Hanoi die 2te

Werden in 1Std den Bus nach Hue nehmen (ca 14Std sitzen) und im Lande, so habe ich vernommen, seien die Internetverbindungen nicht so super, und deshalb jetzt nochmal flott.
Es gibt hier auch Bubble Tea!! So wie damals in Seattle!!! Das erste mal in China entdeckt, getrunken und gefreut aber nicht des Geschmackeswegen, sondern eher weils die selben Bubbeln waren. Aber hier- ai weh, alle erdenklichen Geschmaecker. Mango, Erdbeere, Pfirsich, ... mit den geliebten Bubbeln: Jelly Pudding Tapioca Pearls. Love'em!!!
Heute sind wir mitm Motorradtaxi zum Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum gefahren, das war aber zu, Ho ist grad in Russland und kriegt neues Make up. Fuer 3 Monate. Der 3.Tote den wir nicht zu sehen kriegen (Lenin und Mao haben es uns nicht so sehr angetan, bzw haben wir nicht gefunden). Aber Ho sieht ja so nett aus, ueberall haengen hier Bilder von ihm. Wie in China ueberall Mao Bilder hingen, aber das ist ja nochmal ne andre Sache.
Wir essen taeglich ungefaehr 3 mal Nudelsuppe, zum Fruehstueck, Mittag und Abend. Ich fuerchte sie irgendwann nicht mehr sehen zu koennen, aber noch ists ganz lecker. Und frittierte Bananen, muy bien.
Waren bei der Eisensaeulenpagode heute, doch ausser das kleine Gebaeude war nicht viel (war trotzdem schoen).
Den Botanischen Garten haben wir nicht gefunden, auch nicht den einen Tempel, aber davon werden wir noch genug sehen (hoffentlich).
Werden schon morgen raus ausm Norden sein, mal schauen ob der Unterschied wirklich so gross ist. Und schade, denn vom Norden haben wir nur Hanoi und Halong Bay gesehen. Aber.. what can you do... Waelder gibts in Laos und Thailand auch en masse, juche.
Genug fuer jetzt, mal gucken ob ich mir vor Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh City nochmal bloggerstylisch melde, erstmal alles Gute!!!

HALONG BAY

Schwimmende Doerfer (Haeuser)


Grad gemerkt dass ich beim letzten Blog doch wieder ins Englische gerutscht bin.. Ai weh :)
Waren jedenfalls 3 Tage in der Halong Bay, mit viel Sonne und co, und wunderschoenen Felsen.

Zwischen solchen Felsen waren wir schwimmen und Kajaking.... Mit nem Boot dazwischen angelegt und darauf auch geschlafen... Und andere Touristenschiffe angeguckt. Aber auch gut dass die Touris an die selben Stellen kommen, da bleibt wenigstens einiges geschuetzt (vielleicht).

Hanoi... Jetzt mit ein paar Bildern. Mal sehen was ich finde was so aussieht wie wir es gesehen haben.

The streets and the motorcycles...

The lake we see every day

The waterpuppets we saw on the 2nd night in Hanoi

The next blog about Halong Bay........

