paulandsarah

So we arrived into Ho CHi Minh CIty (Saigon) in the early hours, and were immediately struck by quite how many Westerners there were walking around. Apart from a few places, like Kathmandu or Goa, we have been used to almost being on our own. Now, all of a sudden there's millions of us! Definitely not complaining though, more foreigners equals more locals speaking English, better transport options and most importantly more restaurants selling things like pie and chips and foot long hot dogs. Amazing. We spent three nights in Saigon, visiting the Reunifictaion Palace, War Remnants Museum and a Water Puppet Show, and then made our way into the Mekong Delta where we got shown around some local attractions. Again, it was a bit like a production line though - just follow the foreigner in ... read more

We are currently in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, and my word, what a place....But first the last few weeks of India which now seems like an age ago! Another overnight bus took us to Udaipur, the scene of the James Bond film Octopussy. We found maybe the cheapest room in the whole of India (192 rupees = 2.40pounds between us) and it even had a hot water shower! None of this filling up a bucket and tipping the cold water on your head malarky, this was a godsend! Sod looking around Udaipur, we spent about 3 hours each in the shower. Anyway, the city was typically Indian. Dusty, crowded, polluted etc. It also had a load of American tourists which was somewhat strange after so long seeing no one. The actual Lake Palace was cool ... read more

So after lazing around for a month in Goa we were well and truly refreshed, and decided to blitz around Southern India for the 6 weeks leading up to xmas. First stop was a town called Hampi, which looks like a cross between the Flintstones and an Indiana Jones movie set. It was so beautiful and the people really friendly. The main attractions in Hampi are a load of temples built into the rock and the town has the slogan "where stones tell history in silence". We spent a good couple of days exploring but, of course, being tight we decided that we didn't need a guide or tuk-tuk driver. No, we thought we were more than capable of seeing the sights ourselves. Big mistake. According to the Lonely Planet book there's a footpath linking the ... read more

When we last wrote we had just seen the adorable pandas in Chengdu and we decided to spend our last month in China heading West. Our first stop was Songpan, a mere 12 hour bus ride away which included seeing loads of landslides and even a punch up between our driver and another driver! In Songpan we did a 3 day horse trek that invloved camping out in the wilds....seemed like a good idea at the time! On the first day Paul managed to get the only donkey and Sarah got majorly sunburnt despite using factor 40 suncream. By the third day we were both so sore from the saddles that we were walking like John Wayne and Sarah's lips had swollen up Lesley Ash style from the sunburn! (Paul tried to get some photos but ... read more

Sorry for the delay in posting this....internet connections havent been good or we've been too pressed for time! After the Yangtze River Cruise we stayed in Yichang, a horrible city thats like one giant building site, in a horrible hostel - the only up side being that it was the night of Englands first game in the World Cup so Paul got free beer from the owner as they stayed up until 2am to watch it! The next day, 20 mins before we boarded a train for our 30 hour journey to Kunming (seemed like a good idea at the time!) Sarah got a stomach bug and was throwing up in a bin in the train station (only in China can you do that and no one even blink an eyelid) Luckily it was a 24 ... read more