le blog de la brune

Paul (FYI for those who missed the travel buddies entry, it's my backpack) took ten years in one plane journey from Bangkok to Mumbai. He had managed to stay clean so far, his pretty pale blue color unstained, no scratches on his soft skin. But that was before India.

So, I arrive in Mumbai where I have a 3.5 hours layover before flying to Chennai. I had planned plenty of things to do to stay busy while I waited: sorting out pictures, writing a blog entry about Thailand, painting my nails, finishing my book. Yeah, I know, I was full of hope. Paul is checked in to get to Chennai directly, but I have the feeling I should wait and check if by mistake he would arrive on the luggage belt in Mumbai. After a good 30-minutes wait, I decide that I've waited enough and we would meet in Chennai. I am leaving the luggage pick-up area when an employee of the airport stops me, asking “where is your luggage, madam?” (Ouch. Madam. That hurts.) We go back together to the belt and there he is, covered with grease stains, dusty, unrecognizable. I grab him, we go through a first bag screening, walk along many long non-A/C hallways, get in line to go through another screening, and another one, and then to the check-in again. I follow the other passengers, we take a bus, drive around the airport for 30 minutes, watching the slums settled  right next to the airport fence and clothes hanging and drying on the barbwire, before we finally reach the domestic terminal. Then there's the 40-minutes queue for the security check – women have a separate line, which might seem a good idea to avoid any inappropriate male behavior, but which in reality works like the toilets: the women's line is always ten times longer than the men's. By the time I reach the departure hall, I have 15 minutes left before boarding the plane. So much for my great plans. I was truly optimistic for India.

India scares me. I've heard so much about its decadent and busy cities that I don't want to take the risk of staying overnight in Chennai, fighting with the taxi drivers to have them drop me where I want to go, bargaining for the price, and sharing my room with bugs. I book a room and a taxi to Mahabalipuram, a small town on the coast, famous for its temples and rock carvings. And it is a great place to start with India.

Ok, there are cows in the streets, as you expect it, but there are even more goats. Goats everywhere, goats of every color, size and shape!

The next stop is Pondicherry, its French colonial architecture, its French road names, its French advertisements, its (French?) monkeys, its French bakeries. With delicious pains au chocolat, the real ones :-)

Hahaha very funny:

We take the steam train direction the Nilgiri mountains, to Coonoor and Ooty, two small towns in the mountains, surrounded by tea plantations and eucalyptus trees.

Ooty - very famous for its legendary hospitality :-)

More animals...

And of course... more goats!

Local food: thalis...

porottas....

masala dosa....

upma...

sweets... :-)))

and plenty of other dishes, but i keep forgetting their names :-)

The cold temperature (yeah, I know, 15 degres celsius is not that cold, but when you've been traveling under 30 degrees for 3 months, it is cold) encourages us to take the bus down to the coast, direction Kannur, Northern Kerala. The bus ride down the mountains is scary, but we're well protected:

Kannur is a nice little town on the Malabar coast, with a long deserted beach and a local weaver cooperative. And the temperature doesn't drop under 30 celsius degrees... I feel much better :-)

We travel South to Kochi, starting to get used to the overcrowded trains and the incessant litany of the food and drink vendors in every station, "chaia tea chaia".... I instantly fall in love with Kochi, its portuguese colonial architecture, the big chinese fishing nets... it's just touristic enough to get some comfort of the western lifestyle (yes you can find real coffee here), without having the drawbacks and the continuous hassle of most touristic places. Kathakali dances, spice market, cooking class, ayurvedic massage, the days are busy!

Of course.... goats!

"Should I use the ladder?"

Hahaaaa.... net fishing... impresssive.... but we know how to do it too!

Fish masala, eggplant masala, pumpkin masala, dahl, chapati.... no more secrets for me!

Kathakali dance show and make-up:

And of course, a boat tour in the backwaters!

wooops... load too heavy...

And then, the ashram. Instead of going to a huge yoga meditation enterprise, I decide to try a Christian ashram in the hills, near the small town of Vagamon. And that's an experience. Of course, men and women in separate lodgings, and not allowed to talk to each other. Prayer and meditation at 3.45, 6.00, 12.00, 2.15, 6.30, alternately in English or Malayalam. The rest of the time, reading or meditation. Which means a awful lot of time to think about yourself :-)

So I'm there, sleeping with the nuns, and feeling that I'm in Back to the Future, that the bus who took us there actually traveled back in time and brought us to the Middle-Ages. And in a sense, this way of life is attractive. Think about it: no more shaving, waxing, make-up, no more "what am I gonna wear today", no more troubles with boys... Tempting, no?