AUS VIETNAM...............UND AUF DEUTSCH.
I decided to change this blog into German as there are more Germans reading this than English people haha. Took me a while to get it :)
Habe auch grad mal ne laengere Mail an mehrere daheim geschickt, die aber zumindest teilweise nur leer angekommen ist.. Naja, immerhin aus Vietnam. Deshalb nochmal ein bisschen was..
Sind heute morgen sehr frueh auf und haben den Bus gesucht den wir letztendlich auch gefunden haben.. und der brachte uns zur Grenze, wo wir rausgeschmissen wurden und auf Stempel und Papiere warteten. An der anderen Seite wartete ein gruener vietnamesischer Bus auf uns, fuer kurze vietnamesische Beine gemacht. Aber diesmal waren es nur noch etwa 3 Stunden und wir kamen in Hanoi an... Nachdem uns eine Vietnamesin im Bus mit Namen und gebuchtem Hostel ansprach gingen wir mit ihr mit (woher auch immer sie das alles wusste) und kamen auch im LITTLE HANOI HOSTEL an. Bekamen ein Doppelzimmer fuer den Preis eines Dorms (2.30Euro die Nacht).
In Hanoi gibts angeblich ueber 2 Millionen Motorrad- und Mopedfahrer. Plus Millionen von Fahrradfahrern. Und alle haben Hupen und dieVerkehrsregeln sind wohl die selben wie in China - Ignorieren. Was ein Spass, die gute Frau Mutter haette die Krise bekommen.
Haben mal wieder lecker gegessen, Nudeln mit Zucker und Chili gewuerzt (wie in Thailand), Reis und unser liebstes Blattgemuese, und als Nachtisch frittierte Bananen (und irgendwie auch Kartoffeln). All das fuer weniger als nen Euro!
Umrechnen muessen wir hier wieder, und diesmal gehts in die Millionen. 20 000 Dong sind 1 Euro.
Und uebermorgen fahren wir ans Meer!!! Oha die Freude ist gross, Meer, Strand, Felsen, Kajak, Boot. 3 Tage lang wahrscheinlich. Oder laenger.
Es heisst die Naechte hier werden bald kaelter, noch triefen wir und wuerden uns fast ueber die Hitze beschweren. Aber nein, niemals.
Das wars fuers erste von dem ersten Vietnamtag. Noch ist Internet hier frei, also wird man sicher noch oft was neues hoeren. Erstmal 1000 Gruesse!

Hossa...............Its monday night, only one more day that we got to spend in China....
Yesterday we went to Yang-Mei, a small village about 1.5hours (it took us 2) from Nanning. The village itself was nice (Ancient old village Yang Mai), a little too touristy (though those tourists were mainly Chinese people), but the bus ride to get there was unforgettable. We crossed a river on a ferry and the bus went so fast.. Actually it only went 70km/h but on those streets it felt crazy. That was better than Bungee-Jumping and any of those things. We passed little villages and the bus was full of Chinese people.. It was great. And it was hoooot. It must have been at least 35degrees. There was a Confucian temple and at a little on-the-way-tempel we lit up candles and inscence sticks for our families and the people we love.
We got back sometime in the evening, bought mangos and ate.
Today we wanted to get up early to get to the botanical herbal garden of herbs (or so) but when we finally left the hotel we couldnt find the bus.. Walked along the streets and passed this little nice restaurant where we had those really good noodles a few days ago so we decided to eat some more... We did that (YUMMIE) and asked some policemen on the street for bud number 101 or 102 (which were supposed to go to the garden), he told us to go to that one bus stop, blablabla, finally we went to this one busstop where bus 101 was going from, we asked a lady and she took us on her hands and went with us to the other side of the street, talked to people and finally to the bus driver..she was lovely. We went to that garden and it was nice. We saw trees with roots and leaves against rheuma and all different sorts of diseases. And it was hot. We saw caged geckos, drank tea and enjoyed the silence. We went back and bought some more fruits. Ever heard of Polemos? They look like huge grapefruits but they are sooo good. And more mangos, though MANGO - NOT IN SEASON. We were all about getting another one of these oh-so-good-mango-juices, but the place we wanted to get them - wasnt there anymore! we were so sad. We went to another place where we got one but that wasnt nearly as good as the one we had before. :)
Nothing really exciting happened then. Oh actually it did, we got our visa to Vietnam! We went there again in the bus and there was a little girl, starring at us, and finally she asked "where are you going" (or maybe it was "where are you from") so i said that we go to the vietnamese embassy and she looked a little confused cause she didnt understand. Neither she knew where Germany was I think but what can you do... And then we got our visa! Yay!
One more day in China...We keep dreaming of small and quite cities, beaches and rainforest. Lets see if we wake up or if we can keep dreaming...

