There's nothing some aloo gobi and a garlic naan can't fix

Sabaidee from Laos. Yup, we've made it. Since my last blog entry we've endured more bus journeys, stayed in some tiny backwater Chinese cities and have enjoyed a mad border crossing between China and Laos. Until yesterday we were still travelling with our chums Emilio (Argentinian) and Nathalie (his French wife) and have been getting in lots of Spanish, drinking and laughing practice. We were sad to say goodbye to them in Jinghong but they had a date with a slow boat to Thailand and we needed to catch a bus to Laos, so we agreed to meet up somewhere, someday. That somewhere, someday just happened to be Mengla the next day - the last stop in China before the Laos border where we had the pleasant surprise of opening our hotel door to Emilio's smiling face - the river was too low for their slow-boat so Thailand via a roadtrip in Laos was the substitute. As well as our Spanish-speaking chums we've also had the pleasure of the company of the Dutch friends we made in Kunming (plus some other nice Dutchies who sold us yet more anti-malarials which will allow us to do some justice to a trip in malaria-ridden Laos).
Now we're back on our own again. After arriving in Laos with pretty much only enough money for a bed for the night, some basic food and the bus tickets to the next ATM we endured a dusty, 9 hour journey from Luang Nam Tha (the first town after the border) to Luang Prabang (the second biggest "city" in Laos). I was doing my best to be zen whilst sitting on a bus seat that seemed to be made of just nails but after 3 days of bus rides my tether was long gone by the time we arrived here last night. But then we found a lovely hostel (1.75 each, no expense spared), had a shower to wash the dust off and then went for a curry in the indian restaurant next to the hostel (which I saw as a sign that we HAD to stay in that hostel as it was meant for me), a curry which I can honestly say was one of my favourite meals of all time I enjoyed it so much. Before it I was feeling very low. Then the lovely lady served me aloo gobi, dhal and a garlic naan and my faith in humanity was restored. We have agreed that we will be going back there at least once in our stay here - maybe even every night!

Mmmm, thought for the day: aren't I lucky to have the luxury to choose the food I love, rather than just have enough to survive? I obsess so much, but some people don't have that chance.

Anyway, less of such seriousness. Laos is a real change from China (which is why we're here - we're loving our China trip but it is very tiring sometimes. Laos is a real contrast, just the difference in the number of people is amazing. It is soooooooo quiet here). Another big difference is the number of westerners, which we're not really loving. When there's fewer of you you get more a flavour of the place - in one town in the last couple of weeks we were the only westerners. So to me this place is feeling a little bit (but not quite) like Oz and NZ. Very touristy. But hey, I'm on holiday. That's the point! It's also nowhere near as cheap as we thought it was. In fact it's more expensive than China in some ways (as we've been in the dirt-cheap south-west).

But, it has baguettes (merci aux Français). It has fresh milk for our tea (ooooooh yes, may go get another one now). It is warm. And it has curry. A curry that makes everything alright in my world. Hmmmm, anyone fancy a trip to India? Pete? You up for it? Pack up your immodium and let's go (after we've been round here a bit more).

Bye for now. It's hot here and I need a drink. I think you need to go and pick something up off the photocopier/printer or maybe you have another meeting.

Hehehehehehehehe...

A bit of spin...

So, Alistair Campbell has been brought in to help as apparently my blog suggests that I'm ready to come home (according to my ma anyway) so here's a blog entry showing you what you're all missing, piccies and all (I'm even smiling on some of them!)...

OK, so, here's what long train journeys involve... slurping noodles whilst sitting on your bed and making people laugh as that's the easiest form of communication when you don't know the lingo...









Then, when you finally reach your destination and have made it into a hotel, successfully negotiated a room for the night and have dropped the packs, it's the joy that is mo-li-hua cha (jasmine tea). Mmmmm. Ours is good stuff from a tea shop and has flowers and everything in it. Sometimes the twigs get in the way. The other night Pete wasn't pleased as he had "an annoying entire perimeter of twigs" hindering his supping enjoyment, but I tell you, it's needed. Sometimes you need two if it's been a particularly headache-inducing journey (bus rides, normally) but after a cuppa it's all OK...

