China

Our first view of China was of Guangzhao airport, and after three months looking at nothing but paddy fields we ended up stumbling about like zombies from Dawn of the Dead looking in posh electronics shops and hideous golfwear stores. Graeme's favourite shop was the chain of Bruce Lee themed fast food restaurants.

One of the best things about China was the food. At home, neither of us are very big fans of Chinese restaurants, so we were both surprised at the amazing food that we were served at even the tiniest local restaurants where we couldn't understand a word of the menu and had to rely on the staff to choose our food. The best, and also the spiciest, food was in Sichuan province, especially the all you can eat hotpot restaurants, where you pick food from a buffet then cook it in a pot with oil, water, chilli and spices at your own table.

We arrived in China just in time to see the total solar eclipse on 22nd July, which was the longest eclipse of the 21st Century. The day was quite cloudy, but despite this we could see the sun through the clouds as the eclipse progressed, and the clouds shifted giving us a clear view of the 'diamond ring' just before totality. After the eclipse, we went down to the banks of the Qiantang River in time to see the tidal bore, a giant wave that rushes up the river mouth when the tide comes in.

We were pretty underwhelmed by Shanghai; the famous 'Bund' has been turned into a building site as they prepare for the 'Expo 2010'. The most exciting part for us was travelling to the airport on the superfast Maglev train at 300kph and watching the cars on the parallel motorway appear to drive backwards, although we were a bit pissed off that we missed out on taking the 420kph train by 10 minutes.

For Graeme's birthday we were in Chengdu and we went on a daytrip to the Panda Research Centre where we saw cute baby pandas including a nine day old one in an incubator. In the evening we went to the Sichuan Opera and saw traditional performances of fire-breathing and mask-changing.
Our last stop before leaving for Tibet was Leshan, where we fought through the throngs of Chinese tourists to see the world's largest sitting Buddha statue.

We wuz in 'Nam....

Compared to the rest of Southeast Asia, Vietnam was a bit of a let down. The locals were not as friendly as everywhere else, and we always had to be on our guard against scams and rip-offs.

We arrived in Hanoi at 4am, after being on buses for almost 24 hours (due to nightmare bus delays), perhaps not the best time to arrive in any city. All of the hostels were closed but luckily we found a reggae bar that was still open and sat in there drinking until the hostels opened at around 6am.

Hanoi is dirty, noisy and overcrowded. Everyone seems to get around on scooters and crossing a road involves stepping out and walking slowly across letting the scooters (hopefully) avoid you. We couldn't leave our hostel without nearly being run over, or being hassled by an endless stream of people trying to sell us photocopied books or stale cakes, or trying to get us into their 'cyclo' (rickshaw). We did see some cool things though, such as Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body, some old B52 planes you could climb on, and we met up again with our friends from Laos, John and Gem, for a few Bia Hoi's – no place is that bad when it has 10p beers!

We had a week to kill before our flight to China so we decided to go on a three-day boat trip to Halong Bay for Debbie's birthday. Halong bay was really pretty with hundreds of limestone pillars rising out of the sea. We spent one night on a boat and another on an island in the bay. This was much more relaxing than Hanoi, but we were still happy to be leaving Vietnam when we got on our plane to China.

Toobin

Just north of the Lao border the Mekong river contains thousands of tiny islands with no electricity or running water, and apart from tourism no industries except (rice) farming and fishing. We stayed for a few days on one of the larger islands, Don Deth, doing very little except cycling around the paddy fields, avoiding the water buffalo which had wandered onto the paths, and lazing around in hammocks for a few days.

After finally dragging ourselves out of our hammocks we left the island and continued north to see some caves at Ban Kong Lor. A songthaew (pick-up truck with two benches in the back for seats) dropped us off at the cave entrance and from there we got into a small wooden boat which took us along the river that runs through the caves for 5km and out the other side. Afterwards, we spent the night at a homestay in the village and provided free entertainment for the local children.

