Mark & Hayley's Big Trip

OK... After a short trip home which was well deserved after our little adventure thru India.. however the trip was more exhausting than travelling around.

We arrived in Cairo and it was bloody hot, we got into a line for immigration and it was massive i guess all the planes land at the same time. It look over an hour until we got to the front also with people pushing in and then razzing them to get to the end of the line..finally it was our turn to shine we stepped up to the desk and the man said no no no you need visa to enter cairo over at that desk.. so we went over to the desk got our $15 dollar visas turned around and the line was then double the size.. so we lined up again which we were so impressed about for another hour and finally got thru....hooray!!!!

We then had to wiggle our way thru all the people trying to annoy us with crap - taxi, touts etc we pushed thru them with a NO THANKYOU was my words lets not go there with what mark had to say... but it worked. We walked over to the local bus station which was not signed in English and the buses i would say had seen better days. It cost 2 pound which is around 50c to go half hour into the city. We then decided to walk to try and find accommodation which is always fun as we do it all the time, end up getting lost and then getting a taxi to a place.. However it was amazing we actually found some accommodation and it was the place we were looking for and the best part about it was it had McDonalds right across the road...lucky for us!! Accommodation wasn't quite ready to check in so we thought we would go have a snack at Macca's and then go back. So we had a guts full of food, went back to our room, thought hey its hot we might just chuck the air conditioning on and have a little nana nap for an hour and then go exploring once the weather had cooled down. 12noon our heads went down on the pillow, mark got up and turned the air off and i said hey just check the time... eeeek it was 12midnight, we must have been tired.. we were wide awake but tried to go back to bed we woke up at 4am and turned the light on and read for a bit... then we got up at 7am and had some breakfast.

We then decided to head to the Pyramids for a look. We arrived at Giza train station and walked out. People were offering to drive us to the Pyramids in a little minivan. It was so cheap we thought ok sounds good. They were trying to spin crap to us telling us that the main exit was for tourist buses and that they would take us to the individual ticket entry, the guy being dodgy rocked up at this camel and donkey stable where you can ride the animals around the pyramids. Mark then continued to tell the man that i was Hayley Peter was allergic to horses and that i couldnt possibly ride the animals around, then mark said take us to the real gate now or we wont pay you!! they then decided to take us to the 'tourist entry gate' which in the end turned out to be the right gate, dropped us on the road and said you can walked the rest of the way... it was only 200metres but it was hot and we were so angry.

The pyramids were amazing they were so big and the sphinx was so little. We got some great photos and couldnt believe that we were seeing them in real life. We had a chance to go into a real pyramid there was a guy that was sitting out front saying NO CAMERAS then saying ok ok its fine you can take photos so we went in and looked around an empty room we exited the free pyramid and mark ran off and the guy then tried to get money out of me as he 'let us' take photos i had no money so i said sorry mate then walked off.. mark was then hiding around the side of the pyramid laughing as he knew what the man wanted. Mark said lets walk around this massive pyramid and on the other side there will be some shade. We walked for about 3minutes and there was not one piece of shade any where i was on the verge of fainting it was so unbelievable hot!!! It would have easily been 45degrees. We (I) then decided to have some lunch and get out of the sun we found a pizza hut just out side the pyramid gates, stuffed down some pizza and a big fizzy and we had the best view of the pyramids. We were looking at the pyramid map and had discovered that we had left thru the wrong gate and we on the completely wrong side. We then entered the pyramids again having to go thru security they didnt seem 2 fussed. We then had to walk all the way over the other side around a 30minute walk thru the stinking hot heat and found our lovely air conditioned bus which was blowing musty gross air on us. We then decided to get out of Cairo so we caught the sleeper train south to Aswan which was $60US but it was nice. We hopped on at 8pm that night and arrived the next morning at 10am. We then found some accommodation and then went for a walk to see the sights which didnt take long, however we did find this little local place to eat which was really nice, it was over looking the nile we ate there for almost all meals, i think a guy called ronald mcdonald owned it...

