Liuzhou Railway Hotel

Today we jumped on a public bus and went to Liuzhou which is a "typical" Chinese city and definitely off the tourist trail!! On the way there we went through the most modern city I have seen, every building (no exaggeration) was less than 10 years old and the amount of building work that was happening there was crazy, cranes littered the sky! Another thing that I have learnt that is different here is that youy ...

... bikes, cars, trucks, animals and pedestrians so you just have to go with it and forcefully push through, never gaining too much speed in the process. Certainly an exhilarating (and addicting) style of transport! Even though there are several lakes in Hanoi and a classic French feel to the city, I still sensed a dirtyness that caused me to hold back more on the local food that I would otherwise. I think the fact that food areas are always littered and that ...

... of going from our beautifully air-conditioned hotel room to the muggy mid-summer weather. The heat I generated by walking up the hill didn't help, either. Even now, before sunrise, Dan and I have pearls of sweat trickling down through the coating of bug repellent and under our T-shirts. The short but steep climb up to this crag in the city park has us huffing for breath. I think forward to our ...

... we finished our meal our waitress pulled up a chair and spoke to us for hours. Then she brought over the owner of the restaurant to come talk to us, too! They were super nice and we were more than welcome to help them practise their English. They taught us a lot about China and Yangshuo. Our first day in Yangshou we rented some bikes ($1.40 each) and headed down to a small town of FuLi, about 10 km from Yangshou. We rode on the highway, and luckily it was mostly downhill. But in 40 ...

... there twice (I love it!), one of my favorite dishes here is cashews, celery, and lotus bulbs. One of the highlights for us has been the bike ride through the countryside around town. We saw farmers in the fields, babies on their mother's and grandmother's backs, and fisherman using cormorants to catch dinner. We also climbed up one of the karst outcroppings for a better view ...

... Our hotel in Liuzhou turned out to have heating and lovely showers (and sit down toilets) which is always such a luxury. That night we went out to the Soho bar after a dinner of noodles, dim sums and (for some) quail eggs. Soho Bar is the popular nightspot here and Sharon (our tour guide) had some of her local friends meet us here. They were very friendly and we were playing paper-scissors-rock and the local dice game in no time. The vodka and tiger beers ...

... of a group of old, traditional stone farm houses. It has been completely renovated and now has 24-hour hot water and Western style toilets. The food is great too! And if we are fed up with rice or noodles, we can always opt for the uitsmijter met ham en kaas (toast with egg, ham and cheese) or banana pancakes. The first night we met two other travellers: Herbert, a Dutch travel writer, and a person Tibet who is working here in the winter.

Hi everyone, Actually I don't have much to tell this time, but I have a lot of nice pictures, so I also write a journal entry to explain them a little. In the days after the students barbeque, we went to two more bicycle trips: One to a town called Xian Ping, which is not very intresting by itself, but the road to the town is beautiful. The other bicycle tour was to a hill ...

Hi everyone, Last time I wrote we were at Lijiang, trying to decide what to do next. Well, two days after we took a 8-hours bus to Kunming, the capital of the region. Kunming is a very big city, with not many attractions for tourists, and we were there for about one morning. In this morning I went to see two pavilions recommended by the Lonely Planet guidebook. The pavilions were not that impressive, but on the way I got to see few nice things. You'll see in the pictures. From ...

... to change the settings in Control Panel but got a bit lost so managed without. The internet was really fast, even so 2 hours sped by and it hit evening time, time for dinner. We opted out of a group dinner, and decided to head down town to explore. The city was big and well-developed, with lots of neon lights and bright city stores, the locals all dressed up and ready to party. We ate in an open food market, where they give you a 'hot pot' with ...