Now for a bit of culture... boy, do the Chinese have a lot of history. It's everywhere. The complete opposite of Oz, really. Temples are lush - especially at this time of year as there is cherry blossom everywhere and it's just so pretty. Every so often you stumble upon one that you have all to yourself and then it's a little piece of heaven... a beautiful 2000-year old temple to yourself in the sunshine.

Now, for the dragon section. I am loving the dragons here (being born in the year of the dragon myself I have an affinity with them and Pete says my breath does too sometimes). I could take photos and photos of dragons here - but they never do it justice. By far my favourite thing I've seen here so far is the dragon in the pond (shown below with Pete mimicking it). It was such a character. I want one!
























I finish up with a bit of street life (taken at the market in the tiny town on the top of a mountain where we're currently staying). Everything is hustle and bustle. Steamed buns filled with veggies and a bit of meat are a welcome warming breakfast when you're standing in a cloud. Ladies wearing colourful intricately-embroidered clothes wander around with wide-eyed children strapped to their backs. Each ethnic minority has its own style of dress (I think they think I'm dressed really blandly in my sexy choice of black or blue fleece). Everyone has brought their produce to market. It's so poor round here, some people have just brought leaves to sell (although I suppose if they sell for a similar price to rocket in the UK that would make you a pretty packet!). Strange things are on sale in the markets, although strange is relative - we were discussing how repulsive the thought of eating the mould in roquefort would be to a Chinese person last night.

So, there you go. I'm not ready to come home yet. There's too much to see here. We still haven't decided where we're off to next - by the sounds of it just getting to the next town is going to be enough of an adventure. Come on! I've got my earplugs and I'm ready for that bus!

It's getting hard to see me from sideways on!

Yeah, right! Ah well, not having much of an appetite for the best part of a week is helping me look better in the blog photos anyhow (not that I'm going to put any on today).

I write this from an internet bar in Yuan Yang - a teeny tiny town on the top of a mountain/hill thing. It's supposed to be beautiful here and I'm sure the views are stunning out over the valley when the town is not immersed in cloud! So Pete and I have taken this as a sign to just have a bit of a rest day which we're quite happy with, ta very much. We were surprised to find an internet bar - it's a bit like going to Helmsley in North Yorks and finding a net bar with 50 PCs. A bit of a surprise. So I'm sat here listening to Zane Lowe's Thursday show catching up.

So, apart from lack of appetite, what's new? Well, from Kunming we decided to head south (towards Laos - we managed to find more Malarone courtesy of an Israeli bloke) via a route which seems to be a bit neglected by the small travelling set out here. Most people catch a 24 hour sleeper bus from Kunming down to the city of Jinghong right in the sub-tropical south, but I'm not a 24-hour bus kind of girl so I mapped us a route via a couple of small towns with some sights. And it's been really nice. The first place had a big hill with loads of temples - some nearly 2000 years old. It was devoid of tourists and was full of trees. I was really really peaceful and beautiful. I've loads of photos to upload when it's possible. It really was lovely.

What wasn't lovely was the karaoke. After 5 nights in Kunming's Hump Hostel which is a cracking hostel but is notorious for the noise as the rooms are over a cluster of discos, Faye, being the noise Hitler when going to sleep, was looking forward to a peaceful night's sleep in a small town. Not to be. Our hotel was home to karaoke rooms and after a tiring journey we were treated to not one but about five different karaoke renditions seemingly below our rooms. The noise was horrible - not only was this Chinese karaoke, but BAD Chinese karaoke. It was so bad it was funny.

I can't stress enough how noisy China is. I really think that if a Chinese person was somewhere quiet, they would be really unnerved. Everything is high volume here. I can now understand why buddhist monks become monks! Silence. Lovely stuff. Pete is turning Chinese though. Last night he couldn't sleep because it was too quiet!

Anyhow, China is still fascinating (don't take my moans of previous blogs to think I ever regret coming here). It's so diverse and really cannot be seen in a whistle-stop tour of a couple of weeks. The province of Yunnan that we're in now couldn't be scratched in 3 weeks, let alone the whole country. I really would recommend Yunnan to anyone for a holiday though. There's nothing like the Great Wall, but it's an amazing place.

