Cheryl & Neil Our Story

Pandamonium

Posted on April 20, 2017 by Cheryl & Neil

Confucius say ‘when man flu become more serious then man get deep husky voice like Keith Richard’. That’s exactly what happened to Neil when his common cold turned into something more debilitating and his voice turned into a deep gravelly monotone grump. Not much change there then.

It might not have been so bad except for the fact that our flight from Lijiang was the first we’ve been on where the seatbelt sign was never turned off and delivery of drinks by the flight crew was suspended due to the extended turbulence. To make it worse, during the final descent into Chengdu the pressure in Neil’s ears didn’t equalise due to his head cold. This left him with a thundering headache and deafness that lasted until next day……….he went to bed at 8.30pm.

The following morning the headache was gone, the deafness was gone but the rasping sore throat and ridiculously deep voice persisted forcing Neil to do something he never does – seek medicine – Chinese medicine. Well, it had to be Chinese medicine as Neil declined advice from one of the receptionists to see a doctor and without a prescription he couldn’t get antibiotics. He loaded up in a pharmacy with all sorts of capsules, lozenges and ‘dripping pills’. His nose, whilst not red or sore, finished up feeling like a piece of sandpaper. Within a couple of days he was starting to get better although his voice took a little longer to get back to normal. Cheryl being the caring person she is kept reminding him that ‘it’s just man flu, get on with it………..I had it too but I didn’t complain……..much’.

Cheryl decided to choose our hotel based on its silly name. The Lazybones Templeside Poshpacker Hostel is in essence aimed at 30 somethings who want a better standard than a backpacker dive, but still want the friendliness & fun atmosphere of a hostel.

Compulsory silly photo for the hostel wall

Whilst this name actually makes a bit of sense, we have noticed a number of shops, restaurants, hotels and many more things which have used a strict translation from Chinese that leave us scratching our heads as to what they mean. People wear clothing like T-shirts etc with the most insane comments on them probably because it’s cool to have an English slogan. We’re sure this also works in reverse when foreigners buy clothes with exotic Chinese/Japanese/Sanskrit adornments. You may wish to check if your clothing is having a quiet laugh at your expense!

We try to avoid doing too many touristy things at weekends as they tend to be dominated by the Chinese. We also like to observe real life in a country so on Sunday we decided to visit what is reputedly the biggest shopping mall in the world with 511,000 square meters of purchasing opportunities. We’re not sure of this is true but it was so big we couldn’t fit it all into the camera lens. It was pretty awesome and contained zillions of shops, eateries, coffee shops, 5* toilets, an IMAX and cine complex, an ice rink, waterpark with flumes and a mini seaside resort with wave machine and both concrete and sand beaches.

The whole thing is overlooked by a huge Intercontinental Hotel having rooms inside the dome with views over the swimming pools and seaside resort. We didn’t do any shopping but then just taking in the sheer size of it was tiring enough! Neil did enjoy riding the escalators that reminded him of David Niven in ‘Stairway to Heaven’ – they were endless. Oh, almost forgot to say, it has 24hr sunshine!

We came to Chengdu in Sichuan Province in the hope that we would get great food – it is renowned for its hot and spicy flavours. Well, it is hot and spicy which we enjoy but it’s also incredibly salty and ridiculously oily which we don’t enjoy. When we asked at Poshpacker if this is normal we were told ‘yes’ so with their help we created our own menu – we decided want we wanted to eat, wrote it down and the guys behind the desk translated it into Chinese characters. Armed with our flashcards we started to get some food we could eat especially as we got them to translate ‘no salt’! Simple unadulterated and delicious roast duck and vegetables that taste of vegetables.

We’ve done a bit of temple-ing while we’ve been here but you can’t come to Chengdu without seeing the Panda Breeding & Research Centre. To get there before the crowds we took a taxi for CNY30 (about £3.50) in time for the opening at 7.30am. The taxi man had obviously been watching the recent Grand Prix as he drove like he’d started from pole position rather than a set of traffic lights. We arrived very early, got ticket numbers 3 and 4 on the day, and had a fabulous time watching pandas. They are the icon of the WWF and they are extremely funny to watch, especially the young ones that seem to want to run, play, climb and play-fight all day long. Considering that many Chinese tourist attractions charge very high fees this turned out to be excellent value as we spent around 7/8hrs there. The entrance fee for both of us was CNY118, taxi CNY30, bus/metro home CNY8 so all in all, less than £20.

Pandas are seriously endangered and we were given a number of reasons why this is. Obviously, we humans have had a lot to do with it. However, the female is only on heat for 3 days a year. To make things worse, the males still think their piece of equipment is just for peeing through – unlike most wildlife that can’t get enough. It appears that pandas prefer chewing on a piece of tasteless bamboo over a bit of rumpy pumpy! Also, a female will normally produce twins and abandon the weakest – this is nature. However, the centre staff have come up with a wizard idea that is now saving almost 100% of those that would have died. Pandas don’t seem to be too bright so the staff rescue the abandoned baby at birth and keep it in an incubator. Then, as many as 10 times a day, switch the babies over with the mother. Mummy panda doesn’t notice and she unwittingly rears 2 babies – we said it was a wizard idea!

Pandas also live a very solitary life in the wild so even when a female is ready to mate there is very little chance of finding a male who isn’t concentrating on his next piece of bamboo. Whilst not a reason for being endangered, the centre staff don’t know if a female is pregnant or not, well not until little Peter or Pamela Panda literally pops out. All females will share the same body changes during this period even though they may not be pregnant so it does keep the staff guessing. Actually, maybe the females aren’t that daft, as they get extra rations during pregnancy.

We’ve had a good time in China and although we have an outline plan for Chapter 10 we are probably going to come back one day. Here are our Top 10 observations, both good and bad:

1. The language is a barrier, no doubt, but we have got by with the help of a very friendly Chinese people and translation apps. We didn’t always get what we thought we were getting but that’s when a sense of humour steps forward.
2. China has to have some of the worst public toilets in the Universe. Some are good but many are, mmm well, we won’t describe them in case you read this eating your dinner and, just maybe, you may choose to visit yourself and we wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise. We can tell you over a beer when we get back.
3. The public transport is excellent and simple to use even with the language barrier.
4. We have been in some remote areas and most people seem to be sharing in the new wealth being created.
5. The amount being spent on infrastructure is breath-taking.
6. Young girls love to express themselves with fashion, especially shoes, and hairstyles.
7. Middle aged women need to take some dress advice instead of dressing like western tarts but even these girls are having fun.
8. Most men of all ages smoke, everywhere, even where there are signs saying don’t……it’s treated like the provision of hot water, a human right to smoke when and where I want.
9. There’s a lot of rich people here driving Bentleys, Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati and even your average Joe seems to drive a BMW, Mercedes or definitely a Japanese car.
10. It seems to us that it’s a good country in which to be old. It’s like Last of the Summer Wine everywhere you go, in the parks, playing cards or mah jong or just singing and dancing together. They are not locked away at home isolated from society.

We have liked China a lot, it’s been a real challenge but then we haven’t really had a challenge since we came here 5 years ago.

We fly home tomorrow, both of us looking forward to seeing everyone again and catching up with people we haven’t seen for some time. We have lots on this summer so please keep following.

Michael Palin Stayed Here

Posted on April 13, 2017 by Cheryl & Neil

Yes, it’s true, we stayed in the same guesthouse as Michael Palin when he was filming his TV series ‘Himalaya’ in 2004. We were trekking in Tiger Leaping Gorge and happened to choose the same one, Halfway House G H.

The owner, Mr Feng de Fang or Frankie, proudly displays a simple hand written sign advertising the fact. Our room, which cost about £17, had a wall of glass giving us a view of the mountains which Cheryl made full use of that evening. Her bed was so close to the window that she could lay in bed and watch the moon rise over the snow-capped mountains……..wow!

Tiger Leaping Gorge gets its name from the legend that says in order to escape from a hunter, a tiger jumped across the Jinsha River at the narrowest point and there are 2 large rocks where this is said to have happened. It’s one of the finest treks in China through some of the most naturally beautiful and diverse landscapes China has to offer. The 24 km trail runs high on the northern side of the gorge passing through quiet villages, shady forest, blustery precipice and verdant terraced farmland. The snow covered peaks of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (5596m) and Haba Snow Mountain (5396m) shadow either side of the gorge making it a dramatic scene.

Day 1 started with a 2hr bus journey with fellow trekkers to the park ticket office before we set off uphill on a concrete road. Unfortunately, the road was noisy and dusty from construction traffic. We’ve already mentioned in previous blogs that China is one massive building site and this beautiful gorge doesn’t escape the march towards China becoming the largest economy in the world. It’s investing phenomenal amounts of money on infrastructure and in particular its high speed trains that travel around 360kph (200mph). We travelled on one a few years ago from Shanghai to Suzhou and it was unbelievably smooth even at such high speeds. Travelling so fast means very few bends which inevitably means that the lines go through numerous tunnels rather than around mountains. Tiger Leaping Gorge is no exception meaning that the train will hurtle out of the mountain tunnel, speed across a 660m long 250m high bridge over the gorge before thundering into the tunnel on the other side. We’ve calculated that this will take about 6.6 seconds from the time the nose exits one tunnel before the nose enters the next tunnel (maths freaks please feel free to put us right on this one). We’ve also managed to find an artist’s impression of what it will look like when it’s finished in 2020.

Anyway, having negotiated the concrete road we finally found the poorly signed path and headed up the hill. It was 1.5hrs of relentless uphill before reaching Naxi G H where we had lunch. We were off again within 45 minutes to attack the infamous ’28 bends’. Infamous for 2 reasons – firstly, there are many more than 28 and, secondly, it was more of the same but this time it was 2hrs of muscle numbing slog.

Across the top we walked around 4hrs to Halfway GH. It should have been 30 minutes less but at one point the path was so poorly marked we chose the wrong route twice before finally plumping for the correct one…..the one in the middle! By the time we arrived Cheryl was absolutely knackered from the day’s exertion which wasn’t helped by a stinking cold. (As we write this Neil is now suffering from man flu). After a few beers, chats with fellow trekkers to raise our spirits and some excellent food we went to bed, watched the moon rise and slept soundly.

On day 2 we rose late, had a massive trekker’s breakfast, and set off towards the end of the path. At first the route was a good rough road before it became very narrow. At some points it was a tad scary as there was nothing to prevent you tripping and falling far enough for rescuers to need several small boxes to scrape up the scattered body parts to enable repatriation.

With the vertigo overcome we moved on to a very severe downhill section which was very punishing on the joints. After about 2.5hrs we reached the end of the upper trail and we both came to the reluctant conclusion that to head down even further to the river on day 3 would be a massive mistake. We decided to cut our trek short by one day and walked into Tina’s GH where, with real sadness, we booked a ticket back to Lijang on the bus that afternoon. Trek over.

