the pleasant train travel experience we had come to know and love. It was a very different prospect. Firstly, the journey didn't start on a positive note. Aoife got into a big argument with our bus "conductor". He was attempting to charge us extra money for our luggage and cited the charge as "petrol money". He said to ask any chinese person and they would tell us that it was the absolute norm. Unfortunately not a single person happened to speak english and, despite Aoife's best protestations, we end up forking out an extra 4 euro.. She did manage to argue a way of us keeping our rucksacks on the bus though which was excellent work (it meant we would not have to be in a panic everytime the bus stopped for fear of our bags disappearing).
What followed was 12 pretty miserable hours of being bumped around (it felt as if we were driving through a building site on a horse and cart for about 9 hours of the journey) on little beds trying to ignore the plumes of smoke, spitting, getting sick and ridiculous temperature. I also needed to go to the toilet for about 10 of the 12 hours due to the two beers I had the previous afternoon.. I know - self inflicted 
We emerged black and blue from the bus and headed straight for what I will generously describe as the toilet (more like a raised platform over a trough). I even had to pay into the toilet!! Scandalous... (Aoife makes the point here that although I did have to pay, I was only charged the princely sum of 3 cent..)
The border crossing was, thankfully, incident free (as in we avoided all deportation / bribe attempts). The immediate difference in the people once we crossed the border was amazing. They were so friendly. Even touts and beggars are totally genial! We emerged from Vietnam Border Control and, as there were no taxis available, hopped onto what in Vietnam is the next best thing - motorbikes. We (Aoife more so) were a bit nervous at the prospect but it was ok - they didn't go too fast and once I figured out how to balance on the bike without clinging desperately in a very girly fashion to the driver I was grand Aoife also emerged free from physical (or mental) scarring but was very glad to be back on terra firma having spent the whole journey balanced very precariously with her rucksack on her back, terrified to adjust her position. We grabbed ourselves what seems to be the staple here in vietnam - a bowl of pho (noodle soup). We then headed across the road and got ourselves tickets on the next train to Hanoi. Unfortunately the train only had one class of ticket - hard seat (and as our bums bore testament - they were very hard indeed!).
The train wasn't so bad. Although our assigned seats weren't together we were quickly advised how to remedy this by a friendly girl sitting beside - employ the "sit wherever we like" system! It did take 10 hours and we were totally exhausted after the sleeper bus (on which we ironically got no sleep whatsoever)but we were entertained by the amazing scenery (so green!!), a steady stream of interesting food which passed regularly (some highlights include boiled eggs, "stuff" wrapped in banana leaves and hot rice with what we have decided was "dried meat floss" on top).
Hanoi is cool! We have already managed to get our visas for Cambodia so we are now trying to decide what to do with the rest of our time here (any suggestion??!). We have amused ourselves thus far by shopping for DVDs (All i'll say is: coolest. shop. ever.), plodding around the old quarter, eating ice cream and sampling what beers Hanoi has to offer. We have only managed to survive thanks to my excellent road crossing skills. The roads here are teeming with motorbikes weaving all over the place so to cross the tactic is to simply walk across the road (and right in front of all the traffic) very slowly. NEVER run - it totally freaks them out! Oh - and NEVER trust the green man (he's a lying so and so and is only trying to get you killed!).
We have also eaten magnificently (pictures will follow! 
) in two great Vietnamese restaurants. Our hotel (located in the old quarter) is great too. We thought we were living it up in Kunming but we now have a fridge, cable tv (Man U TV!!! I kid you not. Aoife is very impressed.. ), a corner bath that looks like I could fit in it, and a window (which we have learned to appreciate having in budget accommodation).