Spending some more time in the internet..
Today we didnt go to that medical herbs botanic garden as we planned, but we slept til late and had a good day in the city centre.. Somewhere along the way we lost our heads.
Tomorrow we want to try to go to a smaller village somewhere close to Nanning, either by boat or by bus. Though I still doubt that it will be easy to get there. We will see.
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MY CHINA

FOOD
Now that we are in the South we realized the change of the kitchen. On the market we saw snakes and dogs, ready to be killed. On the menu in Yangshuo (a touristy place though) they said:
Snake. You can play with the snake, and take photographs with it. Then watch it being killed. You can keep the skin and drink the blood and enjoy the fleash. That was.. different. When we had dinner this one time there was a snake that escaped, so people were all excited, and when they had it back I saw how they killed it.. Huu. Also we see lots of young kitties here.. No old ones. Am not really sure why... In a supermarket we saw bags with ants inside. Maybe a nice spice?
SQUATTING
Chinese people squat everywhere. On the streets, smoking or not, on benches (while a tourist might think that benches are for SITTING) and even we heard stories of toilets.. That you could see footprints on the toilet seats.. That is so funny.
POLLUTION
Air and rivers are so polluted that you can even see it.. In Xi'an we couldnt even see the sun for a few days. First we thought its this romantic fog you can see on all those advertising photos but I guess its not.. Its just smog!!
HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
We hear that everywhere we go.
TRAFFIC
A good phrase to describe the traffic here is: You gotta know whats going on everywhere, in front of you, behind you, next to you.. Now that you know whats going on: IGNORE IT.

So much for now.....

One more from the great wall

2 more pictures........ from "back in the days":



Franzi and me with that lovely Danish girl (Anne-Mette), an old Chinese woman who spoke some English and Romana, our roommate in the train.

A horrible picture of Franzi and me at the Great Wall.

Oha........I just found out why this computer is so crazy....Its this one button.......Aaaaaanyway. After we turned in our passports to get the visa we didnt really do anything today- we just slept and ate.
Now we need to find a way how to get to Vietnam before the Chinese visa expires.. We will make it. Go for it!

dont think that it is easy to deal with chinese computers.. cant write anything in capital letters neither i can put up more pictures.. well. the pictures i just put up here are from a fun night in yangshuo.. the last night before we left to nanning where we are right now. just had half a pineapple at a stick (each of us), before some good rice with good green stuff.
nanning seems to be a pretty rich city (at least the mainroads let it appear like it) but it actually is really beautiful.
in the morning we got up early and went to the vietnamese embassy- payed 400 yuan (around 40euro) whereas in germany it would have been around 70euro for the vietnamese visa (thats a good thing). everything was pretty easy and hopefully we'll get the visa on monday or tuesday night.
i will try to get another computer and put up more pictures. maybe. :)

Last night we had a course in Traditional Chinese Medicine.. Its been good but not as good as I hoped it to be.. The lady was telling lots about the basics (just read about them before I left to China so that wasnt new to me) and then about some herbal stuff.. That was nice.. But not enough.. And we went to her place and she showed us snakes which she uses for her medicine. We got to try some herbs and dried fruits and stuff which are used as medicine.. I wann know more about it!!!!!!!!

From Chengdu we took the bus to Guilin. The bus. It was supposed to be a 24hour ride, it was a sleeper bus. We left Chengdu at 2pm. The next day at around the same time my I started to feel not so good... Actually I felt really bad.. More and more after a while. The bus didnt get to Guilin, in fact we were 5 hours late. But those 5 hours were not the nicest ones I ever had - probably I ate something wrong, I started puking (in the bus) and I wont go into much more details now. It was just bad.. But Franzi and an Israeli girl were just so sweet and were helping me so much. The Chinese people in the bus were laughing, one of them gave me some pills, some were collecting bags which was nice.
When we got to Guilin we decided to stay for a night cause I just couldnt really move (we were planning to go straight to Yangshuo). The next day I slept and felt a little bit better at night. The day after that I felt pretty good actually. But Franzi took over- now it was her turn. It was totally the same, she puked for a day, another night in Guilin (Though Guilin is quite beautiful, there are many of these peaks anywhere and everywhere in the citycentre, but we prefered the bed). But then we finally got in the bus to Yangshuo. That was a 1.5 hr ride and we were alright.
We went to a hostel that is actually right next to the one where we made a reservation - but after not showing up for 3 days (or were those 4?) we decided to go to a different one.
Franzi had to rest for some more time. Yangshuo is sooo touristy but the landscape is just beautiful. We rent some bikes, Franzi wasnt feeling well enough so I went with 2 Argentinians. We first just went along a big street but later we passed little villages, rice fields and beautiful landscapes.