Ok just joking, but staying at this ashram is a beautiful experience, being welcomed by those monks who left everything they had to dedicate their life to a religious and spiritual quest is fascinating.

My room:

The surroundings:

Hard to go back to the "real" world after that...

Though it helps when the real world is Varkala.

Sandy beaches, coconut trees, fishermen pulling their huge nets every morning, sunset every evening...

As for the mustache part, well it's just that my heart stops beating once a day when I think I see Freddy Mercury in the street... Damn it I know he's dead, why can't I just stop fooling myself???

http://www.askmen.com/top_10/travel/top-10-mustache-dense-countries_1.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/15/AR2010021503409.html

You know that you're in Thailand when, at sunset, you're walking from the supermarket ON a highway (sidewalks? what for?) and you meet a guy riding his elephant to town. And just when you pass him, he jumps down and starts attaching a red bike light to the tail of his elephant. In Thailand, you don't joke about safety on the roads at night.

We arrive in Nong Khai, a small town across the Mekong. Back to the Mutmee Guesthouse, a wonderfully relaxed little place overlooking the river, four years after our first stay here. It feels strange and comfortable to be back here, to a known country, a known place. First thing on the schedule, and – we confess – main reason to come back to Thailand: the rotee pancake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uTWKdZP52I

Our plans to take the trains as much as we can fall quickly apart: extensive rainfalls have flooded the whole northeastern part of Thailand. Well, that's just going to be one more sleepless night in a bus to get to Bangkok :-)

We didn't like Bangkok the last time we were in Thailand. Too big, too polluted, too noisy, too stressful. But this time, the city feels different. Maybe because we take our time to wander in the streets, visit some of the thousands of temples you can find around every street corner, stop at street stalls to eat our lunch, take the local buses to get where we want to go. Or maybe because after the huge Chinese megalopolis, Bangkok doesn't seem so scary anymore.

Anyway, it is nice to go to the hairdresser, to see a movie in a theater (and learn how the King of Thailand invented electricity – or that's what it seems like in the ad before the movie, the one for which everybody stands up), and to drink a coffee at Starbucks – particularly nice when they serve you with a big smile and a “iced tall latte kaa?”

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Chinatown and the return of the steamed buns....

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and with a chestnut... yum :)

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Gym in the park

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Thai iced tea - yum again

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Bangkok new fashion?

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Muay Thai live!

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After Bangkok, we were planning on going to the islands of the east coast – koh tao, koh pa ngan and koh samui. Train tickets bought, but again, the weather catches up: on the day we want to leave, all the trains are canceled due to floods in the south too. Again, we opt for a night bus, and for the islands of the west coast: the weather is so bad that the boats apparently don't even reach the islands off the east coast... As they tell us: “the water is full”. We end up on Koh Phi Phi and Koh Lanta for two weeks – white sandy beaches, blue water, bungalows just off the beach, cocktails in a pineapple, it definitely could have been worse :-)

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You know you've been on the road for too long when you start giving names to your backpacks.

As soon as we've landed in Laos, we can feel it's going to be different here. We step down the plane and walk across the tarmac to a small building that looks like an empty gas station along a deserted highway. Yes, that's the airport of Luang Prabang. First surprise, even the customs officer is nice. He laughs with us and even teaches us a few words in Lao. Then, there's a fixed price for the taxi from the airport, no need to bargain. Are we still sleeping? What's wrong here?

So we've just arrived to the nicest and most laid-back country of the world.

And to the best city of the country.

Luang Prabang, it's pretty...

... it's romantic...

… it's poetic...

… it's colourful...

... it's shiny...

… it's smooth...

… it's relaxed...

… it's relaxed (haven't I said that already?)...

… it's love.

So we adapt our pace to the Lao lifestyle: Lao coffee and fruit shake in the street in the morning; on the busy days, one activity (swimming in the waterfalls, visiting a temple, chilling on the terrace of the Utopia cafe overlooking the Mekong); at night, the market for its street food and a well-deserved Lao Beer, and sometimes – when we feel exceptionally energetic - a free movie at L'Etranger Cafe. Life is hard.

