Current location - La Paz, Bolivia. Altitude: 3,600m!!

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Well, here we are in China... a complete change once again! We've been here just over a week and are still massively adapting to the new culture... language being a major barrier here compared to India. Basically we have no clue what we are doing half the time! We keep getting scammed cos we can't understand anything... surprisingly it doesn't even help much to shout loudly and wave your arms (although thanks for the suggestion Lisa!) Yesterday we got charged 15 quid on top of the actual price of a train ticket... dur, today we got roped into to staying in smelly, damp room up a scabby alleyway, when there are much nicer places just round the corner... we took a chinese tour bus to some rice terraces the other day and it broke down and we all ended up piling onto a public bus anyway (having payed about 30 x the bus price for our provate minibus... we took a boat trip down the Li River


and it dropped us off on the bank of the river in the middle of nowhere with no transport to the nearest village ... we have no idea what we're eating half the time and have probly already consumed vast quantities of cat, dog, rat and lizard meat without knowing it... So far we are falling into just about every tourist trap there is that the lonely planet helpfully advises you against! (click on image for further pictures of China so far)

However, it's all good experience and we remain in good humour! We are currently in a very cute town called Dali over in southwestern Yunan province, all pretty touristy but also very chilled for China! Off to do some serious cycling and/or hiking tomorrow as we are near both lovely lake and lovely mountain! Weather has suddenly turned a bit cold and wet though which has taken us by surprise as we are not used to it any more!

That's all for now... but before I forget here are some of the best Chinglish signs we've seen so far...
In toilets on trains: "no occupation whilst stabilising"
In backpackers cafe toilet: "W.C. NO SHIT"
In current hostel bathroom: "Please do not confuse Landtowel. because floor is very smooth. It's danger!"
Outside Cafe: "cafe for friends making, backpackers and climbers concentrating"

Please translate as you feel appropriate ...

Lots of love Katie and Seb



Monday, October 16, 2006


It's been an amazing week, our last in India (click left to see last piccies in India) has been full of the usual ups and down that seem to go hand in hand in this country! We left the mountains and headed to the famous town ofAmritsar where the "peaceful" music of the famous golden temple blasted our ear drums to bombay andafforded us a really peaceful night's sleep... earplugs in and eyemasks on!

The temple was absolutely breathtaking though, we were completely dumb struck by the thousands of people, in all their colourful dresses and turbans and the evening fireworks reflecting off the surrounding pool accompanied by millions of tiny candles made it a truly awesome sight.

As usual we go from the sublime to the ridiculous as we headed to the border for the famous closing ceremony... something which is very difficult to explain in words... picture a cross between the ministry of silly walks, monty python, a football match, a music concert and a school sports day! An MC revs up the crowd and gets everyone chanting (about 10,000 people go every day) then they get members of theaudience to run up and down with the indian flag (all these activities being mirrored on the Pakistani side of the border) then the guards come out and strutt their stuff in the most ridiculous series of high kicks and marching. I think it's one of those things you have to see to believe!

Next... Bikaner, with a short stop in a transit town called Bathinda where we literally could have stepped off the moon and we would have got the same reactions! People were SO amazed to see us there, we sat at the station and within minutes had a crowd of about 100 people seated around us in a neat semi circle straring and pointing! bizarre! Seb looked at a little girl and she burst into tears, we must look worse than we thought!

Anyway, we arrived in Bikaner at 1am to "The Camel Man's" crib and were greeted by the man Vijay himself who is like the pimp daddy of camel trekking in this area! His hotel serves amazing food and they treat you like one of the family, we even got to partake in the daughter's 11th birthday party! After a quick trip to the rat temple, which as the name would suggest is a temple full of rats... uuuurrrrggh... slightly nautious now... we went to look around the old city. I was in a particularly short-tempered mood and had kind of had enough of the constant kids shouting WHAT IS YOUR NAME WHAT COUNTRY HELLO SIR HELLO SIR HELLO SIR and slapping your hands to the point where I almost started shouting and slapping back and couldn't really enjoy walking around the city and looking at things, so we called it a day! You need to have to be in a constantly good mood in this place to survive!

So the next day we hopped on a camel and escaped to the desert! couldn't get much further from the hustle and bustle of the city. Camels are cool, they just lope along, no worries, sit, stand, walk, eat, drink, pee, poo, it's all the same to them. We were lucky with our companions on the trek as we had a really friendly couple from NZ and a croatian girl and we kept each other entertained swapping travel experiences and stories. Other cool things about the desert... clear starry nights, the dung beetles pushing poo up hill with their hind legs, gazelles, white scorpions, musical entertainment, long afternoon siestas in the shade of the trees (there was quite a few in this desert to my surprise!), watching the sunset from the top of a sand dune, attempting to make conversation with EXTREMELY boring danish people and a slightly deranged soutern californian who owns a camel, a zebra and a horse and wants to learn how to make his camel dance, also camped at our site, and getting off the camel at the end of the second day when all of us (especially the men) were suffering some serious saddle sores!

So final stop in India is Jodhpur (Sorry mum we're notgoing to the taj.. too much hastle and lots of money!) this place is really something though and I'm glad we finished here. The Mehrangarh fort is the main attraction which sounds pretty dull but it is not! It is definitely one of the bestestest old buildings I have ever seen on the planet. It's got massive walls and stuff and you get this audio guided tour to tell you all about the various battles and the history ofthe Maharaji kings and queens that used to live there... really cool. This city is nicknamed the blue city cos of all the blue houses and you get an amazing view cubist style of the houses below...

Finally we are back in Delhi and just about to go and see a bollywood movie as apprently that is something not to be missed...

tomorrow... Hong Kong! See you there!
Lots of love
Katie and seb

Ps. Link to Delhi driving... very scary!

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Well folks... we're back from our adventures in the Himalayas... by day 10 we were tired and sore and incredibly smelly but feeling rather proud of ourselves for completing this pretty tough trek. (Click on the photo left to see more photos of our trip so far.) Finding it difficult to explain what the trek was like really, it consisted mainly of walking alot (dur!) through a vast and wonderful land of extremes... from rolling grasshills, to forest tracks, to steep scree slopes, snowy glacial peaks and rough morraine, across streams and rivers, down steep, dusty, narrow paths into forgotten villages where no roads go; from freezing cold nights to boiling hot days; from 2000m to 5000m altitude; from starving hungry and serious lack of energy to stuffed beyond all belief (after every meal!); peace and quiet like we've never known before, giving us unknown time to reflect and think about anything and everything; We did have a secret weapon to help us through and I don't think I could have done it without our incredible porters, horsemen and ponies who carried the bulk of our stuff for us, cooked for us, woke us up with a cup of tea and a bowl of hot water every morning, built fires for us, and kept us going with their cheerful outlook, endless energy and incredible hard work.

Now we're back in the civilised land of guesthouses, showers, toilets, beds, cafes, shops, laundry services, untold amounts of chocolate cake and even a couple of beers... Macleod Ganj is where the Dalai Lama currently resides (when he's not in Canada) and his temple was certainly worth a visit to see the devout Buddhists meditating and praying to the elaborate statues.

We're feeling relaxed and healthy and plan to spend our last 10 days in India by visiting the famous Golden Temple in Amritsar, and then off to Rajistan to do a touristy trek on camels into the desert, then I guess we'll pay a quick visit to the Taj Mahal, (apparently it's quite impressive) and finally back to smelly Delhi (- oh joy) before we're off to Hong Kong... Loads of cool stuff to do yet!