Unfortunately it started raining while we were cycling but it gave me the feeling of rainforest-villages and it was a good cool down.. Gotta let you know how warm it is here, people back home.. Sitting here in a skirt and flip flops..
Yesterday we just walked around Yangshuo and were so lazy.. Oooh and these massages here.. I had one the last three days.. Oh, the next weeks are going to be hard, without massages.. I think today I'll get one for my feet :)
I love the nights here, we met so many great people and its just fun to be with them.
Tomorrow morning we will take the bus to Nanning and get back to serious life- we will have to get the visa for Vietnam. Getting away from all the western food that is here, finally.
We found an organic farm in Laos where we will hopefully work at when we are there!
Thats it for now................. Enjoy life!

We also went to this Taoist temple in Chengdu. Its been another beautiful temple but I was a little bit disappointed cause I really would have liked to learn more about Taoism but all the signs they had were about the buildings themselves. Anyway we saw Taoist monks (or whatever those people are called) and they look so nice.. Those are the people with long black dresses, long hair which is tightly done with sticks thru them (i'm sure you get what i mean haha) ...
Though this picture doesnt totally show the monks we saw.

At night we went to the Sichuan Opera. Its really famous for the changing faces - a person on stage (actually there were like 4 or so) who can change his face - which is a mask - withing a second, you cant see how he changes it. Hes just waving over his face with his hand and - it changed. Its so impressive. And its not only once they do it, they do it up to 20 times or so in a minute .. You need to see it. The other parts of the opera were mainly funny. Especially the translations.. That really didnt make sense at all. There should be a book where someone just writes down all the Chinese - English translation that you can find anywhere.. hihi.
The costumes in the opera.. Wow.

Back again. Its been a while since I wrote.. Its been in Xian I guess.
Dunno where to start....... Well the last day in Xi'an we went to a big (buddhist) pagoda which was really beautiful but I guess I am sort of spoiled thru Thailand.. That pagoda was just so touristy and I didnt really get the feeling of what I used to feel at those places. It was beautiful to look at though. Oh and there was this big waterspectacle (hu). In front of that pagoda was a big square where they had lots of fountains and every hour they turned on loud music (thats what they love here) and the fountains were on. But dont think that they were only spilling some water.. It actually was sort of impressive. The water sort od danced to the music.. It was crazy seeing a 20 minute show (every hour) with SO much water being wasted while other places are about to dry out.. But I guess thats China.
About the loud music.. Chinese people love everything that makes noise and that is just loud. Everywhere you go you hear music or people screaming or spitting (really, I could here it from a room that was on 2nd floor) or anything. When we climbed the Great Wall there was music where we were actually happy to hear the sound of nature.. forget it. Therefore, on a market in Xian, they had these little cages with criquets (is that how you spell it?) inside to make that sound.. Isnt that striking??
Anyway at night we took the train (a hardsleeper, YAY!) to Chengdu. It took us like 17 hours or so but it was a nice ride. When we got there it was like 4 pm and we just walked around the area where our hostel was. It was beautiful, there was a tempel and lots of those traditional old chinese houses. They probably were restored for the tourists but it was beautiful anyway.
The next day we went inside that tempel. I loved it! We had some really good food inside the tempel, Gingko nuts with some green salad stuff and bamboo and rice. Though Sichuan province is famous for its spices our food was pretty mild but that was good.


We went to the people's park to a teahouse and this one chinese man came up to us and started talking.. He was just funny, and his friend wanted to show us pictures of Tibet as he goes there a lot. It would have been interesting but.. no thanks. Actually we met really many people here who go to Tibet.. Or people who have been there.. I thought that itd be so hard to get that permit but I guess its not. I'll do that the next time.
Haha its so funny, Chinese people love this Internet dancing game! The guy next to me is just playing it.. You have to press some numbers to do the right moves.. It looks so boring and girlie but they seem to love it!!

