Hue and Hoi An

After the weekend in Halong Bay I took a 13hr train down the coast to Hue, famous for its huge citadel and was the scene of an intense battle between US forces and the Viet Cong during the Vietnam war. As part of the Tet Offensive in January 1968, the Viet Cong and NVA launched an attack on the city and captured the citadel. They were slowly beaten back by US Marines and supporting forces over the next month but with huge losses on both sides. The US had previously been under orders not to destroy the historical sites, however this was relaxed once it was clear that the Viet Cong were embedded. The citadel suffered heavy damage due to bombs and napalm and weeks of intense door-to-door fighting. but is slowly being repaired.

Gate to Hue citadel

Though it doesn't look it, most of the citadel is only about 200 years old - the damage from the war, evident in bomb craters and destroyed buildings, makes it look much older. I walked around some of the 1250 acres of grounds, enjoying the peace and quiet away from the bustle of the city.


Aside from the citadel and a few tombs on the outskirts of town, Hue didn't have that much to see so, after stuffing my face with great French food (including real(!!!) cheese), I packed up and headed to Hoi An [why do all Vietnamese places start with H??]. I arrived on the evening of the full moon celebrations, where the streetlights are replaced by lanterns and the town has a cosy and relaxed vibe. After the festivities the town was quiet and I took some time out to lounge in the cafes by the waterfront and get a few cheap tailored shirts (every second shop is a tailor) and I could have got more besides [do all fittings come with "massages"?].

Hoi An waterfront

Thu Bon River

I took a tour to the ancient Champa temples of My Son. They were rediscovered by the French at the end of the 19th century, who then proceeded to take lots of the artefacts back to Paris for "safe-keeping", including, bizarrely, the heads of most of the statues. In the Vietnam war the Viet Cong used My Son as a operating base, and, like Hue citadel, it was bombed by the US. Some of the surrounding area is still mined and efforts are under way to remove unexploded ordnance from the site. The temple complex is pretty small and I was a little unimpressed but I looked at it as a teaser for Angkor Wat in 2 weeks' time.

Hanoi and Halong Bay

Thien Cung Grotto, Ha Long Bay

My first sight of Vietnam was while passing through immigration at Pingxiang. This was unlike any other border town I had ever seen, surrounded by beautiful mountains and swathed in forest. It had a serenity not usually associated with these places, which are usually buzzing with touts and over-charging taxi drivers ferrying travellers over the border. Once the formalities were over we still had another couple of hours before arriving in Hanoi. My iPod battery had run out so a fellow passenger and I played "smell that person's hair" (1 point if they didn't notice; 2 points for a bald person) - admittedly it's a bit rapey, but it passed the time. If you are going to play this, the opportunities are greatest on Chinese train platforms just as the scrum begins.

St Joseph's Cathedral

Hanoi was a bustling place but didn't have the relentless pace of many of the large Chinese cities I had visited (the capital slows to a walking pace around lunch for the daily siesta), but it is without doubt a 24hr city in the right places. Hanoi also has an active cafe culture, most likely a hangover from Vietnam's days as a French protectorate, which has also given the country a fantastic mix of colonial and traditional (with a good dash of Soviet) architecture and a mouth-watering Franco-Vietnamese cuisine (thankfully no trace of Soviet here) - I've been trying to justify 4 meals a day because the food is so good!

I ambled around West Lake and visited Saint Joseph's cathedral, which sits conspicuously in the middle of the Old Quarter. Vietnam has a sizeable Catholic minority - as a proportion of the population only behind Philippines and East Timor in the region. 

The Museum of Ethnography was a fair trek from the centre of town but was well worth the visit. In addition to interesting pieces on Vietnam's ethnic minorities (or Montagnards, as the French use to call them) but the best exhibit by far was on the impact of HIV/AIDS within Vietnamese communities. There were many moving tributes to those Vietnamese not only dealing with virus but also carrying the burden of stigma and social upheaval brought about by lack of education within some communities. Many in Vietnam associate the virus with social wrongs e.g. drug abuse, promiscuity etc. and the afflicted are subsequently forced from their communities, becoming outcasts on the fringe of society and scraping a living in the most difficult of circumstances. There were many case studies which showed the lack of knowledge and/or compassion: one young man died of HIV and after his funeral his family wheeled out his mattress on their neighbour's bike to be burned, who then cleaned the bike with boiling water and left in the sun to dry for a month before he would use it. Other sufferers got off pretty lightly and only had to use different cutlery or bring along disposable cups when visiting friends for dinner.