We thoroughly enjoyed the stunning scenery but, sadly, we didn’t enjoy the trek. The really annoying thing was that we had done the hard part and the steep 3 to 4hr walk down to the river should have been relatively easy. However, Cheryl’s knees were gone so it was game over. The main problem was that the path was nothing like we have been used to in Nepal or in the UK for that matter. It was rough with many trip hazards, gullies that required total concentration to avoid twisting an ankle and dust and pebbles on the steep down hills where you could so easily have your feet go from under you and land on your backside. We were permanently staring at the path so that we didn’t come to harm. We were very sad to quit and not complete the last few hours but decided to be cautious as we still have one more week of sightseeing before we fly home.

There is an upside to this tale. We met some fellow travellers from London, Han and David, when we were in Dali. They came to Lijiang a few days before us and checked out a restaurant called LaMu’s House of Tibet that serves excellent Tibetan food, superb western food as well as the usual Chinese favourites. They also offer a good measure of Gordon’s gin and tonic with ice and a slice plus a very large glass of pretty decent red wine. Obviously neither the excellent food nor the drinks were cheap but after weeks of Chinese food a decent beef chilli, dried fried yak meat, spag. bol, or pizza washed down with a dry red takes a lot of beating. Yes, we know we’re home soon but give us a break – we ache like hell, have man flu and, anyway, we deserved it! We had a regular booking at a window seat that made us feel like the old guys from The Muppets sitting in the gods and watching the world pass by below.

After the visit to frenetic Dali we weren’t expecting to like Lijiang as it has an even worse reputation for Chinese tourist madness. However, we actually enjoyed our stay and you can see from the photos that we spent each evening walking back from LaMu’s taking photos of the twisty narrow streets, small rivers, and the myriad of shops offering drums, clothes, hats ‘n cats, bric-a-brac and much more.

It was great fun asking the young Chinese tourists dressed in their funky clothes to pose for us. Also, take a look at the picture of the fire engine – that will show you just how narrow the streets are here in this very pretty ancient city which is surprisingly large.

Tiny fire truck…..where are the tiny firemen?

It’s not just firemen that get a mention here. Rubbish collectors also come around in a small truck twice a day. The vehicle plays a very loud Chinese tune that is really quaint for us to lie in bed with a cup of tea and listen to as they pass below our balcony. However, it must be totally maddening for the workers who have to listen to it all day, every day!

Tomorrow we fly to Chengdu for our final stop before heading back home.

Reflections

Posted on April 7, 2017 by Cheryl & Neil

As soon as we arrived at the Yuanyang rice terraces we were whisked off in shared minivan to see the sunset from one of the viewing points – what a mixture, French, Brits, Canadian and Japanese.

Our choice of Timeless Guesthouse turned out to be exactly what we had hoped – very sociable and with an owner who knew so much about the terraces and planned each day for all of us as soon as we had eaten breakfast. He joined travellers together so we could all enjoy the beautiful scenery and chat about it as we walked the terraces on the good days and visited markets.

On the bad, cold damp days we sat in the guesthouse, hogged the only fire in the place and drank coffee and beer as we solved the world’s problems and learnt about each other’s countries. During the next couple of days we became great friends with Han and David from the UK, Eden from Canada, Gimena from Argentina, an Ex USA marine called Megan and a Portuguese lady who we never found out her name as she never sat still long enough.

Getting to and from the rice terraces was a long and difficult journey but it was oh so worth it. It’s a Unesco World Heritage Site covering 12,500 hectares and is home to many different minority tribes that all come together on market day. It’s a photographers dream to watch the colours change as the sun rises, moves across the sky before finally setting giving stunning reflections. The terraces were hewn out of the landscape by the Hani people centuries ago and today continue to provide extremely fertile land where many vegetables are grown as well as rice.

Our four nights on the terraces flew by and it was soon time to back track to Jianshui for one night before catching the overnight train to Dali. The Soft Sleeper was excellent and clean and we were very lucky to be sharing with 2 young Chinese girls who were very quiet.

Dali proved to be a lovely place with well-preserved/restored buildings and lots of places to eat including Bakery 88 which offered excellent bread, cheese, salami, prosciutto and wine- all the things we had been missing for the last few months. Sadly, many of the bars and restaurants catered for the mainly Chinese tourists by pumping out music loud enough to wake the dead!

After a couple of nights we managed to share a taxi with a family to our next destination, Shaxi (pronounced Shassi). This was another preserved/restored town but it was so much more sleepy and relaxed than Dali. It is one of only three surviving caravan oases from the old tea horse road between China, Tibet and India. Less well known than the silk road, it was just as important for trade and at its peak 20,000 Tibetan horses were traded for 1.5m tons of Yunnan tea. Horse rides are still provided for tourists through and around the village – quite evocative to hear them clip clop on the tree lined cobbled streets. It’s not surprising that it’s such a popular location for movie sets. Many of the guesthouse, including ours, and restaurants play very chilled Chinese Jazz – all this place needs is a Waitrose!

This was a place made to just chill out and relax and that’s exactly what we did. We headed to the quaint village square each evening and sat in one of the many cafes to enjoy a couple of very strong G&T sundowners. We then followed the reviews in Tripadvisor and headed to The Hungry Buddha for dinner which offered excellent vegetarian and vegan food. Yes, you read this correct, we were eating veg and vegan! This place was set up by a Michelin starred foreigner chef who trained the local people who are excellent chefs, their skill and attention to detail was incredible. There are only 10 barstools set around the tiny open kitchen and it was just mesmerising watching them work as we chatted to other guests. In addition to the delicious food it offered excellent wine – result!

On our last day we went to the huge market which was fascinating to walk around, take pictures and just enjoy the lively atmosphere as villagers came from far and wide to fill up their shopping baskets, grab some food and catch up with friends before heading home.

We make no apologies for the excessive number of photographs of old people, animals, colourful ethnic costumes and cute kids – these are our reflections of Chinese life.

China Challenge

Posted on March 28, 2017 by Cheryl & Neil

We had no Chinese money, couldn’t speak Mandarin and the ATM at Kunming airport wouldn’t take our card. Oh ****, looks like we could be leaving China earlier than planned if things didn’t improve!

Anyway, things did improve. We arranged a car from the hotel and the driver was waiting with a sign in English! It was easy for him to spot us as we were the only foreigners in the airport. We chose our hotel because the reviews said that Rebecca Yang at the hotel spoke really good English…..she did and with an Aussie twang! We had emails from her confirming the taxi, train information and all sorts of other stuff but you can’t actually type with an Aussie accent so it was something of a surprise. She told us where to get food, train tickets, how and where to catch the bus into the centre and what to eat or not to eat! She also walked us to the nearby Bank of China ATM which was good enough to cough up 3000CNY (just over £300)…………we breathed a sigh of relief……so did she as we could now pay her for the room and the taxi!

Our first observations of Kunming are that for a massive city of over 6m people it’s a pleasant enough place to live. There’s virtually no English spoken, all the scooters are electric and are unnervingly silent as they fly past you from all directions. There are lots of rubbish bins so there’s hardly any litter, the traffic is quiet, people are dressed well, we haven’t seen too many beggars and most of the cars are imported from Japan and Germany. There’s also a huge amount of building going on – ready mix concrete trucks queuing to get into a site at 8.45pm on a Sunday evening. On the massive site next to the new metro project there’s a construction going on 24/7. People are very friendly and helpful although our lack of Chinese does make it difficult when people try to help us.

Despite all the modernisation there is still space for the little man and his shop outside our hotel. We went in to buy a beer and some milk, nobody could understand what anybody was saying, and suddenly out comes his phone and he spoke into it, pressed a button and hey presto a voice from the phone said, ‘yes, that carton milk’! So you can speak into it and get a translation or you can type into and get the same. Cheryl now has an app that if you scan some Chinese it will translate. Obviously it does make life simpler but it doesn’t always work so sometimes we just have to smile, say xie, xie (phonetically cher cher which means ‘thank you’) and walk away. Everybody has been really helpful including an old guy in our favourite grocers on our second visit. We were trying to find out how much something cost and he tried to help with surprisingly good English. When we left with our ‘xie xie’ he replied with a huge grin on his face ‘you’re welcome’.

We were in Kunming for 4 nights exploring the city but more importantly getting set for the rest of our trip. Rebecca was brilliant giving us written translations for really common things and arranging taxis etc. In addition, which wasn’t in the plan, we had to buy some warmer clothing aimed mainly at our planned walking later in the trip. It started off here at about 23C which was lovely after the sweltering 35C of Bangkok but it suddenly plunged to about 4C overnight so buying coats was essential. Ordering food has proved to be almost impossible as very few menus contain any English or pictures. Most of the restaurants we’ve found offer buffet hot pots which tend to be quite dull. Instead we’ve concentrated on food courts where the variety is huge and there are pictures that you can point to. That way you’ve got a much better chance of getting somewhere near to what you thought you had ordered! Food courts don’t have much ambience but sometimes needs must.

We did some sightseeing to a temple and the big lake in the centre. At this point it was grey drizzle so we were very glad of the coats. We were amused by the groups of people, mainly elderly, dotted around the park dancing, singing, playing instruments or playing cards and mah-jong. Most groups bring their own large speaker system on wheels and we passed several groups all within earshot but each sticking to their own routines. What a great way to socialise and keep fit and active.

We moved on by train to the preserved town of Jianshui. It was an amusing journey as we were the only foreigners and we had the Shopping Channel brought right to our seat as train employees did a selling job on sweets and flexible toothbrushes of all things.

Jianshui has some colourful old buildings and is a good place to stop off on the way to our ultimate goal, The Yuanyang Rice Terraces which is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Our onward journey was by local bus which proved to be something of an endurance test as men here seem to ignore no smoking signs and happily turn buses into smoke filled boxes – including the driver! The journey wasn’t all bad as we did have lots to amuse us as we switched buses in Nansha for the final leg of our journey. We had planned to get to Xinjie and then take a minibus to the terraces but as we got off the bus in Nansha another bus driver suggested we take his bus to Duoyishu. There aren’t many foreign tourists in China, and any that are in this area are all heading for the rice terraces so it wasn’t surprising that this driver approached us. Cheryl had a quick look at Lonely Planet, it was close to where we were headed, and gave him the nod.

The bus took us to our original staging point of Xinjie and when we tried to get off the driver said we should stay put. When we say ‘he said’ it was all done by sign as he didn’t speak any English. Off we went again, passing through a number of villages before getting to a small town where we stopped to let people off. Then our rucksacks that had been in the storage place at the back of the bus appeared inside the cab. What followed made us laugh so much as we became surrounded by boxes of food, snacks and all sorts of other things. The driver attempted to move on but the small town was gridlocked by double parked vehicles blocking the roads and we sat there for almost an hour while the traffic cleared. Nobody got angry…….it was amazing.

