Yangshuo, China
Yangshuo, ChinaWelcome to the new look site.
The last website was designed the night before i left on my trip, so it was rushed and the blog was admittedly hard to read.
Also as im starting to get close to landing Australia i thought i would sort the site so it acted as a portfolio just as much as it does a travel blog.
I have also decided to move away from using google maps to track where ive been and use a custom designed map which links to relevant posts / categories.
The site is not 100% finished yet, im not happy with the ‘Work’ page, I still have to make link up all the map points on the banner map and there are a few other changes i want to make but its up and its running!
Hope you like it.
Footage from my month travelling through Vietnam!
Ive somehow lost alot of footage including all my Halong Bay, Hoi An, Nha Trang and Saigon Footage ( Excluding Go Pro and Timelapse stuff ) So If the video seems to skip past alot of Vietnam, Thats Why!
Hope i managed to do the country justice with the footage i had.
Songs:
Modeselektor – Green Light Go
Kavinsky – Night Call
Hue is the former capital of Vietnam and has quite alot of cool stuff to go and see.
I only planned on staying one night so booked a new hotel that had just opened as they were doing a half price deal! When i got there the guy was still painting the place and told me it wouldnt be open for a few more days but he got on the phone and sorted me a place at his sisters hotel. He carried my bag round the block for me and told me i could get the same deal there. I was expecting a dump for the price i was paying, think it was like £3 a night for a private room. When we got there i was suprised to see that it was a 4 star hotel. He handed me over to his sister and she showed me to my room. It was massive, had a kingsize bed, minibar, tv, balcony and an awesome shower. All things i pretty much hadn’t had since leaving home… Awesome.
I headed downstairs and asked the girl on the reception if she could recommend some stuff for me to see in just one day. She told me my best bet would be to pay $35 dollars for a private car to drive me around for 5 hours and see all the sights.
My driver came and picked me up and said i could choose 4 sights, but i had no idea so just told him to take me to the best 4. First off he took to a massive pagoda which was pretty cool.. I was by myself so didnt stay long just took some photos and headed back to the car.
Next stop was the Citidel aka The Imperial City.
This place is similar to the forbidden city in China but has alot more ruins and more open space which makes it seem so much bigger.
I thought i would be able to walk around it all in an hour but it would have taken me all day to see everything, so had to stop half way and head back to meet my driver at the pickup point.
After we headed to some huge park that i cant remember the name of. It was pretty cool with lots of temples, ruins and lakes.
Last stop was a huge temple with lots of statues similar to the terracotta warriors in Xian. I had done all the stops way quicker than i thought i would so just climbed all the steps and chilled at the top for an hour and then headed back.
Later that night i headed to a restaurant that only employed deaf people and all profits went to a charity run by the restaurants owner. Was a cool place that had amazing food. Deffo gotta ignore a rat or two kicking about the kitchen though haha.
After dinner and headed back to the hotel for a few beers and an early night to catch the bus for Hoi An at 7am.
Arrived in Hanoi after an overnight stay in Nanning.
China was busy but nothing compared to this, couldnt even walk on the pavement from all the scooters parked on it and the road was full of motorbikes going in all directions. Insane is the only word that will do it justice. To cross the road, you dont avoid traffic.. you just have to walk out and hope they avoid you otherwise you will just be standing there all day.
In the hostel i met a guy from Singapore who gave me a link to google maps that listed all the best street food places in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. So for i dinner i went out and tried the closest one to the hostel which was Bun Bo Nam Bo! Its a bowl of noodles, meat and veg with some sauce at the bottom of the bowl. Seriously one of the best bowls of food ive ever had, went back there 4 times over the next few days.
On day 2 i met a french guy called Charles in the hostel. I was just about to head out and go check out the markets in the old quarter but agreed to meet him for beers later. Later that night we decided to head out and try find Bia Hoi, Which is one of the cheapest beers in the world at around 16p a pint though ive heard locals get it cheaper. We eventually found a crossroads with 4 bars on each corner filled with a mix of Vietnamese locals and tourists. We find 2 plastic stools to sit on and without asking get handed two pints. Awesome.
After a few pints each we get told that there is none left so decide to head to another bar! On the way there we bump into my mate Keeley that i had met in Yanghsuo, China and she asks if we want to head to her hostel, The Hanoi Backpackers, for a few drinks.
