"Dog hot-pot anyone?"

Hi everybody, just a quick mail but a LOT of photos showcasing our first couple of weeks in China. We started this leg of The Trip in Nanning, a nice-but-kinda-non-descript city just over the border from Vietnam. Here the local delicacy was dog hot-pot, snake hot-pot and just-about-anything-else-hot-pot, but we managed to stick to good ol' boiled rice. Phew!!

From Nanning we travelled into lush, green Guillin and Yangshuo. Famous for their rock formations and rivers, we spent about a week being 'tres sportifs' and putting our newly purchased bikes to good use. Although both of us have since vowed NEVER AGAIN will we cycle 30k in one go!!! But check out the gorg scenery from Marty's snaps, nice. Also had fun watching some very smart cormorant birds catching fish for their handlers, strange but interesting.

Certainly the highlight of the past few weeks has been Hong Kong. This city/country/island (and to an extent, its neighbour Macao) is shockingly modern and has everything any Westerner far from home could wish for. That said, its hard to believe sometimes that this is in fact Asia and not some flashy European city. But much fun was had here, despite the awful result for the Irish against France in the World Cup...

From Hong Kong, we boarded the train on Sunday and 20 hours later arrived in Shanghai!! Staying at Le Tour Hostel, which is possibly the best place we've found so far, and enjoying the many sights of this ultra-modern and sleek city. Attended a formal tea drinking ceremony yesterday, which also happened to be the Mid-Autumn Festival Day - did you know you should rub the hot (and empty) tea cup over your face to keep those nasty wrinkles at bay??

Next steps? Em, not really sure at the moment as all the trains are booked up cos of the Mid-Autumn shenanigans but we'll keep you posted!! Love Susie and Marty xoxox

Cambodia and Vietnam

Hi everyone, think we're playing catch-up with the ol blog as computers and a decent WWW connection have been pretty thin on the ground of late. But here we are!

The past 6 weeks or so have been spent checking out some of the main cities and hot-spots of Cambodia and Vietnam, so here goes a round-up of our highlights!!

The highlight of Cambodia was definitely the temples of Angkor Wat. We spent 3 days touring on bikes around these amazing Khmer-era temple ruins, some dating from as far back as the 11th century. Evenings were spent enjoying the happy-hour 50 cent Angkor beers in one of the cool wee bars in Siem Reap where we stayed! No words can do this World Heritage Site justice so check out Marty's photos of Angkor instead.

(Marty in front of Angkor Wat)

Next stop was Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh. Here we tried to learn a bit more about Cambodia's troubled and bloody past - shocking to know that Pol Pot and his regime murdered so many of their own people in pretty much our lifetime. A look around the notorious S-21 prison, not to mention the horrific 'Killing Fields' with the skulls of almost 8000 innocent Cambodians killed under Pol Pot's orders, was hard but important for us to do. Overall we found the Cambodian people really warm and welcoming, and despite their real poverty never without a smile on their faces.

(Us in Phnom Penh; Marty after sitting on a branch of a thorn tree!)

(Cute wee Cambodian girl selling something or other)

Compared to Cambodia, the places we visited in Vietnam seemed relatively wealthy and prosperous and the people although friendly, weren't adverse to trying to squeeze us for every last dong!!! We managed to pack in a lot over the past 3 weeks or so, and here's a short summary! Without a doubt, one of the culinary highlights in Vietnam was the availability of fresh coffee (none of that Nescafe rubbish!) and warm baguettes that wouldn't be out of place in Paris or Brussels!

Formally Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City is a busy, noisy but enjoyable place with some lovely French colonial-era architecture. Have a look at our photos of the places we visited - Reunification Palace, War Crime Museum, and the ingenious 200 k-long Cu Chi Tunnels where the Viet Cong hid out from the French and later the Americans in the 1950s and 60s. Needless to say, our 'petit' Western frames weren't best suited for these tiny tunnels!!!

(Marty in Cu Chi Tunnel, widened especially for Western visitors!)

(Bang, bang! Susie and an AK-47, Cu Chi Tunnels)

The bus north from HCMC to the beach town of Nha Trang passed through some gorgeous countryside - nice to see green mountains for almost the first time since leaving home! Lazy days were spent on Nha Trang's beach, with Marty chatting up the wee Vietnamese ladies selling all sorts from fresh lobsters to dirt-cheap cigarettes!

Once refreshed from chilling/roasting on the beach, we moved on to the quaint Unesco World Heritage town of Hoi An. The town boasts over 200 tailors and of course, being tourists we snapped up 3 made-to-measure suits (in the finest Italian cashmere if you don't mind!!) as well as some fine leather shoes for Marty!! Let's hope they arrive back in Ireland in one piece!! Oh, almost forgot - we found the cheapest beer in Hoi An, at 3000 dong a glass (less than 10p/15Euro cents)!

In keeping with visiting places beginning with 'H', other pitstops in Vietnam included Hue, Hanoi and Halong Bay!!! The 3-day trip to Halong Bay was excellent and despite the 2 FAT rats sharing our boat with us, this was certainly one of the big highlights so far!! Hi to Manu, Benoit, Heather and Mark who we met on this trip (Benoit, tant pis pour le rugby samedi dernier!!! Allez les verts!!!)

So, after 2 very enjoyable weeks in Cambodia and 3 in Vietnam, we bid fab Hanoi farewell on Saturday and are now in Guilin, SW China. First impressions of China? So far so good, we'll keep you posted as we head on towards Hong Kong, Shanghai, Xian and hopefully Tibet (provided we manage to find internet cafes there!). Take care everyone, xoxoxox