After a while the driver asked Cheryl for her phone again so that he could read the translated name of our guesthouse. We have been using booking.com and the app works offline to show the address of the hotel in the local language. There was a tense moment for us as he and his nearby passenger both looked puzzled and there were a few head shakes. He intimated that we should call the guesthouse but Cheryl, using her best sign language, explained that we did not have a Chinese sim. He called the owner and before very long we stopped, he told us to get off, and after a lot of shouting down the hill we were miraculously met by a small van that took us right down to our guesthouse……thank you lovely bus driver!

Have we mentioned before that ‘Lucky’ is Neil’s middle name?

Last Night at the Opera

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Cheryl & Neil

Have you ever done a runner from a restaurant? We have…..twice!

We hadn’t realised how difficult it was going to be to move onto Chiang Khong. It turned out that there was only one songthaew per day at 11am. We were warned by our hotel that despite it only being 50km away, the road was very bad meaning it would take at least 2hrs. We got to the bus stand about 30mins early just in time for Cheryl to grab the last available seat and for Neil to sit himself on top of 2 sacks of chicken feed with his feet hanging off the back. It was fine, a little cramped, but with rucksacks planted on the roof we set off early.

By the time we got to about 2/3rds of the way we were the only ones left and the driver, smelling money, informed us in Thai that this was as far as he went. We argued and then he came out with a new term, ‘taxi, 500THB’. We argued some more, and a little more and a couple of local people from the village tried to intervene with their slightly better English. We sat still and wouldn’t budge until eventually another man with better English tried his luck. We knew we were stuffed, it’s the classic tourist scam, but we held our ground for as long as we could before settling on 300THB. We thought the proper price would be between 60-100THB each so we weren’t unhappy about the extra 100THB or so. Off we set and at much greater speed until we reached the part of the road that was meant to be bad……it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t there yet………it was in construction and very, very dusty. We bounced and bumped for the rest of the journey and arrived caked in dust – just as well our clothes were in the schedule for the laundry.

Thanks again to google maps – which tracked us without having data on the phone, we shouted as we arrived in Chiang Khong and were dropped right by our guesthouse….bonus!! Our room wasn’t as fancy as the Mekong Riverview, but once again we had a superb view over the Mekong. We set about getting our bearings and also filling in immigration cards for Laos in advance as they were provided by the hotel.

We came to this border town to get the slow boat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang in Laos. It was a 2 day journey with a stop-over at Pak Beng. We could have done it on the cheap using the public boats favoured by the backpackers, but decided to pay about £40 extra each to take a luxury boat. This boat didn’t cram lots of people in, included pickup and drop off at hotels, took care of your bags and walked you through immigration. What a breeze and well worth the extra money. Our boat took no more than 25 people, the public ones can cram in over a 100 on bad days, but we were only 14 which made it a very sociable affair. We had another Brit, Swiss, German, Belgian, Australians, Thai and a Dutch…..quite a mix considering we were only 14.

We spent most of the time chatting to a young German couple on a 3 week holiday and the young Brit lad who had joined with the young Swiss girl to travel together for a while. We had a great time, laughing, joking and exchanging stories about various travels. We made a few stops on the way to the traditional villages, a bit of a human zoo, and also to a set of caves housing more than 4000 Buddhas.

Our overnight stop was good, well it was for us as we had one of the best rooms (Lucky is Neil’s middle name!), a curry in the evening followed by a few beers in a bar playing OK music.

The scenery was fabulous and watching the buffalo, goats, pigs, small villages and other boats was quite mesmerising as the boat made its slow way along the river. Finally we pulled into the pier, an unfriendly 10km from town, to be met by the tuk tuk guys waiting to pounce. Our tour included transport so we were placed into minibuses and whisked off to the centre.

Neil’s luck ran out as we pulled up to our chosen hotel, Kinnaly Guesthouse. There was a building site opposite and they were enjoying using their power tools. Luang Prabang is very touristy, and attracts a more up market crowd so prices are high. We were paying £39/night and thought that would get a good room but we got a dud. The lobby wallpaper was peeling and the room followed the same tired theme. It was also tiny and not the 25 square metres as advertised. We had booked for 5 nights and decided this was not the place to relax in as we could barely get round the bed, there was no glass in the windows so the window shutters had to be closed to run the a/c leaving the room in near darkness. We gave the bad news to the girl on reception that we would be leaving next morning, and she wasn’t happy.

We walked around and ‘lucky’ Neil managed to find a bigger room with a balcony overlooking our old friend the Mekong, with glass in the windows, and for about £11/night less – result! By this time we were tired, hot and in need of a drink. We stumbled upon The Opera House who had a happy hour and the best Margaritas we’ve had all trip.

Now the reason we booked Kinnaly Guesthouse was that the two balconies at the front overlook a street used by the monks on the early morning route around the town collecting alms. We were up at 5.30am and were rewarded by the sight of monk after monk in their bright orange robes silently walking along directly beneath us. There is a street in the centre of town which is the classic photo op for the tourists as the monks pass by a huge white wall, but this can be a bit of a circus, with some unruly tourists poking camera lenses into the faces of the monks and townspeople. On our little back street we could observe the local people doing what they do every morning with no other tourists in sight.

We had breakfast and of course, an argument as we left as the owner wanted payment for 2 more days. We refused and walked off. We later had an email from booking.com saying the hotel reported us as a ‘no show’! We explained what happened and eventually got the link to leave a review – hah!

Our last days were taken up with a little sightseeing in the mornings around the beautiful town and meandering in and out of the wats and temples. Lunch by the river then afternoon in the room with the a/c on max. We met up with the guys from the slow boat most evenings for dinner, and as it’s a small place we kept bumping into all of them around the town. We had great fun with them and hope they all enjoy their travelling wherever they end up.

Our last night was on our own and what better way to end than with the best Margaritas in town at The Opera House? Lucky scored again as it was Monday – the specials night! We succumbed to the lure of Lasagne and we were glad we did as it was excellent, and a decent glass of red wine was buy one get one free so we had to indulge. Neil carefully counted out our remaining Kip and declared we have enough for another wine – hurrah! We got chatting to a young English couple and as it was getting late we all left at the same time after paying the bills. We were then chased after by the young waiter –‘Sir, Sir, not enough.’ Neil had counted two 20,000 notes as 50,000s – well they are the same pinky red colour and it was dark in there and he didn’t use his reading glasses! He opened his wallet and we counted out what was left, it was all small notes and we were still 10,000 short – that’s about £1. The town was shut – everything closes early as the locals get up at 5am for the alms giving so we asked if we could pay them tomorrow. That was ok but they didn’t open until 5pm and we were leaving at noon.

Now we do have form where doing a runner is concerned. Neil did it once when he was young and we are both guilty when we did this a few years ago in Bangkok. We got a shock when our bill arrived and we found we didn’t have enough in the wallet to cover it. The restaurant was also a long way from where we were staying but we did have skytrain passes to get back. It wasn’t short by much and the restaurant was quite busy so we just left all the money we had and left sharpish, actually once we were out of the restaurant we started to run down the road. We’re still feel guilty about it and here we were again doing the same – but in a town packed full of monks and positive karma it felt worse.

Early next morning Neil got some more money exchanged and posted a 10,000kip note under the door of the Opera House. Karma restored, we backtracked to Bangkok for a couple of days revisiting some of our favourite places.

Tomorrow we fly to Kunming to start our travels in China.

Thai-riffic!

Posted on March 9, 2017 by Cheryl & Neil

Thailand makes you realise just how incredibly shitty India really is. It’s cleaner, the people smile, you’re not greeted in the mornings by the hordes defecating in the fields, people queue nicely, everything works and is maintained, the traffic is gentle, quiet and isn’t out to kill you.

Our hotel in Bangkok was excellent with probably one of the biggest beds we’ve ever had. The view from the 6th floor wasn’t exciting but at least we can have the huge balcony door open without anybody peering in at us.

We came to Bangkok to apply for our visa to enter China on March 24th. China is extremely pernickety about having things all confirmed. We needed to provide copies of passport, our old visa from 4 years ago, the immigration stamp for our entry into Thailand, confirmation of flights in and out of China, hotels all booked for our month long visit, explanations for this, explanations for that, what colour underwear we’ll have on when we arrive, when is our next haircut due….you name it, they want it. Anyway, with just one abortive journey, partly our fault and partly an extra item they demanded, we finally got it!

We’ve also been catching up on our ‘business’ things at home like pensions and properties plus final plans for our remaining 3 weeks in Thailand, our week in Laos and cancelling lots of the plans for China and made new ones that fitted our requirements better. One of the advantages of Booking.com is that you can cancel with impunity so once we had the visa granted all the ‘hoop jumping’ was cancelled! Of course, we also did a bit of sightseeing, shopping and generally enjoying the much more relaxed vibe of Thailand. We took our usual trip on the river ferry which, for about £1.20 is a fantastic way to see the city on a 2hr return ticket.

Next stop was to pastures new, Chiang Rai in Northern Thailand. We really liked it, our room was excellent albeit a 40 minute walk to town and it had a much more relaxed feel than Bangkok. The night market was a wonderful experience. As well as many colourful stalls selling clothes and trinkets there was a huge food court. It had about 250 tables surrounded by vendors offering all sorts of food and drinks and a stage that offered free and sometimes dubious entertainment. The show we really liked was the collection of lady boys dressed like Shirley Bassey prancing around the stage and miming to ‘boy band’ music……we just cracked up!

Outside of the city was the White Temple, a bizarre place which may have been influenced by Gaudi. Chalermchai Kositpipat was the architect and builder and he opened it to visitors in 1997. It’s now one of the most visited temples in Thailand and the site also boasts a gallery of some of his paintings………even Neil enjoyed that!

We decided to take a bit of a tour to visit some places that are slightly less travelled. Firstly, it was off to Chiang Saen which was once in the centre of the world’s production of opium. It was as little as 20 years ago that the drug baron Kun Sa Mong surrendered. He controlled the area known as The Golden Triangle with his private army of 20,000 armed men making this part of Thailand an absolute ‘no go area’. The triangle is at the confluence of the Mekong and Ruak Rivers where Thailand meets Myanmar and Laos. The CIA were here helping remove the drug barons and now it’s a major tourist attraction. With the help of lots of money from the rest of the world the 3 nations have now turned this area into a kitschy photo opportunity with a few attractions that include a couple of Opium Museums.

We spent 6 blissful nights here with a super room giving us the view to die for across the mighty Mekong River to Laos. The room lit up with the sunrise that we were privileged to see every morning…….absolutely breath-taking. Watching people meditating first thing in the morning with the sun rising made this place feel very spiritual…….even Neil felt it! The river is the life blood for so many people by providing work transporting goods, ferries and food. The river is home to many varieties of fish including The Giant Mekong Catfish, sadly endangered, which can grow to almost 9 feet and weigh over 600lbs.

