Singapore

After the flight from Hong Kong I arrived in the next former British Empire city in this part of the world. The city state is about 100km wide and has an fantastic MRT connecting all the dots. I choose to set up base camp in Little India as a sample for the time in India to come. The hostel was run by an African Muslim, which is not that odd, since Singapore has all the ethnics (42% are foreigners) trying to make a buck in this financial world hub. In little India it is a bit dirtier than in other parts of the city, but still really clean compared with China. Spitting is of course not allowed and concerning smoking cigarettes it is not as strict as you may heard. I ate 2 Chicken Masala per day because you got a lot of (connected) meat. The Indian embassy told me that I cant get a visa here and that I have to go to Switzerland to get. But after I showed them my passport and told them my story, they made an exception.
But I had to stay in Singapore for a week, which was way more than I planed for. So I had time to take care of my blog and check the sights of Singapore. The city it self is pretty expensive, but I was able to keep costs down to 30USD per day.
Among others one interesting person I met was Cambodian girl. She didn't know how to read Latin letters and maps, So she could go around town because you need to use the MRT. Her mother got stabbed some years ago without reason in Phnom Penh. She worked as house maid in Malaysia for 3 years and got hit by the woman in charge. After coming back from Malaysia she had 3000 USD. She lended another 2000 USD from friends and opened a coffee shop. After one year she was doing pretty good and was able to pay back the depth. 3 years into her business she fell in love with a Turkish business man and they married. Because she thought all her financial sorrows were over she sold her business. Now she lives in Moscow, because her husband works there, but eventually they want to move to Istanbul. But since it takes 3 years for her to be allowed to enter Turkey she lives temporally in Russia and doing visa runs to nations such Malaysia, Singapore or Cambodia. We spent quite some time together, I showed her around in Singapore. Even though she comes from a really modest background, she is pretty picky. She wouldn't eat anything, she was extremely unhappy with sleeping in a dorm and switched to a 50USD room and her husband had to change the return flight to an earlier date. In total a sad story which hopefully will end as a happy one.
Interestingly the Singaporen Goverment is not democratic and has been in the same familys hands over decades. Which feels really odd for a country as modern and open as Singapore
Admittedly a bit fed with posh Singapore I finally had my Indian Visa and went north the same day to Malaysia.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong was the place where my brother and me would spent the last remaining days of our travels. The setting of the showdown couldn't have been better. Hong Kong is a modern metropolis with perfect public transport, multi ethnic society, luxury, authenticity, on the Ocean, not polluted and the place where the one and only Chunking Mansion resides. The Chunkin Mansion is the place where we pre booked a room for 30$ a night for the two of us. The room was 4 square meters big had a bunk bed and smelled like rotten something. At least there was a TV. The whole block is stuffed with maybe 20 hostels. during the night African prostitutes hang out downstairs, there pimps watching over them, Western coming home drunk, Indian business men trying to sell fake DVD's and a lonely Asian security man trying to keep order.
Hong Kong is now part of China. The good thing is that it has kept almost all of their independence. They even fight Chinas oppressive regime and try to change at grassroot level. The 40000 Chinese tourists who arrive here everyday, get dropped out of their tour bus at a station were posters show the extreme human rights abuses China has done in the past and keeps practicing. Some of them look closely, others maybe afraid of spies, pass with a single view.
Hong Kong is the city of the world with the most skyscrapers in the world. Quite a title considering the competition. Hong Kong island itself is pretty upscale and houses the white expats and the newly rich of Asia. You don't have to walk on the street level anymore because there are gangways above them connecting all the major buildings. To go up the steep hillside you don't have to walk up the stairs because escalators are taking care off that for you. Over hundreds of meters they pull you up to Soho. Along the bay area these gangways are packed with female immigrants picknicking and chatting the whole day (one day there was also a huge demonstration by them for higher wages). These gangways lead into malls and after that continue to the next one. There are still some cheap places to eat, but generally it is rather sophisticated. The huge convention center on the bay is located perfectly so you can see the whole city skyline. Each evening at eight o'clock there is 15 minute laser show orchestrated from various buildings in central Hong Kong. In Kowloon there is a movie walk, which is pretty much a copy of The Walk of Fame but with Hong Kong actors. Various museums offer refuge from the heat. We checked out the Hong Kong History Museum which was impressive in size and information.
Once we also walked to the Victoria Peak which is the best hill (570m) to see down to Hong Kong City. But the top it self serves police and military purposes so it was difficult to get a view. Eventually we found what we were looking for.
The last day we went to the airport. Freddy having to go to Bangkok and me to Singapore. After three months of traveling together, awkwardly sharing beds, smelling each other and so on this was the end of the road. Brotha, it was a pleasure to travel with you and I enjoyed your company very much. Grab a cab!

