Our flight to Dalat was delayed so we arrived later than expected but we managed to find a clean room fairly quickly. We stayed at the Peace Hotel which was fine but, the best part is that we found our Easyriders...rather, they found us. We booked a 3 day journey from Dalat back to Saigon through the Central Highlands and a night at Cat Tien National Park.

Our drivers, Mr River (Mr Giang) and Mr Forest (Mr Lam we called him) provided two very comfortable motorbikes, rain gear, helmets and great conversation. The price was a little on the steep side (but well worth it), $260 including accommodation (for us and them), petrol and two English speaking guides/drivers. Note to travellers - these guys were great; if you're thinking of doing a tour ask the receptionist at the Peace Hotel (one of them is married to Lam) as they'll know how to get in touch.

Day 1 - The first stop was Crazy House which is right in Dalat; a cement bad dream full of winding staircases and rooms with colourful names like kangaroo, bamboo and gourd. The design of each room reflected each name, gourd for example had a giant cement gourd - nice! The next stop was a flower farm, Dalat produces a large amount of flowers (roses, gerbera dasies) for most of the major cities in Asia. Next stop was a coffee plantation where we saw the Arabica variety of beans growing - they don't harvest them until September/October time so it's early in the season yet. Vietnam is supposedly the second largest exporter of coffee in the world, after Brasil that is. All I can say is that the coffee is great - very strong and served black on ice with loads of sugar is the best way to have it. Silk worms in action was the next stop, we saw the first stage of silk production which is where thousands of silk worms gorge themselves on mulberry leaves (it sounds like a river in the distance - weird). Later we would see the cocoons transformed into the finished product. We made two more stops during the day, one at a mushroom farm and the other at Elephant waterfall where we saw a pagoda as well - with huge smiling buddha. We stopped to sleep in Bao Lac; the hotel wasn't great but it was clean and a good place to lay our heads, especially as we'd been driving for the last hour in torrential rain.

Day 2 - A short ride to Cat Tien National Park; on the way we saw some beautiful views, tea, coffee and cashew plantations and even stopped for some fresh rambutans which we picked fresh from the tree. We had to leave the bikes behind once we entered the park as you have to cross a river by boat. Once on the other side we were free to walk through the park and trek as we desired; but we decided to play cards and wait for our night tour which was cancelled due to rain (it IS the rainy season...). We did however, get to see some monkeys, many many butterflies and some bears as well as a poisonous snake.

Day 3 - For me, the best of the 3 days as most of the ride back to Saigon was through little villages and on small roads through the amazing countryside. We saw a rubber plantation as well as a floating village along the way, but the best bit was staying on the bikes. We ran into rain again late in the day and after waiting an hour or so for it to die down, we donned the rain gear and pushed the final 60km into Saigon. We're back safe and happy and will be having one final meal with River who's staying in the city to see if he can find some more tourists to take back with him. Lam had another tour booked already so he was heading part of the way back tonight.

Tomorrow we're off to Cambodia; we'll be sad to leave Vietnam but what a great way to end this part of the trip!

We've spent the last 2 days visiting the sights in Saigon, the War Remnants museum was certainly the most impactful. It's a nice city, none of the charm of Hanoi but it certainly has a life of it's own. Even crossing the road here is an adventure, hold the arm of the person next to you and step carefully into traffic so that the mopeds can dodge you as you walk slowly to the other side. We've almost got it mastered, you can tell new arrivals by how long they wait on the pavement.

The food here has been great, I've fallen in love with the Bo Tung Xeo Restaurant, we've been back 2 times already (and we'll be going back when we return from Dalat). Cook your own sliced marinated beef (Bo tung xeo) on a charcoal BBQ, with sides of rice and stirfried spinach. The marinade made of the following:

Tons of garlic
Soy Sauce
Sugar
Red wine
A little milk (that's what the guy said)
Vinegar (probably rice vinegar)
No oil, but it looked like there was some.

I'm not sure of the measures, but you can be sure I'll be trying it when I get home. Not sure if lighting a charcoal brazier in your home is that safe...I'll have to have an extinguisher near by.

Fanny's, the best ice cream and sorbets we've had so far in Asia, was our dessert option. For those that are a little more brave (Kelly & Francois) try the peanut, green tea or cinnamon (which I'll be trying next time). I opted for the passion fruit sorbet and wasn't disappointed.

