tieguanyin

Yay! Got up early in the morning, ready for a Sri Lankan family reunion in Ratnapura. Before we left Kandy, our couchsurfer-friend Ajith took us around to the Botanical Gardens in Kandy. Again, the prices there were a bit of a rip-off, 650 rupees for foreigners and 100 rupees for locals. Anyways, in we went. No more than 200 metres from the entrance we were suddenly met by two monkeys, sitting peacefully on the path. They looked a bit like the vicious monkeys in Bako national park on Borneo, so we didn't want to get too close. Cute they were though. The first thing of note in the garden was the orchid house. So many different kinds of orchids, some looking like ballerinas, some like butterflies, some like stars - and all different beautiful colours. I ... read more

Finally time to travel with my boyfriend! After saying goodbye to my cousin on the 14th (with a whiskey-chinese new year-hangover), we were all packed and ready for our adventure on the 15th. Step one: waving down a taxi for the airport. While walking the 100 metres from our apartment to the road (where we can see taxis but they can't see us) we saw no less than four taxis passing by, but when we made it to the road we had to wait quite a long time before we finally got one. Check in, baggage check, easy peasy, got to Gate 7 with time to spare. As we sat there watching basketball and ads for "Cats and Dogs 2" on the public TV's we kept an eye on the information screen for our gate. It ... read more

Here I am, back in Xiamen again. I'll just tell the story of how we got our apartment and some of the things going on outside our window every day. We arrived in Xiamen on the 19th of August 2009. Josh had arranged to start working at Yingcai school, off the island in the part of Jimei district called Xinglin. Although we had told them our arrival dates, the school apartment wasn't ready yet. We didn't want to live in the school apartment long term anyways, because it didn' t have a kitchen, so we wanted to search for an apartment, after staying the night at Josh's new boss' place. The second day we were told that the apartment was ready, so we went to put our bags there before starting our search. The apartment was ... read more

Got on the night bus from Luang Prabang at 18.30, at first the bus was practically empty and everyone had two seats, but in the last few minutes the bus filled up very quickly. I got the very back seat, behind lots of luggage and chairs, so no one came bothering me :) But after lots of people got on from the roadside after the first few kilometers, I think I was the only one left with two seats. Lucky me! My luck couldn't last forever though, I had to have some bad luck happen to me - lost my cloisonne hair clip from Beijing (no catastrophe, can get a new one next time), lost my new villager-made seed belt (the one I'm wearing in the Luang Prabang photo on some stairs between two golden dragon-snakes) ... read more

Right! Trekking! Nam Ha valley trip, Green discovery (www.greendiscoverylaos.com) Met the group at 8.50 at Green Discovery's office on the main road in Luang Nam tha, got in to a tuk tuk to our starting point. The group of 8 was a nice blend of nationalities, a New Zealand couple, and Irish guy, a Vietnamese born German resident, three Swiss girls and myself. Everyone was pretty young and in relatively good shape. We had two guides, Ket and Air, and both were really knowledgeable and nice. Ket is a farmer when he doesn't go trekking with people, and Air is kamu-tribe. We walked straight into a Lanten-tribe village, very interesting, especially coming from China. Apparently the Lanten people are originally from Mongolia, but fled to southern China during the first Opium war, and when the second ... read more