Guangzhou

We arrived really early in the morning and checked into the pre booked hotel which turned out to be OK. Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong province which is one of the powerhouses of China's economic boom. The price for the astronomic development is high. Wild arranged highways cut the city into little pieces. Smog is always there and makes breathing difficult and surely effects local residents in the long run. If it's bad you can see about 400m. The river is dirty and not suitable for swimming. Adding to this sight was the fact that it rained most of the time during our one night visit. But it apparently is a very common thing (you should take into account that China has a lot of acid rain from all the coal energy plants). At one point it was pouring to an extend I haven't witnessed in years.
Whole districts of the metropolis are dedicated to only one product. You have hundreds of shops selling it all thinkable variations. In the case of jewelry even entire shopping malls. Because of the weather we had to flee to the hostel and leave early the next morning to collect my debit card from the Swiss embassy because it got cancelled in Laos because I tipped in the wrong PIN .

Xingping

We took a 1 hours bus north from Yangshuo and ended up in a village called Yangdi. Because we intended to hike for 5 hours to Xingping we left are big luggage in Yangshuo. In Yangdi we had to cross the river which involved a lot of bargaining skills because the locals charge exorbitant amounts to cross a 50m wide river. We managed and started walking. Freddys camera broke somewhere on the road and didn't work anymore. The hike was beautiful even though there was no sun at all and mist was hanging over the river. We crossed the river 2 more times and were pretty much alone. Only on the river there were big cruise ships zipping through with big laud speakers shouting at the Chinese people on board. Eventually we arrived in Xingping and checked into a hostel.
Bill Clinton has visited this area a bit more than a decade ago. We hiked on top of the nearest mountain and enjoyed a great view. The first night we got woken up by laud construction noise in the lower level. We had to change hotel and ended up in the nicest place in China. The third day we took a river cruise to a fishing village downstream. Souvenir shops were lined up along the path from the pier to the village itself. After we fought are self through locals followed us almost screaming to sell a boat trip back to Xingping. We said unusually clearly that we don't want a ticket and that they could fuck off. But they just wouldn't stop so we had to leave for the hills, from where we walked back to Xingping. Xingping is the best base to explore the nice setting of this landscape.

Yangshuo

Yangshuo has even more karst formations as Guilin, though it is much smaller. It has many more Chinese and Western tourists. But the Chinese tourists are firmly in control. There are a lot of bars and discos where the Chinese upper class blows there money. Souvenir sellers are at every corner and in general business is very competitive, but it doesn't seem to have an impact on the prices. We didn't like it to much because it reminded us very much of Lijiang in Yunnan province. So we only stayed on one night. It would be a great place if there wouldn't be so many tourists.

Guilin

It's a city with 1.3 million people in the middle of a karst formation along the Lijiang river. It has modern city center an a bit of tourism. It has Chinese shopping malls (a lot of tiny shops) and American shopping malls (bigger is better). The public transport system works very good and it's to get an overview. The weather changed a lot from sunny to rainy. We hiked up one of the smaller karst hills to have an over view of the city. In the city center there is a huge night market which sells all the things you don't really need. Besides the funny shaped hills the main attraction are the beautiful parks which a light up during the night. They also sell the Great Wall Wine which is acceptable. We stayed here for 3 nights because we had to regroup after taking the difficult backdoor into Guangxi province. Even though it's big, there is something charming about that city.