Off to Dalat tommorow for a motorbike tour through the mountains...

I went in yesterday to get a shave and a haircut at the local street barber, however the Vietnamese take shaving to a whole new level. After carefully shaving the top of my head, he proceeded to use a straight razor on the rest. This included my eyebrows, nose, forehead and even the tops of my ears. I was unaware that ears need shaving, but hey. I opted out of the ear cleaning, it looked too dangerous. The barber puts on a head lamp and proceeds to dig around in your ears with tools that look like medieval torture devices, apparently Vietnamese men go once every two weeks to get it done. They were giving me a hard time for having 29 years of built up grime to clean out....maybe i'll work up the courage to give it a try.

We were up at 4am to catch our flight to Hue from the Hanoi Airport, the taxi arranged by our hotel arrived on time and the flight was perfect getting us in to Hue at about 9am. We chose to take the airport shuttle into the city and it dropped us off at the Thahn Noi Hotel. Slightly more expensive than the accomodation in Hanoi, but well worth it as we were staying inside the walls of the the citadel in Hue. We spent the morning visiting the citadel (gorgeous and sprawling) and the afternoon on a mission to send home a giant tea pot. On our way to visit a pagoda we stumbled accross a pottery shop and both fell in love with a massive teapot and bought it without hesitation. We spent more than an hour wandering around the south bank of the town in order to find the Central post office, who generously helped us pack it in foam. (Hopefully it'll make it once piece.) The only problem with travelling with small bags (not that the teapot would have fit anyway) is that shipping charges start to add up.

The next morning we took a bus south from Hue to Hoi An which took about 4 hours. After some searching we managed to find a great hotel thanks to a random encounter with an 'Easy Rider'. We're staying at the Phuoc An hotel, just outside the old town. $17 gets you a pool, a large room with air-con, breakfast and very friendly staff. It's only a 10 minute walk to the river in town, but they give you free bikes if you want them. If you're coming to Hoi An, you can't do much better than this for what you pay.

Hoi An is beautiful. It's a great place to unwind for a few days/weeks. The beach (just outside of town) is gorgeous, the old town is resonably quiet as no cars are allowed and every street is filled with tailors ready to create whatever you want....dangerous! Four pairs of trousers, three skirts and a coat later, we feel we've embraced what Hoi An has to offer. The food choices here seem more Vietnamese and less Chinese. We've had grilled fish, fresh clams, king prawns as well as the local specialties - white roses (shrimp dumplings), deep fried wontons, fresh spring rolls and Cao Lau.

We'll be living the good life in Hoi An until Wednesday and then we're flying to HCMC before going to Dalat for our last few days in Vietnam. Right now...off to get fitted for my nice new trousers.

We arrived early in the morning at the Hanoi train station (roughly 5 am)and made our way to the Van Mihn hotel for a quick shower before getting on the bus for Halong bay. We were picked up shortly after 8 by our tour guide, taken to our chariot and whisked away to anticipated bliss. Boy were we wrong.

Tours in Vietnam operate in a very interesting way. The price you pay for the tour doesn't dictate the service level, or standard. Therefore someone can pay $37 for the same tour as someone who paid $100. It also seems as if It doesn't really matter which tour company you book with as they all pool together in the end. It's all a bit of a lucky dip, some people get lucky and some people don't. We booked with Sihn Cafe on Hang Bac Street (May the fleas of a thousand camels infest their genitals). I feel lucky that we were on the low side of the price range as our Halong experience was by far the worst travel experience we've ever had. If you're thinking of taking in the scenery of Halong bay, book a day trip or 1 night on the boat.

Arriving in Halong city we were shuttled on to our boat. We were supposed to have booked a small tour with 15 people, but it turns out that it just means that 15 people will sleep on the boat in the evening, not how many they can ferry accross to Cat Ba island. We spent most of the afternoon anticipating the cool water, only to find out that we would be spending the first night in a hotel. Once on Cat Ba we unloaded the 15 suckers (including ourselves) who were driven to the centre of town. The driver (opium teeth included) was a nutcase, only after breaking the wing mirror in a near collision with another, much bigger, bus did he decide to slow down.

We arrived, a little shaken at the Chiang Son hotel. What a shit hole! Even those people on a very tiny budget weren't happy. Obviously someone was trying to cut corners and make some more margin on the tour.