Next we decided to head to the hills…….Mae Salong in fact. It’s about 1300m above sea level and it’s renowned for its Oolong tea plantations. Mae Salong is not easy to get to unless you pay buckets of money for a taxi. It was time for a bit of proper travelling, and we are flashpackers so we decided to use local transport, which we quite enjoy as it gives you a slice of local life. It took us around 4hrs to do using a rickshaw, minibus and a songthaew to cover about 40 miles and cost us 230TBH (about £5.50). We hadn’t expected the journey to take so long, but the local songthaew went the longest way possible round to Mae Salong, and included a 30 minute break halfway.

We had yet another room with a stunning view and four nights just enjoying the cooler air and the ‘Chinese Vibe’ that it has. About 50/60 years ago the defeated Chinese army that had been fighting the Communists fled and settled in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. Mae Salong was one of the places that they settled in and Thailand granted them land and a right to settle. The Chinese influence in the food, ambience and features of the people is extremely strong. In fact, the place where we stayed was owned by a Chinese family who also owned tea estates and the very quirky giant tea pots and Mongolian Dogs that you can see in the photos.

We walked through the village, the plantations and also up some long winding lanes, followed by more than 700 steps, to the temple that sits on top of the hill and at night you can gaze up several hundred meters to the beautifully illuminated pagoda. Inside the pagoda roof is a small shrine and it had lots of coins standing on their edges at the base. We decided that we should join with this tradition and when we succeeded a local told us with delight that ‘this good luck’!

It wasn’t until next day that we realised just how right he was! The day after we placed our coins on the shrine and got our ‘good karma’ we were told by Yee our hotel owner that her brother was going to be going to Mae Chan to make a tea delivery on the day we were leaving. Mae Chan is a transport hub where we could get a bus back to Chiang Saen. He took us the short way in his very comfortable pick up, dropped us at the bus stop and 10 minutes later a bus arrived which meant that we got back to Chiang Saen in just 2hrs and at a cost of 100TBH (about £2.50)…….result!

We’re now back in Chiang Saen with the beautiful view across The Mekong enjoying lush Thai food, cold beer and making our final plans to get to Laos and to get back to Thailand for our flight to China…….that’s coming up next!

Cheers

Posted on February 14, 2017 by Cheryl & Neil

Last days in India, travelling with our friends John and Sue. Highs and lows, fabulous wines, sightseeing and technology rescued us twice. Plus we all picked up a bug – well this is India…..it’s inevitable.

We put together a short trip acting as tour guides for our friends. Overnight train to Nasik for some wine tasting and then to the World Heritage sites at Ellora & Ajanta, and a meteorite crater at Lonar for sightseeing. Booking the train turned out to be the usual Indian headache, Cheryl & John managed to get 2 good seats, Neil & Sue were on a waitlist – but we eventually had confirmed seats together just hours before the train departed.

We arrived in Nasik just before lunch time and we got to the hotel which had deteriorated in the usual Indian way since we were last there. Hard beds, grotty pillows and grubby marks on the walls. Time for a quick shower, and then off to Sula Vineyards for a tour followed by a tasting session. We negotiated a ride with 2 tuk tuk drivers and then pulled into a petrol station where the drivers consulted an English-speaking Indian lady who could explain that they had not realised how far we wanted to go and they decided they wanted substantially more money than they had agreed to. We parted company amiably and then had a ‘what do we do now moment’. John decided this was a great time to try Uber in India and after a 5 min wait our taxi pulled up for a bargain price – result!

The short tour and tasting at Sula was interesting. We then headed for the balcony to have some tasty snacks of cheese, olives, nuts, bruschetta and, of course, several half bottles of wine. Sue & Cheryl decided to indulge in the desserts – warm chocolate fondant & cardamom crème brulee. Both were excellent. Suitably refreshed we blagged a ride to a nearby vineyard called York. Here was much of the same, hic, with the bonus of a free baseball cap with the tasting session. We then settled for a delightful bottle of their flagship Merlot to go with our dinner. We all slept soundly that night.

Next day it was slightly less of the same as we were all feeling a bit jaded, especially Cheryl who had had a very bad night (both ends…….too much information?). This time we chose Vallonne Vineyard, which had the most enthusiastic and knowledgeable young Indian winemaker. It is also situated above a huge and beautiful lake in the middle of nowhere. Finally, on to Grover Vineyard which was nearby.

Both these vineyards are around an hour or so south of Nasik. When we got back to the hotel, Neil was feeling bad (no ends involved just shivery) and missed out on dinner.

The following day we discovered John & Sue had had an interesting night (both ends). Cheryl however, was feeling on top form and was irritatingly bouncy. Morning train to Aurangabad where we were met at the station by our driver, Salman, in a very clean and comfortable car.

We headed straight to Ellora Caves. Ellora has around 30 caves cut into solid rock built at differing times by Buddhists, Hindus and Jains. The most impressive sight here is the Kaillash Temple which is the biggest temple hewn from one solid lump of rock. After our sightseeing, Salman took us back to our hotel, JP International, which had surprisingly stylish rooms, comfy soft mattresses and a very quirky feature in our room.

Our night was marred by a ‘domestic’ on the same floor as John ‘n Sue’s room. It kicked off at around midnight and took some time to resolve, including some Indian men threatening to punch John after he had the audacity to ask them to keep the noise down…….all very sad considering that everything else about the hotel was superb.

On day 2 Salman took us to the Ajanta Caves. These are also cut into rock but the site is fairly remote and peaceful, and the paintings inside the caves are very well preserved. We enjoyed a pleasant afternoon before we got back the hotel for a roof top dinner and several bottles of KF Strong…..mmmm! Top tip for travelling – join in with anyone singing ‘happy birthday’ and you will get a slice of the cake.

Day 3 started with quick visit to what is known locally as the ‘mini Taj’. It was exactly as described – a cut down version of the Taj Mahal. Cheryl & Suz couldn’t resist the obvious pose.

This was followed by a long drive to Lonar where we visited the Lonar Crater. It was formed thousands of years ago, when a meteorite crashed into the earth and it’s the third largest salt water lake in the world and it’s 7 times saltier than the sea. The crater is 6km round and is an amazing site especially when you see how small the temple at the bottom looks.

There was only one hotel in Lonar, run by Maharastra Tourism. The rooms were surprisingly good and we all looked forward to having a good dinner on our last night as we were all better now and feeling hungry. Unfortunately the food was appalling, the menu was useless as everything we asked for was ‘no have’, so we were forced to take whatever was on offer – bony, salty fried chicken, salty bony chicken curry and a greasy bony chicken biriyani. Neil managed to get an omelette and that was at least edible. There was also a ‘permit room’ which is India speak for licensed premises and that was a series of outdoor private drinking rooms – all very bizarre. However, it did sell a strong beer called Cannon 10000 which went some way to making up for the lousy food. Amazingly, it all stayed in with no surprises the next morning!

We went for an early morning walk round the tiny village and viewed the crater from a different angle. We were the only foreigners and this was rural India a far cry from the ‘economic miracle’ of the major Indian cities. We skipped breakfast and a 3hr drive brought us back to Aurangabad Airport where we had to bid farewell to John ‘n Sue as we were going to Delhi and them to Mumbai. We had a fabulous week with them always finding a laugh to get us through the down moments. Thank you J’nS, we really enjoyed your company…….it was a brilliant week.

Our Delhi Hotel turned out to be an absolute winner. Airport hotels the world over are never great and Indian hotels are amongst the worst. So, unless you really want to up the budget to 5* then you might as well take the best of a bad bunch……it’s always a lottery and you’re usually disappointed. We chose a new small hotel with reasonable reviews – however we needed the help of Google Maps on Cheryl’s phone to help the taxi driver to find it as it was down a tiny alleyway. We arrived late in the evening, checked into a fine room with soft bed, the guys got us some KF strongs, we slept soundly and the included breakfast in the morning was excellent. The minus point was that it was 45 minutes by taxi from the airport but even when you added in the taxi it was still good value at 2500R all in (about £30).

The flight with Air India to Bangkok was surprisingly good. It was a new Dreamliner with excellent IFE and when we asked for G&T we were given 2 small bottles each of Beefeater gin and lots of wine to go with the meal. After drinking Indian gin for 3 months when you get the ‘real McCoy’ it just slips down beautifully……so much so that Cheryl was forced to have a third!

Smarty Pants

Posted on February 7, 2017 by Cheryl & Neil

Here we go again, another thing to **** the tourists off – will India never learn? Please read on about Government edicts, elections, police interpretation, curfews, corruption, rules that are just not enforceable and the public’s ingenuity at getting over ‘totally inept government’.

Now, here’s a question. Is our favourite beach shack becoming like Benidorm? There are many characters who frequent the shack during our three month stay, some more colourful than others. Most are quiet couples who like to chat a little but mainly enjoy reading and the tranquillity of our usually uncrowded and haphazard shack. This year we have our first transgender, a lovely person from Dublin called ‘Sean or Heather’. Heather has a lovely selection of bikinis and dresses and, as you might expect for a Barrister, a great sense of humour. Sometimes the overall effect of the delicate outfits is spoiled a little when Heather sits puffing on a very large cigar! We have a bag lady – well she turns up with plastic bags on her feet then heads down to the sands to top up her mahogany tan. Let’s not forget ‘Frenchy’ a very elegant high maintenance lady with a delightful sing song French accent and her gentleman friend ‘Swede’ who are a couple in their 70’s who use English as their common language. He starts at 10am with a beer before they both hit the vodkas and they openly bicker like there’s no tomorrow.

Then we have the ones we are less keen on. We have the German ‘dog feeders’ that are also the last of the big spenders. They sit at a table and read for about 3hrs over a pot of tea and a bottle of water….100R’s or about £1.10! The normally laid back dogs get growly and snarly at any approaching dark skinned people as they demonstrate they are protecting their feeders. This is hugely annoying as the German couple sit back instead of training the dogs to behave. We also have ‘child bride, granddad and brat’ who are a very young Nepali girl with a 70 something German husband and an annoying 18 month old child. They rarely speak to each other, and both often leave the brat to run wild expecting everyone else in the shack to be babysitters…..but not us miserable old gits!

Finally, and this has driven us to leave Francis after 10 years, we have ‘Rabbit’. She arrived in January and has a very loud and annoying voice, ‘it’ doesn’t have an off switch and ‘it’ only has three subjects to talk about making her conversation with people (definitely not us) extremely repetitive. Her husband is fine, quiet, probably because he can’t get a word in but she’s also got a friend at the other end of the shack, ‘lonely’, who has also got a very loud and annoying voice. She gets bored so heads off along the beach to visit her friends in other shacks (hurrah – an hour of peace!) Unfortunately as soon as she is back she gives a blow by blow account of her conversation with her friend to her husband. One of her favourite repeated sayings is – ‘that shack that so and so uses is so crowded and noisy and you can’t see the sea!’ Oh the irony – it was quiet here in Pescador until you got back motor mouth!!! As we said, she finally ground us down and even loud music on headphones couldn’t drown out the inane ramblings. We couldn’t take any more and left Pescador Beach Shack for our last two weeks and became ‘shack tarts’ trying out different establishments. We’ll will go back to Pescador next season until ‘Rabbit’ returns.

