Guilin to Nanning... Sarah tells the story.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh made it in one piece JUST from Guilin to Nanning on a 6 hour train. The journey was made a lil more taxing than first intended for reasons i will explain....
1) finding our platform!! well.....to start with we had no idea where to go, we were herded (and yes i mean herded!!!) into the waiting area. Then the magical gates to the platform opened, and this was when chaos started!!! The end wasn't to Narnia but instead it was a mad Chinese rush to make it to the platform alive! as the Chinese seem to think the end of the world is coming and they must make it to the platform at all costs!!!!! (human or animal)
2) finding our seat!........right so we have made it to the platform, located our carriage (number 3) soon to find out the train was in fact a double decker. This added further confusion as we had to work out whether we were upstairs or downstairs. After much guess work and Shalina getting trapped in an aisle (unable to move forwards or backwards) we located our seat. Luckily i managed to convince a nice Chinese young man to help us store our luggage above and below.... so we are all set for take off
3) after putting up with each others confined company for about 4 hours we thought things couldn't get worse.........oh no how wrong we were!! Every half an hour we had some very excited sales people come into the carriage and try to sell there products. When i mean selling the products i mean...shouting, taking an age to say or demonstrate what their AMAZING gadget does. These products varied from "fashionable socks", "magic blanket","playing cards" and lastly, what made EVERYONE want to kill themselves on the train, a lil yoyo thing that went up a string, flashed and played happy birthday over and over and over and over and over and over and oh yes OVER!!!!!! again. Which a lovely child opposite decided to purchase. Therefore for the next 2 hours we were serenaded by the annual classic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4) buying our ticket to Ha noi and leaving the station!!................after finding the ticket office, Shalina decided to behave very British like and politely queued in the right line, only to be laughed at and pointed to move down the other ended of the office. I then returned to find Shalina quite shaken and confused to say the least. We managed to get our tickets after I had proven to the ticket man i had a legit passport and Vietnam visa, we exited happy customers. Even though we have no bloody idea what is written on our ticket, or where we have to go tomorrow......yay
we got the bus outside the station fine and got off at what we thought was the right stop, at this stage i thought Shalina was wrong and we had got off too late, but i was to tired to care and just let Shalina think she was right. Which was probably the best course of action as my mind had been melted by "happy birthday" so what use i was is worthless to know. Anyway we did get off at the wrong stop, but luckily found a really nice Chinese man to show us the way to the hostel. Bless him, he was walking in the other direction and hardly spoke any English but walked us to the hostel. When he left he said in broken English that it looked like we needed help and it wasn't safe for us both to be walking aimlessly around Nanning (which i think he was probably right).

So yeah we have made it to Nanning and currently appreciating the beer which is 50p may i add :). Recharging ready for Vietnam tomorrow, wooooooop didddddi woooop wooooop
so catch up then
peace out
Sarah aka Buckle xxx

A train journey, Rice terraces and a Roast Pig...It's got to be Guilin

hey everyone,

well you will be pleased to know that we survived the train journey, Sarah nearly didn't, through a mixture of her own doing and me ready to kill her........but all worked out well in the end :) we did think at one point that we would just be dropped in a field in the middle of nowhere, as that is all we were passing for most of the trip, but we made it into a small city safe and sound :)

Guilin is VERY different from both previous cities, but it is amazing. it is surrounded by hills and then flat lands with lakes, it is very strange but very beautiful. it is a lot less westernised here, but they are more accepting and friendly, so all is good. we walked all over the city on the first day and got well and truly lost!! my internal compass had totally broken, and when i had pretty much given up the will to live, Sarah took over and got us on the bus back to the hostel, where six hours after leaving we got back and ran straight for some food, pretty good day in all :P

Today we have been to the rice fields, where we saw some of the most beautiful scenery either of us had ever seen. we walked pretty much to the top of the huge hill/small mountains before our legs packed up on us, before slowly making our way back down through the villages, where they were preparing for the new year celebrations. this involved roasting a huge pig.......while it was still alive!!!! not something we had planned on seeing, but there wasn't much choice when it was on the path in front of us :S we made it to the bottom off the hill OK, if smelling slightly of smokey bacon, where Sarah was harassed by a little old lady to buy a scarf which she did, with my money as she had conveniently not got any small notes on her????? :P lol we practically fell asleep on the way back, before racing to get food as we were both starving! now we are not moving as it is too cold and I'm too tired lol. hope you are all well :) xxxx

Shanghai comes to an end!