Our trip, so far...
(Internet is free in this hostel so we got some time to spend here)
Yesterday was another beautiful day in Xi'an. We didnt do so much but walk around. Again we went to the Muslim quarter, I spent too much money on sending a package to Germany and we had great food again.
At the Muslim quarter we took part at a tea ceremony. That is the part on a China journey where most people get ripped off. We didnt, I guess. We went into this really old building which basically consisted out of many buidlings, they looked like you imagine an old Japanese teakhouse. A girl explained all those teaceremony parts to us. First we got to chose 3 out of 6 teas- we went for Black tea with Lychee, Wuyan tea with Ginseng and Bittersweet Wuyan. The girl started to clean that really tiny, beautiful pottery with hot water- first the little tea pot, then the small cups.


She put quite a lot of tea inside the can and then poured hot water in it. First the tea was cleaned, the 2nd time she put water in it was what we drank. After the first tea (the bittersweet one) we got some hot water to drink which really made it taste bittersweet. We drank some more tea and more and more, by the way she introduced all of their products to us but we were strong and didnt buy anything.
We went on and met the 2 Czechs from the train again. We went to the Great Mosque. It really didnt look like a Mosque at all, only the people looked like Asian Muslims. And the moon on the roof. Its been so beautiful and mysterious with all the fog. It seems like Xian being the city of fog- we couldnt even see the sun today, but not due to clouds but to the fog.
Yepp, this is the Mosque...

Today, Thursday I guess, we got up early to go to see the famous Terracotta warriors. First we went to the train station and bought a ticket for tomorrow night to Chengdu. Yay, we got hard sleepers! No hard seats like we got for the 13hours trainride from Beijing to Xian... We actually wanted to go to some other place to go to those Taoist mountains, but there were only hard seats left so we decided to go to Chengdu.
Anyway.
After we finally found an ATM we took the bus for the Terracotta warriors. As we got there we first couldnt find the entrance as there were so many tourist shops... But we made it. They were really impressive but it was not like we were totally blown off. Those statues are over 2000 years old and huuuuge.
After we got back we went to THE quarter again and had some good food again. With lots of garlic. Here people dont put garlic into the sauce but they eat it pure. We tried it and its actually really really good!
We walked down the streets and saw a place for massages from blind people. That is more or less a tradition here, that blind people give the massages. We got one. Its been goooooood! Franzi got a little pain in her back afterwards but mine was just perfect.
Afterwards we had another one of these realloy good Islamic Rice Pudding Cakes or however they are called- its rice with sugar, caramel and jam , and some picture on it (just some colours) and then sugar and some nut stuff. Its so good.
And now we are back at the hostel. Good night!

Everyoooooooooone...
Lets get started again.
We left Beijing On Oct 2nd to go Xi'an. I didnt expect this city to be that nice.. But first let me tell you something about our last few days in Beijing..
On Sunday, Oct 1st, we first walked down to the Tiananmen Square where there were thousands of people.. Oct 1st is the Chinese National Day and all of China is moving. They get off work from Oct 1st until Oct 7th and everyone keeps telling that this is the worst time for travelling. Well, we are ok so far. At that square people came up to us and asked us for a picture. We were like.. Uhm, ok.. Then there were more people coming up... A lady gave me her child and took a photo.. Crazy, We were asked like 20 times just for a picture... I really got annoyed after a while. Well.
At night we went to the Beijing Acrobatic Show. Its been so great. I loooved it so much, everything was perfect. I couldnt find really good pictures of it but I'll put up some anyway.


On Monday we went to the Forbidden City. It was impressive and huge but soo touristy that I didnt like it that much. I mean I liked it but.. There were just too many people. The garden was really beautiful there, with lots of these old old trees and old, beautiful buildings.


Mao..

At night we took the train to Xi'an, and as we didnt want to spend so much money we took hard seats. Never again. Sitting very close with 6 people without any space for 13 hours... I could hardly sleep for 2 hours, I wondered how Franzi could sleep almost all of the 13 hours.
We got here early in the morning and went to the hostel, its a little outside the city centre but thats ok. We walked to the Bell and Drum tower, passing the Muslim quarter. I liked it so much there. We had great food for 3Yuan (30 ct) and all this good food, the market, EVERYTHING.


Now we need to get some food again. Yummie!!!