Milk tea in Nepal.

And now were in Nepal! My goodness, we spent a day in Kathmandau where we shopped for the requitite fake North Face clothes (we all have identical zip-off-at-the-knee trousers, its hilarious!) and bizzare wooly hats (sexy). We also had to go get a permit as we wanted to trek in the Annapurna reigion, so we had to find the Annapurna Conservation Area Project office to purchace this. Obtaining the permit itself was easy enough, but finding the office involved a bizzare, frustrating and frankly, frightening encounter with rickshaws and busy traffic that now it is over was an 'experience' and added to the rich tapestry of character building encounters that backpacking involves.

But Kathmandu is very crowded and touristy so we were glad to head out to Pokhara to start our trekking, which is where we are now and hopefully off soon to complete the Annapurna Sanctuary trek. There is limited internet in the Himalayas so we'll post after were done and will have loads of awesome pictures (as long as its Sadie behind the camera, not me) Also it's really expensive to drink here in Nepal so were tee total while were here, so we'll let you know how that goes!

Climbing at the Baby Frog.

When we got back to Yangshuo our primary aim was to chill out for a week as we were exhausted from being on the go for so long, but we also explored some of the cimbing sites which were amazing- beautiful scenery and awesome climbing with a good range of grades, great for us as we'd had two months of drinking beer in deserts and not doing much exercise, but also really interesting to watch the seasoned pros scale the giant Karsts on the harder routes. It was very easy to do, we rented gear for the day which was cheap (twenty quid all in for rope, quickdraws, harnesses and helmets between us) and cycled off to the nearest climbing spot which was the Baby Frog. It took us four hours, but between us we conquered two routes, which to our credit in our unexercised state and battling with the baking heat was quite a feat. It was really fun and it'd be worth a trip to China for the climbing in Yangshuo alone.

We spent the rest of the time in Yangshuo relaxing and eating steamed dumplings (the best in China, maybe?) before reuctantly getting on another sleeper bus to Guangzhou for our fight to nepal. Athough, in the sleeper bus's defence, it was very cheap.

I think this is me, and definetly Sadie.

Check out the background scenery.

Sadie - master of sport climbing!

The cycle there wasn't too bad either.

China part two - Yichang to Hong Kong.

Yichang is pretty but there is nothing there really it was just a stopover before we got on our boat that would take us up through the three gorges area. We had eagerly awaited the boat as the scenery was meat to be beautiful, but more importanty we had been promised thet there woud be on-board kareoke or 'Kariboaty!' as it was christened (in a strong northern accent). When we first got on the boat it was very exciting and the foyer has a chandelier and carpet and was very nice. And then we saw our cabins which were HORRIBLE! Being used to budget travel we have previously stayed in worse places, but the plush hotels of the tour had spoiled us and the cabins were dirty (and we diddnt even look behind the furniture) and smelled sooo bad. We were jeaous of Sara and Orissa's room because they had a toilet seat, but on the other hand our toilet door stayed shut. We all dealt with this by congregating on deck and getting drunk on various Chinese spirits. Our luxury cruise took us through the gigantic Three Gorges Dam through a series of locks that were over a hundred feet tall each. It was all very impressive.

The next day we were woken up at some ungodly hour to get on a smaller boat, to get on another even smaller boat so we could explore further up into one of the smaller rivers. The whoe area is very beautiful, the mountains are green, the cliffs are high and we even saw monkeys. But heavy drinking on the boat the night before meant half of us felt terrible, and it was very hard going. The views afforded to us by the boat were very cool and at night when we were all hungover we all snugged up in Spiv and Cath's cabin and watched a film with the window behind the TV screen and we could see all the twinkling lights on the hills and on the other ferrys on the water.

After the boat there was a bus/overnight train/bus sandwich that seemed to go on forever (we were al sick of eating instant noodles on trains) but at the end of that we were rewarded with Yangshuo. Whenever you see anything promoting tourism to China it will have pictures of the region around Yangshuo, the land in the area is pretty flat but dotted around are these big mountains shaped like upside down cups. The prettiest part is the stretch of the Li river starting at Xingping (which is on the back of the 20 yuan note) and we did a cruise on a bamboo raft down the river, which was awesome. The next day we went off as a group cycling to an area of the river with smaller bamboo rafts. Before you get on them, tiny old ladies with dentures made completely from silver metal sell you water pistols fashioned from bits of pipe for 30p so that when you are going down the river, rather than a tranquil paddle its an extended waterfight across a group of rafts. It was a lot of fun, the handmade water pistols were very effective and everyone was absolutely soaked, including some groups of Chinese tourists that managed to cross our paths. Don't think that we were rowdy British tourists though, the Chinese gave as good as they got!

