Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China

From Hong Kong we caught a comfortable express train to Guangzhou-there were only three people in the carriage so it was very peaceful! The locals love their cellphones and use them anywhere and everywhere so it was a relief not to have dozens of them yelling into their phones.
Guangzhou main station

John had some tense moments at the Chinese border as they examined his passport under fluorescent light and had several senior officials with magnifying glasses checking it over. I was on the other side of the border and was told to stay there! As we have been carrying our passports and other valuables under our clothes they are starting to get a bit battered looking and the lamination on John's is crinkled and starting to lift. Let's hope it manages the next 12 months!

We booked into a very clean and comfortable hotel with 2 double beds and free internet connections-so nice after the 'Hong Kong cupboard'. This hotel provides clean towels daily, toothpaste and brush, soap, shampoo and body wash, shower hats, cotton buds, a sewing kit, shoe polish mitts, and disposable slippers! It is not a flash international hotel but a small local Chinese hotel and we have a standard not deluxe room- they have lots more things. We are enjoying such pampering as most backpackers hostels don't even have toilet paper or soap let alone all these other goodies.
A steetman with his worldly goods and 2 cats.

While in Vietnam, we met Qui Zhi Min from Guangzhou and met up with her here and went to a local very popular Chinese restaurant for a meal. She is a great traveller and we had great fun sharing photos and travel stories and we hope she will visit us in NZ in the future.

In 1983 some excavations unearthed the tomb of Emperor Yue from 100 BC. It had never been discovered by grave robbers so it had some amazing relics. The museum is built over the tomb and is facinating- it shows he was buried with his concubine, cook and musicians. They were all sacrificed for him for the afterlife.

We hunted down several 'tourist' offices but could not find a map of the city in English- thank goodness for the Lonely Planet guidebook that has some basic maps of the most visited sites in the city!

The metro system is almost complete and we were able to find a guide in Chinese and English and could find our way around that to visit places of interest.
Springtime in the parks!
Many of the buildings are lit up with neons and coloured fairy lights at night so it is lovely to stroll around the parks and see the night lights.

Guangzhou is an international exhibition city and we passed one centre that had displays of advertising products.

The old Chinese bikes are so strong! This water bottle deliveryman lost his load avoiding pedestrians while riding on the footpath. Shamian Island was the first part of Guangzhou settled by foreign traders. Today it is s lovely area of avenues and there were many Americans with Chinese baby girls in strollers. they have to stay a month in the city before taking the babies home.

Hong Kong

Phew, it has taken us a long time to work out how to get photos from the camera onto our blog using our new notebook as well as how to get WIFI to work ! When we look back over our year of travel we have certainly learnt a lot about blogs, and digital cameras!

We expect to have problems with our blog here in China but can email our postings to Kerri but have also been experimenting with proxy servers- more things to learn!

We left Macau after 3 days taking the comfortable fast ferry to Hong Kong.

The main reason for going to Hong Kong was to see the Trans Siberian Travel specialists-Monkey Business. We have booked our Trans Mongolian and Trans Siberian train trip through them. We could have done it ourselves but would have needed a lot more time in Hong Kong and had more headaches than we need to organize such travels without being in our home country. Our double entry China visa and our Russian visas have been organized and we will get our Mongolian visa in Russia ourselves.

Accommodation in Hong Kong is pretty expensive because real estate is expensive so we booked a hotel online through hostel world-it had very high ratings and was Hong Kong's top hostel for 2007!

The hostel was like a cupboard it was so tiny. There were 2 narrow single beds with a tiny fridge between them and a huge TV above the foot of my bed. The staff told us we had the A1 room as it had a window opening to the outside. We had our own bathroom and were able to do our laundry and hang it out of the window. Only one of us at a time could stand and get un/dressed!

Everyday the staff argued with their guests as they had no real office- just a chair and table in the hallway- and no decent systems in place. The floor had many different hotel names but seemed to be managed by the staff in the hallway so even though we booked at a specific hotel we were just put where ever there was a vacancy!

Sometimes we had problems getting in and out of our building because there were so many touts. Everyday we were pestered with 'copy handbags', copy watches', 'good tailor', or 'foot massage'!

The tourist office was great and had so much information and maps - being a tourist in Hong Kong is very easy. As we had to spend 9 days there we did all the walking tours, saw the sound and light show, visited all the lovely free parks and temples and got to know how to use the metro and buses.

After Malaysia it was so cold we had to buy some thermals which we will need in China and also in Europe as we will probably arrive there in winter.