And you don't even have to spend an ounce of energy to bargain. We discover the Lao self-bargain: when asking for the price of a pair of earrings, the owner tells us “50,000 kip, but special discount for you, 25,000. Ok 15,000.” Confused, we repeat: “15,000?” He answers: “Ok, 10,000.” That's how it works.

We manage to get up at 5am once to see the monks collecting the alms:

And we take this opportunity to see the morning market (and its share of strange stuff):

All kinds of fish: big fish,

small fish,

dead fish.

And other things that you don't want to see to closely...

And then, already exhausted by the day, we head to the waterfalls to swim in the clear-blue water...

After a few days, we extract ourselves from the city's torpor and head north to Nonk Khiaw, on a boat.

Hoping the boat won't sink...

Stop at the gas station:

(hum... we're starting a new game: after Cherchez Charlie/Where is Waldo? it's now Where is the invisible man? Found him again, hiding in a boat gas station on the Nam Ou river, Laos.)

7 hours later, we painfully unfold our body from the tiny wooden chairs of the boat and slowly walk from the pier to the village, settled in a beautiful valley among vertical limestone karst.

The next day, we go fishing on the Nam Ou river.

Lao Net Fishing Manual or learn how to fish in 10 lessons:

1. Take off your pants.

2. Affix your fishing basket to your underwear. (and take off your shirt too.)

3. Light a cigarette on.

4. Fold your net.

5. Throw your net.

6. Find the net in the water (not always easy, especially when the water is deep), grab and pull the net.

7. Take the fish.

8. BBQ the fish.

9. Eat the fish.

10. Wash it down with a Lao Lao Mojito.

We decide to go back to Luang Prabang with the faster and more comfortable minivans. Or that's what we were told. And we thought the minibus to Sapa was crowded!?! We go to the bus station at 9am and buy our tickets for the 10am minibus. At 9.50am, we learn that we're going to leave at 11am. Then they try to start the minibus. After a few unsuccessful attempts, they push the air-conditioned minivan away and replace it by a pick-up truck. Great. And this time, we'll only be 20 people and 10 bags of rice at the back. Of course, the 3-hour ride turns out to be 5 ½ hours. And the road VERY bumpy. I noticed later that on the back of my ticket, under “fare regulations”, it's mentioned “please use only the attributed seat number”. How do they refer to mine? Bag of rice #4?

Back to LP, we're greated by a “Sabaidee Sandwich?” from our preferred street vendor. How can you resist?

After a few more relaxing days in LP, we head south to Vang Vien, famous for its tubing, drinking, and more... but for a tourist trap, it's really not too bad.

Vang Vien, famous for its Safety Bridge...

Road signs sponsored by Lao Beer?

We try a local breakfast, sticky rice with coconut milk and mango, red tea or lao coffee with condensed milk. Ater that, you're good for the day. And for the year if you count the amount of sugar ingested.

We continue our way south to Ventiane, the capital city. With a population of 200,000 people and a Lao laid-back atmosphere, it doesn't have a real capital city feeling. Though it might not be very different from Bern, now that I think of it...

We arrive in time for the Awk Phansao, a celebration for the end of the rainy season. The monks leave their temple in processions, people gather near the Mekong at night to party, and to light candles on small boats made of banana leaves and flowers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BchElfX8N3M

And of course, a few gems!

They definitely don't have the same problems as us here....

What's wrong with this picture??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvU6ne4aTr0

Ok, I'll start with THE SCOOP:

We know where the invisible man is: Halong Bay, Vietnam!!

As soon as we set foot on Vietnamese soil, we are approached straight away by two men offering us a minibus ride to Sapa. Even though we're exhausted by our 8-hour bus ride from Yuangyang to the border, we bargain for 15 minutes until we get to an acceptable price. Then, we have to wait for the minibus. And that's when we realize that we're not in China anymore: everybody starts making fun of us. Of course, the funniest thing here is my height :-) They try to guess how tall I am (in average between 1.90 and 1.95m – thanks I'm not a giant yet) and then one of the two guys climbs on the small wall we're sitting on and says “me very short, up to kiss kiss”.

The minivan finally arrives, and within 2 minutes, we find ourselves squeezed between 5 other people and bags of clothes, food, and various pieces of furniture. But we're not ready to go yet. 20 minutes and 5 stops later, with 5 more people, 20 more bags, a couple of pig's feet and after several reconfigurations of the load, we hit the road to Sapa. At 10 km/h. Still passing cars and scooters in every curve. And of course, after 10 minutes, we run over a dog. Welcome to Vietnam.