We took a felluca for a cruise on the nile around some of the islands on sunset, it was pretty scary as the boat was really really little and the wind and waves were getting really really big.

The next morning at 3am yes 3am we got up and joined a convoy to head south to Abu Simbel, the convoy is used for security reasons. In Egypt the drivers say that they see with their eyes and not their lights. So it being 3am pitch black the driver decided to turn his lights off and then on and then off and then on and so on. He then decided that speed doesnt really kill and he wanted to see how fast he could drive with his lights off, getting up to 160km i then decided to give him a little noise to let his know that i was not impressed, he then slowed down and turned his lights back on. I was so scared but happy when daylight came. Abu Simbel was fascinating, the massive monument was great we got to walk inside, it had a sign and guards saying 'NO PHOTOS' mark ignored all and took some great shots, not that he wanted the photos he just liked being a rebel.

The next day we caught a train to Luxor after the train guy ripped us off with 'tourist prices' i lost my temper, not that it helped as we still had to pay the inflated price. We arrived in Luxor and stayed at this flash place for a good price as i haggle him down to basically nothing. We walked around the town looking at temples and ran into our good friend mr mcdonald (ronald) again it was such a coincindence!!!! We were walking passed all these horse and carts and one guy yelled out, hey you want a ride, and i said in a very angry voice ' NO BUT WHY DONT YOU FEED YOUR BLOODY HORSES' they were skin and bone it was so sad, he probably didnt understand me but i felt better.

We then headed to Hurgagha on the local bus it was only ment to take 6hours but we arrived there in 10hours so that was suprising them being 4hours late!!! There was a guy that was at the bus stop organising accommodation and ferry tickets so we jumped in with him and 2 other canadian fellas that we met. The driver was like our best friend showing us all the sights taking us to the ferry ticket office. We stayed at his hostel which was some dodgy little room that had no nothing, sheets were dirty the room was gross but it was cheap and it was only for one night. The next morning we were on our way to the ferry the guy didnt want to know us, he knew he couldnt sell us anything else and i think he wasnt happy about how much we complained about our room as he had lied to us about the condition of the place. He dropped us to the ferry and the 4 of us got out and walked over as we had to validate our tickets it seemed a bit dodgy so we didnt pay the dude. He then walked over to us demanded that we pay him at once and how rude it was of us to just walk away while he was waiting in the car, he got his money after we check our tickets were ok, he stormed off, and we laughed at him as he was so rude. We finally then caught the ferry over to Sharm El Sheik which was suppose to take 90minutes, it was the roughest ferry we have eva been on, we were getting air borne in some places and other places we were almost tipping over. One of the Canadian guys after an hour of shaking then started to vomit into his fruit bag, mark then looked over and wasnt feeling to flash either, i was trying to encourage him to be sick as it would have been a great story to send home, but he did deep breathing for a while and started to have contractions it was so funny i was laughing so hard. I looked out and seen some dolphins i said to mark about it and he snapped at me 'I DONT WANT TO SEE BLOODY DOLPHINS I WANT TO SEE DRY LAND' I was in tears it was just so funny..... after 3hours of very very rough water we finally arrived on the other side of the red sea on the sinai peninsula. We walked around Sharm El Sheik but the whole place was a rip off, it was very touristy and that ment the prices of everything were ridiculous!! The four of us then haggled a taxi driver to take us to Dahab which took 1hr he was a maniac driving way to fast mark told him to slow down and then said 'IF YOU DONT SLOW DOWN YOU NOT GETTIN PAID' he then slowed down. When we arrived mark paid him and said praps with this you could get some driving lessons.