We will remember Hong Kong for its warning signs and advisory advertisements.
While walking trails where tree branches crossed the path there would be a laminated sign on the tree saying 'mind your head' and one on the rail saying 'don't climb'. Everywhere were signs showing smoking and no smoking areas- so many places were smoke free which was wonderful after the rest of Asia.

Government TV advertisements covered warnings about using licensed registered travel agents, about investing on the stock-market.

Bus stop billboards warned against idling your engine and pollution, and showed good coughing manners!

Macau

Air Asia do some cheap flights so we took advantage of this and flew Kuching to Macau. Our daughter Kerri booked us into a nice hotel so it was a comfortable stay here in Taipa.

The first thing we noticed was how cold it was - 8 Celsius at night! The thermal clothing that we have been carrying and have rarely used has at last come in handy.

Macau is full of tourists and many of them are from Asia. The tourist office had free internet and lots of maps with some great walking tours of the old Portuguese settlements. Many parks, gardens and displays were free which makes a nice change from places that like to charge for everything. The no smoking signs everywhere were most welcome too! The place is so clean with signs stating the fines for littering!



The Guia chapel and lighthouse at the fort.

These signs were on display near the fort and school children had to learn what each meant as they were used during the monsoon season to let everyone know the status of the wind storms.


The hilly narrow streets.

Restored and preserved buildings.



Church of St Dominic.


Ancient and modern!


The red lanterns for Chinese New Year.


The Macau Museum was very interesting and in the olden days (and even into the 1990s) the Chinese residents used to hold cricket fights and bet on the contestants. They had ornate containers made of pottery to house the crickets and they were fed a specific diet to develop their strength. Some were so highly regarded that they had funerals and this is the coffin of a champ and its tomb!





The Venetian



A short walk from our hotel was The Venetian: a brand new casino built by a Las Vegas casino operator. It recently opened and there is still some construction work going on so it is not quite complete. There are already over 30 casinos in tiny Macau!

There are over 11, 000 staff at the casino and on the second there are gondola rides; they go from one end of the indoor canal to the other and along the way you pass by the brand name stores.

The Lisboa. We also noticed how smoggy it was after Malaysia.

The local bus system is great but some of the local buses don't allow big bags so we had to catch a taxi when we left.

Bako National Park, Sarawak, Malaysia

Arriving in the rain on the high tide.



Monitor

Bako National park is only a short bus ride from Kuching and a 20 minute boat ride. It was founded 50 years ago and Malaysia's first. It is showing its age but we heard that tenders have been let to upgrade the whole facility soon. We stayed 2 nights in a lodge near the beach.

John beside the giant stemless palms.

Although we saw the proboscus monkeys in Sabah we were able to get closer to them in Bako. The male has a huge nose (apparently the females see this as a sign of a worthy male) and a pot belly. They were in the trees in the mangroves every morning and evening. They are very shy and if you got too close they would move further up the trees.

Everyday the cheeky macaques would arrive at the lodge at check-in time-2 pm. They seemed to know that the new arrivals were careless with their food and bags. When the new arrivals put things down to take photos the macaques would grab what they could and climb up high to look for anything edible. The tourists have trained them well!

There were lots of well marked trails to walk and even though it rained everyday we still managed to get some long walks in. Luckily we missed the really bad weather 2 days before so the trails were not so muddy.

The park has 9 different ecosystems represented so the walks are interesting and varied.

On the night walk we saw tree frogs whose croak sounded like a bird call, tarantula, stick insects, and this pit viper beside the trail- about 30cms away!


During the day we saw 5 pit viper in the trees near the lodge canteen and one thin brown harmless snake. They were so close and didn't move it was amazing. We could see the outline of her eggs in this pregnant one!

Kuching, Malaysia

The ferry boat ride from Sibu to Kuching was very rough and lots of people were seasick so it was not very pleasant. All along the river bank were huge sawmills and logging ships, more signs that the jungle is disappearing rapidly.

In Kuching we stayed at a new lodge- the most modern we have met in all our travels so far. The staff were very friendly and helpful and made our stay relaxing and enjoyable.

Henry from Lodge121






Jeff from Lodge 121

Kuching has the cat as its symbol and we found many shops and eating places closed as the Chinese-run businesses were on holiday. Everyday there were fireworks going off as they believe the loud noise chases the evil spirits away and therefore they will have a prosperous new year. The stairway to the lodge was littered with red pieces of paper from the bangers.

While in Kuching we took the opportunity to buy a small Asus notebook. We left home without a computer or phone but found a 7" notebook that we can slip into our day bag and take advantage of the Free WiFi sites.




There is lots of construction work going on in Kuching and this place looks like a giant shuttlecock!