And the frightening woman we brought the water pistols off. Don't be fooled - she was about 4ft tall but she had a grill like Jaws straight 'outta 'The spy who loved me'.

Another great part of Yangshuo is that as a touristy place lots more people spoke English. Which was good for us as hard as we tried to mumble words in Chinese, we were just terrible - the pronunciation of words for us with our limited reptoire of sounds made it difficult for people to understand what the hell we were tying to say anyway so it was nice to be able to chat with the locals - something we had been unable to do before. (Except Lois of course, who 'released' all the infomation we needed including such questions as 'Why dont the babies in China wear nappies' which they don't and there is a very interesting reason why...) Another thing that was very helpful to know was the kind of sign language they had for different numbers in China, it made haggling a lot easier.

The view from our holel in Yangshuo.

After Yangshuo it was off on our very last overnight train to Hong Kong, where we had our last meal as a group and then wandered onto the bay (Which was another beautiful city view, like the Bund in Shanghai) to watch the Light show which is made up by all the different buildings flashing their lights to music accompanied by lazers pointing up into the sky. We went out with the intention of going to a kareoke bar (which we had all talked about non stop since we got to China) but after one failed attempt where we ended up in a strip club we brought beers (5% strength beers in HK thank you!) and utiised the hotel common room instead, where we had an emotional goodbye drink with Lois. The next day was sad as we said goodbye to Rob and Kate to continue their honeymoon at a much more romantic location in Thailand and Orissa who was off to Cambodia.

We had grown quite attached to the rest so we planned to meet up the next day, but dragged Cath, Spiv and Thomas off with us to our next hotel as we just couldn't bear to leave them. It was in Chungking Mansions which is famed for being a wreched hive of scum and villainy, but our guesthouse though teeny was clean, safe and had an awesome view over the city. Over the next couple of days we went to museums, took the Star ferry, rode up the Mid-level escalators (a bunch of escalators) and shopped at various markets. We met up with Sara, Jamie, Cordy Klaus, Louisa and Marco one last time for a picnic at the top of Victoria Peak which looks out over Hong Kong Central just as the sun went down.

The bay.

The Big Bhudda on Lantau Sadie and Thomas Tawn went to see. Huge!

The next day we said goodbye to Cath and Spiv who we made promise would come to see us when we got back as we had told them all abouts the delights of Birmingham and now they cannot wait to see the sights!. After that we all explored different parts of Hong Kong, Sadie went to Lantau with Thomas Tawn (sweetcorn) to see the Big Bhudda and soak up some rays on the beach, Rich took advantage of the uptown hotels swimming faciities with Sara and I went off up the peninsula to Sai Kung to meet up with the lovely June who looked after me just like I was back at home and took me out for the best thai food in HK!

And then all of a sudden our time in Hong Kong was over, and i'm sorry to say we diddnt try much food there (sorry Kwok!) as it had amazing western food (Hardys wine!!) and everything else was very expensive. We did shop our asses off though, the markets and malls in HK are wonderful. So it was a sad goodbye to Sara and Thomas Tawn (face of a prawn) and off up to Shenzhen where we discovered the horrors of overnight sleeper busses on our way back to Yangshuo. We planned to go there for a few reasons firstly being that it has great climbing and secondly because as I said earlier, people speak English there so we could get by without Lois there to guide us.

China - Beijing to Xi'an

After leaving Ulaan Bator the journey was short in distance, but long in time as Mongolian and Chinese customs took several hours each. Then our carriages were hauled off individually to a giant warehouse where the wheels of the trains or 'bogeys' were changed to acccomodate the Chinese tracks, which are slightly different to the European tracks in Russian and Mongolia. I'd like to say that we watched enthralled at this amazing feat of engineering, as our carriages were hauled up several feet into the air by huge pneumatic lifts and as the new wheels were rolled in and attached. However, we mostly ate noodles and slept.