We’ve had a number of events, a very enjoyable quiz night where our team of 6, called Universally Challenged, won! John and Sue, Clive and Linda and us two competed against a dozen other teams …..our prize was a small box of Smarties each……amazing! Wine tasting again, birthdays to celebrate and we’ve spent quite a lot of time with Aditya and Priti who have now gone to Mumbai before Aditya sets off on his round the world tour on his Triumph Bonneville. Hopefully, we can catch up with them when he passes through the UK. John and Sue had some friends arrive from France so we were forced to join them on yet another dolphin trip. This time it was much more reserved although there was still plenty of beer flowing.

We were also invited along to Francis’ son’s First Communion Party. This was held in the small yard in front of his house where a small canopy had been erected to provide some shade. Functions like this are held throughout the village as many of the children all had their First Communion on the same day. The family parties start with a delicious plate of starters and drinks flow. There is time for chit chat and finally the cake is cut and the buffet is served. We are used to people chatting and socialising for a long while afterwards however, the Goan way is to sit almost in silence and then wolf down the buffet and clear off! Our table of foreigners who frequent Pescador had a great afternoon enjoying the delicious food. It was also a novelty to see Francis dressed in smart trousers and a shirt.

The money situation has improved but there are still times when the ATMs are empty. However we have a brand new annoyance. It’s election time in Goa and there is a strict code of conduct applied as Indians are not allowed to drink alcohol in the build up to and during the voting. The Government decreed that for most of the month of January the sale of alcohol stopped at 11pm, even in restaurants, which often became 10pm if the police decided so. Then during the peak 3 days before and during the voting they have shut all bars, and have prevented restaurants from serving alcohol and generally they have made the lives really difficult for the already beleaguered tourist industry of Goa. The police even entered one restaurant at 9.30pm and told people to leave and shut the place. Half consumed food and drink was left on the table and people left straight away leaving bills unpaid…….obviously this bar owner didn’t pay his baksheesh (bribe). The crazy thing is that we have, like everyone else, just stocked up.

However, at one point the police changed the rules once again and without saying anything to the general public all liquor stores were shut 2 days in advance of the ‘dry days’ before the vote itself. We hadn’t bought enough gin and Cheryl had a middle class crisis as there wasn’t a single bottle to be found anywhere in the village! Luckily, Aditya was back at Micon to pick up his bike and came round to our place with a bottle from his stocks as we had plenty of tonics. So, as usual, we found ways around the restrictions. Some people had take out parties on the balcony, some carried neatly disguised drinks to add to the mixers that you can still buy or drank straight from fresh coconuts with a straw having added a shot of rum……..yes it is, once again, proving to be ‘Incredible India’!

We spent our last few days finalising plans for the rest of our trip to Thailand and China plus our week long journey to Delhi with John and Sue to go wine tasting and sightseeing. We also made sure we went to our favourite restaurants to say ‘goodbye, see you next season’. Our trip for pizza and red wine at Luna proved to be particularly eventful as we had some Spanish Flamenco dancing to enjoy…….well not really. A young couple of Spaniards came in at about 9pm and they were obviously very drunk. The girl was singing and generally being annoying. Everyone in the restaurant did the right thing and just chose to ignore the attention seeker. Then she got out her castanets and started dancing but it wasn’t long before she fell comically backwards onto her arse with her legs in the air and her man had to pick her up. Unfortunately at this point a bemused group of young Russians politely applauded!!

She then proceeded to go and annoy the chef at his open air pizza oven which forced Ingelisa, the dotty foreign lady who helps run the place, to intervene. She asked the Drunken Spanish girl politely to please sit at the table and be quiet. Our cabaret star then proceeded to be abusive and accused Ingelisa of being German and rude, she’s actually Danish and very meek, which then forced the hands of several men, including Neil, plus Cheryl to go to her rescue. ‘Get out, you’re not welcome here’ we shouted and without any fuss, just verbal abuse, the couple left! Well, what an evening!

We do have a bit of good news. We’ve managed to secure the same house for next season and you’re all invited to join next year’s madness……but not all at the same time! We have 2 spare bedrooms, a pool to share and a plentiful supply of restaurants offering most types of food. Plus an array of colourful characters, surreal experiences, government ‘surprises’, wall to wall sunshine and temperatures in the early 30’s. How can you resist?

That’s it for lazing around on a beach doing ****** all. Next we’re off for some proper travelling so watch out for the next entry.

Happy New Year

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Cheryl & Neil

Hey, now don’t we scrub up well when we make an effort?! We got the pictures taken of us at the recent wedding. Neil dressed in his suit with collar and tie and Cheryl looking absolutely fabulous – we could pass for a real celebrity couple on the social circuit, ok maybe not.

Sadly, we must report the passing on of Cheryl’s cat Bruno. After 17 glorious years he finally succumbed to old age. We know it’s not of much interest to most of you but for us he was a gem…….even Neil was a tad choked when we heard. After we started travelling 9 years ago Neil’s son took him on and then when he moved out of the house after 4 years a neighbour and her family adopted him and gave him a loving home for his final few years. We didn’t come across anybody who didn’t find a small slot in their heart’s for him……he was such a loving and amusing cat.

It’s been the usual build to Christmas and New Year with a social calendar befitting anybody famous. The pictures tell it all but in summary we had a superb lunch with Priti and Aditya our neighbours in Micon who came to Neil’s rescue when British Airways lost his bag. Hopefully we’ll be seeing them in the UK during the summer as Aditya passes through on his Triumph Bonneville during his round the world trip.

Then it was the obligatory Santa Special on the dolphin boat – 32 people in the party. Hugh was magnificent as Santa as you saw from our previous post and it all got very messy when some in the party started to moon at another boat! Neil didn’t start it but he’s easily led! It was a fantastic day with superb food, great company and maybe one or two drinks, followed by a lot more drinks.

Our calendar took a slight deflection as we went for drinks one evening with a new neighbour, Niloufer, and her friends from Bombay (that’s what they call it and for this blog entry so will we!). It was such a laugh and they also had friends from Quebec who brought some superb Canadian Gin made from a recipe originating from the Inuits. One of the party was a very striking 6ft girl of 15 years old who is studying music. Her and her mum gave us an impromptu Christmas Carol concert in French……….some people get camera envy, some phone envy but for us it’s voice envy……..they were just so harmonious!

Talking of envy, we’re about to give you Christmas Day envy. We had the day on the beach and Francis cooked us a delicious lunch of fish and huge tiger prawns all washed down with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc……just take a look at the pictures if you dare!! We had amazing quality Skype calls with our children and family, the video was the best ever, and then it was cocktails with friends at sunset. Finally, we made our way home, showered and had yet another bottle, this time a slinky Zinfandel Red, to go with our blue cheese pizza at our favourite Italian…..sorry readers but you should really come and experience our Christmas day to fully appreciate just how good it is.

Then, of course, we had the traditional New Year party at Rex’s beach shack. No photos as we decided to travel out very light – money to pay the bill (and we didn’t take enough) plus the key to get back in. The fireworks started at 11.50 and went on with such vigour until 12.15. We paddled in the sea to look down the beach in both directions and the sky was ablaze with fireworks for as far as we could see……who needs Sydney Harbour Bridge? What a great night, staggered home at 4am with Cheryl hiccupping all the way, and now Neil is nursing very sore calves from too much dancing to Madness and Cheryl is nursing a delicate head after far too many G&T’s.

The Goans love to party too and they make us look like real amateurs. We left the beach at 3.30am and having been to Mass they were just arriving in their stunning suits and party frocks. We’re typing this at 11.30 am and we can still hear fire crackers going off and the local church is playing Konkani music that can be heard for miles around…….do the Goans never go to bed?

We hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year celebration, today is New Years day and we’re having a very lazy day at home in the cool but we’ll be back on the beach tomorrow!

Merry Christmas

Posted on December 24, 2016 by Cheryl & Neil

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year wherever you are in the world. Have a great festive season whether it be in the snow, rain, slush or a BBQ on the beach.

Neil’s in the Doghouse

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Cheryl & Neil

What’s on your top ten of things you really should not do? Now, that’s got you all thinking hasn’t it but, sorry, you’ll just have to read the rest of the blog to find out what this is about!

The cash crisis is still with us and is unlikely to get much better before we leave in February. Not letting this get us down we’re enjoying being back here again especially our first morning chorus. Our body clocks were not quite back to normal so we both woke early on our first day here. We sat in bed with a mug of tea and watched the sun rise and listened to the birds, monkeys, buffalo, pigs, firecrackers, the distant sound of the train and the church bells and the singing at morning mass – it’s absolutely fantastic to be back and who cares if we have no money. The rent was paid in the UK and we could both do with losing a bit of weight.

This year we’ve rented a 3 bedroom town house with balconies at the front overlooking the swimming pool and at the back the paddies. It’s in the same development we’ve stayed in for the last 2 years so we’re beginning to get to know more and more people. The advantage is we can have people to stay and Neil’s sister June and best friend Barbs were due to arrive just a few days after us. We got on with planning the rest of their trip and working out how they could pay for things without a wad of cash in their purses. We took them on a boat trip to see dolphins and eat gorgeous garlic prawns and kingfish plus plenty of G&T. They enjoyed time on the beach and Barbs found time to apply some much needed first aid to Neil who slipped in the shower and managed to slash his wrist on the edge of some tiles. Then they were off for 6 nights on their own for their trip on the overnight train to Kerala including the backwaters and tea estates. They had a ball, ate too much and came back with lots of goodies like strawberry jam for us to devour.

They arrived back at midday to find Cheryl banging and crashing about as she swept the stairs and June quietly asked Neil why was Cheryl cleaning today? This was just as he spotted it on the calendar whilst closing down the computer. That was an almighty ‘oh sh*t’ moment – yes readers, he had forgotten Cheryl’s birthday! His mitigating circumstances were concentrating on making sure we all had enough cash to get by plus ensuring that June and Barbs got back from Kerala OK. It had completely slipped his mind – ‘oh sh*t, oh f**k, oh b**llocks, Neil you’ve really gone and done it this time you pillock’! So, blunt rusty knife in one hand, balls ready on a plate in the other hand ready to be surgically removed he went upstairs to beg for mercy. Fortunately for him whilst this was a gargantuan error of judgement Cheryl decided it didn’t warrant the removal of his precious gonads……….but it came pretty close. Keen to make amends, Neil quickly ordered a taxi and we went off to Martin’s Corner for cocktails, a long lunch and a relaxing walk back down the beach just in time for sundowners. Cheryl mellowed a little after her fourth Margarita.