So, for now I'm going to take it easy in this little town a 6 hour rickety scary mountain bus journey from anywhere else of any size. Top priority is to avoid the dog which we saw a woman blow-torching the fur off yesterday (ready for scoffing). For my family's sake, I won't put the photo on my site, I promise (as I was a bit traumatised as it was an entire dog and looked like a greyhound) but I can imagine it will end up on my beloved's if you do fancy a gruesome look. Give me a ham and pease pudding sarnie over that any day!

Hello sunshine

Just to let you know that I've now managed to wash my smalls, as I'm sure you were all a little worried. Kunming certainly is a nice warm place and we've now settled into a lovely friendly hostel where we came to a party last night and decided we liked the place, so we moved in. We've made some friends and my spirits are up - despite the fact that I started throwing up at 6 this morning (unfortunately not connected to my hangover) and I've pretty much been bonding with the loo ever since. Ah well. A day off the grub will help my waistline. Now trying to work out how to get some anti-malarials in China to allow us to head into Laos for a bit until the weather here warms up. Wish us luck...

I want our mam, the dog and central heating.

Snivel snivel. Today I am hating China. Hating not being able to communicate with anyone. Hating the cold - oh my god, it is sooooo cold here. I am wearing all of my hiking gear. This morning, when I got dressed to go out I put on my long-johns, jeans, hiking socks and boots, thermal top, 2 fleeces, a woolly hat, gloves and a hiking jacket. What the hell happened? A couple of days we were discussing how mild it was and that we would soon need to put the fleeces away for a bit. Hating the fact that everywhere we go somewhere new it is such a hassle to get hot water to come out of the shower, if at all. Hating the fact that people phlegm EVERYWHERE. Hating the fact that ordering food is a mini-mission in itself unless you can point at a picture of the food if not the food itself. Hating the fact that everyone stares at us everywhere we go. Not just a furtive look whilst you're not looking, but blantantly pointing you out and laughing at you with their friends (even when I'm not dolled up in the garb mentioned above). Hating the fact that we still haven't found anywhere to wash our smalls (and it's too cold to wash them ourselves as they'd never ever dry). Also hating the fact that, even after queuing for nearly an hour in a huge queue of smoking queue-jumping staring phlegmers, we still only managed to get a train ticket to Kunming for tomorrow - 2 days after our planned departure so we've had to stay 2 nights in the freezing huge faceless city of Guiyang against our will and fork out lots in accommodation (4.50 quid each per night) for the pleasure. Sniff, sniff. Woe is me, I know. I have really been the angel of doom today and hid in my bed crying when the shower wouldn't come on. Can I put it down to recovering from this cold? Anyway, I've updated my last 3 blog entries below with some photos - mam, you'll especially like the ones of Steven and Moni et al. Dad, you'll probably enjoy the goose feet piccies.
Kunming tomorrow, city of eternal spring, apparently. Had better be otherwise I'm heading for pneumonia in this infernal phlegmy cold place. (Can you have an infernal cold place? Answers in the comments please).
Can someone send me an emergency parcel of proper chocolate, hot bacon sandwiches and a radiator please (they don't have heating here, even though it's around 0 degrees here at the mo).
I leave you with an important question that the man on the TV advert here keeps posing: Can you imagine the wonder of the combination of a pillow and tea?

Can you?

I think I'm losing it.

Hhhhhhuccccck-putt! Honnnnk! Honnnnnk!

That, if you're wondering, was the dulcet tones of China at its best. A big hacky phlegm followed by several loud honks on a bus horn. My poor hearing! I'm sure that most of the Chinese must have a level of hearing below the average person in the UK. Everything is SO LOUD here.

For example, yesterday we spent 7 hours on a bus. Lil' ol' me is recovering from her second cold of the month (no doubt the phlegm being spat everywhere has contributed to that) and her head was already throbbing when we took our seats behind the driver. Road rules in China apparently state that before you overtake ANYTHING, be it another vehicle, a cyclist, a person walking in the road or even a dog, you must honk your horn. Honk it once when you first see the hazard. Then again a couple of times as you're passing it (if it ignores you, honk harder and longer just in case they didn't hear you the first couple of times). And when you've passed it, honk again as you've not doubt just passed a distant relative and you need to say hello. Oh, by the time we arrived at our destination last night I felt like a lead pipe had been pushed through my temples. Can you imagine, on a very windy perilous mountainous road in the most populous nation on earth how many hazards we passed? The pain only subsided when I'd had 2 pints of tea and a lie-down. But wasn't helped by the fact that last night was the end of Chinese New Year here on the mainland and therefore we were treated to fireworks and bangers being let off in their hundreds from dusk until around 10pm. Ah, it's all a slice of another life, eh?