Dahab was beautiful it was relaxing right on the beach we had nice accommodation for once and the food was great and it was all cheap. We went snorkelling and ate then ate some more and then ate some more, this time ronald wasnt there which was good so we got to try local dishes. Unlike the rest of egypt the locals were really friendly. We could have spent a week there just relaxing on the beach but only had a couple of days to get back to Cairo. From the beach we could see Saudi Arabia 10km across the water. We had to organise tickets for the bus to get back to Cairo so we hired a taxi which was a yellow 1950 jeep, the guy was a true egyptian which a turbin on his head all dressed in a white dressing gown. We broke down 3 times on the way to the bus stations, which was only 5km, on the way back it stopped again and the guy asked us to get out and push, mark tried to get it cheaper, while mark pushed i thought it was a good opportunity to get a good photo, a car pulled up behind us and helped us on our way, in the end we broke down about 5 times, lets just say in the morning we decided to get a different taxi to the bus station.

We caught the bus back to cairo and went straight to the airport ready and flew to Nairobi Kenya...................

We arrived in Kathmandu at 11pm the airport was deserted, they casually looked at our passports, gave it a stamp and said see ya... We walked out side to find it hot and full of touts trying to get us into there taxi.... very cheap! We had organised already for someone to pick us up, it was raining and the taxi wasnt a taxi it was more like a gross old clapped out suzuki van. He droved like a maniac, twisting and turning down little side streets, dodging cows and people.

We arrived at our hotel and it was suprisingly nice.

The next morning was the fun part, looking around all the shops and dodging traffic and dodgy dudes... trying to sell Tiger Balm....why?

Every second shop was a camping shop with knock off North Face and all the popular brands that usually cost lots but only cost 5 to 10 dollars, i could have spent so much money but my backpack and mark wouldnt allow it!

We then found out the hotel we were staying at was the wrong hotel and gap adventures (our tour group) had changed the location of the meeting point and forgot to let us know which is always funny in a foreign country where no one like to help.... We finally found the place where we were meant to meet up and found the americans we had met up with on facebook. We then spent the afternoon walking up crap loads of stairs to this monkey temple. On the way we seen the grostest person, searching for god knows what in the sewage river... but as they say another mans trash is another mans treasure or in this case another mans bog is another mans burger!!! mmm

That night we met up with our entire group and went out for tea at this traditional nepalli restuarant.. it was gross... it was basically rice with curry stuff, mark was sitting next to a dude that said 'whats that green shit' which was spinach.. mark didnt eat that night, apparently he wasnt hungry.. not for green veg mash..

EVEREST BASE CAMP

First thing we headed to the bus to start our tour, we went straight to the airport and got on the smallest plane i have ever seen, we had been told the night before that the landing into Lukla was the hardest thing for a pilot as you are heading straight for a cliff and the wind is ment to lift you up and land safety on a run way as short as my arm with one end being 60m higher than the other.... the plane trip took around 45minutes and it was suprisingly smooth, the landing was an experience, i just closed my eyes and hoped i got it on video and would survive to watch it.. everyone clapped when we arrived, which for everyone i think was a sign of 'oh thank god we are still alive'

So we arrived in Lukla and had a guts full of food then we had to walk 3hours to our guesthouse. We usually got a wake up call at 6.30 breakfast at 7.00 start trekking at 8.30am. You never got a straight answer out of the guides and the sherpa, you ask whats the trek going to be like tomorrow, they would always say... a little up a little down (its what they like to call a nepalli flat) which means straight up, no down no gradual up which they always said ' gradual its going to be gradual.... lies all lies.. they had the biggest smiles when they would say gradual like we are lying thru our teeth but it makes you feel better!!!

The next 10 days were so tuff, the food was ok for the first couple of days but it all tasted the same and there was no meat to be eaten as they carry the meat up the mountain, and there is no fridge as they walk up......... but it is well airated and the flies and dirt and bugs just add extra flavour..... after a while the food was rotten you could hardly eat.. mark went a couple of days on just toast and jam, but even the toast was hard to eat, he couldnt even eat potato, thats when i knew something was up.... i just lived on rara noodle soup, its the cheaper and less tastier version of 2 minute noodles, there was even a bit of dirt at the bottom of the bowl for extra grit... the most disgusting thing i have ever tasted was the YAK CHEESE, YAK is like half cow half something else with big horns and gross everything... we had it on pizza and that was it, no more yak cheese for me, but it didnt end at cheese, they had yak butter, yak milk we thought it should be changed to YUK CHEESE..haha

Where do i start on the toilets, i thought on the way down i should have taken photos of all the toilets and called it the everest toilet trek, they started out ok, some were squats and some western, but then some were just holes in the ground, they were the best, mark went into one long drop just after someone else, he came running out, almost knocking over a dude and said hey you go first, he said ' if you cant handle it i cant' so they went and wee'd around the back....

