Back on the Water

Nice to be back on the water in our little Solar Mist.  Spent 5 days cruising around the Hawksbury, passing tan jelly fish the size of soccer balls, anchoring in coves with the magnificent sandstone cliffs all around, being serenaded by a father of three young children on an old ketch playing sea shanties on his squeeze box. Perfect.  Looking forward to more as the weather warms up.

Wonderful Laos

A full day of travel by bus from Jinghong into Laos.  What a contrast at the border crossing at Mohan / Boten.  On the Chinese side flash, clean, spacious buildings with an electronic passport scanner which prints out all the information onto your departure card so all you have to do is sign.  On the Laos side 100 metres away is an outdoor grubby  concrete shed with chickens scratching in the dirt.

The right is China, left Laos immigration offices

One of the reasons we decided to return to Laos was to see how much development has occurred after three years.  When we were last here there seemed to be a huge influx of Chinese money.  Sadly the promise of Chinese funded development that seemed so likely three years ago does not seem to have been realised and rural Laos seems poorer than ever.

Roadside village house with pig and motorcycle

We arrived at the Luang Namtha bus station and I remember it as if it was last week.  In town we went straight to a little cafe we had spent many hours three years ago.  It was a lovely evening in the little town.  We went to the night markets and visited old haunts.  A few new buildings but very little changed in the three years.

The trip from Luang Namtha to Luang Praphang was a real test of endurance.  We had a mini-bus (van for 12 passengers) which only had three other passengers. The road between the two towns is Rt 13 which is the major North - South highway in Laos.  Three years ago, although the road was narrow, windy and steep, it was okay to travel.  Well in three years huge patches of road surface have washed away leaving gigantic potholes and ruts which had to be negotiated along with the pigs, chickens, cattle, small children, large trucks and motorbikes that shared the road.  There was one particularly bad stretch of about 60km that took 3 hours to complete.

Route 13, Laos

The driver took the small number of passengers as an opportunity to make a bit more money and stop along the way to pick up other passengers who flagged him down on the side of the road.  So in hops a lady with a chicken, others with various bags of vegetables.  The driver also seemed to have a bit of a wholesale business on the side and several times he stopped at the roadside market and bought bags of produce.  Once it was cucumbers and chokos, another time bamboo shoots and taro.

Roadside market, northern Laos

Finally after  nine hours we arrived in Luang Praphang and it was lovely to see this pretty heritage listed  town again.  After 5 weeks of continuous travel and sight seeing, we used our time in Luang Prabang for relaxing, enjoying the fantastic restaurants and saying hello to old haunts.

View from the balcony of our wonderful guest house, Villa Laodeum Nam Khan view

Sadly after 4 luxurious days we left tranquil Luang Prabang.  We moved on to Phonsavan, which is about 250 km southeast in an area known as the Plain of Jars.  The bus trip was the typical 8 hours of tediousness over narrow winding and bumpy roads making unscheduled stops to pick passengers and cargo or for the locals and bus driver to do a little shopping at roadside stalls - once cucumbers, another rice noodles or dried fish.  The toilet breaks are the best though.  At totally random times the bus will stop along the roadside, everyone piles out and tries to find a 'private' bush or ditch in which to squat and relieve ourselves.

The infamous Plain of Jars is the most heavily bombed place on earth. The US carried out a "secret" war here against the dreaded communists (Pathet Lao & Vietcong) throughout the 1960s & 70s.  The USAF instead of dropping rice, dropped about 3 million tons of bombs in a futile attempt to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh trail. We rented a motorcycle and went out to one the Jar Sites, the site is near a small hill and we climbed up to take a look around, all over the landscape as far as we could see was bomb craters, so much ordinance was dropped that even today the locals make a living from the scrap metal, but not without cost, as well all the bombs countless  million of anti-personnel bomblets were dropped, many still blow  the hands and feet of farmers and children who find or play with them (they look like a metal tennis ball, yellow even).
 