Today we decided to do a bit of the touristy stuff - the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh (or "Uncle Ho" as he is known around this part) etc. This was scuppered a bit by the fact that we only got up at 10 and it closes at half past. Ah well.. We saw a few wee other bits of pieces and walked for miles and miles to get us to the Ho Chi Minh museum only to discover that this was also closed for a few hours. What were we to do but buy ourselves two beers and re-evaluate our plans? We even received two complimentary "souvenir bananas" - we didn't ask. We were approached during our beer drinking by a cyclo (a kind of push bike taxi) driver offering to take us on a tour of the sites. When we declined his generous offer he asked us where we were from. Instead of receiving one of the two stock answers (1: "Is that near England?", 2: "Ooooohhhhh.... It's very cold there isn't it??") we were highly impressed and amused to hear his response - "Ooooooh - Ireland? Great at football.... Roy Keane!!!". Haha - class.
Tonight we are employing the old "When in Rome.." (not in a Ron Burgundy sense) tactic and hitting the town to try out "Bia Hoi"! This is beer brewed fresh this morning without preservatives thats distributed and consumed daily all over the city. A tall glass will set you back about 25 cent and the joints that sell the stuff are also known to sell some of the tastiest and cheapest food in town. We'll let ye know how it goes!
[P.s. - I promise I'll get a few photos up in the next few days!!!]
We arrived in Xi'an train station hopefully searching the crowd for a sign that said "Hamill" or some such identifying us, having given up all hope we spotted it. Our hostel picked us (and a Czech girl, very nice - got to know her a bit with 3 of us in the back of a small car) up. We decided to go for the dorm option this time. Room was lovely when we arrived except... for the smelly old Frenchman (he also had a mullet... you don't see white mullets too often!) occupying one of the beds! Luckily, he left after our first night but the damage he inflicted on our olfactory nerves was substantial enough for us to remember him for quite a while!
Hostel is pretty nice - lots of courtyards and a little bar/ restaurant serving cheapy dumplings and beer (and other things I'm sure but we've mainly stuck to these). There's only one gripe I have with the place - the toilets. Not dirty or anything - but the stalls' walls are low - really low (about 3 ft!)- to the extent that if you were particularly tall (I know, I know, I'm not ) you could view your neighbour peeing! Yik! That is closer than I want to be to my fellow hostellers.
We went for our big excursion to the Terracotta Warriors yesterday. We decided to flaunt the tours (being strenously offered by our hostel) and take the bus to it. Luckily we sat down next to a Terracotta Warriors poster on the bus so we were able to communicate where we were going! The warriors were great - very impressive although my background knowledge of them is still pretty sketchy (partially due to Wikipedia being blocked in China!) and the museum itself wasn't particularly informative on it. There was also a little People's Republic of China propaganda section which was pretty surreal (photos to follow).
We head to Kunming tonight on our way to Hanoi. From Kunming we hope to catch a 12 hour overnight sleeper bus to Hekou where we will need to catch a motorbike taxi (eek!!) to the border crossing at Lao Cai. From there we will get a train to Hanoi. Hopefully. Watch this space.
This post was brought to you by Aoife (typing, for a change) and Tadhg and the letter eh... P...
The Great Wall
So we've been there and done that (The Great Wall). We didn't buy the T-Shirt (we can't carry any more crap!) but we did buy some postcards under duress (and if anyone wants to be the proud recipient of one of these let us know asap!). We got there at about half nine on Thursday morning and, after being given some extremely vague directions on the route we should take ("On no account go right! That would be completely wrong..!"... etc. "Keep walking until you get to a bridge and a restaurant..", "Will take about four hours.") we set off! We were comforted slightly by the assurances that we would have a guide following behind to make sure nothing happened to us. We went left anyway so her services (thankfully) weren't required after that (it's fairly hard to get lost - just follow the big wall).
The going was pretty tough (as Aoife's still aching limbs will bear testament). The walk turned out to be about 10km from start to finish and the route was from Jinshanling to Simatai. We were expecting it to be a fairly easy expedition having become quite the accomplished walkers but it was essentially 10km up and down extremely steep and crumbling stairs. Ouch.