We had more beach time for June and Barbs, a final candlelit dinner on the beach of lots more fish and prawns before they headed off to Rajasthan. We had planned them a trip to visit Udaipur, Jaipur, Fatepur Sikri, Agra and then finally to Delhi. Our plans went like clockwork until they had one of India’s famous experiences – the late train! The final leg of their journey was from Agra to Delhi which normally would take 3hrs…….their journey was 3hrs but unfortunately the train was over 5hrs late arriving to pick them up…..ho hum! Anyway, they finally got there and had a good time exploring its many sights – J&B it was great to have you stay and we’re already planning your trip for next year!!

Everyone here is always looking for different things to do and, mostly, they tend to include alcohol. That’s why the boat trips are always a winner, we had yet another one, and why the wine tasting that Sue and Andy arranged was oversubscribed. It was a great afternoon sampling a number of Indian wines, nibbling on all sorts of goodies and then carrying on into the evening. Some of the wines were reasonable, some ok and two bottles were only fit for pouring down the drain! In between all of this we’ve managed to cram in some beachtime where we just read, swim, eat and watch the activity on the beach.

Now, who wants to come to Goa? We have lots of space and we’re here until February 8th. We have also secured the house again for November, December and January 2017-18 so if anybody wants to come and visit we have 2 spare rooms. C&N’s Best Exotic Tours can also put together a tailor made package to suit your requirements!

India Trumps Trump!

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Cheryl & Neil

Never could you imagine how eventful life can get in just a couple of days.

There was nothing eventful about the backtracking flight from Bristol back to Madrid after the wedding. The Crowne Plaza Hotel at Madrid airport was just as expected. The flight from Madrid and our connection at Heathrow was slick. In fact, our splurge was mighty comfortable as we had our own little pod in the centre of the plane. The food was excellent and the drinks plentiful and the staff even gave us some miniatures and snacks to take off the plane for our wait in Mumbai for the uneventful flight with Jet Airways to Goa.

But, and here’s the but……..just before the BA flight landed at Mumbai one of the flight crew told Neil that his rucksack didn’t make it onto the plane. He was chilled about it having had plenty of fine wines and port with his cheese. When we arrived the ground crew were very helpful saying that the bag would arrive on the same flight next day, flown to Goa and would be delivered to our door within 72hrs. Neil was still chilled at this point as there wasn’t any point in getting angry….it wouldn’t make it arrive any faster, it wasn’t the ground crew’s fault in Mumbai and, anyway, all he needed to do was to buy a couple of T-shirts for the beach……..72hrs would fly by! As savvy travellers we normally split our clothes so that if a bag does go missing we are covered. We didn’t this time and Neil knew that he was going to regret it…….Cheryl’s pants were going to chafe a bit!

We got money from the ATM at Mumbai, headed for our connection to Goa, hassled for a taxi to Benaulim and our swanky 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom town house that overlooks the pool at the front and the paddies at the back. The house was very clean by Indian standards so we headed off to get breakfast and some wifi to let family know we were OK. We started to meet old friends, had a delicious dinner at our favourite curry house, C5, and slept soundly that night.

We woke up to find that Trump had trumped Clinton – how did that happen? We then discovered that India had trumped Trump in terms of shock breaking news. Whilst we were asleep, at midnight, the Indian Prime Minister announced that all 500 and 1000 rupee notes (the equivalent of £5 and £10 notes) were ‘history’! This was aimed at reducing the amount of ‘black money’ in the economy which was earned by corruption, terrorism, counterfeiting and money laundering. It was also intended to make a cash driven economy, where hardly any taxes are paid and incomes are hidden (less than 1% of the population pay tax), into a modern accountable society where salaries are paid into bank accounts and transactions are auditable via electronic payments. The 500 and 1000 notes are about 86% of the currency in circulation so we knew that this was going to be mayhem!

So, it was a S**t moment with a capital S. We had a wallet full of useless Ghandi emblazoned toilet paper taken from the ATM in Mumbai. No problem, the Times of India and the BBC news said that we could get them changed into the new 2000 and 500 notes at any bank at the rate of 4000R/day….but only in 2 days time as the banks were closed so that they could prepare for the onslaught……… and onslaught it was. The official announcement also assured that you could get 2000 each day at the ATMs, about £25, so all we could do was wait until the banks and ATMs re opened.

Fortunately, many restaurant owners who knew us kindly offered us credit and most were still taking old money even though it was technically illegal. We heard that the new 2000 rupee notes that had been promised had arrived on day 3 and we managed to change 4000R each at the local bank after queuing for about 30 minutes, not so bad we thought. Next day we headed off to the nearest large town, Margao, thinking it would be easy if we went to the ICICI Bank where Cheryl had an account. Although it was as crowded as Wembley on Cup Final day we were ushered through and told to go upstairs. The ATM had no money so we asked for some money from the account using the debit card and we were told that we needed to write a cheque! Who has a cheque book these days?…..we certainly don’t. ‘No cheque book, no money’! All the other banks and ATMs either had massive queues or none at all which meant that they had no money. By now we were losing our sense of humour and decided to get the bus back to Benaulim for a beer and some lunch to catch up with other people’s stories.

Then we hit on the ruse that if we exchanged sterling and dollars for old notes at the money changer we could get lots of new money just by getting to the bank early each day and queuing. It was important we got new money as Neil’s sister June and her friend Barbara were arriving very soon and would need currency to go on their 5 day trip to Kerala and their 7 day trip to Rajasthan. Next day we went back and we queued again only to be told that as we had changed money the day before we would have to wait another 15 days. ‘What the ****’! ‘The Government said we could change money every day’. We were again told ‘no’. Knowing that bank systems here don’t talk to each other we went around the corner to another bank and queued yet again for 40 minutes. We were then asked if we had a receipt. ‘No, we got it from an ATM’ we lied. He replied, ‘I’ve just had a phone call from H.O. and no receipt means no new money’. Damn, we had just exchanged $100 and suddenly we were lumbered with old money we couldn’t change. So, we headed back to the money changer to get a receipt. At this point we were getting hot and bothered and didn’t fancy queuing yet again so we headed off for a beer and some lunch. Hey, what the heck, all our favourite restaurants were giving us tick and/or taking old money and we came here to relax not stand in queues. Can you see a pattern forming here? – queues, frustration, empty banks & ATMs followed by a beer and some lunch!

Next day we headed off to Colva which is bigger than Benaulim but is smaller than Margao. All the banks and ATMs were empty so we decided to get the bus back. As the bus went past one of the banks we had tried earlier, Neil spotted a queue at an ATM. We were learning fast, a queue at the ATM means money in the machine. We stopped the bus and leapt off to join it. Then Neil had the idea that if the ATM had money then the bank probably had money.

Cheryl queued in the sun for the ATM and Neil headed into the bank. There was no queue inside so he wasn’t hopeful but, bingo, ‘yes you can change money’. The night before the Government announced that the withdrawal limit at ATMs had gone up to 2500R but not at this bank….the stern bank official (she looked like Hattie Jacques in a sari) overlooking the withdrawals said 2000R only so Cheryl didn’t dare argue. Anyway, 2000 was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick and inside the bank we were getting 5000Rs of old notes changed not 4000Rs……we didn’t know why but by now we had come to the conclusion that despite the Government announcements all the banks were operating by different rules – hey, welcome to India! Then the nice but incompetent lady announced that Cheryl could only have 4500Rs. ‘Why’? We asked. ‘It’s because she has an OCI visa’ – that’s an Overseas Citizen of India. ‘But she’s NOT a Citizen of India, she was born in the UK and has a UK passport’. She was having none of it so we didn’t argue. About 1.5hrs later she told us to go upstairs to collect our money. For this 1.5hrs all she had to do was get us to fill in the exchange form and for her to check and copy our passports, money change receipt, visa and entry stamp, get us to sign each copy and then she had to stamp them and sign them herself. Hence, the ‘incompetent’ label……1.5hrs for something that should have taken 10 minutes! Upstairs we were told that despite what we had been told downstairs the system would not allow Neil to have 5000Rs only 4500….the same as Cheryl but we didn’t argue. The whole process took us more than 2hrs! We also had a serious sense of humour bypass by the end of it but couldn’t show any signs of frustration in case they said no money. Hey ho, we’d missed lunch but we headed back to Benaulim for a beer and a chat and to tell people we had won the lottery!

You had all forgotten about Neil’s bag, hadn’t you? Ha, well to cut a long story short it didn’t arrive in 72hrs, it arrived in Goa in 4 days. Despite being told by the ground crew in Mumbai, the customer service staff on the telephone and the many emails telling him of the status he was finally told that he would have to go to Goa airport to collect it. ‘How can I collect it, I have no money, the ATMs are all empty, how can I pay for a taxi’? After several phone calls, buckets of frustration and pointless blood boiling he gave up and we were lucky to get the lovely neighbours that we met last year to take him to the airport to collect his bag…….finally a result for everyone as frankly he was beginning to pong a bit!

We’re now 2 weeks into our trip and whilst Neil has his rucksack the complaint to BA remains open and we’ve heard nothing about his claim for out of pocket expenses. The money crisis continues unabated with ATMs and banks, in the main, empty. Whilst the withdrawal of the large notes was a bold move the logistics behind getting the new money into the system has been, well, typically Indian………pretty incompetent and needlessly bureaucratic. The first note to be issued was the 2000 (and we have yet to see a new 500) so no one wanted to take one as pretty soon there was a shortage of 100R notes for change. The ATMs need recalibration so for now can only take 100R notes so are quickly emptied once they are re-stocked and restocking is very hit and miss as they haven’t organised enough security staff to deliver the cash. The Finance Minister has made a comment that recalibrating the ATMs will take several weeks so things aren’t going to improve until after Christmas at best.

Tourists have been left high and dry with many unable to spend or change the amounts they exchanged at the start of their holidays. Some new arrivals haven’t been able to get any rupees at all. The only option for tourists who didn’t bring a debit card, or when the ATMs are dry, is to change $, £ etc into old notes at a money changer and queue up at the bank to change 4000R into new notes. The money changers occasionally have new notes so we are changing sterling and dollars but only in dribs and drabs of £10 on a normal day or £50 on a good day. They still have old notes which we still take but we are being cautious with this as, for sure, very soon businesses will not be able to bank the old money so we only get enough for one or two days at a time. Despite it being illegal to use old money, if it hadn’t continued we’re pretty sure that India would, by now, be in a state of anarchy with pitched battles at all banks and ATMs.

All in all it has been an interesting experience despite the frustrations. It’s a strange feeling to have money but not be able to get your hands on it. It’s a really strange feeling to be given credit from people who can only dream about having even half as much money as we do….it’s extremely humbling. We get excited when the ATM makes that satisfying whirring noise which means money is on its way. It’s just like seeing 3 cherries on a slot machine and you jump for joy at getting your daily allowance of £25! We even got a couple of bread parcels from our lovely Indian neighbours.