hey guys, hope you are all well. Sarah and i have nearly come to the end of our stay in Shanghai. we leave tomorrow, of a train that will last 23 hours!!!!! it will be tough being that close for so long, but i'm sure we will cope :P we have had an ace time here though. after a rocky start with sarah having food poisoning and me some kind of strange bug? we were able to successfully cure both with a few games of international shithead (card game) international drinking games, and then a lovely early start to a temple for some sunday morning clensing of the soul...........not sure it really worked on us but at least we gave it a go :P sarah found a bakery and was more than a little bit excited at the prospect of eating bread again, so we were officially cured of bugs :) we aren't going to hong kong any more as the spring festival and our visas have got in the way of those plans, but instead to a city in the south called Guilian. It should be good, less westernised apparently. Any way hope you are all good, will update you if we manage to survive the train journey without getting cabin feaver :P hehe xxxxx

Shanghai.

Hey guys, we are both in shanghai. We took a sleeper train from Beijing, it was the most comfortable nights sleep ever!!! we both fell in love with Beijing, but were happy to leave and get on with the trip. We have just had a wonder round the city atm, it is great, i love it. you can tell there is a lot of western influence here, more so than Beijing. we aren't sure how long we will be staying as it is the Chinese spring break atm, making transport difficult and more expensive. we are not stuck, just have a few options to consider. very grateful for Sam putting these messages on the blog for us as we only have email access. hope you are all good, will keep you as updated as we can and hope to here from you soon xxx

From Shalina

Train Tonight.

Hey guys, all good here. We have been very busy since arriving, done it all, the wall, summer palaces, olympic stadium and been eaten to death by bugs! lol
we are off on a sleeper train to shanghai tonight, should make for an interesting attempt at sleeping. hopefully will manage to get some sleep in our cramped probably smelly cabin :P
it is ace how cheap everything is here, especially the beer, it tastes a bit strange, but not complaining for about 35p a bottle!! lol
hope you are all good, the internet is rubbish here so off now before the money runs out. keep you updated along the way, hopefully be able to get on the blog in hong kong and not send these messages all via Sam, although totally appreciate it, thank you soo much. catch up with you all soon xxxx

Nightlife in Beijing-

(FROM SARAH)

I went out into the depths of Beijing for a good night out, i learnt one very important lesson..... the Chinese bloody love Justin Beiber!!!!!!!!

I swear he was playing in every club that we went to. Anyway the fact that you can still smoke in clubs here is mental and also there are poles everywhere!! The beer is relatively weak here, so the Americans that i went out with got pretty drunk pretty sharpish. Anyway had a wicked night out and braved the mental system of the traffic on the way home. Got back to the hostel and figured it was a good idea to break onto the roof of the hostel!! I would like to add at this point it wasn't my fault i was led astray, anyway the Beijing skyline is amazing at night from such a height!
Im guessing that Shalina has probably mentioned about all the sites we have been to see, all of which were completly breath taking. Im starting to fall in love with this city, with the street venders selling amazing noodles at 40p!!!! its great.

sleeper train to shanghai tonight !!!!!!!

Shalina called.

Hey it's Sam

I got a call from Shalina yesterday. Both the girls are well and having a great time.

This time of year is busy on trains and they were worried they were not going to get tickets and have to fly, but managed to find some overnight train tickets to Shanghai for Tuesday. From there they hope to be in Hong Kong by Friday but can only book train tickets five days in advance.

I'll let the girls tell you all what they've been up to whenever they get on-line next.

This was just travel news :)

Sam

First few days!

hey everyone,

We made it in one piece. The baggage got lost in Moscow, which meant we had a very uncomfortable, slightly smelly night sleeping in clothes we had worn for days, no new underwear is not fun!!!! lol
All is good now though as we have our bags, clean cloths and the best shower ever!!!
The hostel is clean, friendly and has great cheap beer, always good ;)
We have seen the forbidden city and walked our asses off all round the city. Still have the wall to do.
It's very cheap and hard to get our heads round the fact that we are not paying 30 pounds for 2 cups of tea lol
Hope you are all well, will post as soon as able to. We both say hey to you all, hugs and kisses, catch up soon :) xxx

From Shalina

Testing my computer ability

Only Buckle (Sarah) testing

First blog of many.....

5 days to go, and I have managed to pack my bag for the first time, how very exciting hehe.
I have most of what I need sorted, minus a few things like money and organisation :-S but i'm sure it will be fine :-)
Starting to get a bit excited, although it is mainly fear atm lol
We will keep you updated as much as possible along the way, feel free to comment and keep in touch as much as you wish, i'm sure we will both appreciate any messages as it will make home feel not quite so far away :P
i'm going to get back to the packing now, will blog next time something more interresting happens hehe xxx

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