So we head there and meet a bunch of folk including a guy with kiss facepaint. Afterwards Me, Keeley, Russell and another irish guy Simon leave Charles to chat up a girl and head for the night market to check it out but as we get there it was just shutting down so Keeley and Russell head home. Me and Simon decide to go try find Charles but when we get back to the bar we can only find the girls he was chatting up, they told us he ditched them for hotter girls and they were heading to the same place as him anyways, so we get in a taxi with them and head to Hanoi Rock City.
Simon who is the older guy in the photo above used to be in a band with Dig magazines Will Smyth. Or so he told me anyways.
There was an album premiere on for some Vietnamese rock band but apparently only locals were allowed in to actual venue. Tourists had to stay in the beer garden. So we just stayed for a while, had too many long island ice tea’s and then headed back.
On day 3 i booked a day trip to Tam Coc as had been told it was meant to be good from a cool australian woman called Lisa at the hostel. My guide came to pick me up in a minibus that was already full with mostly older folk, was glad to meet a younger couple from london who i then spent the rest of the day with. It took around 2 hours to get out to Tam Coc, where we went to a bhuddist temple which wasnt that impressive. China definitely has the more impressive temples that i have seen in Asia so far. After spending around 30mins walking round the temple we head for the boats.
Our guide buys us all tickets, splits us into groups and gets us onto these tiny little boats that are rowed by woman using thier feet and we start heading up the river. We head through caves, passed karst mountains and some small temple like buildings. At the end of the river we pull into a little pond like place and get hassled to buy stuff from woman in other boats. Shouting things like “baby needs can, you buy can for baby” haha! No thanks a red bull is the last thing your baby needs.
On the way back a boat pulls up beside us and a large box gets flung aboard, then a woman jumps on nearly tipping the boat over. Turns out she’s also on to try sell us some of her wares… this time tablecloths! just what ive been needing whilst travelling round the world!
We get back to the dock and go hire some bikes. We cycle out towards a small village and check out where all the locals live. Was pretty quiet so we just cycled on through and out towards all the rice fields. The view from here was awesome, miles and miles of flat rice fields with huge karst mountains rising above all over the place.
After the cycle we jump back in the van and head home.
Decided to go try have a haircut and thought it would be a good idea to try out one of the street barbers in Hanoi so asked the hotel where the nearest one is! So they gave me the guys name and directions. When i got there it wasnt a street barbers at all it was a proper hairdressers so i went in anyways and took a seat! He didnt speak much english so he just gave me a mens vogue style magazine and told me choose something. Every haircut in the book was all catwalk / beckham style so i just picked the least gay looking one and went for it. In the end it turned out a pretty good cut and it only cost me 500,000 dong or £5.
Later on that day i went to the night market to buy a watch expecting there to be loads but could only find 2 stands with the watch i wanted so if my haggling didnt work on one shop i pretty much had to buy it from the next! At first they wanted about $30 but managed to haggle the second shop down to $5 dollars which was still too much as a guy i met in Shanghai was buying them for £1.50 to sell on his ebay shop.
Went back for more Bun Bo, Nam Bo and then got an early night to head to Halong Bay in the morning.
Got picked up at 7am and headed out on the 4 hour journey to Halong City in a cramped minibus. When we got to the harbour our guide who we named “Peter” as his name was too hard to pronounce took us to a “Small Boat” which took us to the “Big Boat”. Before we got on the boats he told us that “We now got to small boat and goto big boat” about 20 times which led to people asking stuff like “What boat do we take to the other boat?” but he never got the joke.
We got to the big boat and it was way nicer than we thought it would be, me and charles both shared a cabin (no homo) and it was probably nicer than our hostel back in Hanoi. After dumping our bags in the cabins we headed up and had a full seafood buffet for lunch. Afterwards we just chilled on the boat for a while and then headed for the “Amazing Cave” as Peter called it which was probably the biggest cave ive ever been in but it was mobbed to the point where you couldn’t move and you had to follow a trail so couldnt explore the cave yourself which sucked.. So after 5 mins inside it just felt boring!
After the “Amazing Cave” we headed to a floating village and to go kayaking. Me and Charles all jumped in a kayak and went round a few of the karst mountains and passed some floating villages. On the way back we were paddling away and heard a huge horn. We looked across and there was a massive boat heading right for us so we paddled as fast as we could to get out its path. Once we were clear we heard the horn again and it had turned and was heading towards us again so we had to change direction and paddle out its way a second time. Was scary but funny at the same time.