Bomb craters 40 years on

 After a day of rain and bombs we decided to press on to Vientiane.  We got the bus  and typicaly for a Lao bus it immediately headed off in the opposite direction.  Buses here do not seem to run to any schedule or route as we know it but make it up as they go along to maximise the income of the owner / driver.  So typically a bus or tuk tuk will go off on side trips down dirt roads over mountains to pick up extra passengers, freight, chickens, pigs in a basket etc. It is all pre-arranged by a good nationwide and very cheap phone network.  So we stop in the middle of nowhere and then out of a dirt track comes a truck with sacks of rice to go up the asle of the bus then a few km down the road we stop for more passengers.

And so to Vientiane.  What a difference to poor rural Laos! Big cars, wide dusty roads, tall buildings and after dark the Soddom and Gomorrah of SE Asia with bars on every corner and the tarts and girly boys out strutting their stuff.  Its easy to see where the wealth of this beautiful country goes or at least what is left over after Shanghai, London and Geneva have taken their cut. All the latest model BMWs and Mercs are on the streets.

Vientiane is the only place where we have seen any overt development on infrastructure.  Three years ago the waterfront was a huge Chinese/Lao construction site.  Now it is a lovely waterside park which fills every evening with people walking, riding bikes or doing group aerobics.  The park also functions as a levee for the Mekong which is fast silting up with all the soil eroding from the north  where there is massive deforestation - Poor wonderful Laos.

Waterfront park getting ready for the night markets, Vientiane (note silted up Mekong)

Lijiang and Shangri-la

While in Yangshou we heard about a town in China called Shangri-la.  How could the members of the Shamballa Cruising Yacht Club not seek out Shangri-la?  So yet another change of plans and long train travel to northwest Yunnan province. 

On the way we stopped a few days in Lijiang.  A beautiful old town packed with thousands of Chinese tourists.  While walking around we kept getting the feeling that we were in a Disney theme park and were never sure if the locals in their ethnic dress were real locals going about their everyday business or on the payroll to entertain the tourists.  We found out that our suspicions were correct.  About 20 years ago this ancient town was severely damaged by an earthquake and the Chinese government had it totally rebuilt as an example of an ancient town of the region.  Apparently a large proportion of the local Naxi people moved out afterwards.  Still we were able to find some Naxi culture like this fantastic Naxi orchestra. Ancient musicians (most were in their 80's and 90's) playing 1000 year old music on traditional instruments.

And the Naxi museum which had old manuscripts of the dongba language, a pictorial script similar to hieroglyphics.

Dongba writing

But Shangri-la awaited us aging hippies.  We searched high in the mountains...

View from the top of Shika Mountain (~14,500 ft)

And all over the town....

Shangri-la Town

Throughout the valleys.....

Consulted the monks high and low

Monk on Shika Mountain

Songzanlin Monastery

And finally we found it - the elixir of youth!

After several bottles of this Bob has been transformed.

Guilin and Yangshou

Relaxing in Luang Praphang, Laos catching up on the blog after 3 weeks in China.  What a great decision to come to Guilin and China!  China is booming.  It just exudes vibrancy.  

The scenery around Guilin is breathtaking.  On our first day we took a walk around Elephant Hill Park.

Elephant Hill Park

 

Cormorant Fishing

 

Dressing up for holiday snaps

In the evening we took the Two Rivers, Four Lakes boat cruise.  The entire waterfront has been made into wonderful walking parks and lit up in the evening making for a spectacular cruise.  The Chinese do parks very well.

Guilin at night

 

Pagodas in Guilin

    The next day we went to the country side to the Longji rice terraces.

Longi Rice Terrace

Cultivating the steep terraces

The next day was a raft trip on a 'bamboo' (read poly pipe) raft down the Li River to Yangshou.  Stunning sights and the iconic beautiful scenery is on the 20 yuan note.