The rooms were ok pretty basic but ok, they were so cold at night, but the tour gave us the biggest sleeping bags i have ever seen. but they were so good, they felt wet when you got in them at night, but by the time you got into the bags you were hyperventalating from the altitude which lack of oxygen... we would often wake up sweating as we had put thermals on aswell. Right at the top of our trek the sleeping bags came in very handy as it was freezing.

Our trekking days consisted of 6 hours walking a day, some up some down, we usually had 2 hours for lunch as you would order the food and it would take them 2 hours to make it, it would always come out cold, we couldnt have a sleep at lunch or when we got to the guest houses at night as it would make the acclimation harder and we would struggle more during the day.... all mark wanted was 5 minutes.

Alot of people struggled on the trek, including me, i was usually at the middle but if you couldnt find me there, look right at the back.... i did have some good rests along the way, mark being the gentle man he is would alway wait, i asked him one day i said ' you dont have to wait go ahead with the others' he then reply ' im walking behind you for a reason' he was stuffed as well as he was carrying the backpack and the bum bag... LETS TALK ABOUT THE BUM BAG

We had to buy a bum bag so we could carry the cameras alot easier, mark and i have always been against them as they are for middle aged tourist... the one he brought was bright canary yellow and stuck out like us in china... when we put on the bum bags, the americans would crack up laughing and say 'hey nice fanny pack' which is what they call it, as we explained to them what fanny actually ment, it made them laugh even harder, so the fanny pack joke went on for the whole trek and it only got funnier..

HAVE HEAPS MORE 2 WRITE BUT HAVE TO CATCH TRAIN, WILL WRITE MORE IN COUPLE OF DAYS....

We arrived at Japan at the port in Osaka at the south of japan. We got our temperatures taken before we could disembark.We got thru customs then got outside and thought oh theres nothing here not learning from our previous mistakes we entered the country with no japanese yen. We said to each other here we go again, although it seems stupid of us we just prefer to wing it coz there is no adventure having everything prebooked and planned out too well. We found a bank and had an egg and lettuce sandwich it was so refreshing to eat something healthy for a change. We went in to a flash motel that we didnt belong at and asked to use the internet. The bird said sure just pay on your way out, we went in did our stuff then walked out then thought oops forgot to pay..thats weird.

We got to the train station and an old lady came up and asked if she could help. She showed us how to buy a ticket and where to board the train. We got on the train with her and we were telling her the japanese words we knew she thought it was hilarious as she was exiting the train she turned around and said 'G'DAY MATE' cracking up laughing, it was so cool but so bad!!!

We found a motel and stayed the night, it was in the bronxs. Next morning we got a train to Kyoto we thought we would walk again to try and find our way but the street names suddenly turned from english into Japanese and we got lost. We stopped a lady and she rang the accommodation for us and the lady that runs the guesthouse said she will come and pick us up. I put my pack on the ground thinking that it might take a while, she came flying around the corner on her pushy ringing her bell and said lets go!!! We followed her home which was only a few blocks so we did do well, well the guesthouse was a Traditional Japanese home, at first it looked a bit dodgy, but it was so much fun and such a cool little place, our beds were 2 mats on the ground but it had so much character and the family that ran the place were so friendly. Mark expected to find mr miyagi in there pruning a bonsai. we spent the day looking around Kyoto went for a massive walk up to the foot of the mountains thru temples and old buildings.

