Ni Hao from Lijiang! We have spent the last 7 days relaxing in the quaint ancient old town of Lijiang, one of Yunnan provinces most prized locations. We left Lhasa on 14th by air, managing to navigate two entire airports (lhasa and Chengdu) by ourselves and end up with luggage at the other end, we were very proud of ourselves :) Arriving in the late evening, we met our host for our stay, one Mama Naxi. We were greeted with a 'Hello, you chicken' (check in), and were lead into the main dining room where a seige between Mama's six pets [View Full Entry]

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Tachi Dele from Tibet! We were wrong about not finding any internet cafes here, but then I for one (joe) under estimated how far chinas development would have spread in this remote region. We started our tour bright and early in Kathmandu, meeting up with the other 27 members of the tour in our own bus. We then had a 5 or so hour journey to the border. On the way we had been briefed by our guide about possesions we should expect to be confiscated at Chinese customs. Joe was asked not to even attempt to take his copy of [View Full Entry]

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Our final Namaste to you, next time we blog it will be a 'Ni Hau' as we will have traversed Tibet and will be in China! We have spent the last remaining days in Nepal relaxing in Kathmandu. This time round we have expanded our sight seeing of the city and found the 'Garden of Dreams' and the town of Patan - both beautiful in different ways and must sees for Kathmandu. Tomorrow morning we leave bright and early (5:30am) for our tour of Tibet. Back to the daily early starts, who knows, by the end of this trip we might [View Full Entry]

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We're back! After 1 day on a bus, 8 days walking and 30 minutes on a plane, we made it! :) And without any injuries either you'll be pleased to know. After our last blog it was an early start the next day to get into a taxi which we presumed was our transport to the start of our trek, taking us to the small town of Jiri. How wrong we were! The taxi was there to only take us to the public bus station, the bus was our transport for a predicted 5-6 ours.... What actually happened was our careful [View Full Entry]

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Namaste from our 2nd capital city - Kathmandu. We wrapped up our tour of India on the 20th and had scheduled some well deserved down time, exploring the sights and sounds of Kathmandu. Unlike the picture that Lonely Planet paints of the city, it is quite a pleasant place to relax in. We were warned of the traffic and pollution but when compared to New Delhi it feels comparatively clean! We're staying in Thamel (ta-mel) which is the centre for tourists with resturants, shops, hotels and bazaars taking up every available space. It very much has the feeling of a small [View Full Entry]

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Namaste from Nepal! (they still speak a lot of Hindi here but the main language is Nepalese) During a very bumpy, very long, stop-start journey to Nepal from Varanasi we were fortunate enough to stop in Saranath to visit the place where the original Buddha gave his first sermon. The journey was supposed to be from 5am to 2pm but due to other group members forgetting bags and loosing wallets (not us!) we did not arrive at our hotel in Lumbini until 7pm!! A very long day - but worth it as what we have seen of Nepal so far is [View Full Entry]

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Namaste, When we left you last we were still in Ochra, we are now over 600km NE at Varanassi. How we got here? By sleeper train follwed by an adventure on the river ganges itself. We both had ideas of what to expect from the sailing trip but we couldn't have pictured what was the reality. Would it be motor powered? Would it be a big cruiser we all sat in? Would it be a canoe!? What we sailed in were 3 20ft rustic sailing boats, dressed up to be comfortable for tourists. We arrived to set sail in the peak [View Full Entry]

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Hello again, Well it's not quite tomorrow but the next day is close enough for a photo upload! We're still in Ochra ("O-cha") and sitting in the same internet cafe. It's midday this time so it's cooler in here than it is outside - very very very hot!! As we havn't moved on we thought we'd take this opportunity to tell you a little about the people we've met along the way. The major change we have noticed is that the further from the big cities that you travel the friendlier the people seem to be and they have less of [View Full Entry]

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Hello again! It's day 3 of our northern Indian tour and we are currently sitting in a generator powered internet cafe in the quaint town of Ochra on the banks of a river (not the ganges, but we don't know what it's called). When we last left you we had arrived in Delhi and shortly after we met up with our tour group to begin what is turning out to be a jam packed whirl wind of a tour! There's seven of us in total, 3 young aussies from Byron Bay and two older Belgian ladies, all very friendly and we're [View Full Entry]

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Hello All, We are here! Our flight landed in New Delhi early this morning. 5am your time, 9.45 Delhi time. The flight went smoothly, with no delays and hot flannels before lift off. Our baggage arrived in no time at all, and we were able to withdraw currency and buy local sim cards without any problems. We caught a taxi outside the airport which took us on a journey which was both scary and hilarious, as we encountered the roads of new Delhi which are like nothing you have ever seen. During the journey we encountered ancient vehicles, sacred cows, grazing [View Full Entry]

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