Just about managing to keep a sense of humour

We’ve been coming to India for a long time now…….so long that nothing really surprises us, it’s just Incredible India. However, this time it’s very, very different. The Government changes the rules almost daily as the owners of the ‘black money’ discover loopholes in the Governments ill thought out master plan. Then the banks respond to the rule changes by operating different rules to each other so nobody has a clue what’s going on………this is India on Acid!

Always a Silver Lining

Posted on November 6, 2016 by Cheryl & Neil

Good news bad news. That was the recurring theme as we set off. Having finished our chores and getting excited about starting the trip we then had the anguish of having our final return flight cancelled at the last minute. Then it was the euphoria of finally getting to Spain to see Clive and Karen’s villa to the embarrassment of finding that the hotel we booked for us all on the way to Madrid was infested with cockroaches….hey, life does have its ups and downs!

We were just about to head off to Spain via Gloucester and London when we were casually informed via text that British Airways had cancelled our return flight in April. Obviously the route from Chengdu was not profitable so it was closed indefinitely. After several frustrating calls to BA, when all we got was ‘you can always get a refund’, we did some homework on our rights and finally got some sense so we have been rerouted from Chengdu back via Hong Kong. The silver lining here is that we are flying back with Cathay Pacific which, for those of you who don’t know, must be one of the most expensive airlines on the planet. We are expecting something very special especially as the two seats we have been allocated would cost £5500 if you wanted to book them direct with C. P. Splurgetastic. There’s also another silver lining to this story – we get around 2hrs to make the most of the C.P. Business Lounge in Hong Kong –result!

Logistics sorted we set off to Gloucester to see Roy and June and leave the car before heading off to London so stay with Alex and Freddy for a few days. Over the weekend we met Bill & Sue for lunch and finally got to meet Freddy’s parents over a lovely meal at the Hospital Club. Then it was off to Gatwick for our flight to Spain to visit Clive & Karen and to see their new home, a hillside villa in the village of Alcalali which is about 20km inland from Denia. It is lovely, with great views and a superb pool. They’ve settled in well – lots of new friends from various parts of Europe, taking Spanish lessons, joining the Harley Club, Zumba, golf and a little bit of DIY.

For some reason Cheryl has been attracted to tacky places and after the excitement of Grimsby and Skegness last summer she obviously wanted to go to Benidorm so C&K took us on a day trip. We think we found the Solana and have to admit it wasn’t as bad as we had expected, and even had some pleasant bits. Yes, it did have some pretty horrific visitors, and a number of perma-tanned geriatrics on mobility scooters, but, in the main, it wasn’t as gross as we anticipated –shame really but of course, it was out of season!

We had a wine tasting at a local Bodega in a nearby village which was great fun and fantastic value plus it converted us to Spanish wine which, until now, we have limited to Rioja – it was a revelation.

The four of us then set off to Madrid which included an overnight stop in the forgettable town of La Roda. We had booked a hotel based upon the reviews and the price only for Clive and Karen to walk into their room and find a cockroach to welcome them – we left, quick! The silver lining was that the alternative hotel we had originally looked at was so much nicer and didn’t cost very much more.

Madrid is spectacular and the apartment we booked was stunning (phew, as after the booking we made in la Roda we were getting worried about the booking we made in Madrid). It was less than 5 minutes walk from the Royal Palace, had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen and living space – the real silver lining was it cost us £40/night per couple – a steal! We hit the Changing of the Guard at the Royal Palace spot on – the 1st Wednesday in the month. We also exploited the free entry for EU citizens after 4pm and enjoyed looking around the opulence of the interior. We finished up in the superb armoury admiring the full sets even for the horses when suddenly the alarm went off. Yes, you guessed it, there is always one, and it was Neil pointing at a strange piece of metal on the armour and piercing the infra red beam across the display at the same time….ooops. We also enjoyed the dining in Madrid which was excellent and amazingly cheap at around £10 for a lunch comprising a starter, main, desert, bread, an alcoholic drink and a superb setting of The Plaza Major………we highly recommend Madrid if you fancy a city break. If you do come, then you must do the very touristy 15 Euro guided tour on a segway……..what a great way to see the city and have a ball in the process.

The weather in Spain was pleasant at around 23C in Alcalali and 20C in Madrid. It was a bit of shock to backtrack to Bristol to endure a high of 8C and a low of 2C. However, it was to attend the wedding of the year of Neil’s son, and it went off brilliantly. Of course despite our meticulous planning and buying of formal wedding outfits there was a last minute crisis. The day before the wedding Neil was just about to polish his shoes when they literally fell apart in his hands……damn…….more bl**dy shopping!

We agreed on a schedule to get us all showered and ready to go on time. Neil said he would make the early morning tea and set his alarm on his phone. He forgot one thing – his phone mysteriously thought it was in another time zone so we were woken at 5.30am!! Despite the very early start we had a superb day with the kick off in the very intimate registry office in Bath Guildhall, followed by a delightful lunch at The Pig and all topped off with a party at The Manor in Keynsham which was attended by more friends and family. The Pig is set in an old manor house where we were able to really enjoy a season that we usually miss – autumn. We do miss the seasons by travelling so much so it was particularly nice to see the colours of the trees as they change for winter. Unfortunately we enjoyed ourselves so much we forgot about taking a lot of pictures so you will have to wait for the official pics to see just how posh we looked.

Wedding over, waking up to the first frost of the season – hey, time to get on a plane! Posh clothes packed away next day armed with our full rucksacks we backtracked to Madrid to catch our flight to Goa and warmth……….watch out for the next instalment.

Goodnight Vietnam

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Cheryl & Neil

New Year’s Eve was an extremely strange time. Expecting Mui Ne to have at least one or two things going on we were stunned by the silence around us. Restaurants were relatively empty and the usual flood of people to the beach to watch the fireworks laid on by the posh hotels was just a trickle. Then we found out why. Not a single posh resort had fireworks to justify the $75 tickets for the New Year Bash…….cheap skates!!

However, we made the most of it with Marsela and Daniel, a German couple, who are travelling for a year. We sat on the beach, chatted over wine and watched a couple of Austrian women do their traditional thing……waltz on the beach to The Blue Danube that they sang to each other…..aaahhhhhh.

Mui Ne is a strange little place. It’s stretched out over around 15kms, with just one road running the whole length. There is no beach for pretty much most of its length, just a long concrete storm wall protecting the beach but, thankfully, the stretch by our hotel is fine. The hotel is also great value at $22, with a fab pool and pretty gardens. We looked in some places asking considerably more money for a lot less value. Well done Cheryl for persevering to the very last place as Neil had just about given up looking and he had planned to get the next bus out.

We also caught up with Catherine again who came to Mui Ne just the day before we left. We had a really good evening with her, Dani and Marsi and Michelle from Belgium who, apparently, has bumped into Catherine all over Vietnam. We all enjoyed the fresh fish and cheap wine and more cheap wine at the local restaurant whilst listening to an 80’s soundtrack.

Sad news today, January 2nd. Clive’s father died in hospital this morning in his sleep. Neil has so many memories of him…..at the rugby, driving Clive and him home from the pub on many occasions and, of course, always charming the ladies!! RIP Bert, you were a lovely man.

This is our third and possibly final trip to Vietnam. When we came the first time, 3 years ago, we left vowing never to return due the incessant hassle and noise. Within 2 weeks we decided we had to return because there were more things that we liked than disliked about the country and we had lots we still wanted to do.

Sure enough, the following year we spent 2 months exploring new places. This time we have had another two months doing some new stuff and going over some old ground. Sadly, the continuous noise from the roads and the fact that Vietnamese people are just plain LOUD has paid its toll! There is no awareness of others and no thought as to the consequences of their actions. This reflects in their insane driving and the fact that at 06.00 a.m. in a hotel dominated by western people, it’s OK to shriek from one end of the hotel to each other. When you point it out to them they appear genuinely sorry for their actions but we have this sneak feeling that the apology will be short lived. So, finally, it is Goodnight Vietnam and thank you for the experience.

Next stop is a night in Ho Chi Minh City before flying to Kuala Lumpur to catch our onward flight to Sri Lanka.

White Sand Christmas

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Cheryl & Neil

Our stay in Nha Trang for Christmas was pretty much as expected, albeit, much quieter than we thought it might be. The hordes of western tourists we anticipated did not materialise, in fact, it was downright quiet. Being downright quiet made our traditional walk on the white sand beach extremely tranquil other than the sound of waves crashing on the shore.

We made the most of it with Hugh and Catherine having a “traditional” English Christmas Eve Dinner…..several jugs of Bia Hoi followed by a curry…..excellent! Sadly, the only places offering anything near to a British Christmas Day Lunch were those that had a habit of playing very cheesy music.

This could have been tolerated in support of a traditional Christmas but the volume that they tended to play the music was ear splitting ending all hopes of conversation, storytelling, reminiscing and sharing travel information. Instead we opted for our favourite Italian Restaurant and we weren’t disappointed…….an excellent evening was had by all. Take a look at the pics for the silly hats we bought in China and some of the gifts that we exchanged.

Mick & Karen…..do the pictures bring back any memories?

Our highlight was seeing and speaking to our children, Leanne, Alex and Paul over Christmas via Skype. It still blows us away to know that you can talk to someone on the other side of the world for as long as you like for free…..now that’s technology!!

Congratulations to Alex for getting his job as Data Journalist for BBC World Service. One is very proud of one’s son working for Aunty Beeb.

Not much else happened in Nha Trang, we did a lot of planning for Sri Lanka plus our trip south via Mui Ne to Ho Chi Minh City to catch our flight. We had planned to stay in Nha Trang until after New Year but the new sound of Vietnam, “building”, moved in next door to our hotel with the demolition starting before 07.00 a.m. We decided to cut our losses and move early to Mui Ne on December 28th.

We do have one interesting story about Nha Trang. Changing money in banks can be as slick as you can image, sometimes less than 5 minutes, or it can be so tedious you cannot imagine. Up until now the longest time we had to spend changing money was in Yangshuo in China. Cheryl was trying to change a traveller’s cheque and must have signed 6 or 7 documents and took around 25 minutes. Changing money in Nha Trang for Neil proved even slower but without the document signing. The bank we chose had obviously not had much experience of traveller’s cheques so the girls had to follow process “by the book” so 55 minutes later, and 25 minutes after the bank had shut, we eventually walked out with our 10 million VND!!

We hope you all had a great Christmas and that the snow made it just that little bit more Christmassy than normal.

Season’s Greetings to all our Readers – Here’s our Yuletide E-card!

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Cheryl & Neil

We would like to wish all our readers a fabulous Christmas, a spanking 2011 and for those in Europe and the USA, a snowy white Christmas. For those in the southern hemisphere, a great beach barbie!

A special mention goes to our children Leanne, Paul and Alex. We miss you a lot and look forward to our chat on Christmas day.

We would also like to say hello to Clive & Karen as we are desperately sorry that they had to cut short their travels, and miss our joint Christmas party, due to Clive’s dad’s illness….we wish him a speedy recovery.