Note to single travellers: Make sure you get your tour operator to write down "single room, no sharing on pain of death" on their forms. Make sure you get the "single" extra cost included in your fare. If you don't, the hotels and boat operators will assume that you will share with anyone, male or female, sometimes in a double bed.

Our new friend Niamh was unfortunately one of those that paid for a single room but failed to get them to write it down in the tour book. So she was forced to share, or pay for a more expensive room. As we had a 3 bed room, the tour guide expected her to share with us...even though we were clearly a couple. In the end we had the hotel owner pay us to share the room, but it left a very sour taste. It was so late by the time we settled the hotel debacle, that we couldn't go swimming. We had a quick supper and went upstairs to bed as we had a very early start the next morning. The food wasn't great, either on the boat or in the hotel...if you're doing one of these tours you'd be better off finding your own food. If we take other tours in the south, we'll learn our lesson.

Our guide (if he called me friend one more time I was ready drop him off the boat) was waiting for us at breakfast and notified us that we would start our Cat Ba trek at 8am. The trek itself was beautiful, 2 hours of very rocky terrain in the national park. We saw big spiders and snakes, and were soaked with sweat when we returned. If you ever go, bring lots of water, a hat and good shoes...although the guide did it in flip flops (not sure how). The view from the top of the mountain was amazing.

Finally after spending most of our time away from the boat, we were ready to get back on and hopefully do some swimming. At about 3pm we were taken back to the boat, thankfully with a much safer driver. Crossing paths with the other 15 we warned them of the hotel and our experience (turns out they had a very similar one.) They warned us to bring lots of water to the boat as they ran out and it was a struggle to get the captain to go and get more.

On the boat Niamh was again told that she would have to share a room with a stranger (a guy), this time with a double bed. In the end she had to sleep in the dining area as the lock on her room was broken and the boat crew said that the only way to use the room was to climb through the window.

The swimming in the evening was nothing short of wonderful, after almost 2 days of waiting to get in the water we had 1 hour of free swimming time. Bliss. After supper we sat on the upper deck, watched the stars and ate Oreo's. Our room was muggy and hot, as the fan kept stopping...but my mood improved after the swim so it wasn't too bad.

Breakfast just about tipped everyone over the edge. We were served bread (with ants for extra protein), 1 deep fried egg, and 1 small glass of tea. They didn't have any water left, and they wouldn't let us have any more food. By that time we couldn't wait to get off the boat and back to Hanoi to relax...who would have thought.

Given the number of people who go to Halong Bay, all experiences can't be like ours. Just make sure you get all promises in writing before you go so that you can force them to give you a refund when you don't get what you expected.

Back in Hanoi, we returned to the Van Mihn, and had a great nights sleep. Today we wandered about the old quarter and had a fantastic lunch at the Green Tangerine (48 Hang Be, Hanoi, Old Quarter). The service was fantastic and the set lunch was devine. We took the recipe for the Tamarind chicken with vermicelli noodles!

Tommorow we fly to Hue, the start of another adventure.

Booking the tour to Sapa was relatively painless, just hand over your cash to one of the many tour operators in Hanoi and hope for the best. We booked with Sihn Cafe (or likely one of the fake ones). The system is one of organised chaos, tickets arriving at the last minute, different drivers, and that's just to get you to the train.

Be careful when booking your tour and make sure that you get exactly what you paid for. The tour companies appear to book your train tickets after they promise you the nice cushy VIP berth, when in fact they have no idea of availability until later in the day. This means that you can be stuck with anything from a VIP ticket to a hard seat for 10 hours. We booked soft-sleeper and had hard-sleeper, although we were lucky by all accounts as other travellers fared much worse.

Once we arrived in Sapa everything seemed to go much more smoothly and was definitely worth the trouble to get there. We booked a 4 night 3 day tour, which started off on day one with a easy trek to Cat Cat and a beautiful waterfall. Benjamin (the Chilean photographer) and I couldn't help but go for a swim. The water was clear and cold and worth the effort scrambling over a few rocks. We spent the first night in the Sapa Summit Hotel, which was clean and had an amazing view from our fifth floor room. The food included in the tour package isn't the best, so if we were going again, I think I'd skip it and go into town. (The chocolate chip and raisin cookies at Baguette & Chocolat were amazing!) We spent the night in the Sapa Summit Hotel, which was lovely and well equipped for dealing with sweaty, dirty hikers.

