We picked up our Chinese visas this morning so we are heading off tomorrow; first stop Yangshuo. We’re not sure what websites are going to work and when in China. We’ve had reports of gmail, blogger, facebook and several others being intermittently blocked, so if you don’t hear from us in a while, fear not; we are safe just contending with the great Chinese firewall.
Well, seven countries and almost five months, we have had more than a few experiences here we reflect on some.
Claire
Best experience: Seeing orang-utans in the wild, amazing!
Worst experience: dealing with the police in Luang Prabang
Best food: Little India- Penang Malaysia, Curry- Bukit Lawang Indonesia, chocolate tart- sapa Vietnam and on and on I could go so many yummy things and a lot of noodles and rice
Biggest surprise: how much I enjoyed Vietnam
Under whelmed by: Laos, granted I was sick and we didn’t see that much of it but even so I don’t have a massive desire to go back
Best transport experience: Buses in Malaysia
Worst transport experience: 40 hours on a bus in Sumatra
Country you most want to go back to: Indonesia and Vietnam both definitely have much more to see
Best accommodation: Number 7 guest house Krabi, also pretty much everywhere we stayed in Vietnam was really good value
Favourite town: Melecca, Malaysia
Best Island: Gilli Meno- very rustic and unspoiled; Palau Penrentian Kecil- slightly more developed but still gorgeous
Favourite temple: The White Temple, Chaing Rai
Hardest thing about long term travel: Constantly having to make choices and decisions often on the spot with not enough information
Most looking forward to for next part of the journey: India
Eli
Best experience: visiting our dear friends the orang-utans, Bukit Lawang, Indonesia
Worst experience: damaging Claire’s knee in a minor scooter accident, near Kampot, Cambodia
Best food: khao soi, curry noodles, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Biggest surprise: not finding any McDonald’s outlets in Laos or Vietnam—not that I eat mc’ds. But how does the big mac index deal with that?
Under whelmed by: our organised tour into the Mekong Delta, Vietnam
Best transport experience: riding scooters around Hoi An and Nha Trang, Vietnam
Worst transport experience: “losing” Claire’s kindle on the slow boat down the Mekong River, Laos
Country you most want to go back to: Vietnam
Best accommodation: the Muslim-run, quiet and clean, Number 7 Guesthouse, Krabi, Thailand
Favourite town: the former French holiday hill town of Sapa, northern Vietnam
Best Island: the picture perfect Gili Meno, Indonesia
Favourite temple: the Tiger temple with its spectacular views of Krabi province, Thailand
Hardest thing about long term travel: maintaining positive relations with Claire, especially when travel plans don’t work out
Most looking forward to for next part of the journey: touring through Tibet.
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So that’s a little summary of our trip so far. We are so incredibly lucky to be on this amazing journey and this was a great way of reminding ourselves of that fact.
Hopefully you will be hearing from us soon.
Lots of love
xxxx
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