Anyway, still loving China, despite the phlegm and the minging toilets - yesterday at the bus station I encountered my first doorless toilets. Thanks China for breaking me in gently - I'd heard of them but until yesterday had been spared them. So China waited until I was comfortable with squat toilets before throwing in another obstacle to ablution enjoyment in taking away any privacy. Luckily I didn't need a number two!

If you've read my dad's comment on my last entry, you'll see that I am indeed "eating my way around the world" and this last week has not deterred me in any way. I can safely say that we've not had a bad meal (or the craps to this day, touch wood) and we've been eating Chinese all the way this week. Highlights this week have been stir-fried bacon fat with veggies at the road house yesterday (30p each); spicy noodle soup for brekky yesterday for 15p each; yummy yummy tofu (the only nice tofu I have ever eaten) and, to top it all, after wishing for my mam's sausage rolls in bed last night whilst feeling over-tired and a little homesick, steamed buns filled with what tasted like sausage roll meat for breakfast this morning - a full feed for 6p each! We are mostly pointing and smiling to get what we want, although we now can count in Mandarin (which helps when you're being hassled to buy tourist tat from little old ladies in rural villages and you say "ling kwai" meaning "no money" i.e. piss off, I have no cash to give you so no, I do not want to buy your tat, thank you very much, especially as your village charged me double what I spent on accommodation last night just to get into your village").

Ling kwai was exactly what we had yesterday pretty much when we stepped on the bus for our peace-free journey (which was, incidentally, still enjoyable as the scenery was breathtaking - steep mountain-sides covered with rice terraces and peppered with wonky-looking wooden houses going down to a huge river with locals punting their way along on their bamboo rafts). We have spent the last 5 days in rural China, pretty much as away from it all as you can get, staying in little cute villages that seem stuck in a time-warp where the women still wear traditional dress and grind corn of a morning and work the fields. We were hassled to buy tat in some parts but in general we got to see a but of rural life for the Yao, Dong and Miao people. The villages were all made of wood and were surrounded by paddy fields with women in brightly embroidered clothes toiling away (whilst the men sat in the square playing cards - how does that work?) We could have spent ages staying in these idyllic villages were it not for the fact that we didn't realise that between large town A and large town B on our journey there were no ATMs - luckily we realised whilst we still had enough cash to buy the ticket to town B, but we missed a couple of lovely days, I feel, for bad planning on our part. Ah well, what we did see was well worth it. I feel sorry for the many people we met in town A who were bypassing the whole experience just to get to another Chinese city (Kunming) because the weather is nicer and there are some nice western cafes.

Today we are having a rest as it's the first day without any transport of any kind. We're in a nothing-ness town but the food is good, the sheets are clean and I really need a day of rest to shake off this cold. Tomorrow we'll probably head off (by train, we want to avoid the honking) to Kunming - of nice-weather, western-cafe fame - in the hope of finding somewhere to do some washing (we have limited clothes and last did a load of washing in Hong Kong, which was nearly 2 weeks ago, so we're a little bit stinky. Rach, you'll be pleased to know that the wonder-soap has been put into action, so I did manage to wash some smalls and some socks, but that's about the lot).

Before I sign of for the day, a couple of special mentions.
Firstly, to Emma B - your presents are coming in so useful on our trip. The washing line is getting a lot of love and that little packet of soap sheets did not see the light of day in Oz but is now with me constantly in the minging toilets of China. I even sniffed it last night to get rid of the smell of the room! A very Happy Birthday for this week.
Secondly, to Heather Grace Abrey who turned 1 this week.
Last, but never ever least, to my lovely big sis Jane, who turns thirty-cough today and who I love and miss very much. XXXXXXXXX