Chongjiang

After Rjongchiang we expected things to get better. they did slightly. But it was just another town without any character. But the reason why we got there was not this town, but a nearby mountain village called Basha. We took a tuktuk to the top and walked a bit around. The men and boys still wear sabers and fancy traditional clothes. These people speak absolutely no English. We were able to watch them during their daily life. Only very few tourists were there. Chinese tourists even took pictures of us. They also had rice terraces and nice stilt houses, but since we have seen so many minorities and rice terraces in the past weeks we were not extremely impressed. But it still impressing how they live. By the way minorities are allowed to have 2 kids. Han can pay a fine to have a second one. And if a couple were born under the one child policy they are allowed to have 2 as well.
Yeah, the next day there was no fooling around anymore. The next destination we chose we were absolutely sure that we will like it.

Rjongchiang

In Rjongchiang things got really wrong. But let's start at the beginning. We left Xijiang to go to Leishan which is 1.5 hours away. There the idea was to get a bus to Chongjiang (8 hours south). But you couldn't buy a ticket, instead they told us to flag a bus. Don't forget: in China everything works with drawings and hand signs. Adding to the difficulties of communicating is the fact that they have different hand signs for everything. So we waited about 5 hours to flag a bus. But of 3 only on stop and he had only room for two persons. And Chinese people know how to get to the front. Desperately we already thought about giving up, when two Chinese guys told us that they have the same problem and would be willing to share a cab. So on we went for about 6 hours. But we ended up in Rjongchiang instead of Chongjiang, which was in the same direction but only half the distance. The bus station was already empty.
Rjongjiang hasn't seen anything of China's boom. The main road in the middle of the city is a dirt road and combined with the rain water you have a pool of mud. We checked into the cheapest place we could find (really basic). Then we went out to eat and drink a few beers. 3 hours later we came to our hotel and found about 7 police officers messing with the receptionist and their whole family. People from the street were looking inside. The police told as that this hotel would not be safe and that we have to move. We demanded the money back from the hotel and left after saying thanks to the poor owners. The police officer was talking a lot of candy, while Freddy was playing the good cop and I played the bad cop. I insisted that I wont pay more than at the previous hotel. He brought us to a fancy hotel with a lobby. I was already getting ready, but the price seemed reasonably low (special price which only a police officer can demand). I checked out the room, which only had one big bed, but all kind of gadgets. There was even a computer with Internet access. We agreed.
In retrospective I would say that the first hotel was safe, but that the government is concerned about the way these places would affect the image abroad.
The next day we were of the Realchiang.

Xijiang

What a nice town. Located between hills full of rice terraces the houses stretch along the river in the middle and up the hill. The rice terraces were the nicest I have seen so far. The vastness is impressing. The gorgeous alley leading you between the houses are an experience on it's own. The indigenous people the Miao are polite and interested in all the people who come to their town. There are still very few Westerners who find their way up here, but Chinese people already got the taste for it. But not as many as in Dali or Lijiang. The weather was a bit cloudy, but the views were still stunning. The food from the market added to the good experience.
Because we were short on time we only stayed for one night. But I would prefer one night here to three nights in many cities in Asia.
Write it down!

Kaili

After the longest trip so far including a night bus from Shangri la to Kunming and a night train from Kunming to Guyiang and another 3 hours in a train we arrived in Kaili. Considering the struggle we went through we didn't deserve Kaili, but we knew that it's going to be a dull city. We checked into the world famous "Petroleum Hotel" which was way beyond it's years and deserved this odd name. Kaili itself consist of typical buildings that should never have been built. there are various copies of international fast food chains and a night market. The street food was funny in the taste and later on as well. We slept there for a night and hopped into a bus the next morning.