But we have to admit, Sapa is worth the ride. A small town set in the mountains, surrounded by fields and rice terrasses, where water buffalos peacefully graze under the sun (or the clouds) (or on the soccer field).

As an old lady trying to sell us postcards says: “Sapa Ouh-la-la!”

We quickly learn to dodge the scooters in the street (matter of life or death) and to ignore the evergoing honks, the women selling bags and bracelets everywhere (to their complaint “no buy, cry” we learn to answer “no buy no cry” - it works even better when you sing it) and the everpresent posters of uncle Ho.

We also discover the specialties of the region:

- the stretched-leg chicken

- the scorpio liquor

- and - as a special tribute to our north american friends who taught us so much about canning – the pickled geckos

We go for a one-day trek in the mountains – 17km, average difficulty, hehe it's soooo easy for us now! Here too the farmers are working in the fields, harvesting rice.

After a few relaxing days in Sapa, we take the night train to Hanoi. The train is on time, the beds clean and comfortable. We sleep well. Too well. At 5.30am, Sylvine taps on my shoulder and says “We're in Hanoi. Now.”  The train has already stopped. We don't know how long the train will stay here, so we start gathering our stuff as quickly as possible. I'm still passing our backpacks down to Sylvine from the highest berth when the train starts moving. Sylvine shouts “go, go!”, I jump down the berth, we run to the doors and jump down the train. Yes, we made it! With all our bags!

Of course, the train wasn't leaving, but only adjusting its position. 15 minutes later, it still hasn't left the station. Great. Ok, we've still learnt two good lessons from that incident:

a) when you travel by train in Vietnam, always keep all your belongings gathered together

b) we didn't know it before, but we can actually wake up and get ready to go in less than 30 seconds. No more excuses.

So, Hanoi. Vietnam. "Le pays du matin calme". Yeah, right. That was before the scooters.

So, Hanoi is VERY busy. Crossing the street is like jumping from a bridge in the middle of a highway, but instead of cars, it's only scooters. Thousands of scooters. At first you try to avoid them, but you quickly realize that you cannot predict their moves. Then you just walk across the streets, your eyes shut, and pray for your life. It works, we're still alive.

We notice here too that Vietnam still bears the marks of French colonialism: the architecture, the French baguettes sold everywhere by street vendors, and of course the translations from Vietnamese to French instead of English (another opportunity for good laughs).

For the food review, we try the Cha Ca, a fish specialty apparently cooked in only 3 restaurants in Vietnam (according to Lonely Planet, so you might not want to rely on this info). True or not, we don't care, it's delicious!

We also find the steamed buns again, to my delight

and this time it's full of surprise – noodles, quail's eggs, and other undefinable things

Of course, the Pho and its famous chinese kruders

The Vietnamese coffee (first tried without the condensed milk, but it's a once-in-a-lifetime, I don't think our stomachs and our taste buds are made to support that)

And of course, we hit the street terrace for a beer

no I don't feel tall, you're wrong.

After a couple of days in the midst of the city pollution, we leave for a 3-day trip on Halong Bay. Even under the clouds, and sometimes the rain, the bay is stunning (and so peaceful after Hanoi!).

On the agenda:

- homestay on an island with wonderful hosts,

- bike ride among water buffalos (scary)

- taming the scary buffalo,

(not there yet, we definitely need some practice here)

- swimming in the bay at sunset,

- enjoying the view from the boat,

- visiting a floating village,

(you'd better get along with your neighbors)

(in particular when they can see you in bed)

homemade motorboat?!

- and of course - I guess you're expecting it now - yummy food....

Also on the schedule, many laughs thanks to our guide Cuong, who will probably end up in hell if he doesn't stop making fun of his compatriots... He explains that Vietnamese people usually mix up the letter L and N, and always laughs at their accent... “Hello, excuse me” becomes “Heno, Kiss me!”... and the invariable “Kiss me, Ladies and Zentleman!” everytime he wants to tell us something...

Of course, we try our first rice wine shots offered by the chef of the boat – “button up” as  requested by our somewhat drunk guide... Verdict: it tastes like gasoil and it hurts. As Cuong would say, the next day, “we're hanging over”.

Back to Hanoi for a day, just enough time for a few Phos – very good when you're hanging over – and we're off to Luang Prabang, Laos.