Beijing was where we would start our tour, and in the pouring rain we made it to our hotel. We were worried about the tour, mostly the people who would be on it, but we met our guide Louis 'Call me Lois, like Lois Lane' Liu and the rest of the bunch who (to our relief) were all very nice. We celebrated this fact by frequenting a bar together, and quickly learning that pretty much all Chinese beer is roughly 3.3% in strength. On our tour there were: Cath and Spiv (who we had seen earlier running up and down the road outside the hotel in waterproofs and crocs) Thomas Tawn (Who was sharing a room with Rich) Sara and Orissa (who were sharing a room) Kate and Rob (who were on their honeymoon!) Jamie and Cordy (Jamie would later teach us all how to complete a Rubiks cube) Klaus and Louisa (From Denmark) and Marco, who was from Finland.

Our first group excursion was the Great Wall of China, which me and Sadie were so slow to walk up to we diddn't see anyone else all day. It was very impressive, but also very, very hot. Sweaty picture of us on the Wall to follow. Other activities in Beijing included: Tiannemen Square, the Forbidden City, the Night Markets (where Rich and Spiv ate barbequed insects - yeurgh!) exploring the fancy shopping malls on Wangfujing, and failing to find the Sanlitun bar street. Worried friends and relatives would have passed out if they'd have seen me and Sadie negotiate the Beijing traffic on cycles, which was a lot of fun amongst the other thousands and millions of cycle and moped userson the road. Another thing we found very curious about Beijing which diddn't happen anywhere else in China was that being Foreign was regarded as a huge novelty, and many many Chinese people stopped to talk, stare and take photos. This was worse for Cath and Sadie who as blondes were treated practically like celebrities!

Our next destination was Shanghai which we were getting to on an overnight train. As soon as we got to the station we were 100% sure we had made the right decicion to come on the tour, as it's unlikely we would have been able to negotiate buying tickets alone, as non-Chinese speakers. (little English is spoken in China) The train set up in our Hard-sleeper carriage was a row of twenty open-ended six bedded 'dorms'. Although clean and relatively comfortable, it was noisy and the primary source of noise was Chinese men clearing their lungs and hocking up giant gobs of phglem, a sound heard often and throughout our trip never failed to elicit a shudder - especially when I was eating.

Shanghai is very beautiful, its streets in the area we were staying were lined with trees and lots of tiny boutiques. The highlights of Shanghai for me were firstly The Bund, which is the area on the river where one side is huge Asian style skyscrapers, brightly lit with flashing lights and advertisements, then across the river is 'European style' buildings, more classical in design and tastefully uplit in white. It was beautiful, i've never seen anything like it. We'd been in the day but at night the lights, the sheer enormity of the buildings and the reflections in the water completely transformed the riverfront. Secondly, we went to see an acrobatics show which was AMAZING! All throught I was on the edge of my seat as I worried more and more for the safety of the performers as the stunts became increacingly dangerous. What started off as hat juggling escalated to a giant metal 'Ball of Death!' where five performers whizzed around inside on motorbikes passing each other with only inches to spare. That coupled with a bizzare and mainly Star Wars-based sound track made it thoroughly entertaining, and i'd reccomend anyone visiting Shanghai to go.

Our next stop was Xi'an which is famous for its Teracotta warriors, the excavated site where an Emporor had an 8,000 strong army of teracotta statues placed to guard his tomb. I won't pretend to know much about it, but its very impressive and there is a branch of Subway there. Xi'an also has some cool markets that sold all manner of wonderful tat, including fake Chanel wallets and Chairman Mao watches. There was an awesome trip to the tea wholesale market where we got to try all the different teas and see the correct way of preparing it, which seemed to involve pouring most of it away. We also sampled an array of foods which ranged from the delicious (street food including a variation of spring rolls cooked flat, and on a cart, and resturants that we followed Kate and Rob too) and the bizzare (Sheep hoves we discovered after trying to be adventurous, don't have any meat on them - just skin).

Kaz.

Mongolia, Mon-Mon-Mon-Mongolia

At long last, after battling with the lack of Google in China, the terrible internet in Nepal and then a 4 day tummy bug- here it is- Mongolia!!