Back at the boat Peter organised Karaoke for everyone but noone seemed into it so we all headed up to the top deck for some beers. We started a drinking game to get to know each where you had to take it in turns to go round the group and say everyones name starting from the left. I was last to go so had about 9 rounds to get everyones name and still fucked it up so had to take a drink. Later than night we finished every beer on the boat and then the english boys on the boat bought a bottle of Jonny Walker Red Label and more drinking games commenced!
The next day we headed to Catba Island where Me, Charles, Anika and Nanna stayed at the Eco Lodge in the countryside. We had the whole place to ourselves which was awesome! All the staff that worked there seemed very gay but were cool. We were speaking to one of the guys there and Charles asks the guy if he ever eats dogs? Yes he replies but not all the time. So later that night the guy comes back and asks charles if he wants to eat dog and charles says yes! He asks Me, Anika and Nanna if we some dog but we all refuse so Charles heads back to the staff area where all the staff are barbecuing a dog and gets handed a full paw! They all stare at him as he takes his first bite and then offer him some “Sauce”. Charles told me when he tasted the sauce he immediately wanted to be sick but just manned up and dealt with it. He asked what the sauce was and they said it was cat and dog insides that had been mashed up and left to ferment for 2 years.. said it was a specialty in vietnam. So glad i never tried any.
On the 3rd day of the trip we headed back to the boat and just chilled out for a while before heading back to the city. The boat crew came up and showed us how to chop vegetables into flowers but i dont think anyone can remember what they were told. After a few more hours on the boat we got back to Halong City and and headed back to Hanoi in our cramped minibus.
Back in Hanoi Me and Charles went and met with Eline, Anika, Nanna and another girl from the hostel for dinner. We ended up in a really posh place which was way too expensive but stuck with it anyways. After dinner Me, Charles and Eline headed out to a club which was about 5km outside Hanoi. When we got there it just looked like a shady back alley but we could hear music so just followed the sound. We got to two big metal doors, opened them and inside was a mental wee nightclub. Everyone in there was already steaming or pilled off there face but was a good laugh so we stayed there until 3 or 4am.
I went and tried to book a bus ticket with Sihn Tourist who are the best bus company in Vietnam but as they have such a good reputation it also means that around 1000 companies have just ripped it off and setup identical shops around hanoi. Trying to find the real one was hard. I eventually thought i had found the real one booked the ticket and went back to the hostel.
The guy from the bus company came to pick me up at the hotel, he was picking a few others up but definitely shouted my name. So i got my bags and got on the minibus. We drive down to a bigger bus and he shouts Vietiane and i was the only one left, he asks me where im going and i say “Hue” to which he replied “We dont have a bus that goes to Hue” so i asked him why he shouted my name and he had no answer.. he got on his phone and a few minutes later a motorbike pulls up and he rushes me onto the back of it. “Quick, Quick” he yells and we head through the Hanoi traffic at mach 10 trying to make another bus. When we get there my “Sihn Tourist” ticket gets swapped for Camel tours and i get pushed on the bus. Turns out that Camel tours had copied the the sihn tourist office which was only a few doors up but on the shop sign they both have the exact same address.
If your ever travelling with Sihn Tourist from Hanoi then make sure you get a free t-shirt if not then its a fake company.
I somehow lost all my halong bay photos and videos… so thats why there is a lack of them in this post.
Here is some more photos from my time in Hanoi.
Yangshuo is a town just outside of Guilin, China and is famous for its karst mountains and also for being on the 20 yuan note.
Again i never really kept a diary for Yangshuo, so will just let the photo’s do the talking and will resume the blogging in the next post (Hanoi).
This was the view from my hotel roof, which also had a bar and was an awesome place to meet folk and chill out. The girl working on the bar, Fen, was a good laugh and probably the coolest chinese person i had met through China.
On my second day in Yangshuo i rented a bike and cycled out in to the country side. I passed alot of caves which i never bothered stopping to go inside as they were jammed full of tour groups and were slightly expensive. I stopped here though to take a photo of the butterfly and then cycled off before i got hassled by the touts.
These are bamboo rafts which you can pay the driver to sail you back into Yangshuo. I never bothered as i wanted to cycle further and had heard about a huge loop you can do that takes you through the mountains and back into the other side of Yangshuo.