The next morning mark and the owner of the guesthouse went for a bike ride up around town and bought back a loaf of bread for breakfast... He share with us a japan orange it was so sour. He then dropped us to the train station and we were off to Toyko on the Bullet train, clocking 300km /hr. I fell asleep and mark woke me up just as we were passing mt fuji, im glad he was awake cos we would have been spewing if we missed it!!!

Tokyo was just another big city, we sent the afternoon looking around, but decided to spend the night near the Airport just so we didnt miss our flight to Hong Kong. Narita was just a base for the airport with hotels and some restaurants. We found a nice motel with a room on the 4th floor, around 1.45am i woke up to the whole building shaking, i jumped on mark and said wake up we are having an earthquake, mark said ' what do you want me 2 do about it and whats all that noise" i said its the bloody building collapsing so hurry put your strides and move ya ass. We ran to the elevators looking for the stairs but they were lock, all mark could say was how cool is this. We went back to our rooms and i rang receptions, saying how do i get down to the ground, as we are having an earthquake and we need to evacuate.... he just laughed at me and said stay in your room, have a good night.... WHAT THE????

So thats what i did the building finally decided to stop shake, mark was already asleep, and little quakes kept happening during the night, mark woke up all fresh and ready for the day, i woke up like death warmed up as i had no sleep, as i was waiting for the building to fall down, i was going to jump in the bath, as im sure there was a movie that said that was the safest place but then realise that we were 4 stories up and im not sure that a bath isnt going to break my fall.....

We looked up on the internet the next morning and it said that Earthquakes were a common thing in japan...well thanks for the heads up!!!!!!! I was glad we were flying out that morning. We had our free breakfast and headed to the airport, ready for HONG KONG!!!

IT BEGINS

After crossing the Vietnam border, which we thought was relatively easy, we then crossed the friendship bridge into China, which we had to walk about 500m to the China Border... We entered and lined up I(hayley) got thru fine as i am the outstanding citizen of Australia..Mark on the other hand looks dodgy and maybe gave him a bit of lip.... We only 20minutes to get to the bus station to catch our bus... which we didnt know where it was!!! The Customs agent looked at marks passport then got his mate to come over and have a look.... meanwhile time was ticking!!! They asked him a million questions about why he had a nepal visa and india visa but no exit stamp and why his photo was so faded and fake!!! Finally after 10minutes they finally decided that he wasnt a threat to China and let him pass... HOORAY!!!

We then greased it too the Bus station... turning corners looking for signs (haha no english ones) We found a few buses parked together and thought mmm maybe this might be it..

Seeing as we were in such a hurry we didnt have time to get any china money, but thought when we stop we will easily find a ATM.. We were offered a Lonely Planet China Book and we thought NAH we will get one later when we have time and money!!! So on the bus we hop!!!!

We started on our journey... we thought shit this is alright nice an smooth we will beable to get some shut eye for our 16hr bus trip...One Hour in the bitumen ran out and so did our one muesli bar... we then thought the road cant be this bad for that long...little did we know that the whole 16hrs was on a dirt ungraded after massive floods... After 11hrs they thought they would stop and let us eat and go to the dunny!!! The place they stopped where we thought was the dunny was actually where they were serving food. As we had no money and the food looked nasty we thought we could suck it up and wait until we arrived in Kunming.. I thought i would take the risk as i was busting to go to the toilet... i walked it to find, a joint toilet with girls swatting over a few holes.... the urge to go to the toilet some how just disappeared.... Back on the bus we get, 5 hours and 5 million pot holes later, we arrive in Kunming... Off the bus, grabbed our bags....and then what!!!

We walked along trying to find somewhere to stay as it was 10pm at night... The hotel staff didnt speak english and needed a deposit for a room...thats funny we dont have any money for a deposit. We walked around for about an hour, up and down these dodgy streets and found a place up the road that had a son that spoke 2 or 3 words of english which is 2 or 3 more words than we knew of Chinese. The son took Mark to try and find an ATM and NO We couldnt get money as the ATM didnt except foreign cards.. so the dude said you can just fix us up in the morning except he didnt say it that clear!!! We decided after eating nothing all day we will eat nothing all night and went to sleep...the water we had was nice tho and filling (sort of).