The Vietnamese government are doing more to educate and, since 2006, have laws in place to force people to seek treatment if infection is known and to make their partner aware before marriage. Treatment is not cheap but with the help of the international community coverage is improving. The education drive by the government, getting into smaller communities and particularly among the ethnic minorities - many of whom still place faith in fortune tellers and shaman - is one that is slowly bearing fruit.


I decided to join a weekend tour to Halong Bay, with one night on nearby Cat Ba island and one night on a boat in the bay. The tour itself was a total shambles and overbooked, which left people (including me) without rooms on the island. The organisers eventually found us some accommodation but it was a bit Spartan. I slept on a wooden bed with no aircon in an unfinished hostel with a guy from Colombo (Sri Lanka, not the Peter Falk detective series) and was mentally preparing myself to being 'big spoon'... fortunately the need didn't arise. We were supposed to go trekking on the island the following morning but 5 of us rebelled and went to the beach instead. All in all the trip was fantastic, but only due to the scenery and the fellow tourists. A particular highlight was drinking brandy from a 7up bottle in order to avoid the punitive service charges imposed by our tw@t of a captain. Aside from this alcoholic subterfuge the views from the boat were spectacular, and even better while swimming in the bay with the sunrise on our final morning. Well worth the effort.

Hong Kong to Guilin

Only a few days prior to my landing in Hong Kong there were typhoon warnings along the coast. Fortunately I only had to put up with four days of torrential and unabating rain, but in waterproofs that weren't as waterproof as they had originally seemed - I now have three Chinese phrases at my disposal: "hello, beer please", "thank you" and "Do you sell some sort of spray or liquid that will make a jacket more waterproof on application or washing?". The latter I carry around on paper in my wallet just in case I pass an outdoor clothing store... I now need to get this translated into Vietnamese.


Despite the inclement weather I took a trip on the Peak Tram, a gravity-defying funicular up the steep inclines of Hong Kong Island, and was rewarded with stunning views of the area, shrouded in mist and low cloud. Hong Kong looks its best from up high - the juxtaposition of concrete and glass skyscrapers with a surprisingly large amount of untouched countryside (almost 70% of the total land). Had the weather been kinder I would have ventured further afield into the New Territories and to the picturesque bays in the south, however I decided to see more of the city on the Island and Kowloon. The passenger ferry connecting these is possibly the best value tourist activity that Hong Kong offers. It's hard not to be taken in by the view, at its best at night when both sides of the harbour explode with neon.

I took a train into Guangzhou in Guangdong province, the economic powerhouse of South China, purely as a means of getting deeper into more rural China. Away from the coast the weather was much better - sunny, low-thirties but very humid. The city itself has few sights of note, however I spent an afternoon wandering around its Buddhist temples and visiting the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King (found by accident as authorities levelled ground for a shopping mall) and hurrying through its exhibition of ceramic pillows next door. Enough to keep me busy while waiting for my sleeper to Guilin.


Guilin sits on the bank of the Li river and is one of the major tourist hotspots in all of China. Around 15 million people visit this comparatively small city each year to take trips down the river and explore the surrounding countryside. The area is known for its karst landscape - huge limestone outcrops which make for some incredible views. Some of the best views are downriver on the way to Yangshuo.

Li river between Guilin and Yangshuo

Famous for being the picture on the back of a 20 yuan note

The following day I went to the village of Longshen, famous for its rice terraces in the hillsides. 11 minority groups live in the area around Guilin; two of which - the Red Yao and Zhuang peoples - are now playing the tourist attraction card heavily. Obviously economically this is a no-brainer with so many visitors to the region but I can't help feeling that they've sold out. Our guide assured me that they are happy with their new lives with wifi, pepsi, electronic music and the like (and who am I to judge?) but it does feel like China is slowly homogenising, with the 55 ethnic minorities it supposedly cherishes being represented by nothing more than a 30 minute dance show. Away from the tourist trail I saw glimpses of the real rural life and cursed myself for not being able to speak the language well enough to get out there properly.

