…(whe)n we arrived, the driver and his wife were happy to accept our US$10.00 note and were half way down the street with it before we explained we expected some change, man we are stingy!

We were finally able to change some currency at the hotel which was a big relief; it is really scary not even being able to purchase a bottle of water. The rooms were nice and clean, and I got excited about having 35+ channels on the TV – even though 34 of them are in Mandarin (and the 35th one is only in English occasionally).

China (well, Kunming) is really scary at first. Philippa and I have done a little bit of travel, and this is the first place that has really freaked us out. The trusty Lonely Planet guide informs us that Kunming is a sleepy, slow city as far as China is concerned… WHAT!! This is the maddest place I have ever been to…

Initially we just thought everyone was rude, but we now believe the problem is the water – they are putting speed or red-bull or something in the water! Everyone, the traffic, the cats a dogs, crying babies – everything is running at 210%. Hmmmm, I’m a little scared about our imminent trip to Shanghai!

Other than running around the local shops (including Wal*Mart — which is another blog altogether), we went off to the Bamboo Temple today. This was a very different Buddhist temple, especially the “surfing” Buddha’s (google it) which were awesome. Apparently the guy who created them “went missing” (seems to happen a lot in China) afterwards!

We are flying off to Zhongdian tomorrow (heading towards Tibet), and than working our way back to Kunming by bus for our final flight to Shanghai! Not sure what Internet facilities are further up north, so this might be the last you hear from us for a while (although I’m sure some enterprising nerd ha managed to work something out).

Finally, hope my washing is now dry – we paid some little old lady Y10 per KG to wash them two days ago, and it keeps raining, and therefore never ready! I’m now officially out of undies!!

We arrived yesterday afternoon in Houi Xai, a little border town in Laos, just across the Mekong river from Thailand (with it’s alluring neon lights, fireworks and, if I squint hard a 7-11 and maybe even a McDonalds). More about Houi Sai later (I will need to de-breif).

Prior to our arrival yesterday, the past two days have been lovely… floating down (or up, or something) the Mekong from Luang Prabang. We spoilt ourselves and decided to go for the super luxary “slow boat” trip. Now, when I say slow boat – I really mean it. According to the GPS – the trip was about 320kms and over 18 hours travel time. The alternitive was the “fast boat”, which the secular Lonley Planet advises you “pray” before departure.

Starting bright and early on Saturday, we woke up at sunrise to see the daily monk parade. Luang Prabang is famous for their 70 or so Wat’s (temples) – 30 of which are still active. Every sunrise, Monks from these active Wat’s walk down the main street collecting food offerings from the local beleivers (and some visiting sleepy tourists). We have seen this procession elsewhere before, however due to the shere number of Monks in Luang Prabang – it was really impressive. Towards the end of the offering line were a group of beggers, and it was really touching to see the Monk’s give back some of ther supplies to those less fortunate.

Following the parade, we negotiated a rather expensive Jumbo (Tuk-Tuk) ride to the jetty where our boat was moored. We spent the following two days traveling rather slowly through some of the most beutiful countryside I have ever seen (will get the photo’s up sometime soon, hopefully). We stopped a couple of times at some minority villages and a small cave which was nice, however the majority of the trip consisted of chatting with the other tourists on our boat and waving to kids playing in the river along the way!

Upon arrival in Houi Xai, we nearly lost our bags as they were loaded onto a boat to Thailand with all the other tourists bags. Luckilly Philippa saw her bag on someones back heading towards the boat and managed to intervene after a quick sprint down the road. The locals all thought it was very funny (Hah hah, who on earth would stay here!!).

As it turns out, we stuffed up our airline tickets by a day – and we are stuck here for two nights.

Seriously though, the place isn’t all that bad. I just enjoy complaining, besides – I think we have been a little soft with this 3 star trip of ours! We managed to get some nice Indian last night and also managed to recover our lost mobile phone – I couldn’t beleive how honest the kid was who returned it!