The next morning, we walked for 2 hours to try and find money, found some, paid the dude, walked straight to the train station.. we stopped every second person at the train station to try and help us get tickets but of course no one spoke english.. we jumped in a line that looked like people were buying tickets and going somewhere. There was a chick behind us and i thought asking one more person if they spoke english wouldnt hurt.. We were stunned when she spoke almost perfect english, she bought the tickets for us and took us to where we had to board the train we got on the train and got the hell out of the dodgy town... We shared a 4 bed cabin with 2 local men, they didnt speak or bother us until one lit up a cigarette and then mark arched up bounced off his bunk slammed the door open and pointed out the door and said stuff that the guy didnt understand, but the pointing marks gestures he soon got the point and got the hell out of the room...

We arrived in Chengdu, no where to stay so we thought we would just walk for a bit and we will soon find somewhere. 6hrs later and 4 very sore feet we found a hostel where people spoke english. We orgaised everything thru them as it was so much easier. The next morning we went and seen the Panda's at a breeding research facility it was so much fun, they were so cute and playful.. i think we ended up taking 100 to 200 photos but they were all good ones!!! We had the opportunity to get a photo taken we a adult panda, but they wouldnt take a joint photo and it was so tacky!! We spent the morning with the little dudes then caught the train to Xian where the Terra Cotta Warriors were...

The TerraCotta i thought would be so tacky but they were amazing, it is like its own little underground village and they still have so much work to do... little did we know that the tacky part was when we exited the park.. hundreds of souvenirs shops with little warriors everywhere.. with dudes yelling at us ' DO YOU WANT WARRIORS, COS WE HAVE GOT WARRIORS' mark went up to a lady that was selling fruit, and said 'exqueeze me do you have any warriors or know where any would be' sarcastically it was so funny (i guess you had to be there)

After the Warriors we thought well whats the next town as we were in a hurry to get to Japan. We walked about 3kms to the train station with our packs on as we had an hour to fill in and worked off our KFC.. it saved us about 20c but that 20c might come in handy somewhere...

The next morning we arrived in Beijing where they are mad on the olympics.. We decided to walk to our accommodation little did we know that we got off at the wrong train station and the hostel we were staying at was about 10km away from where we were.. we walked and walked and walked and then got so lost we thought be better ask a dude.. they laughed and said you need bus, you very far away, very far!!!20minutes in the bus and we arrived at our hosel.....

We booked our tour for the great wall of china. 4 hours on the bus to get 2 the wall the traffic was terrible but the driver was worse, he had issues with the brakes.. using them like bike pedals.. they served us breakfast as soon as we got on the bus... i opened my box and found 2 sandwiches with a massive hair that looked like it was out of a horse tail.. i said ' ay can i have another one, and please hold the hair' i feel sorry for the person that got the sandwich that i gave back!!!

We got to the wall and it was a 10km trek along the top, it was so unbelievable it was ya up hill and your down dale!!!! We thought it was going to be a casual stroll for grannies, but we were sweating in the first 5 minutes there were millions of stairs but it was great fun. We had to little old ladies following us, asking us questions, wanting to take photos for us... we stopped to have a break and they would stop with us we thought we had found friends for life.. haha when we were ready to move on mark would yell out ' little ol lady, have you seen our little ol lady' (have you seen that one' for all those who dont know its a quote off dumb and dumber...its a must see!!!

5kms down the track they said there was a short cut, we said nah we are going to suck it up and take the hard way..they said ok do you want to buy, t-shirts, water, crap little trinkets. mark asked are they free as i have no money but ill have a shirt if they are free.. our little ol ladies turned into the wicked witch of the west... mark laid a shepard on and we got anyway will all our money.... no friend for life!!!