Not that we're complaining... It was Great! We were accompanied for about half the way by two ladies who acted both as tour guides and vendors of any Great Wall memorabilia you could ask for (or not!). We were immediately impressed with the english of one of the ladies as she had a remarkable mastery of the letter "L" which is very rare in China (to the extent that english is modified in shop signage. E.g. - a cafe up the road that sells "Chocorate Cake" and we came upon a snazzy looking bar called "Atrantis"..). Turns out she was Mongolian and an infinitely better saleswoman than her Chinese companion / opponent (sad stories of children to feed and lack of work for mongolian farmers were immediately forthcoming upon me inquiring how often she walked the wall. She said at least once, sometimes twice daily incidentally..)
We did the walk in about four hours, narrowly avoiding last place by overtaking our Australian rivals in the last couple of minutes. It wasn't a race, but Aoife would be damned if she was going to "lose" to those two... Especially because they only overtook us when we stopped for lunch! We slept soundly that night!
We had factored in a day of rest into our packed itinerary (just as well because Aoife could barely walk. Our hostel's "Tall Steps" were not her friend). All we had to do was swing round by the Vietnamese Embassy to pick up our visas. While there we decided to go all out and call into the Irish Embassy across the road to inquire about whether there was anything going on in Beijing for St. Patrick's Day. It was Aoife's idea but (unsurprisingly 
) it turned out to be a good one We were invited to relax in the lobby and were informed that an officer would be down in a few minutes to talk to us. She introduced herself "Hello..., Aoife" when she greeted Aoife which confused Aoife no end! Aoife's mind whirred with paranoid scenarios about how "they" could possibly know her name (the guard with the bad english outside may have passed on her name but it would have been unlikely...) but she quickly came to the conclusion that it could just be another Aoife that she was talking to. We were informed that they were having a reception on Friday evening and a ball on Saturday evening, both of which we were welcome to attend! Unfortunately the average backpackers wardrobe, or ours at least, does not include shoes, ball dresses, a tuxedo or pretty much anything else which could be considered appropriate for such occasions so we regretfully declined. We did however learn from the officer the location of the best ex-pat hangout to head for for St. Patrick's Day - "Frank's Bar". Mission accomplished.
The next day we dressed up in as much green as we could muster; which was pretty meagre save for the "Luck of the Irish!" socks that we had been presented with before leaving. Thanks to Carole, Fiona and Doireann! (see photo! I know... more photos of my feet... sorry ). We met Ciara, a fellow countrywoman, that morning after breakfast. She overheard us and somehow gleaned that we were Irish (very impressive given my neutral accent ) After a few pleasantries and, in true Irish tradition, establishing that we knew someone in common (Finola - popular girl!), we arranged to meet later that evening in Frank's Bar to watch Ireland hopefully win the 6 Nations.
Well we all know how that turned out 
We had a good day in Frank's Bar although what few Irish there are in Beijing must have either gone elsewhere or to the ball. The leftovers (us and about five others) gathered about the big screen rolling our eyes at each other at the "Irish Band" that was making noise in the corner. They kept quiet for the first half of the match but could not contain themselves any longer it seemed for they "Diddley Eyed" their way through the remainder of the match. It was probably better than the commentary on RTE either way.. Ah sure we'll really shake 'em up when we win the world cup so not to worry
On to Xi'an tomorrow to see the Terracotta Warriors!
Aoife & Tadhg
There are many bicycles in Beijing..
So it turns out the train is a pretty comfy way to travel and a very convenient excuse to slob around, read, sleep, watch movies, play Nintendo DS (thanks Mark & Aoife!), and eat toblerone for 24 hours! Very pleasant indeed.
We arrived in Beijing fairly refreshed with empty wallets and armed only with our Lonely Planet. In was in trying to convey our need for an ATM to a helpful(ish) looking police officer that the language barrier first became apparent.
Aoife: "Atm?"
Police Guy: (Blank face. No reply.)
