The wild (south) west!

Hey everyone!

Here's some pictures for you! Check the previous post too for a bunch more!

Well we made it safely through China and just arrived in Vietnam last night. China was amazing and we really didn't even have enough time to scratch the surface. It's huge! Traveling alone took up most of our time. Even in the last five days we only went through 2 provinces, but we spent over 20+ hours on buses (or minibuses with about 10 more people than could actually be seated!) But all-in-all, it has been extremely interesting and absolutely shocking at times. It truly is a different world over here.

So, where did we leave off....

From Yangshou we headed to Nanning. Nanning was a really big, modern looking city, which was a little strange for it being in western China (it's noted for being wild!). We found a really cheap hotel in Nanning and just planned to stay overnight. We figured out quickly that we weren't just staying in any hotel by the various "toys" in the room and the glowy pink room at the end of the hall with a bunch of girls waiting around! I bet you guys get the picture.... needless to say we were out of the hotel first thing in the morning!

We caught a minibus to a little town called Shalong. We found a mototaxi as soon as we got there and pointed to "hotel" in the guidebook - we ended up being taken 14 km to a waterfall! We found out (after a little panicking!) that we were in a tourist place called Detian which is right on the border between China and Vietnam. We calmed down a bit and found some dinner (we actually got to go into the kitchen and point out what we wanted!) and a cheap hotel (not so sleezy this time!). We woke up in the morning and hiked down to the waterfall and then hiked up to Detian peak (about 2 1/2 hours).


The scenery was beautiful from the top and we could see little Vietnamese villages off into the distance. We went wandering a little bit and ended up accidentally crossing over to Vietnam (shhhh!). They have all these pictures of surly looking guards holding up "criminals" by the back of their shirts and I had images of the same thing happening to us! No guards though, only people selling stuff.


From Detian we went to Jingxi by minibus. The scenery was absolutely stunning: a mix of rice paddies, farmers, oxen, and Karst mountains.


Near Jingxi there was a little place called "Love Ball Village," so we headed there the next morning. It's called Love Ball Village because the women sew these little balls with woven symbols on them. They throw the balls at boys that they love and then the boy wears it around his neck. Sounds a little complicated to me, but it's a really cute tradition nonetheless. We ended up recruiting about 20 middle school kids that lived in the village to be our tour guides for the day. We walked up to a temple together and they helped with our love ball choosing. They had a camera and each of them wanted at least one picture with each of us, as well as the combination of us 3. It's so funny to be a foreigner in places like this...


Speaking of that: We went to Funing the next day as part of our journey into Vietnam. When we arrived at the hotel the manager almost burst he was so excited to see us. There was a massive picture of another foreigner on the wall sitting on his bed in the hotel room with his name written underneath. The manager said the guy was "famous," but by famous we think he meant white. Anyway, the staff absolutely bent over backwards for us and the next day we had a photo shoot with the staff and the manager in front of the hotel and in the lobby. I was giggling the whole time - here we are scruffy backpackers and we're going to end up in the Hall of "Fame" in a big hotel. Oh, so funny. If you want to feel like a celebrity go to Funing for a day!


From Funing we went to Wenshan. The bus trip was only supposed to take 3 or 4 hours but ended up taking 8! The area was really mountainous and the whole day was spent swirling around hills (thank goodness for our lifetime supply of Gravol!). We got stuck in a 3 hour traffic jam because a vehicle had gone over the side of one of the cliffs. It was such an awful feeling to know that we were stalled so close to the accident scene. Also, there were huge trucks transporting bee hives that were stalled as well so there were bees everywhere. And you all know how much I like bees! Anyway, it was a really long day.

We were planning on only staying one night in Wenshan but ended up staying 2 since we couldn't find a bus to Hekou (the border town to Vietnam). It ended up being the most relaxing day we've had since we got to China. We just walked around the town and went exploring a cave in a park. Also, there was a spa in the hotel we were staying at. Before I go any further let me explain that we're definitely on a backpackers budget and most of our accommodation is about 8-9 dollars CDN a night. Everything is just way cheaper in the small towns than in the cities so we just end up staying in nicer places (which is fine by me!). Anyway, we took advantage of the spa and got pampered for a good hour or so. We got steamed, massaged, scrubbed and fed all for about 10 dollars each! They had 5 people waiting on us plus 2 people massaging us. I felt so guilty!

So that brings us to yesterday... after an 8 hour bus ride to Hekou we crossed the border into Vietnam. We had absolutely no problems at the border (despite everything we had heard about the Vietnamese charging non-legit fees), but we had a really hard time exchanging our RMB for Chinese Dong. We went to the Bank of China and just ended up getting really frusterated and confused. We had no problem changing the money on the Vietnamese side though, so that was good. We took a minibus up to Sapa (and almost got robbed by a hilltribe man!) and got to check out some of the scenery. It's absolutely unreal here - we're really high up in the mountains, so there are clouds rolling over everything and there are minority groups everywhere. We checked into a hostel last night and woke up this morning to geckos, mountains, dew, coffee, and good bread! We're really happy we're here, now to find a guidebook...

In closing I thought I'd make a quick list of the animals that we've shared a road or a busride with in the last week:

Horses

Oxen

Chickens

Chicken feet

Pigs

Cows

Geese

Puppies

We miss everyone so much! We are thinking of you all every day.

3 months until we're home!

Love,
Tara and Andrew
XOXO