I have developed a pretty serious heat rash on my arms, and managed diagnose and prescribe my own medication from the local chemist – 20 cents for some antihistimine (or sugar concrete, not sure). I haven’t died yet and I think the rash is going!

Back to Vientiane tommorow morning, we are flying – no more SLOW boats for us! Than we fly to Kumning in China! I can’t wait!

The most exciting part however was the discovery of a Swedish Pizza Shop for lunch! For those who haven’t tried one,… well,… let me put it this way – it’s almost worth flying to Sweden for! I will have to give you all a bite-by-bite account of the experiance some other time!

Off to the travel agent now, we are going to book some tix up north. Starting to miss some of you now! Oh, we managed to get a local SIM, however nobody has replied, so we don’t know if it works! Probably not!

Unfortunately we don’t have a great deal to report, as we only arrived this morning (and spent most of today sleeping); Briefly though – the weather is great, the food is cheap (and we haven’t been sick yet) and the locals are SUPER friendly.

The hotel we ended up at is simple, but nice. We had trouble checking in though as we were told the “reception staff are up a tree”. Philippa tricked me however, this place doesn’t have a TV (let alone satellite TV which was my stipulation) !!

Better run, this is 300kip a minute, and we’re not sure how much that is in Aussie dollars – don’t miss any of you yet!

Looking at the history of our blog, it has been nearly 5 months since my last post! Whoops!

Where have I been you ask? Well, for the most part I have been sitting on my bum watching telly. We have had a few small trips thrown in here and there (which Philippa has updated you all on), and the past two-three months have seen me in my Vietnamese suits (well, sort of) working with Fujifilm in their support department (well, when I say support – I mean call logging – easy mistake to make). Tomorrow will be my last day, and I have really been lucky to not only score a decent temp job for the past few months, learn heaps about mini-lab equipment (and print off all our trip pics), but also more importantly to meet some really great locals,… of course locals being a few Brits, an Irish and an American gal!

OK… Just to wind back a little bit. After a brief visit from my brother Simon sometime in mid-August, we packed our wonderful little Rover up with food, clothing, camping gear and what seemed like the kitchen sink and headed down south to Dover where we caught a ferry to France. Following a brief stopover overnight in Antwerp, Belgium – we found ourselves in Eindhoven, Holland about 11 hours later. It was quite an experience stopping for petrol early in the afternoon and ordering in English, filling up again a few hours later and ordering in French and than the following morning ordering Petrol in Flemish and than Dutch! Well, if the truth be know – these smarty-pants Europeans can all speak English better than us Aussies, but that is besides the point – we did try!

Upon arrival at our swish Holiday Inn hotel (Mum and Dad’s shout) in Eindhoven, it crossed my mind that I should have listened to Philippa when she suggested (nay, insisted) we purchase the international AA (like RACV/Q) membership. Steam was pouring out of the poor little Rover and the needle on the temperature gage had nearly done a 360.

Thankfully the whole family was there to meet us at the hotel, and Dad, tired from all his own travel, was strait back into his fatherly routine by looking at the car and assuring me that no damage had been done as the car had simply overheated! The wonderful hotel staff managed to track down a local Rover mechanic for us and finally managed to book the sick girl in to the shop. Thankfully the only problem was a fan sensor, which caused the fan to stop when it shouldn’t have (at least I think that’s what the invoice says).

The real reason we all (that’s me, Philippa, Simon, Mum and Dad) met up in Eindhoven was to see the town Neunen (about 30 KMs out of Eindhoven) where Dad was born and spent the first 6 years of his life. It was a sweet, definitely off the tourist trail, little town. We saw the house where Dad lived and the surrounding area. He was even lucky enough to get invited inside for a few minutes – soon learning that he knew more Dutch then he originally thought! It was truly a magical and special day!

After a few more days pottering about Eindhoven (and dipping down to Belgium for the day) we all parted ways, picking up in Germany and Philippa’s blog from a while ago :) I had better run as I’m at work, and writing this between calls!

Off to Venice this weekend for our Aniversary, Miss you all!