"Welcome to Mongolia- Everyone speak English here, we love you!" our Hostel Manager Mr Kim informed us as he picked us up from the Ulan Bator train station at the ungodly hour of 5am. We were whisked into a minibus and transported to what looked like the sort of place your Mother would hate you to walk near let alone sleep in! Luckily once we'd lugged our rucksacs up the stairs it was much nicer inside. We filled out all of the standard forms and talked about what we were hoping to do with our two weeks, then we were taken to the next door block of flats where we were shown into a small flat with two sets of bunk-beds, a kitchen, FRIDGE, bathroom and balcony. Apart from the very 70s curtains it was not too shabby and the beer cooling facilities were very much up to standard. After a short sleep and unpacking some of our things we realised that we were going to be treated to one of Mongolia's 252 sunny days a year! It was very warm and the whole city looked a lot less intimidating in the sunshine. Despite this we were repeatedly warned by Mr Kim and other hostel staff that UB was not safe, there are pickpockets, "we have man-sized rats here, you must lock the window, lock the door!" We're still not sure if he was insinuating that there were thieves or if there really were human-sized-rodents running around!

Our first job in Mongolia was to get enough money out for the things we wanted to do, like head into the Gobi desert, visit the Terelj National Park and eat something more delicious than Russia had had to offer. Amusingly the amount all three of us got out of the ATM came to 1.5 million togrogs, and although briefly millionaires by Mongolian standards, it was actually only about 260 pounds each! Oh well... By far the second most important thing we did on the first day was eat a platter of many different meats from the 'Modern Nomads' restaurant and buy large, ice cold beers for 50p. After a somewhat dismal and scary start, Mongolia was getting better and better.

Before setting off on our one-night trip to Terejl, we did a little bit of 'sploring around UB. We walked around most of the main sights and visited the Mongolian National History Museum. Now, first off it was only about a pound, so we weren't expecting much, however, it was so awful it went past being crap and became hilarious. It was essentially a crazy collection of terrible taxidermy and dinosaur bones (the only decent bit!) We had to stifle giggles at the birds in particular, they were all so manky and most of them were upside down or their feet were backwards. There was even a penguin with a strangely long neck- David Attenborough could have told them a thing or two! The final part of our museum experience was 'animals of the ocean' and included such gems as poorly stuffed sharks and blow-fish with stick on googly eyes! Hilarious! Well worth a pound.

Rich pondering the beauty of the landscape, or considering what the future holds, or maybe just hoping Kaz won't notice how much his feet smell... :P

So... Now for the serious stuff. On Wednesday 11th we bundled into another questionably maintained minibus and set off for Terelj, accompanied by two Korean girls, a Korean guy, a Canadian English teacher who was living in Korea (more about him in the Gobi), a Chilean Doctor living in China and a silent French guy who sang to himself. We had been allocated a guide of sorts in the form of a 16 yr old Mongolian girl called Nomi. As we left the city you realised just how big it was. As it peetered out towards the edges you could see all the ger camps with their bright white tents and colourful wooden poles. As soon as we arrived at our ger camp we dumped our bags and headed straight up the nearest hill to get a good view of the landscape. We climbed up

onto some of the huge gritty rocks that were scattered all across the green hillsides and enjoyed the cool breeze that hadn't quite reached us when we had been down in the valley. On our return back down we ate mutton, rice, potatoes and carrots (the first of many mutton meals!) and weirdly- sushi!

After lunch we had another little 'splore in the other direction whilst we waited for the horses to return and go for a ride around the area. If I'm honest I was dreading it, as Mr Kim had said "horse is good animal, BUT it is still animal" Anything that has eyes that big can't be trusted if you ask me (and that includes cows, which we proved in Nepal!). As it turned out the hour or so that we went riding for wasn't a terrible ordeal at all, and apart from a slightly uncomfortable length to my stirrups- I didn't hate it, it was actually quite fun! We did a huge circuit around one of the hills before running back to the ger camp. This bit WAS scary, but in a good way and we were giggling and laughing all the way to dinner after the adrenaline rush. Unsurprisingly dinner was more mutton with pasta and carrots and after we'd eaten we headed back to our ger where we lit candles, drank vodka and apple juice and played cards with the rest of the group. A memorable moment was Yohanne, our crazy French aquaintance, acting out scenes from Monty Python's 'Holy Grail' to Mauritz, from Chile- who clearly hadn't got a clue what all this "African swallow or European swallow? I told them we already got one!" and "Ni! Ni!" was all about. Very funny for us though!