We have made our usual E-card to amuse you, copy and paste this into your browser:

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/coOrUtG6ifGKrPBH

Allow plenty of time for it to load. We had a lot of fun doing this and we hope you like it. Mark O, Chris and Andrew, if there’s any vacancies in your bands then we’re up for it!!!

Heading South for Christmas

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Cheryl & Neil

We’ve been away now for almost 2 months and it finally rained during our journey south. Warm rain Paul!!

We travelled from Cat Ba to Ninh Binh where we planned to stay a day or so. The journey was pretty uneventful although the local bus did follow the “Never Full” principle! Fortunately, we were almost first on the bus so we did have a proper seat for the 3 hour journey rather than a tiny plastic stool in the aisle. Ninh Binh itself is used by some as a base for trips, others travel from Hanoi, but the town itself is pretty dull. Its saving grace is that just a few kilometres out of town you find yourself surrounded by fabulous karsts and rice paddies. We had read about a number of scams at the Tam Coc boat rides so opted for the newer and lesser used, Trang An Grottoes instead.

Our hotel is very grand and at $15 was something of a steal considering it had a huge, tastefully decorated room, with enormous bathroom, balcony and flat screen TV. The bonus was that it was very close to the railway station which was to be our next mode of onward transport.

Getting to the grottoes was a little more challenging. Trips were available from hotels and agencies but as the number of tourists is low, there were no cheap group tours, just private hire car at $25. Having checked out the map we decided we could walk it let alone get a taxi for less than $25. It was about 8kms (5 miles) and we managed to get a local taxi that cost us $6 return trip! The grottoes were fantastic, and the ticket price of 100,000VND (about £3.30) included a 2.5 hour boat ride along the river in, out and through the caves in the massive limestone karsts. We went through about 9 or 10 grottoes, some up to 100m long, and some of them so low we had to lie flat on our backs in the boat. Our boat lady sometimes rowed with her hands and sometimes she somehow managed to row with her feet……pretty smart!

The Trang An Grottoes have recently been opened for tourists, with an impressive, but empty, visitor centre, and what seemed like hundreds of rowboats just waiting for the swarms to arrive in peak season. We timed our visit for lunchtime to hopefully avoid any tour buses from Hanoi and were rewarded with the river pretty much to ourselves. It was so peaceful, with only the sound of the water lapping against the boat. We met only one or two other boats towards the end of our trip. It was very much, “up close and personal” to the towering limestone karsts. The kingfishers along the way were a stunning blue, taunting us with their rapid fly-bys, and the very shy snake that swam in front of us soon disappeared under the surface when he spotted us. It was such a lovely experience, and our boat lady did not try to sell us anything or ask for a tip, so we broke a golden rule, and gave her a large tip which she seemed generally surprised to get.

The overnight train to Hue was dead on time and whilst it rattled a lot it was comfortable enough to get some sleep. Sadly our roommates, Swiss we think, were very unsociable despite us offering a snort of Hanoi Vodka. Fortunately, they were quiet so caused us no grief but it was a pity we couldn’t share some stories.

We selected our $15 hotel room including breakfast and a free beer, an idea more hotels should adopt we think. The restaurant also serves great cocktails at less than $2 each. We met up with Catherine, also en route from Cat Ba to Nha Trang, one evening and watched her stagger out of the restaurant after necking 4 of them! We also bumped into Chilla and Paul from Austria that we first met in Yuanshuo and then again on Cat Ba Island. They were due to leave the next day so we had dinner that night in a floating restaurant……very pleasant indeed!

We’ve been to Hue before but decided to use it as a place to break up the journey south. We also wanted to do one of the trips again, The Tombs of The Kings, as we now know much more of the history hopefully making the tour more meaningful. It was, as expected, a great trip and as we opted not to include a tour of the Citadel, we were put into a group of just 5 and taken to visit to a 100 year old traditional Vietnamese house and garden occupied by a very unassuming lady. Inside the wooden house there was a wonderful display of pictures of her ancestors and outside a serene garden with a myriad of fruit trees and spice shrubs. The trip was broken up with an excellent buffet lunch which we hadn’t bargained for. Our ticket price was to include a simple lunch. Being cheapskates, we opted not to upgrade for 50,000VND. By the time we got to lunch the tour guide seemed to have forgotten what we had paid and were cordially invited to tuck into a grand buffet along with everyone else.

Next day, we went further south to Quang Ngai which was to be just a stopover to break the 13 hour journey to Nha Trang. After a long walk we found ourselves at the Central Hotel (not so central) and managed to blag a room upgrade….nice one! We had a long walk from the station to the hotel, followed by a long walk around town and not a single westerner in sight……we appear to be the only ones here, hence all the strange ogling.

Tomorrow we’re on the final leg of our journey to Nha Trang, just a rather dull 7.5 hours on the train.

Purring on Cat Ba Island

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Cheryl & Neil

We came to Cat Ba Island we intending to stay maybe 4 to 5 days. After our less than warm reception we immediately changed that plan to leave first thing next morning. Then we discovered what lovely people we had bonded with during the fracas, what a great family hotel we had checked into and realised what an excellent place this is to just “hang out”. We eventually stayed for more than 3 weeks.

It’s relatively cheap to stay here, our spacious room is just $8/night, includes A/C, TV, mini bar and a view to die for. There are some simple things to do on the island that we can achieve without lining the pockets of the scummy tour operators and the seafood is as fresh as it gets.

We started our stay by doing very little, sussing out the options for sightseeing, getting our bearings for the beach, how to get back to the mainland and having dinner with our new friends. In the mornings, whilst drinking strong Viet coffee, we spent a long time just watching the view of the harbour from our bed as it changed, boats coming in here, boats going out there and the sun getting higher as the day gained momentum. How sleepy can it get?

Our first trip out was to take a local bus to Cai Vieng jetty. Not much here, in fact, absolutely nothing. However, it was a pleasant and cheap sightseeing trip of the island whilst “enjoying” the company of a bus load of kids on the way home from school…..ear plugs recommended!

One evening at dinner in the hotel we decided to share a large Grilled Red Snapper in Lemongrass. The hotel doesn’t have tanks for the fish so dinner was secured by Mr Tuan heading off on his moto to purchase our dinner. A couple of minutes later he reappeared only for Neil to spot something fall off the back of his bike about 30 metres down the road. The large object began flapping manically in its attempt to escape back to the sea. “Oy, that’s my fish!!” shouted Neil as one of the waiters legged it up the road, dodging the rest of the traffic, to retrieve our dinner. Despite the roadside incident the fish was delicious and, as we now know, it was very fresh! Watching our fish flapping around in the road being passed by motorbikes was one of the funniest things we have seen in a long time!

Our next trip was to The National Park where we had a hike through the jungle and a climb of around an hour up to the top of a hill 225 metres high. The views were excellent and it was a great place to have our picnic. We sat for about an hour and met other travellers and exchanged stories including similar “welcoming” receptions at the northern jetty.

We also started to chat to Mr Tuan’s brother in law, Mr Anh the hotel manager, about the benefits of the hostel booking sites, Hostelworld and Hostelbookers. He’s very much “front of house” as he speaks very good English so he was pleased to give it a go. We use these on-line booking agencies all the time for reviews, information and bookings and, surprisingly, not a single establishment on Cat Ba Island is registered with either of them. So, it’s back to work for us and over a period of a few days we gave some free ‘consultancy” to help him get set up. In exchange, Mr Anh fed us some excellent food and beers so, all in all, it was a very fair exchange.

Friday was Cheryl’s birthday, and we took another trip by local bus to explore the Hospital Cave. This is a 3 storey, 17 room building carved into a cave in 1963 with help from the Chinese. It was used in the war to house up to 300 soldiers, and was in use as a hospital until 1975. The rooms are now bare, except for a light bulb, but the excellent local guide, Ba, showed us around, and told us a little of its history. He took great pride in showing us where Ho Chi Minh stayed for the night, as well as the cinema, the swimming pool and the ping pong room!

We took a picnic including chocolate mini birthday cakes from the bakery and enjoyed our lunch whilst waiting for the bus back to town.

Neil planned a surprise birthday cake and asked Mr Anh if he could help him buy a small one, about the size of a tea plate. Mr Anh said no problem and asked how to spell her name. Neil’s intention was to have him bring out the cake after dinner. All this planning happened several days before Cheryl’s birthday and then, on the day, Mr Anh came up with his own plan. “You be in your room at 7 p.m. and I will bring cake and flowers with the two children”. OK, Neil thought, I can’t argue as he insists on paying so we’ll go with it. It was something of a close shave getting Cheryl showered and fully dressed, without appearing too pushy or spoiling the surprise, before the family arrived with a huge cake and some beautiful flowers. Dinner was excellent and the whole restaurant sang Happy Birthday as Cheryl blew out the candles and cut the cake.

Mr Anh continues to show his appreciation for our “consultancy” and the fact that we’re now also “touting” his rooms to any traveller that we see looking for rooms with a back pack. So far we must have introduced half a dozen new guests and in exchange we have been invited to eat with the family several times. Take a look at the pics to see what great food we’ve been fed. We’ve also tried a couple of the hotel home brews, Snake Wine and Sea Horse Wine. Basically, they are home rice spirit with a little extra in the jar to provide that added touch of “mystique”. Take a look at the pics of the snakes in the jar.

We’ve also had good fun with the family playing games. Ludo with Mr Tuan’s youngest son who is 7 years old (yes and he did whoop Neil’s arse) and card games such as gin rummy with the staff. These guys are cards mad but we’ve yet to even remotely understand how to play any of their games. Other than playing games we’ve spent a long time re-planning our trip due to the body swerve in the direction of Sri Lanka and also finalising visa dates to match flights home.

Blimey, what a day December 3rd was. Booked tickets to New Zealand for next year’s trip, got Mr Anh live on Hostelbookers, made E-Christmas cards and bought tickets for several games at the cricket world cup in Sri Lanka. Phew, time for a rest followed by a journey from the island to Ninh Binh and southwards.

Chapter 4 – This Travelling is Hobbit Forming!

Posted on November 20, 2010 by Cheryl & Neil

If it isn’t enough that we’re having a great time we’re pleased to announce that next year’s trip is already in the planning stage.

Air Asia has done us proud yet again. We got here for about £100 last October and now we’ve booked our trip for next October 2011.

India is back on the shelf for yet another year as we’re off to Christchurch, New Zealand for a little over £230. Add on a slice of Oz, a dash of this and splash of that and we have the makings of another mega trip.

Trading Places

Posted on November 19, 2010 by Cheryl & Neil

When we originally planned this trip, a highlight was going to be visiting The Philippines in January 2011 to swim with the whale sharks. The plan has now changed.

We have been seduced by the possibility of swimming with turtles, whale watching, the thought of fabulous tasty curry on some of the finest white sand beaches in the world and being in the crowd amongst the craziest cricket fans going to the 2011 World Cup Cricket in Sri Lanka.

Hey, what would you do?

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