The following day I took the train south to the capital of Guanxi province, Nanning. After a few drinks in town with a fellow visitor (and a little bit of alligator kebab from the street market), I packed up my things for the bus journey south to Hanoi, leaving China behind and feeling like I'd only scratched the surface in the 6 weeks I'd been there.

Home, but not for long

In my 4 weeks in China I didn't feel homesick until we were about to land at Heathrow. Flying low over the Thames, passing Canary Wharf, Tower Bridge, the City, Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace and all the green spaces that make London so special I realised that there's still so much more to this city that I want to experience and, after all the places I've seen, I can't think of anywhere else I would rather be. I'd have 4 weeks back in the UK to sort out my flat, then I'd be heading back to China to start my 6 month trip through SE Asia and the Pacific.


A month goes rather quickly when the only things you have to do are admin related. I convinced myself that a lot of these things needed to be done at the same time... as late as possible, so there I was, scrubbing the oven door 30 minutes before the rental agency closed, 30 minutes before the latest possible time I could have checked-out of my flat. All this after dropping the final box at the storage place and returning the rental van with a good 10 seconds to spare, hitting the apex of every turn between Balham and Wimbledon and wishing for a SW London DRS-activation zone. It's also quite depressing how all my belongings fit into a 35 sq ft storage unit and yet it takes two whole days to pack. I'm writing this in Hanoi, Vietnam, 10 days into my trip, and I'm still convinced I've forgotten to pack something, or that I'll receive an extortionate bill for disposing of mangy oven gloves that weren't on the inventory.


But all the costs and the hassle are worth it for this opportunity to see a part of the world for an extended period of time. The timing couldn't have been much better for a number of reasons. Ask any close friend and they will tell you that before the redundancy news I was 100% certain to go travelling this summer... which then went down to 95%, 90%, 80% likely as the year progressed and as I started to fall back into the groove from which my Far East dreams once lifted me. As I didn't really have the chance to take a gap year between school and uni or after my studies this type of trip has been on my mind for years, so naturally I jumped at the opportunity.


I took up Steve and Gill's offer to put me up for my last night in London (which was hugely relaxing given the manic 48 hours prior to that) and after having a lovely Sunday in the sunshine I grabbed a sandwich pie (check out Gill's excellent blog for the recipe here... shameless plug!) and headed for Heathrow.

Hangzhou, Suzhou and home

After a washed-out daytrip to the pretty town of Hangzhou and a walk around the beautiful West Lake (though it wasn't quite as special in the pouring rain) I decided to leave Shanghai to make my way up north, back to Beijing. I stopped at Suzhou, apparently the "Venice of the East" by virtue of it having a few canals, in much the same as we can describe Birmingham as "Venice of the Midlands". Making a comparison with Birmingham is unfair, however, as the place feels much quainter and more serene than its population of 6 million suggests. 3 days there was probably a little too many in retrospect as I exhausted most of the main sights, but it was a good place to relax and catch up on some reading before heading back to the capital.

Suzhou is famous for its beautifully designed gardens - some created as summer retreats, some as rehabilitation centres for the sick - which were a pleasant change from all the temples I'd visited so far. The gardens also seem to be an ideal destination for Chinese school trips and of course I agreed to pose for photos with groups of teenage girls - what can I say, I'm an altruist!

Glorification of the worker, just outside Mao's Mausoleum

Back in Beijing I barely had time to unpack before jumping on my flight back to London but I managed to catch a glimpse of Chairman Mao lying in state. Apparently Mao wanted to be cremated but the party decided that the most fitting tribute would be to preserve him and put him on display. At the time of his death in 1976 the party had to act quickly to preserve his body. Russia was consulted as to how they managed it with Lenin and they set to work commissioning designs for the mausoleum, coffin, lighting and every artistic nuance imaginable. The building was opened to the public 8 months later, though apparently not without its problems - the mausoleum had to be closed for "renovation" in 1997 as Mao was leaking formaldehyde.


Cynics will say that it's a waxwork model on display (apparently one was created in case the preservation process failed) and to be honest his face does have an unusual Terry Venables orange lustre, but regardless of whether it's fake or real, I think the average westerner passing through this shrine struggles to understand why the man is so revered. Millions of visitors are hurriedly ushered past his coffin each year, the vast majority of which are Mao's native countrymen paying their respects - oft-persecuted by his party and dealt unimaginable hardships by his mis-governance. Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's excellent account of this man may shed some light on it, but for me it remains a mystery why so many choose to walk through those mausoleum doors.