After walking 10kms there was a flying fox to get down the the bottom of the car park, we took that as i couldnt possibly do any more stairs... We then went for dinner,but as we were the last people to arrive the food looked rotten, mark said i'm not really that hungry' and i said 'yeah i just had pudding an hour ago' '''''''have you seen that one''''''''' (Deuce Bigalow) we settled for a coke! shit it was good!!

The next morning we headed for Shanghai as that is where we need to catch the ferry to Japan. We booked the hostel and made sure they knew what train we were taking as we could have free pick up!! The dude asked what name to put on the sign, i said 'MARK' then i said his last name is.... the dude said not important, not many guys name is mark. The fast train only took 10 hours as we got off the train a dude was not even a metre from the train door yelling out 'MARK? MARK? ARE YOU MARK?' we were scared as he was full on. His name was steve and his drivers name was steve, i think they just both decided there and then to have the same name!!!

The next morning Steve said that the ferry to Japan leaves at 11am and you have to be there by 9so you will have to grease it.. he wrote the ferry terminal name in Chinese so the taxi would understand, we got in the taxi and he flew.. weaving in and out of traffic going thru red lights... I THOUGHT WE WERE ON THE AMAZING RACE!!! We arrived in record time, we walked down into the terminal and asked a chick where we could buy tickets, it was around 8.00am... she laughed at us and said no no you buy tickets at 11am, ferry leave at 1pm.... heaps funny ...not!!!!

Time passed boarded the ferry which was quite easy.. it was an 8 bed room, which we share with ourselves as they room you with your own nationality and seeing as we were the only english speaking people on board we were by ourselves..

As no one spoke english it was so much fun trying to order food.. We went for tea one night and they bought out the menu which had bits of english with pictures. mark ordered Sweet and sour pork and i ordered chicken snitzel..

With the Pork mark wanted chips like fries like potato but it wasnt that simple. this is how it went......'Can i please have some french fries with my pork', the waiter ' ok ok' he brought on rice mark said 'no no no i want french fries like potato, chips' waiter 'ok ok' he then brought out sweet chilli sauce in a bottle and was pointing into the bottle and was saying something about something... Mark said 'no no no FRIES, FRENCH FRIES, POTATO' pointing at a picture of fries on a plate there ended up being 3 other waiters trying to work out what mark wanted. With mark and i both yelling at him i got confused and said HE JUST WANTS A PLATE OF FRENCH RICE' mark was like no i dont i want POTATO With mark pointing at the picture of fries the waiter then replied [b]'oh no that tomato'[b] we were in hysterics... he then go it about half an hour later... we finally got a plate of french fries.... it was almost worth the hassle!!!

We had a TV in the room and reception would play a movie every 3hours, if the movie wasnt on by the dead line one of us would go an razz them to hurry up.... The movies were shit, but at least we would have every second movie in english.... We played ping pong to pass the time!! After 2 days on the ferry we arrived in Japan..

IN SUMMARY....... CHINA WAS HARD, VERY HARD.... I HAVE LEARNT HOW TO PUT UP WITH GROSS BUGGAS HUCKING LUGIES EVERYWHERE, BLOWING SNOT ONTO THERE FINGERS AND THEN WIPING IT ON TREES, SQUATING TOILETS, AND JUST GENERAL GROSSNESS OF THE PEOPLE. ALSO A LESSON AGAIN, DO NOT ENTER A COUNTRY WITH NO LOCAL MONEY, NO WHERE TO STAY AND NO IDEA HOW TO SAY HELLO HELP ME!!!

From the border we then made our way up up up to Hanoi, the scenery was stunning at first.. we pulled into Hanoi and a vietnamese lady jumped on board and say welcome to vietnam. she organised a taxi and said come to my guesthouse called the Kangaroo Hotel, it cost 8 bucks with hot water and telly, i got excited but then realised that i was in a foreign country and not even the telly speaks english...i was hoping i could get updated on the home and away situation, 'was sally ok, who killed sam' all this information i just didnt know, lucky i have friends in low places that are more addicted to telly than me 'thanks kristy'!!! Entering downtown hanoi we wouldnt believe how crazy the traffic was it was a four lane road with at least 12 lanes of motorbikes and weaving in and out with the constant beeping of the horn, making new york sound like a public library. It wasnt that they got angry and tooted it was just letting everyone know that 'im here, watch out and clear a path people, im coming thru on my deadly treadly'!!!