Aoife: "A... T... M...???" (speaking very clearly and looking hopeful)
Police Guy: (Still blank. Followed by nervous grin.)
Fifteen minutes of confusion and aimless wandering later we were just beginning to get worried before we finally spotted an ATM. We swiftly obtained some Yuan (Chinese currency. Also seems to be Renmimbi..) and we were back in business.
Using the travellers rule of thumb - "If the place is busy then it must be good and safe to eat there" we entered the busiest place we could find. We were also attracted by the useful pictures on the menu to which we could point to convey our needs. "The Colonel" didn't let us down
Next step: Taxi. We had the address for our hostel printed out (and we don't mind telling you that we felt very organised with this), so we confidently marched right over to the first taxi we saw. The address wasn't printed in Chinese but we figure if we read out, they'd understand. This, it appears, is a completely useless strategy as again we were faced with the blank face brigade. It was an alarmingly similar exchange to the ATM debacle (even when I put on a chinese accent this time!!? I mean what do I have to do...). We were just beginning to get desperate when The Book (Lonely Planet) saved us. The almost completely useless map of Beijing it contains has some chinese characters on it, so we pointed to the nearest place to our hostel we could spot. We were off! He was a decidedly batty taxi driver (he seemed to have all sorts of crazy ticks!) but he was very friendly we think because he would turn around every 5 mins or so and grin / laugh manically and gurgled a few incomprehensible words at us. We would then smile (maybe a little nervously) and then reply in what to him were equally incomprehensible words. And so it went. Either way, he got us there in the end so no complaints!
We arrived at the hostel at about 5pm and we were very relieved to find some fluent english speakers at the desk. The hostel is great - everyone is really friendly and the hostel bar sells massive bottles of Tsingtao (Chinese beer - Aoife says it's "Just like Harp!") for 30 cent each. The hostel also furnished us with an excellent map of Beijing with which we've been able to employ the "Point and go!" (Patent Pending) method of taxi communication. If only our fingers were a little more slender we might be able to arrive at our destinations with a little more accuracy..
We have been fairly inactive in the last few days as I hurt my knee on the "Tall Steps" (see photo). No major damage but as Beijing is so bloody massive and everything either requires a LOT of walking or cycling, I decided to try and rest for a few days. We took in an acrobatics show on Sunday night (footage to follow) in a tour organised by our hostel.
On Monday we went to the Vienamese Embassy to apply for tourist visas. We originally went to the visa office on Saturday afternoon but it was shut. Pretty stupid to assume it would be open on the weekend you're thinking but that isn't even all the facts. We actually rang the embassy on Saturday morning to find out the opening hours, and on hearing the automated message saying "Mon to Friday, 9:30am - 11:30am and 2pm - 4pm" we thought "Sure we'll head over there. We'll have no problem making it by 4". Sigh... (the guards at the gate found us pretty amusing). Either way we have now applied and we will have them on Friday.
Yesterday we devoted the day to the Forbidden City (sponsored it would seem by American Express - see photos. Weird...). There was a LOT of walking involved (about 6 hours straight though mostly at an ambling pace) but it was well worth it (see photos). We couldn't get on to Tianmen Square for some reason. We have a theory that there may have been a VIP around (maybe it was that damn Putin thwarting another one of our sightseeing trips! He stopped us getting to a Gandhi memorial in Delhi and he still isn't happy..) because there were police and army officers everywhere and the whole square was completely empty.
Today we went to the nearby Lama Temple and saw a really massive buddha (no pictures were allowed and I didn't want to risk the monks' wrath). Tomorrow we are off for the day to "The Great Wall of China" (which incidently we hear you definitely can't see from space.. ). It will mean we'll have to skip our surprisingly excellent free daily breakfast and it will involve a 9km walk (that's peanuts to us now after the Forbidden City) but we're feeling reckless so we're going to go for it.
We're off to the bar to book our packed lunch for tomorrow (and maybe a cheeky Tsingtao)! Take care,
Tadhg & Aoife
