Ni hao China!

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We have made it to China! We crossed the border from Lao Cai in northern Vietnam to Hekou in south west China (this was by far the warmest reception we have had at any of the border crossings so far, the officials actually smiled and welcomed us to China!) and took a 12 hour overnight bus to our first stop, Kunming.

We weren't quite prepared for the cold, rainy city that awaited us and we immediately had to go out and buy hats, coats gloves etc! Luckily rainy days are rare and it has mostly been fresh and a bit cold but sunny and bright.

We spent a couple of days in Kunming, which is a nice chinese city and we enjoyed just strolling about and getting used to being in a new country. Then we moved on to Dali which is very popular with tourists and for good reason - it's a lovely small town, very pretty and friendly and it was here that we discovered the wonderful chinese dumplings. Mmm Mmm Mmm!! I had steadily been getting fitter and looking a little leaner but I have a feeling that I may come back more closely resembling a chinese dumpling than anything else!

From Dali we moved on to Lijiang which is basically a bigger version of Dali! It's very scenic and very clean but once again very popular and busy, although we got away from the noise in Black Dragon Park where we also got some good pictures of the moutain backdrop (apparently the 'must-get' photo of South West China). We also got some very interesting photos of some traditional Naxi (a minority group of China based near Lijiang) singing and dancing at a show we went to. It wasn't quite what we expected but it was entertaining! See below for pictures..

So far we are absolutely loving China and haven't had any problems aside from a small issue with being overcharged at the bus station in Hekou, which we are getting used to dealing with at border towns (basically this guy at the bus station, who we're not sure even had anything to do with the official company tried to charge us a 'foreigner tax' on top of the tickets we had bought. We refused to pay at first until the guy physically threatened us and tried to steal our bags!! Then we figured it was probably safer just to pay to get away from him.. but I still resented having to hand extra money over.) But aside from this everyone has been really lovely and friendly. In restraunts and cafes etc they've been very helpful even when they don't speak much english and we're both looking forward to spending more time here; we might even have to extend our visas a little longer!

By the way, sorry to anyone who is waiting for a reply to an email, I have discovered that I am unable to access my email here (at first I thought it was a wesite problem but it seems that some sites can't make it through the very strict Chinese firewalls and Lycos is one of them) I have another email address and am getting all my emails forwarded to it so I will write soon, but it might take me a while to catch up!!

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Photos

Feeding frenzy
The fish seemed to enjoy the popcorn we threw into the water for them!