After so much time in the countryside, Vientiane, the capital 'city' of Laos (population 500,000) seemed like quite a metropolis. We got very excited about cheese baguettes and french wine for a couple of days, although we are converted to drinking Lao-style coffee (served strong and sweet with a shot of condensed millk) and of course Beerlao. While we were in Vientiane we made a pilgrimage to the Beerlao factory, where we were rewarded with a tour of the factory, free beers, and a calendar featuring lots of lovely Lao ladies.

We weren't so keen on our next stop, Vang Vieng, which seemed like the Lao equivalent of Ibiza. Everyone comes here to go 'tubing' – floating down the river on inner tubes, stopping at lots of bars on the way, where the staff throw ropes which you use to haul yourself in whenever you want a drink. When they aren't tubing, everyone sits in bars drinking 'happy shakes' and watching Friends DVDs on repeat all day.

After escaping Vang Vieng we went to Luang Prabang, the ancient capital of Laos with lots of beautiful old Wats (buddhist temples) to explore and a much more peaceful atmosphere. Naturally we shattered this along with our new friends John and Gem by going out drinking past the curfew and having to wake up the (heavily pregnant) hostel owner to get back in. The four of us also went on a daytrip out of town to visit a waterfall and a local bear sanctuary. This turned into a bit of an adventure when just a few miles out of town we found a tree had fallen, completely blocking the road. We resigned ourselves to having to turn back but instead the enterprising tuk tuk drivers encouraged their passengers to squeeze through a gap under the tree and swap into tuk tuks stuck on the other side. This way everyone got to continue their journeys without having to wait hours for the road to be cleared.

Our final stop before crossing into Vietnam was Phonsavanh, also known as the Plain of Jars. The jars were left behind by an unknown ancient civilization; the latest theory is that they were used as funeral urns, but we much prefer the local superstition that they were used to distill massive amounts of lao-lao, the local alcoholic drink. This part of Laos is the most heavily bombed region of Laos, and Laos is the most heavily bombed nation on earth, perhaps the most surprising thing is that the bombing (by the USA) took place while they were not officially at war. There are lots of unexploded cluster bombs still lying around and there are warnings at all of the jar sites not to step away from the marked paths. Other local 'points of interest' include bomb craters and a cave where hundreds of people sheltered from the bombing raids. People here use bomb shells as ornaments, plant pots and foundation posts for their houses.

Holiday in Cambodia

We crossed the Cambodian border with only the usual amount of hassle and a small bribe, then headed onto Siem Reap, the nearest town to the ruins at Angkor Wat. Our first view of Angkor Wat was at sunrise the next day – it was pretty cool, but we're not sure whether it was worth getting up at 4am for. We preferred Ta Prohm, a nearby temple which has been left an unrestored state, with old trees growing up around the brickwork. However, our favourite thing we saw was a snake vs gecko fight under an archway at one of the temples.

After a couple days we were all templed-out so we left for the capital, Phnom Penh. for a few days. Phnom Penh is an ugly and fairly uninteresting town, but we were stuck there for the weekend as we had to wait for our Lao visas to be processed. Luckily Phnom Penh is home to the cheapest G&T's in Southeast Asia so we didn't have too much trouble passing the time.

We also took time to visit Choueng Ek, aka the killing fields, an area just outside of town where the Khmer Rouge murdered thousands of their victims in the 1970's. Bits of bone and torn cloth still stick out of the ground near to the paths. The site is now marked by a memorial tower filled with skulls dug up from the mass graves.

After getting out of Phnom Penh we spent a few days in a town called Ban Lung, near the Lao border, where we stayed in a dirt-cheap room in a beautiful old colonial house next to a lake. Unfortunately the place must have been just as attractive to the local mouse and ant populations, as armies of both seemed to have set up camp in our room. We went on a daytrip around the local area on the backs of two scooters ridden by our tour guides, and were driven to some local waterfalls and Buddha statues. We also went on an elephant ride through a rubber plantation. After a few days chilling out with the mice and ants, we headed north to the Lao border.