I was getting bored of cycling on the roads, so just picked a random dirt track of the road and headed down into a farm. There was noone about so i just chilled for a bit and then headed back onto the road.
I then ended up cycling for about an hour or two before i realised the mountains had stopped and i was heading into flat farmland. I guessed since Yangshuo is famous for the mountains that i had taken a wrong turn. So i turned round and headed back! I was so tired and thirsty and there were no shops or anywhere to buy some water, so i had to make do with eating a pomela, which is like a massive orange.
I finally made it back to Yangshuo and headed straight for the rooftop bar to grab a beer. Think i probably cycled about 60km / 37miles that day.
I had this for lunch one day. Its a chinese hamburger and they make it by rolling out some dough, putting it in a stone oven until it inflates, cut a hole in it and stuff it full of veg, meat and spices! was amazing.
Me and i girl i met ( cant remember her name now ) decided to head to the meat market as we heard it was pretty eye opening. We had trouble finding it so asked about and were lead through a huge door. As soon as i walked in the smell hit me like a punch and the floor was just covered in blood and guts. At first it was just all the usual meats like pig, chicken and fish but tucked away up the back were cats and dogs. The cats in the photo are mostly dead but a few were still barely alive and could hardly move. We think they had just died due to neglect and just been left in the cage with no food. Horrible.
A duck skinned and cut open. All animals are alive here and butchered when you order one.
This was one of the dog counters. Just before i got here i heard a dog yelp and immediately walked over to see the guy holding the dog by the throat and chopping with a huge knife along the two sides of its face, he then grabbed the skin and just rolled it right of the body. We decided to just leave him to it and walk on. We went round the other stalls and were ready to leave but i wanted to head back and see again and sneak a photo. By the time we got back he had the dog on the ground and was ripping the intestines out. Blood was everywhere, deffo the most horrible thing ive seen.
One day i went canoeing and met an irish couple, Russel and Keely! We were took out to a town where the canoes were waiting on us, we all got in and were told to just start paddling down the river. At first it seemed we were just being left to make out way but after about 40 mins an escort showed up, made sure we were alright and then zoomed on ahead to wait for us to catch up. Was cool just being left to go at our own speed and not be rushed all the way.
After about an hour and a half, we were told to head onto the shore where we were met by a woman. We thought that was the end and were glad to have got the end and then we were told it was only half way and still had another hour and a half to go.
We ended up canoeing 14km’s and were knackered by the end. The river was flat calm and had no current to help you along so had no chance to just sit back and float along.
I haven’t really been keeping much of a diary up until now so cant remember what i done or when i done it exactly, so will just let the photos do most of the talking on this post and the next ( Yangshuo ) and will start blogging properly in Hanoi.
Shanghai is a crazy city with wild nightlife and even wilder things going on through the day.
The first few days i had in Shanghai were cool, i just walked round the city, took loads of photos and checked out some sights like the bund, peoples square and the old town.
Then on my 2nd or 3rd night in Shanghai me and few others from the hostel decide to head out to some clubs. On the way there we jumped in a taxi and head for the club, and i pull my share of the fare out of my wallet but i think when i have went to put the wallet in my pocket again i missed and just sat it on the seat. Not quite sure as i had drunk a good bit before heading out! So i get out the taxi without taking the receipt and walk away. Just as i realise i had lost my wallet i turn round and see the taxi driving off. FUCK! The guy i was with then tells me if i had grabbed the reciept then we could have just called him and got him to turn around.
So that was me stuck in Shanghai till my new bankcard got to me which would take up to a week and a bit.
My dad managed to send me some cash through western union to keep me going and from then i just had to lay low and try not spend too much.
So the following week i just stayed in the hostel, done some design work and more or less lived like a local which was cool. Eating in all the local food places and drinking cheap beer. Was a cool experience and good to get away from all the tourist crap for a bit.
When my bankcard finally came, i went and got some cash and done all the tourist things i had still to do.
We then all had one last night out for halloween and the club we went to was mental! 100 yuan entry and free drink all night.. They were giving away ipads and had smurf dancers, chinese rappers and all sorts. Crazy.
Got to Xian after 12 hours on a hard-seat overnight train! Was torture and is definitely the worst journey i’ve had to take so far on my trip. That and the fact i was surrounded by 9 other chinese folk all trying to talk to me, laughing at me and trying to feed me chicken feet, tofu and other stuff.