The second day was very wet, forcing us to buy lovely ponchos...everyone was laughing at me as I looked like a monk. The trek itself wasn't too bad for most of it until we reached the muddiest hill I'd ever seen. Without the help of the village ladies who were following us the whole way, none of any of the groups would have made it down. The H'Mong women were amazing, no taller than 5 feet, but more sturdy than mountain goats. It took two of the them to hold me up (yes, I checked my pride at the door and accepted all the help I could). We spent the night in Ta Van village, with a family. Both the stay and the food were excellent. We had friendly conversation (mostly with sign language) and they even managed to get Jen and I to have a couple of glasses of their home brewed rice wine. Waking up in the morning to mist over the rice terraces and the smell of pancakes from the kitchen was amazing and made the upcoming muddy trek seem better. Four hours of muddy/rainy treking later we were back in Sapa ready for the bus back to our train to return to Hanoi.

After all the walking, climbing and sliding we were ready for some relaxation in Halong Bay...

We've been in Hanoi since Saturday and will be staying until Wednesday before heading off on a tour through the hill stations in northern Vietnam.

Upon arrival we were a little bit apprehensive about Vietnam as the impression we got from other travellers was that the Vietnamese were pushy and wouldn't leave you alone - they couldn't be more wrong. Compared to China, Hanoi is a paradise. The people are friendly, often smiling and usually ready to help (even for free!). It's amazing the difference a smile makes when you're travelling. So far we love Hanoi and could easily stay here for a week at least.

We haven't done a lot in the last few days as I've still been recovering from my bout of the 'travellers flu', I've even lost inches and Jen figures I've lost 1/2 to a whole stone!

We've visited the Museum of Ethnology (alright - Jen liked it better than I did), which had nice exhibits and explanations in English, French and Vietnamese. We've also been to the Temple of Literature, which was beautiful. It was a school for the teachings of confucius. This afternoon we took in a water puppet show - good family fun.

Normally I'd fill this space with the food choices that we've made over the past few days but I've had a baguette, iced tea, water and a banana - not exactly gourmet but good enough. Jen however, has had a number of excellent meals including Pho Bo (Beef Pho - noodle soup)and simmered pork spareribs with grilled aubergines (eggplant).

As mentioned, we'll be hanging out in Hanoi for the next couple of days and now we can officially say we've been to the Nam.

This post is more for those travellers looking for information on the journey from China to Vietnam by train as we found it extremely difficult to find any reliable information before we went. Everyone we met seemed to have a different answer to the same question so we through we'd tell you our experience.

Tickets
Buying the tickets for us was relatively easy once we found a travel agent in Yangshou (see Note below for Beijing detail) who knew what we were talking about. You find a lot of people providing travel advice to tourists in Yangshou but make no mention of this method of crossing the border into Vietnam; we were even told by one girl that you couldn't take the train to Hanoi. We used the CITS travel agent across the street from the Morning Sun Hotel who was very helpful. We were told that there are only 4 soft sleeper berths from Guilin to Hanoi so they get booked quickly - make sure you book as soon as you can (3-4 days in advance). He also told us that there are no hard sleeper berths that go all the way to Hanoi - they all appeared to be soft sleeper from what we could see.

China to Hanoi trains originate in Beijing every Thursday and Sunday, arrive in Guilin on the Friday or Monday and into Vietnam on the Saturday or Tuesday. We took the Friday train from Guilin to Hanoi (there are more than these 2 stops throughout the entire journey).

The Journey
We got on the train at Guilin Central Station just before 15:00. The Chinese leg was relatively painless until we arrived at Nanning when we were all told to get off the train and we weren't sure why. We were told to leave our bags and sit in the soft berth waiting room. It turns out that the train separates and only a few cars continue on from Nanning to the border at Pingxian. Make sure you get some sleep in on the first leg as once you hit the border it becomes quite hard. Once back on the train we had a couple more hours before we arrived at Pingxian where the Chinese border officials board the train and have you complete exit cards and take your passports for examination. We were lucky as this only lasted 1.5hrs but our passports were gone for most of this time. When your passport is returned, make sure you get an exit stamp; if you don't, this could cause hassle at the Vietnamese border crossing in Dongdang.