We arrived at our hotel, booked in and went for a feed!!! That night after we got back to our room, we found out that the telly didnt really work, and there was no hot water, well i could have razzed someone good but was the cold water was more refreshing and i was too tired!!!!!

We looked around hanoi and it was dirty and flat out, it was so crazy, we walked out and the moment you walk out your hotel you are lost and there is no return for hours and hours until you finally decide to stop and think about it and then realise yep i am seriously lost...help please!!!

Too keep us entertained we would play dodge the scooter as they had no crossing you just walk and they dodge you, do not run do not stop just walk and hope the hell they see you as most of the time they are too tired to put on there lights as it saves in petrol and they are tighter than i am!!!

The four of us AJ (Dutch) Claire (English) and us then decided to book a tour to Halong bay on a junk (which is a boat for the people that didnt know as i had no idea what it was) we meet up with 4 irish lads, 3 canadian chicks, 2 french men and an italian, we had great night, sitting on the roof of the boat talking a load of lies!!!

We went canoeing around caves in the mountains!!!!!! some of the guys decided to go for a swim, diving of the roof of the boat into the middle of the ocean, there wernt any sharks, just ladies on little boats saying 'you buy from me' selling there crap, oreos, pringles, pineapples...

We got back to the bay just in time for lunch, rice again...mmm mark said how good would it be if they bought out some fries, laughing as the food was all rice and veg and noodles... 2 minutes later they bought out a little plate of fries, mark made a guts of himself as taking his own advice as when you find something you like over here you guts it as you dont know when your next feed will be!!! Mind you we only had chop sticks to eat with i asked for a fork and im still waiting!!! so we were just using one...poking the fries!!!

That night we got a taxi to the train station and it was suppose to cost 2 dollars in the taxi but 5 metres down the road he stopped and said $5 dollar, we said no way and opened the door we walk, then he say ok 4 so we thought fine... we were running late and were not in the mood for townies!!! Got to the train station and got our bags and the meter on the taxi said 2 dollars as we originally had said so i walked off and said mark 'DO NOT PAY HIM $4 AS HE HAS ATTITUDE AND IT SHOULD ONLY COST $2' little did he know that he was messing with 2 tight ass aussies, mark said ' i have 40,000 dong which is $2.50 take it or leave it or shove it!! they guy decided in his best interest he should take the money... i was only told this as i was already about to get on the train!!! we walked into the station no idea what to do, mark said hey that guy looks australian, we walked up and he said g'day mate, howzit going? He showed us what too do and we said thanks see ya later... little did we know that we would be sharing the next 9hrs in the same carriage together it was like a 4 sleeper cabin.. they were great but little did we know we were sharing with a celebrity.. his name was Bernie Curry he is an actor on tv he was in such films as neighbours, Graham Kennedy the king, monster house (host) and more famously his brother is Steven Curry the dude out of the castle 'dale kerrigan' dad i dug a hole and its filling with water!!! i was so excited!!!

We arrived in a place called sapa we thought we were pretty smart getting the best room in the best hotel with the best view 'location location location' it was only 15 bucks down from 20 we haggled, little did we know that the weather was that dodgy the clouds didnt lift all day and out our window we saw white, just white.. it rained all day, which was good cos i caught up on some snoozing and general laying about in stead mark was going to drag me around treking all day!!!

Decided to leave sapa as the weather wasnt going to clear and it wasnt worth staying in side for 2 more days... we caught a shuttle bus to the border and the driver was trying to break his own speed record going down the windy mountains... it was so scary, he was weaving in and out of trucks and nearly knocking people off their bikes and off the road altogether!!! he dropped us at the border we picked up our tickets for the bus and walked to the customs... thinking that the hard part of the day had been done. little did we know what lay ahead.....