I cant really remember what happened in the specific order and on what days, so ill just list the cool parts of Xian and what we got up to instead of trying to write like a diary.
The Muslim Quarter is a massive market right next to the Drum Tower in Xian. It sells everything and it’s amazing fun to go in and haggle with the old ladies who always have amazing banter! A guy i was with, Joe, was haggling for something and just typed in on the calulator something stupidly low so he could work the price up again.. the woman then told him he was cute and typed in 1,000,000,000! Was pretty funny as we did not expect it!
When i arrived in Xian i had a really blocked nose and decided to head to muslim quarter for some Tiger Balm. I found a stall selling it and the woman wanted 300 yuan for 1 tub (about £30) which is rediculous! I managed to haggle her down to 100 yuan for 2 tubs (about £10) which is still a bit of a rip off since thats what it costs back home!
The muslim quater also has amazing cheap food stalls. One day after cycling round the city walls Me, Kat, Joe & Trisha headed for a shop in that we had seen a few days before and got some noodles! Was probably one of the best bowls of noodles ive had and it was only 18 yuan which is like £1.80. So good.
The Bell & Drum Towers are 2 pretty big temples about 200 metres away from each other. As you may be able to tell from the names one tower is full of bells and the other full of drums. They also have music performances through the day. I managed to catch the drum perfomance which was pretty cool!
Other than the music and the views from the top the towers are pretty boring, better to just look at them from street level.
The Terracotta is a huge army of statues that have been found buried in a town just outside Xian. Each soldier’s face has been hand scuplted and apparently no 2 are the same.
There are 3 halls you can visit and we were told it was best to do them from 3rd to 1st and the 1st hall is the biggest and will make the other halls look less impressive.
The 3rd hall never had that many soldiers in but had a few horses and tools to look at. The 2nd hall had nothing as it was all still buried and under excavation, so couldnt really see much. The 1st hall was the by far the most interesting. Its about the size of an huge aircraft hanger and had loads more soldiers, horses & tools than the other halls had combined.
Overall it was cool to see the statues but it wasn’t one of the best things ive seen in China so far. Just felt like i saw them, got to tick it off the list and then left.
The Big Goose Pagoda is a large pagoda / tower on the outskirts of Xian. It has a large park surrounding it with a huge fountain show. Inside the walls of the pagoda you can go see monks chanting and people praying.
The museum in Xian is had 3 rooms, one for each era of Chinese history. Each room has loads of cool stuff including tools, skulls, statues and much more. They also had a video explaining how the silk route came to be.
Surrounding Xian are huge city walls that run right round the perimeter of the city. We hired some bikes and went for a cycle round the top. The total distance is around 13Km.
At the end of the cycle we managed to catch the last of a show that was going on involving drummers and soldiers.
Mount Hushan is a huge mountain which is about 3 hours away from Xian by bus.
When you get to the mountain you have 2 options, Get the cablecar or walk from the bottom.. We chose to get the cable car as we only really wanted to climb the East and South peaks and also do the plank walk.
On certain parts of the route the chain fences are covered in padlocks. I think if you want you can buy a padlock, get your name inscribed on it and then lock it to the chain and keep the key. We never done it though.
The Plank Walk was definitely the scariest thing ive ever done! We walked up, paid 30 yuan for the harness, the guy put it on me clipped me to the cables and told me to go! No safety talk, nothing. First thing you get to is a large ladder made of metal rods pinned inside a crack in a cliff! Some of them were loose and wobbled a good bit when you passed them! I got about 6 or 8 rods down and noticed there was about 4 people coming up the ladder so had to climb onto a rock at the side to let them passed. was so sketchy!
We eventually got to the bottom of the ladder and had to make it to the planks by using small foot holes cut into the cliff! Once on the planks i was scared to move as they were wobbling and creeking but managed to make it out to the middle for a photo! I turned back to let the guy i was with out and to take some photos of him.. We were then gonna continue to the end but it started getting very windy and then out of nowhere it started snowing.. So we had to climb the ladder in the snow which was not good. Feet sliding all over the place.
Once we got to the top it was so cold, we ran into a bhuddist temple and sat out the snow for a bit and tried to warm up. Was insane how quickly it went from a hot summers day to snowing, happened within 10 – 20 mins.
After we warmed up we started heading back down the mountain and after dropping off the south peak the weather went back to normal..
This who i spent most of my time with in Xian.. Sick Guys.