We gave up on trains.

After a 3-hour flight, smooth and comfortable, we land in Kunming, Yunnan province, and take a bus to Dali. Dali is a small and peaceful town settled between a lake and a mountain at an altitude of 1900m. (which will trigger a few sleepless nights.) (ok we blame it on the altitude, but the collective insomnia might also have been due to the 20 roosters crowing from 3am or to the noise of the machine to shake the rice that was set on the roof of our neighbors and started working at 5.30am).

Fortunately for us, Dali is also the place where we find the best coffee we've had in a long time.

We are in the middle of the rice harvest: people are working in the fields all day, cutting the crops, threshing and cleaning it by hand or with a machine, and then letting it dry under the sun.

(what we're ready to do to see people working in the fields...)

We see rice drying everywhere - every centimeter of flat ground is used...

even in the air :-)

Anyone wants to help?

Then, when it's not rice, it's bricks. In every street, alongside the highways, even in small villages, there's a brick or tile factory, and a wall under construction.

But Dali at night is a whole different story. You're innocently enjoying your happy hour beer on a terrace when an old lady in traditional costume comes near you with silver jewelry for sale. We politely decline her offer. Of course, it doesn't work. Luckily, we now know the infaillible weapon: "bu yao" (= "don't want"). As usual, it works perfectly and the lady goes away. Only to come back 10 seconds later. She leans towards us, and whispers "smoke ganja?" After 15 seconds of stupefied silence - an eighty-year-old lady is offering to sell us weed? - we finally get ourselves together and repeat "bu yao ganja".

After a few relaxing days, we decide to do a one-day hike in the mountains above Dali. We contact a trekking agency run by two French guys and they set up an average-difficulty hike (level 2-3 on a scale of 5) with a chinese local guide for the next day. We don't know it yet, but the hike will be remembered as "the hike de la muerte". At 8 am, we're ready to go. The guide (exceptionally tall for a Chinese, and with very long legs - yes it has its importance when you think about his hiking pace) comes to pick us up at the guesthouse and tells us that we should really leave straight away - no time to go to the bathroom. We figure impatience is probably a characteristic of the Chinese culture and follow him. We'll understand later that we had to start quick to have enough time for our 8-hour hike. After a first half hour in the rice fields, struggling to keep our balance to avoid falling from the narrow path into the mud, we start to climb. Two hours of climbing later (on a VERY steep path made of muddy and slippery rocks) and 2 pounds of sweat lighter, we arrive at our first stop.

Our guide makes us understand that we have 20 minutes of rest before starting hiking again. 2 hours 1/2 and 1700m of climbing in the same condition, half running to keep up with our guide (and never knowing when we would arrive at the top as the guide kept saying "one hour" - we realised afterwards that it was probably the only English word he knew to tell the time), we finally have a well-deserved 30-min lunch break, before going back down, trying not to break our legs on the way down. We all agree that we can safely say it was the most challenging hike we've ever done. And if you think in a pushing-your-limits perspective, probably the best one :-) We don't even want to know what a level-5 hike would be.

"is that where we're going??"

"please... wait..."

Maybe we'll change our mind about the ganja? Isn't supposed to ease the pain??

Our next and last stop in China is Yuangyang.

The region is well-known for its rice terraces. Not much to say, the pictures say it all.

And of course, a few gems:

There seem to be a small problem with signs in English here. We passed a few good ones on the highways: "weigh statino", "emergency brake lane vehicle self" or "forgot lane"... Putting the letters in the right order is a real challenge here.

And the menus are the best:

We have two hypothesis:

a) they don't care, and therefore don't ask someone who would know;

b) there's one translator working all over China who has a lot of fun.

Any other idea?

Where to start?? Why not by saying that it's probably going to be the longest post in my blog's history?

With a 15 hours jet lag and the darkest shadows under the eyes ever seen in the history of mankind, we have arrived in Beijing. After the peace and quiet of our last weeks in Canada, we feel dizzy. And we quickly realize that visiting China without speaking chinese is not going to be a smooth experience. We however manage to arrive at destination suprisingly fast, learning that our brand new knowledge of the chinese numbers is very useful when you're trying to find an address in a non-touristic area. Having found the right place, we enter a creepy hallway, and in the dark (we'll learn later that the lights work with a voice recognition system) we knock at every door (no numbers on the doorbells of course) and receive no answers, even when we can hear noise inside the apartments... We're starting to think that, maybe, couchsurfing isn't always the best traveling solution.