Shanghai Groom

Throughout this trip I've had some stick from proper travellers about my use of soft-sleeper trains (i.e. first class) rather than "going hard", and in some cases the difference between the classes is hardly noticeable, but on sleepers, as the name suggests, it's far more comfy in the soft bunks. I've taken my fair share of hard sleepers in China - squeezing into the middle-height bunk in a rack of three, with luggage, at night is like blindfolded human tetris - and on one occasion I was rudely awoken by the train guard bashing her head against my feet poking out into the corridor - how inconsiderate! Ross and I decided to go soft-sleeper to Shanghai, with the advantage of larger beds, cabins with doors and those wonderful complimentary slippers.


We headed straight for the Majesty Plaza hotel, venue for Guru and Lihua's wedding celebrations a few days later. We needed an extra night as our reservations were for the following day and asked the price at reception. An obscene amount was quoted, with "no discounts available". Ross used the complimentary wifi in the lobby to book the exact same room for a fraction of the price and, just as we were about to be shepherded away by increasingly agitated staff for loitering in their lobby, we presented them with an internet booking confirmation. Mild bewilderment and amusement to them and us respectively. It begs the question why hotels don't block access to Expedia in their lobbies.


That evening we met up with the wedding party and hit the town. The area of Xintiandi is expat heaven with fantastic restaurants and nightlife, although with drinks at London prices it's quite out of reach to the ordinary Chinese budget. After many drinks, some pretty awful Coyote Ugly-esque dancing on the bar, and badly burning both thumbs (and a large part of the floor) on a flaming cocktail, I awoke at midday with cleaners banging on the hotel room door. I'd love to write more about that evening but I honestly don't remember it. At some point Ross and I were in a park in broad daylight and thought it would be a good idea to climb into a huge bronze pot - no memory of the event, only grazes and photographic evidence to prove it.


The following day was a write-off but we managed to make it out for a great meal at a Sichuan-themed restaurant. The place had won awards in the spice category and it showed - every plate was bright red with chillies once we had eaten the less potent parts - a perfect detox in my opinion. After some more respectable drinks in Xintiandi we hit the sack in preparation for the wedding the next day.


Guru kindly asked Ross and me to be the Chinese wedding equivalent of best men - fortunately no last-minute speeches required but we had a few tasks throughout the day. We accompanied him to pick up the bride from her mum's place. Traditionally the groom heads to his bride's parents' place to bribe or steal her away, and we acted this out in her mum's apartment, with Guru pushing small red envelopes of cash under the door and professing his undying love for Lihua. Ross and I flanked him to make sure the bridesmaids gave him no trouble, handing out the occasional red envelope to pacify the hoards, and eventually he was let through the door. Next was her bedroom, where he had to repeat the process. The place was buzzing with excited shouting and people dashing between rooms to watch the action unfold, but finally Guru was let in to see his bride:

After Guru served Lihua's mum tea, a traditional mark of respect, we went to lunch and then to the waterfront for photos.

We returned to the hotel for another tea ceremony, this time traditionally held at the groom's parents' (in this case a room at the hotel, decorated for the occasion). I'm told this is where the 
compulsory food fight should begin but everyone was on best behaviour that day.


The evening celebration was a huge affair, an extravagaza not unlike a Royal Variety Performance, complete with professional host, an interpreter and more dress changes than a Lady Gaga concert, which included:
- the happy couple appearing, as if by magic, from an inflatable ball on stage
- embarassing audience participation karaoke and weird dancing with props
- Guru and Lihua lighting a candle with a lightsabre
- a rendition of "Lao shu ai da mi" by all the groom's mates - arguably the greatest Chinese pop song ever written: "I love you (like a mouse loves rice)". (Mice eat rice in China, not cheese... so now you know...)
- Lihua being carried onto the stage in a sedan chair by Matt, Oli, Ross and me in traditional costume - heavy work (I mean the wooden chair was heavy, not the bride of course!). [Any photos would be appreciated!]


A fantastic event and so proud to be a part of it. Congratulations to Guru and Lihua!