Shangri La

After the 4 hours ride up the mountains we arrived in the last Tibetan city which is accessible without applying for a expensive permission of the government. Like most cities in China there is a new and a old part of the city. We stayed in the old part, which is quite nice and looks a bit like a Swiss mountain village. Chalets are everywhere and the road goes up and down. On the central square there is food market during the day. At night it is the dancing square, where locals show off in front of tourists. Even though there are not that many.
To the north there is a old Tibetan monastery which was designed by the same guy, who designed the famous monastery in Lhasa. It is pretty big and nicely situated in front of a lake on 3300m above sea level. We rode the bicycles to the place and then walked around. The main building in the middle has been torn down by the Han and is now being replaced with a new one. That's a pity, but exactly fits into the thinking of the Chinese CP.
In fact there is only state television everywhere and shows people being happy. There are now controversial reports at all. Here follows a small collection of site that are blocked in the internet: youtube.com, facebook.com, flickr.com, blogspot.com (my blog), google.cn and many more. Controversial article links of major news networks don't work either. There are even spies in the street following tourists and checking on people working there. Corruption is huge, even though foreign tourists don't get hassled with that because the Communist Party of China would give harsh punishment to officials if caught. They are very concerned about their image abroad. CCTV the state news network, deserves it's name.
We did some long hikes around the area from where you could see snow on the surrounding mountains. The air is a bit thin, but it is manageable. During the night it can get quite cold. The main food they serve is of coure rice, but they also have a lot of yak meat.
Another great place.

Lijiang

As it turned out Lijiang is one of the favourite destinations of Chinese tourist in the whole of China. It even has components which only can b compared with Cancun or Mallorca. Way to loud music and Chinese people pounding their beer bottles onto the tables in the rhythm of the music. The streets are absolutely packed and souvenir shops are everywhere. The good thing that the traditional part of town is pretty big. But sadly a lot of houses have been built new here as well. The better restaurants pack out their vegetables, fish and beef out in front of the store which looks really nice. The best part about this town is the indirect light on all the buildings. Thus the great street view of the day gets even better during the night. But it is not a cheap place since Chinese tourists are willing to pay shit loads of money once a year in their short vacation. We only spent one night here since the extremely touristy feeling of Lijiang added to the experience in Dali and prooved just a bit to much. But the city itself was beautiful.

Dali

The Kingdom of Dali ruled this part of the world from 937 - 1253. It is a proud city which is in strong contrast to new Dali (15 minute bus ride), which is full of 5 story buildings without any charm. Old Dali is about one square kilometer big and surrounded by about 6m high walls. The architecture is strictly in traditionally Chinese style. The Chinese government decided it is good idea to tear down some of the old buildings and rebuild it with concrete and steal. It is easy to spot the difference. But I guess the thousands of Chinese tourists don't see it because they are to busy taking pictures while making the victory sign in front of everything. But to be fair, the city is cool and gives good insight into the way these people used to live.
We also took a bicycle to go a few hours north, but my pedal fell of after 30 minutes. So we had turn around. At least we were able to visit the nearby lake which is as I recall the 7th biggest lake of China. A nice place.

Kunming

Kunming is a nice introduction to China. A clean city (motorbikes have electric engines , great public transport and it's exceptionally clean - at least in the center). We visited a huge park, with a botanic garden and lakes, than the university which was impressive as well and then we went to the zoo. The food is excellent even we occasionally went to western fast food joints. My aunt work in this area of the world in the 1930s as missionary during the Japanese bomb attacks. We wanted to visit her place but it appears that the name of the village has vanished somewhere during history. The Muslim Uighur minority is very visible and they even have their mosques. You can also get hand on something similar as a Kebab. Later on we also visited the Yunnan Province museum which had some really old stuff (pre year zero). Yunnan seems to be traditionally a rich part of China.

Sapa

Sapa is in the north of Vietnam, really close to the Chinese border. It is 1600m above sea level and thus not to hot. The town itself got wrecked by the tourist boom. The Hmong people follow the tourists really annoyingly and yell "buy somethiiiing". That's why you can't experience the real Sapa in the town itself. Hiking around on the huge rice terraces is the best way. We did that for two days in a row. The first one took 8 hours which is a lot by it self, but if you add the terrain - it is a pain in the ass. We were able to walk through Hmong villages and experience their true daily life. It is hard work to take of these terraces and differently than in China, they can only harvest during the wet season (That's probably why they pick on tourists so desperately).
the second day it was a similar hike but in a different direction. Sadly the waterfall we aimed for was out of reach, because we did a bit more adventurous route, which turned out to be really demanding. But maybe after 7 hours of walking in the surprisingly hot sun we returned to Sapa. Definitely worth visiting...