We'll be proven wrong when we finally find the right apartment and Jennifer opens the door on a sun-filled and cute place. Our host is an english teacher and even has a classroom in her living-room!

Of course, when you think China, you think food. Which is confirmed straight away by Jennifer: we just have time to drop our bags and we're off to have our first chinese hot pot.

No need to say that we didn't choose the food ourselves...

We also quickly learn that, even though you usually avoid the restaurants showing pictures on their menu, it comes in really handy in China. The "point it" technique will definitely be useful.

We start the next day with a traditional chinese breakfast - rice porridge and steamed buns:

The food marathon does not stop there, Jennifer has more than one restaurant in her pocket! She brings us to a really small place where they cook only barbecued fish... and we're still dreaming about it....

And if you're still hungry when you get home at night, there's always a bbq going on down in the street around the corner :-)

We also cook at home, learn how to make the perfect beef with pepper in soy sauce, and how to eat pasta with chopsticks!

Then, there are the few hours left between the meals, when you can actually do something else than eating, like playing at reporter without borders on Tiananmen square...

... getting lost in the side streets in the hutongs...

... experiencing our first chinese foot massage (ouch)...

... visiting the 798 art district (old factories transformed in an art exhibition space)...

... or climbing the Great Wall...

(and when I say climbing, it's climbing)

... and then when you finally reach the top of the hill, panting and swearing that your heart is never going to recover, you meet the 78 year-old Mongolian farmer, passing you at full speed without a drop of sweat. And we thought we were in good shape after our 7 months of WWOOFing.

Obviously, we don't forget to give our contribution to A Greater China before leaving the site:

Taking a taxi in Beijing is an adventure in itself. So far, we haven't found one single taxi driver speaking a word of English. Coming back to Jennifer's apartment at night has been proved not to be an easy task. Thanks to our printed google map, we've always been dropped off more or less around the right block. But then, finding the right building within the 50-building complex is another story... The first night, after a few unsuccessful attempts, we think we have finallly found the right entrance. We call the elevator, the doors open...

Damn. This is not the right chair.

The quest starts over again.

You can't imagine our relief when we finally found our beloved elevator chair :-)

After 5 days and still recovering from the jetlag, we take the night train to Xi'an. I should have seen the lack of room in the China airline plane as a first sign that things would not be adapted to my size here, but I had to wait for the train to fully understand that.

Xi'an, even though one of the oldest city in China and the eastern terminus of the silk road, is not the most attractive city we've visited, but is mostly famous for the Army of Terracotta Warriors. Forget your romantic idea of terracotta soldiers scattered in the middle of a beautiful chinese countryside landscape, the soldiers are well protected by a huge warehouse:

The visit remains nevertheless unbelievable - the numbers of warriors and the beauty and precision of their features are stunning.

As for the food report, Xi'an will stay in our mind as the capital of the noodle soup. Tiny soups.

With really short noodles.

And at night, we hit the muslim quarter to try street food:

And of course, Xi'an is well-known for its wonderfully sweet traffic police:

Next destination: Shanghai. Again, 16 hours by night train. We're not as lucky as last time and spend the night on "hard seats". We can confirm, those seats are very hard. And the back very straight.

But before that, you have to actually get to the train. First, you brave the crowd:

Then you try to find the gate by looking at the board:

Then you ask someone. In Chinese. Then, 30 minutes later, you find the right gate and you fight the crowd again to get a seat:

Then you try to find an occupation:

(and I actually finished this stupid game for the first time in my life and in less than 10 minutes, just on the day when I really needed it to last forever.)

Then you start drinking.

After that night in the train, the apartment of our hosts Emily and Jon in Shanghai is a peaceful haven. And the view from their balcony...

Emily takes us to a chinese hairdresser for a welcomed shampoo - we did need a good cleaning!!

The after-hairdresser apero:

Tea sampling at a tea market:

Very educational visit of the Museum of the Propaganda Poster -  the propaganda seems to be still buried somewhere in the chinese collective imaginary

Now, a couple of general observations:

- China gets really hot in the summer. But Chinese men know how to ventilate themselves.

We love it.

- China has recently become very eco-conscious and installed recycling bins everywhere in the cities.

But we now the REAL truth:

Finally, a few gems:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ5GgWo48zE