While in Yangshou we rented a bicycle and rode around country side.  Fantastic to be able to have our own transport and stop wherever we wanted, but a bit crazy in 35 degree heat.  By the end of the 4 hour ride Eileen was looking decidedly like a beet root.

Eileen by the Li River 

Bob on the bike

The lovely thing about China is that there are Chinese tourists, unlike Indochina where the majority of tourists are Westerners with a few Malaysians and Chinese.  Here in China, the majority of tourists are Chinese and Westerners are very few.  So we are seeing the sights the Chinese go to and can afford to go to.

Slow Boat (train) to China

After a few days in Hanoi and planning our next move, Bob and I were feeling a bit like tourist sheep on the prescribed tourist trail – do Hanoi, then Halong Bay, then the hill tribes in Sapa.  So impulsively based on a recommendation from a chance encounter with an Indonesian tourist (plastic surgeon from Jakarta) we decided to skip Halong Bay and go to Guilin in China.  

After a bit of background internet research we went off to the train station to buy tickets.  Given the price of the tickets and our internet research we were expecting a fairly nice train (perhaps an up-market soft sleeper).  According the ‘Man in seat 61’ website the M1 train to China is an express that runs only Monday and Fridays and quite comfortable with special carriages.  We booked the Friday express but when we were hustled into our train which consisted of only one carriage(no different than the other very basic Vietnamese carriage we had from HCMC to Danang) and the engine, 5 crew members and only two other passengers (Vietnamese/Chinese) we were wondering if perhaps we had been set up for kidnapping by a white slave trading triad.  

The 5 crew members provided absolutely no services and played Ma Jong all night or slept in the empty compartments.  There wasn’t even any hot water in the machine for our reserve supply of pot noodles.  So dinner that night consisted of some cashew nuts and crackers we had in our bags.

At around 11 pm we arrived at the border crossing town of Dong Dang and realised that the reason the tickets were so expensive was that we were really getting the Red Carpet treatment.  As we were getting off the train, the filthy tattered red rubber matting on the floor was being rolled up no longer needed for the local run back to Hanoi!  The other two passengers on the train were locals and exited the station while we were ushered into a massive and totally empty station with two border guards to check our passports.  Suddenly we were in a Le Carre novel and this was Checkpoint Charlie.  

We made it through, no guns or manacles and were ushered into the Chinese train.  This had three carriages but also was totally empty.  The carriages were the same make as the Vietnamese carriages but these were clean, well maintained and fitted out with pretty curtains (all sparkling clean) and real carpet (but not red).  There was an initial check of passports and visas then we were told our passports would be stamped about an hour into China.  So around 12.30 am we entered, again a totally empty station, a very official looking uniformed officer closely inspected our passports, rubbing the pages between his fingers to test the paper (my passport was all wrinkled from water damage suffered during Songkran in Chang Mai three years ago) and took them away for about 45 minutes.  Was he calling the Australian Embassy to check our bone fides?  Finally our stamped passports were returned and we were on our way – a whole train essentially to ourselves. 

We arrived at Nanning at 5.30 am, a clean and modern station with electronic automatic flushing squat toilets.  We were lead to and locked into a massive, but totally empty marble lined waiting room with about 100 overstuffed chairs, garden atrium with fish pond and Chinese morning tv news.  There we waited by ourselves with the occasional train official walking by ignoring us.

Locked waiting room at  Nanning Train Station

 

Marble lobby of Nanning Train Station

The empty waiting room Nanning Train Station

After about 1 ½ hours waiting we were lead back to our train which had gone from 3 empty carriages to 16 moderately full carriages.  We had tried to get some Chinese RMB in Hanoi but none of the banks we went to had any.  We had read that we could get Chinese Yuan at Nanning so figured we get some there at the train station ATM during our stop over.  But as we were locked into the waiting room we couldn’t check the station for ATMs and it was too early for the banks to open.  So even though this train had a food car and services we had no money to buy anything.  The train did have hot water machines so our standby supply of pot noodles could be used and our tummies didn’t rumble too much.