We arrived back in UB by midday the next day and after a brief wash were back in the van, with Canadian Michael and on our way to the Gobi desert. This time our guide, Tugsuu, was a little bit older and a little bit more qualified and our driver, Ott, was a no-nonsense Dad type who had an infectious laugh seemed like he'd be fun too! The plan was:

• Day 1: Erdenedalay Village
  
• Day 2: Bayanzag and The Flaming Cliffs


• Day 3: The sand dunes and camel riding


• Day 4: The Ice Valley and Dalanzadgad town (shower available!)


• Day 5: Tsagaan Suvarga, The White Mountain


• Day 6: Rock formation (??) and Buddhist ruins

Each day would involve driving for about 5 hours and for about 200km, we did a lot of sleeping, looking out of the windows and listening to Ott's mix tape of The Pussy-Cat Dolls, Kelly Clarkson, Leona Lewis, The Black eyed Peas and other auditory delights- all of which he'd sing along to with gusto and sometimes with Tugsuu too! Because we were travelling such large distances each day the landscape would be completely different from the morning to the evening. All very different, all very beautiful and all very fun to walk around. Each evening we were meant to sleep in a 'tourist ger' which was the same external structure as the families gers but only kitted out with beds, a table and a mirror or a chair if we were lucky. The family would bring us food in the evening and for breakfast and flasks of hot water to make tea or coffee.

The ger we randomly went inside to make lunch when it was too windy to cook. The family had gone to the next village and got stuck there due to a sand-storm. They returned as we were eating and didn't bat an eyelid to the fact we were sat on their floor and using their cutlery! Very bizarre!

However, lovely as this was- we got lucky on the first night and didn't make it far enough to get to our tourist ger camp. Sounds bad, we were in the middle of nowhere and couldn't see another ger anywhere in any direction but after another 15 mins driving Ott pulled up to some gers to ask for some floorspace for the night. After a few polite refusals we came across a tiny ger, again- in the middle of nowhere, no other gers in sight, just a small herd of goats and some horses tethered to a washing line. The family inside quietly welcomed us in and after Ott had made us all at home issuing orders in Mongolian left right and centre, the Father offered us a some of the dairy foodstuffs that they produced from their goats. We tried a hard, sharp tasting cheese called 'aro' that was a lot like Parmesan (amusingly we later realised all three of us had put it into our coat pockets after a couple of bites!). We tried a kind of fizzy yoghurt with sugar which required us to lick the bowl once we'd finished. And we tried 'urom' and 'eezgeii', a delicious clotted cream that we ate on biscuits and a weird hard cheese cluster that would have broken our teeth if Tugsuu hadn't warned us. Needless to say the cream on biscuits was mine and Kaz's favourite and we ate way more of it than is probably healthy- doubled our cholesterol in one morning for sure!

The Mongolian family who took us in on the first night, and our guide Tugsuu in the red T-shirt.

Another perk to our impromptu 'real' Mongolian experience was playing with the children. The family had five children, two were away at University in the city and the remaining children aged 19, 16 and 13 helped with the animals when they weren't at school in the village. They took us to see their goats on an old motorbike, we watched them milk them and used a half-binocular (monocular??) to watch the sun set. After that we played basketball in the dark until it got too cold to move then piled back inside to get ready for bed. There was only two beds in the ger, the parents took one and Tugsuu took the other. Ott, me, Rich, Kaz, Michael and the three children took the floor space- and there wasn't much of that! There was some pretty intense spooning going on but considering the temperature, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing!

The Flaming Cliffs, up close these were very red and it was VERY windy- cue Kaz fashioning a sort of Arab head-dress out of her multi-coloured electro scarf. Very trad-Mongolian darling...

Kaz enjoying the luxurious decor (check out the bling on the clock!)

Me, Rich and Kaz having a lovely time in the sand-dunes. This was before we took 45 mins to clamber up and 2 mins to run down! Very hot but very beautiful- definately my favourite part of our journey through the Gobi Desert.

The smelly, horrible, poo-covered camels! Maybe my least-favourite part of our trip!

All in all, a very exciting journey through a brilliant and changing landscape, made all the more awesome by our guide Tugsuu and driver Ott, who were a credit to their country. We left Mongolia feeling very happy to have seen so many beautiful things, to have had so many valuable experiences and feeling thoroughly well looked after. I'd recommend a visit to Mongolia to anyone, it was so different to anywhere else and with so many natural sights to explore in the sunshine, it'd keep anyone busy and glad to be outdoors.

Goodbye Mongolia, thank you for our lovely time!