Vietnam Border Crossing
The train rolled on for about 1/2 an hour after all of the Chinese hoo ha and stopped in Dongdang where we all had to get off the train, this time with all our bags, to go through Vietnamese border formalities. Remember, this is happening at about 3:00am. The crossing is a fairly small room with a customs window for collecting your landing card and an immigration window where they check your visa, Chinese exit stamp, completed landing card and then give you the necessary stamps. They tend to take large numbers of passports, check for the necessaries and then take the passports to another room, which you can't see into, and do some more checks (likely on a database or something). The room also includes a health check, which costs 2 Yuan to stick a thermometer into your ear, and a ticket window where you must verify your ticket.

Order in which to do things:

1. complete landing card
2. hand passport and landing card to immigration
3. verify ticket
4. health check
5. go back to immigration to pick up your passport.

Again, it is a very small room so you'll not be walking more than a few feet for each of these.

Our train from Nanning was 4 sleeper cars whilst the Vietnamese train was 2, hence the need to verify tickets and reshuffle passengers as necessary.

The Vietnamese train is not as nice as the Chinese one but it's a place to lay your head for the next 4 hours until you roll into Hanoi at 8am Vietnamese time (1hr behind China).

The journey was made even harder for me as I spent the entire night very sick (you know what I mean) - ate something dodgy in Guilin before we boarded. I'm still not feeling so great and only barely managing to hold down water after 24hours. Jen's been nursing me to health though so I'm sure I'll be better soon.

Note - Train Tickets from Beijing to Vietnam
This information comes from a passenger who did the journey herself and who we met along the way - we told her we'd blog her experience along with ours as she had very little information on the journey beforehand.

In Beijing she was told by her hostel to go to the East train station to get her train ticket for Hanoi. At the station they didn't know what she was talking about and after going to a number of different windows was told to go to Beijing West station. She went to Beijing West station only to be told that they didn't sell those tickets but to go to the bank next to the station. The bank told her that they didn't sell the tickets but to go to the Railway Hotel*, which is connected to Beijing West Station. Next to the entrance to the Railway Hotel there is a small door with an RTS sign - this is where you buy your Beijing to Hanoi train ticket in Beijing.

Whilst there may be other ways, this is how she managed to purchase her ticket in Beijing.

*The Railway Hotel may be called something else i.e. have another word in front of Railway - she couldn't remember specifically but you should recognise it if you go.

Well, it's Thursday night and we've been in Yangshou for the entire week. It's a great place to veg and the surrounding landscape is absolutely beautiful!

On Monday we went cycling around the countryside. We peddled 3.5hrs in total and went along highway (at 9km, we thought we may have been lost until a kind Chinese man stopped in his car and confirmed that we were heading in the right direction - we had a map thankfully), through rice fields and small villages. Arriving at the only river crossing we were told that we couldn't use the bridge (not convinced!) and would have to cross by bamboo raft. After some negotiation we managed to secure passage to the other side even though the raftsman tried very hard to convince us that the trail wasn't wide enough for bikes (we found out later that he was sort-of right). We spent the next 2hrs cycling back to Yangshou through rice fields and the most amazing limestone formations. Jen even fell ankle-deep in mud whilst single track riding through a rice paddy - hard core! We'll have to get Jen on a bike when we're back in Canada now that she's an expert :).

The next day we decided to try our hand at some Chinese cooking and were joined by 2 other couples, one Dutch and another American at the Cloud 9 Restaurant. Our menu included:

Menu
Gung Bao Chicken (Kung Pow - to us Westerners)
Beer Fish
Vegetable Dumplings

We started the course by taking a trip to the local food market to pick up some of our ingredients (we skipped the dog section; slightly disturbed by the ones being bled out and skinned). Our facilities included 7 workstations, one for the teacher and the rest for us. We had some initial prep, learning how to properly chop veggies with a cleaver and then got down to business. The instructor reminded us of the Chinese takeaway woman in Dude, Where's My Car?, for those of you who know the film (those of you who don't, rent it, it's a good laugh). She kept saying "...and theeeen..."; tempting us to respond "...No And Then!" We cooked for the better part of 3 hours and learned how to fold dumplings properly. If we remember by the time we get home, it'll be a miracle! We got all of the recipes and I'm sure we'll be posting them in the future.

That afternoon was spent by the river giving impromptu English lessons to a few Chinese students. They teach themselves English using books and the China Daily newspaper as the 2000 Yuan per person cost for a one-month course is just too expensive for some of them.