Five hours to go to Guilin and the scenery was spectacular - Limestone karsts jutting out of lush verdant fields of rice, corn and sugarcane.  We were getting good feelings about China.

Hanoi Hilton

On Monday the 27^th May we caught the 5pm overnight train to Hanoi.  The only available tickets were the top bunks of a six bunk ‘hard sleeper’ compartment.  The top bunks were above my head and had so little head room that it was impossible to sit up and the width of the bunk was such that if I lay flat on my back and my arms at side, my fingers hung over the edge of the concrete like mattress.  So after 12 hours in these conditions I must admit I was feeling a bit stiff and sore the next day.  Bob said he slept fine which I can confirm by the loud snores I heard all night – not sure what the other 5 Vietnamese passengers thought of this!  (Yes one bunk had two people in it – an adult and a 4 year old.)

So bleary eyed at 5.30 am we stumbled out of Ga Ha Noi and to our surprise the hotel we had booked had someone to greet us.  He didn’t actually take us to the hotel but got us a taxi, then rode his motorbike ahead of the taxi to the hotel to then lead us down the back alleys to the hotel entrance.  The hotel, The Splendid Jupiter, turned out to be the nicest one we have stayed in so far and only $24 per night.    We found out that the owner of our hotel is a 28 year old man who came from the country to Hanoi 11 years ago and now owns 4 hotels.

As our room wasn’t ready for us at 6am, we left our bags at the hotel and walked around Hoam Kiem Lake, a big parkland in the middle of the city.  The place was teeming with people walking, exercising, doing Tai Chi or group aerobics to music, fan dancing, ball room dancing – every aspect of life on full view with no apparent self-consciousness or need for privacy.  All this happening before I am usually out of bed!

Early morning aerobics at  Hoam Kiem Lake, Hanoi

Needing a caffeine hit around 7am we stopped at a café for a Vietnamese coffee – thick, strong with sweetened milk on the bottom.  Sitting across the street was this wonderful old ‘patriot’, a 90 year old man who fought in the Indochina wars.  He was sitting on one of the ubiquitous little plastic chairs watching the comings and goings of the neighbourhood with a far off look in his eyes (no doubt thinking of his days on the HCM trail fighting the Imperialist aggressors) 

The old patriot

until his daughter helped him slowly walk back to the house around 8 am.

  

We made a print of the first photo and gave it to his daughter the next day.

Later in the afternoon after freshening up we started the tourist rounds.  First we went off to the Hao Lo Prison, the infamous Hanoi Hilton that McCain was in.  Most of the exhibit talked about the French imprisoning the 'patriots and revolutionaries' but then there was a few rooms exhibiting artifacts when the prison was used to imprison the American pilots with pictures of McCain and others.  Lots of patriotic language / propaganda but I could see a similar exhibit extolling the virtues of the American founding fathers.  I suppose it is all a matter of perspective and which side one is on.

Hao Lo Prison under the French

 

The next day Bob came down with Ho’s revenge – probably as punishment for all his irreverent remarks against Uncle Ho, so a quiet day resting.  In the evening, for my birthday, we went to the Water Puppet performance. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_puppetry

Fantastic!  A must see if in Vietnam.  I was especially struck by the orchestra playing traditional Vietnamese instruments.  The Dan Bau had the most exquisite and haunting sound.

The next day we did more Uncle Ho things – The Mausoleum and museums.  It was all very formal at the Mausoleum.  We had to march pass very solemn, no pausing, keep in line, guards everywhere ensuring everyone is respectful and keeps moving and not straying away from the designated There was a dress code as well - no knees or shoulders showing.  Must say Ho was looking quite pasty having been dead for over 40 years. They really deify him which ironically is exactly what Ho did not want.

 

Ho's Mausoleum