We arrived at the Tibetian Cafe at 8.30am, we were asked if we “check-out” the girl looked confused when I said no we “check-in”. We were lucky enough to get a room at 9am and sleep off our fatigue. On investigation we were in Zhongdian the last stop before Tibet. We spent the day walking around the old town (getting sun burnt) and staring at the locals (in their traditional gear) as they stared back at us :) We worked out the bus system and got up to an old Tibetian monastery, that felt a little like the lost city tucked away in the hills. Though those monks have learnt about about capitalism, 30 yuan entry fee (AU$5). It was beautiful! Mainly looking at the huge hills around us. And against all early expectations, I got sunburnt that day.

As we were only able to secure one nights accommodation, we boarded an 8.30am bus to Lijuang (making our way south again). It took 5 hours to make to 160km trip across the mountains. And as always there were a few moments that made our hair stand on end. The trip was one of the most beautiful that I have ever done, through Tibetian rural towns, along the Yanzi river as it decends from the hills and twisting our way through enourmous mountain passes! But we were exhausted when we finally got to our destination, and not for the first time this trip, we did wonder where the hell we were, as our bus pulled in, we heard an announcement for a bus leaving for Lijuang, “isn’t that where we’ve come too?”. We found some other foriegners and confirmed that we were infact in Lijuang. We found a taxi (after passing the touts trying to sell us their services) and he took us around the corner and said he didn’t know where the nominated hotel from the Lonely Planet was. After signing that he could ring the hotel for directions, we went for another 10minute journey (which I think was just a big block) to pull up at another hotel and he told us to wait. We realised that the hotel was in a part of town that was restricted to traffic so the concierge from the hotel met us with a trolley. We were exhausted and thinking this hotel better be okay because we have expended so much effort trying to find it. We treated ourselves to the suite (two TVs), ate quickly and slept fo the next 5 hours.

That evening we went and explored the old town, to find that it must be China’s number one tourist destination (for the Chinese). With flag waving tourist guides everywhere. That evening we went to a moving performance of the Naxi Orchestra, not really our style of music, but so moving knowing the history of this country and the fact that the conductor had spent 21years in jail during the cultural revolution, due to his Western Sympathies (for playing Schubert). 50% of the orchestra was over 80years old, having hid their instruments during the cultural revolution, the other half of the orchestra were our age, it seems that traditional music here has missed an entire generation.

This country is one of contradictions, a communist country that does not allow freedom of religion yet photos of the Dali Lama were everywhere in the Tibetan Monastry we visited, a country that is closed and censors the press yet 80% of the audiance at the orchestras performance were Chinese, coming to see the conductor as they had heard of his story throught magazines and TV (about his time in prison from 28years old to 48years old).

Last night we also saw some Chinese night life, which seems really fun. Groups of people chanting songs at each other across the river and lots of dancing (to new and old music). We hope to get into it a little more tonight as it is apparently the biggest festival in the Lijuang calender.

…(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!!

Customs was efficent, thought the health questionairre a little personal, “Have you experienced any symptoms of HIV? or pyschosis?”. A the airport we discoverd that there was no currancy exchange or ATM which we were banking on, as we were unable to buy Chinese Yuan in Thailand. This left us in a bit of an awkward postition, with 30+ taxi drivers trying to secure our business, rain+++ and no money (only USD). We finally negotiated (with no English) a trip in a private vehicle to a hotel of our choice for USD4. We got caught in peak hour traffic, in what we were expecting to be a country town (3 million people), whe

The food facilities consisted of a grass hut 10 metres from the terminal building, where the locals were hitting the Laos home made whisky early. So as the hours passed and our 8.25am plane had not arrived at the airfield, the locals got even drunker. At 10.30am an offical made an announcement (in person) in Lao, it was roughly translated to us that the plane would be there at 12noon. This brought us relief as we had a nice hotel booked and paid for in Vientiane which we thought that we wouldn’t see and connecting flights to Kumning tomorrow at 5am. So we sat and ate noodle soup with the locals, and consumed the last bottle of drinking water that the store had, when the offical came out to the grass hut and the locals exploded in laughter (4 hours of drinking whisky by now), a tuk-tuk driver keen to secure our business translated the message for us, the plane had been can celled for today and would run tomorrow. ANOTHER DAY IN HAUI XAI!!!!

Matt went to the terminal building to retrieve our baggage as I made a quick phone call to Laos airlines, we needed a refund on our tickets!! We were going to miss the plane to Kumning and the next one isn’t scheduled until Saturday from Vientiane and as much as we love Laos, our visas would not extend that far and we wanted some new scenery. Matt and I made the quickest decision of our trip….we were going to Thailand!

I finally got across the information to the women on the ticketing line that we needed a refund for our tickets, she was quite obliging and said this was fine and we could collect the money when we returned to Vientiane, it took a little longer for me to explain to her that we were not returning to Vientiane. Again Laos hospitality coming through, she provided me the local Laos Airlines office details and said that we could obtain a refund via them.

Meanwhile, Matt had been doing some explaining to the baggage handling people, he was able to retrieve our bags after he convinced them that we were not returning for the flight tomorrow and was also able to obtain the original voucher that had been removed from our ticket so we could obtain a refund. He had also found the man that we had to talk to about getting our refund!

So the cheepest tuk-tuk ride our entire time in Laos, along with 5 other locals and their luggage, took us to the Laos Airlines Hauy Xai office . After another 60 minutes of waiting and listening to phone call in Lao to all sorts of offical people, the man behind the desk announced that he had organised our refund and we had to make our way to the bank. At the bank he gave us crisp new USD and we felt grateful that the system had work. we quickly changed our kip to baht and the Laos airline official dropped us at the immigration office.

It was here that Matt made his first “land” border crossing, which involve climbing into thin speed boats and being taken across the Mekong. It was raining and the banks were muddy and we were filthy by the end of it, but we were in Thailand and it felt like we were moving again. As the they are famous for a Thai tuk-tuk had sorted us out within 10 minutes, we were at the bus station and on a bus to Chang Rai. In Chang Rai we had our first meal for the day at 4.30pm as we waited for our 6.30pm bus to Chang Mai.

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!