Halong Bay

If did sights you see on the tour we booked wouldn't be as amazing as they were we would have been really angry at the tour operators. They screwed with almost everything. They stripped everybody of their tour ticket at the beginning, they served shitty food. The prices for beverages were way to high, they collected all the passports and "lost" one of a German guy, and so on...
As mentioned before, the sights are beautiful. First we visited a huge cave, which has enough room for a whole cathedral. They installed various colors of spotlights, which made it even more breathtaking. Then we took the ship through the majestic, steep hills and visited some fisher who live on floating houses. There are hundreds of hills to pass. Then we slept in a dull town on the main island. Surprisingly there was a local festival which attracted a lot of local residents. That was pretty cool. The next day we climbed one of these hills from where the view was also really cool, despite the clouds. afterwards we spent the night on the boat. Everybody had to hide their alcohol and only drank in the room. In the morning we went canoeing in a little area in the middle of it all. Then there was the long way back, bad lunch and a long bus to Hanoi. On the whole trip we had to wait for about 10 hours for some guide , bus or ship to show up. TIV (this is Vietnam)

Hanoi

We were greeted in Hanoi with two lies and waited for a bus that never would come. The guy who told us just wanted us to get bored and take the easy way out with the car of his friend, which would take us to his hotel. Then we took a taxi ride with a huge detour. Then we had to find out that it is not possible to get a China visa at the Chinese embassy in the capitol of Vietnam. So it took us a half a day to arrange a deal with the Vietnam Airlines, who supposedly flew the passports to Saigon and would bring it back 5 days later. Hanoi itself is motorbikes turf. People lie when they open their mouth. The best way to explore Hanoi is to do it on your own. There are several interesting spots: an ancient library, the National History Museum, the Mausoleum of the dude himself and the central lake in the middle. We also had to hustle with the tour operators to find a reasonable tour to Halong Bay, which took another approximately5 hours. At least there was a KFC. A German guy even got robbed just after hitting an ATM, which was the first time i heard anything like it in Southeast Asia. And of we went to Halong Bay.

Hue

The last city I have visited before (and already written about) is Hue. We stayed in the backpacker district in the north east and ate cheap and good food. We did the Royal Palace which was amazing even though I was there before. The size and history about this place just knocks you down. So bad that it was destroyed during the Indochina- and American war. The weather was bit rainy but we managed.

Hoi An

The second last city I have seen before was Hoi An. I basically did the same thing like the first time. Stroll around in the more or less car-free roads of this UNESCO World Heritage jewel. Even though jewel is maybe a big word for what you get to see. The riverfront is pretty nice, but there is a big construction going on.We ate at various restaurants and watched the mostly french tourists going by. The alleys can be quite thin. We spend a fair amount of time in the hotel where HBO was available. After two nights we've seen it and chose to move on.

Nha Trang

Why did I go to Nha Trang again? There was still this long beach, that cheap beer, the hot weather, no culture. We just limed in the shade of a palm during the day or tried to cool down with an ice cream. I had fun to watch the motorbike drivers coming to the beach, parking it an strolling as unsuspiciously around as possible to pray on Scandinavian girls who were sunbathing topless on the beach. Then they would sit down in proximity of 5 m and stare at them for about a half an hour.

Dalat

This city is situated 1500m above sea level. It is in a hilly area and is very green. Here the world famous to be Dalat wine comes from. It is a bit dry, but just on the edge with a fruity nuance. And you cant really complain for 2.5 $ a bottle. The city it self has a buzz ling market in the middle and nice park areas. It is popular among wedding couples who want to spend their honeymoon in a bit more romantic place than Ho Chi Minh. We also did a long trip with the bicycle around the area which was pretty hard, but the bikes were very good. We spend the evenings in the market area and walked around town for some time. This city is worth a visit to get out of the heat and mess of coastal Vietnam.