China and Vietnam 3 months in 08

5 kilometers from the Hoi An town. The weather was not the best, but we grabbed any opportunity we could

5 kilometers from the Hoi An town. The weather was not the best but we grabbed any opportunity we had

It has been a little time since I last made an entry. In Vietnam most of the population is Buddhist so we did not expect such a large interest in Xmas as we saw. Xmas eve we decided we would go to the church for the mass, what we saw was like a circus. About 300 meters from the church the crowd was amassing in what looked like a carnival atmosphere. There was music, balloons, fluorescent head and wrist bands and people and bikes everywhere. As we moved closer to the church the crowd was dense and ...

Hi everyone, I know it has been two weeks since we last updated this blog, and for all who have been patiently waiting for an update I sincerely apologize. The truth is that since our meeting with the two organisations operating here we have been extremely busy and by the end of the day we are both physically exhausted and at times emotionally exhausted as well. As mentioned, our time here is spent between two organisations, the Degenhart foundation working out of America and the Hoi An Orphanage ...

The weather in Hue was not favourable and Cha and I decided we could not take it any longer, we had to move further south. As Danang was on our way to Hoi An we thought we might stop here for a day or so before heading to Hoi An. Upon arriving we took out the trusty guide and caught a taxi to the city centre. Stopping at a few hotels and not negotiating a very good rate and seeing the town from the taxi windows we quickly decided to keep moving and instructed our driver to take us to Hoi An straight ...

Our destination was Hue and it took three and a half hours in this cramped form of travel to reach it. We opted for the lonely planet recommended hotel called the Thai Binh II and although it was relatively clean and reasonably priced at US20 per night we think we might have found better if we had looked around near the Thai Binh I. Hue was much more tourist oriented than any other regional cities we have visited so far. This is to be expected as it offers tourists much choice of sites to see. I ...

The hotel we are currently staying at is definitely worth mentioning. It was called the Xuan Hoa Hotel II and it is the only place to stay while here. So far the owner has demonstrated well developed concepts of customer service. The restaurant is always full of people and from what I can tell the two hotel towers next to each other seem to have a high occupancy rate. Definitely worth staying here if you are travelling through Ninh Binh. The trip to Hoa Lu was defiantly a must by bike. The ...

Today we have spent a first day in Ninh Binh and it can be said to be like a relatively quiet country town. Although when I say quiet all I really mean is not as chaotic as Hanoi. There are horns blasting all the time and there are still plenty of motorcycles. We have decided to see a destination called Tam Coc which has been described as Halong Bay nestled in the rice fields. The tour was 12kms from where we were staying so we rented two motorcycles with drivers and the five of us proceeded to ...

After five days resting on the island of Cat Ba we all felt quite rested. The kids took the opportunity with their time in one place to meet some of the local children and develop a kind a friendship that only comes so naturally with kids of their age. They played pool and shared their toys and the language was no barrier. If there is one thing they miss most it is the opportunity to play with kids of their own age. This should be remedied when we work in the orphanage in Hoi An. Cha and I both ...

The train and bus trip over the boarder was an interesting experience. The boarder crossing was something to experience. On the Chinese side everything was professional and thorough, on the Vietnamese side less grandiose and definitely less organised. We finally reached Hanoi in the evening and found our way to a little hotel in the Old Quarter. Our first impression was pure chaos. There were bikes and motorbikes everywhere. The footpaths were covered with parked bikes and the only access to the ...

The train to Guilin was long and slow. The overall duration was about 29 hours. The kids were very well behaved given the time in such a confined space. We arrived around midnight in Guilin and only had to walk across the road to our hotel here. The City of Guilin was described as being small and easily accessible. But even so there was over a million people living here. This City is situated on the Li River and does boast some of the most beautiful scenery so fare seen in China. It's scenery ...

Xi'an is an industrial city and boasts lost of pollution. During the day the façade on the buildings, steps and ground are covered by this fine dust that is the pollution settling down from the coal fired power stations that powers the region. From where we were staying we could walk the streets and find commercial cooking equipment like cookers, steamers, wok burners, fridges, etc, store after store. Refrigeration compressors also rated highly. But at night the landscape was transformed into a sea ...

In the evening we departed for Xi'an which houses the terracotta warriors. We took the train and chose a soft sleeper. Although we only needed to pay for three (the two small children travel free) we booked four bunks so we could have the entire room to ourselves on the train. This proved a wise move as the children were very excited and would have caused us much grief if we had to keep them quiet. The train departed at 9.20pm and arrived at 8.20 in the morning. The total cost for this was 1570Yuan ...

We set off from our hotel this morning for the Great wall. It is located about 2 hours from the centre of Beijing. The tourists were many, but mainly Chinese which surprised us a lot. We walked for about one hour up and down and the small part we traversed was very steep. The children had a taste of celebrity status as everyone wanted to photograph them and be photographed with them. Oscar and Henry were fine with this but Thomas well all I can say is "he is no performing monkey for anyone". We ...

Well you would like to know what the peking duck was like. Let me tell you the duck was numbered and the restauraunet has been operationg since 1863. How many ducks do you think that is? Let me tell you 1 billion, 105 million and 754,503 and I have the certificate to prove it. The restaurante is four stories high and can seat 400 tables at one time. There is no booking so you must arrive and take a number. Even with four levels of tables is took us half an hour to be seated, and the food, can be ...