On Wednesday (happy birthday to Jen's dad!) we went from Yangshou to Longsheng to see the rice terraces North of Guilin. Our tour included a gem of a bus which included no aircon (well, not really), blinds on one side of the bus and a tour guide who was hell bent on filling it to the rafters. 3 hours later we were more than happy to make the 15 minute climb uphill to our lunch destination. Our lunch included bamboo rice and bamboo chicken, it was rice with veg and chicken cooked over a fire in a piece of bamboo with cobs of corn to keep both the heat and food inside; they were split in 1/2 lengthwise to eat from - very tasty. We spent the next couple of hours wandering around the terraces with a Belgian family of 4; it was absolutely beautiful and well worth the trip. The way back was much nicer as fewer people came back with us, until 15 minutes down the road we picked up some women from a broken-down bus. I had the pleasure of providing my shoulder for a woman to sleep on - grumpy!

Today we took it easy and pampered ourselves with a haircut & shave from the local barber who looks a lot like my dad, just Chinese. He managed to shave just about every bit of my head including ears and other orifices. Later I had a massage and Jen had a trim foot (slough all of the skin off of one's feet) which involved torches (flashlights), tubs of tea-coloured murkey water and lots of tools that you'd likely find in the tray of a Morrocan street dentist.

Tomorrow, off to Vietnam...

It's been a while since our last post so this should be a long one. Our 2 day trips from Guangzhou turned into 1 day trip and a day sauntering around, eating and playing cards in Starbucks (I know, I know...). We took a bus from Guangzhou to Zhaoqing (2hrs) where we watched fab music videos along the way - who knew that the nooma nooma song had been remade into a chinese pop song! It's actually quite good.

Zhaoqing was a lovely town; we spent the afternoon walking through a protected park of lakes and limestone formations. You take a speed (sort of) boat from the main town for 5 minutes or so to the park. The landscape is beautiful and the caves are a great way to cool off in the heat of the day. Some great flourescent lights showing off the rock formations inside and a little boat ride which reminded us a little of the 'It's a small world' ride at Disney World.

The next day was spent walking around Shamian Island in Guangzhou; straying only to have lunch in a local place across the river which we went to the other night for dinner. The meal was great - pork & potato hot pot, choy sum, rice and tea - and a guest. For the first time ever on any of our travels we were visited at lunch by an inch long cockroach crawling up Jared's arm - you've never seen a grown man move so fast! Needless to say, the rest of the meal was consumed very quickly from there. We spent a lovely afternoon playing cards and drinking mango frappucinos in Starbucks until we had to catch our night train to Guilin.

The night train from Guangzhou to Guilin was great. We took a soft sleeper and in our room were two Chinese ladies who spoke excellent English; so we ended up chatting for most of the evening. Did you know that people born in the year of the snake have good luck if they are friends or are married to those who are also born in the year of the snake? Well, all 4 of us in the room were snakes; so we felt very fortunate.

We arrived in Guilin just after 7am and found a decent hotel (a bit smokey) and then went off for the day wandering around town. A much nicer place than Guangzhou - very green. We spent the morning at Princes City Solitary Beauty Peak (mouthful!) which provides a lovely view of Guilin and the surrounding countryside; but by the time we got to the top we were a little hot (understatement!) and all we could think about was cool aircon - must find cool aircon.

Shire Hobbiton Coffee Shop was a great place to veg out for a few hours. Not sure about the coffee but the drinks were good and the staff extremely friendly. We spent quite a while speaking to a young Chinese girl named Belinda who speaks like an Aussie, which was unexpected.

The next day (we're on Friday 29th if you've lost track) we went to Reed Flute Caves and, after a failed attempt to find the commodities market, we went to the Seven Stars park for a snack. More cooling off in the Shire and then to a really good Guilin noodle house recommended by Belinda. We scoffed down 2 bowls of noodles and a coke for 6 Yuan (40p) - bargain!

The highlight of the week had to be the boat trip from Guilin to Yangshou up the Li River; although a few dozen boats go down the river together, the scenery is still amazing and it's definitely worth the trip (and the cost). We've decided to spend a few days in Yangshou (likely for the rest of the week...) in our great little hotel - Morning Sun Hotel.

If we fancy doing anything tomorrow, it'll likely be cycling through the countryside around Yangshou, but we don't want to exhert ourselves too much.

Oh Yeah - HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!