1st October 2010
We went for a longer walk with another local tribal woman. We visited 2 villages one Black H'mon and the other Red Dzao - they wear red head-dresses. On the walk we saw lots of rice terraces and the farmers were harvesting the rice. We took a herbal bath in the Red Dzao village. The bath is a wooden tub filled with very hot water and 15 mountain herbs - it smelt nice. I just about fitted in the tub - they are just very large buckets. They claimed that regular baths cure all sorts of ailments - in fact any ailment as far as I could tell.

We have noticed that the people who still live traditionally, in China and Vietnam have a great sense of humour - they make jokes all the time and seem to enjoy making a play on words. Do all people who live simply cultivate a sense of humour like this?

30th September 2010
We took a short walk with a local tribal woman to a local village - Cat Cat. The people there are Black H'mon. They are the same ethnicity as the Miao people we met in Yunnan. The Black refers to their clothes - which are dark from the indigo dye they use. We picked some indigo leaves, they are ordinary looking green leaves, but after about a minute, they turn your fingers blue - amazing. There is a lovely waterfall in the village

29th September 2010
Yuanyang to Sapa Vietnam
We booked a bus from the mountain town leaving at 7.30am and were told it would take 5 hours to Hekou on the Chinese side of the border. The bus finally left at 8.00 and took just over an hour to get to the main town where it stopped until 10.00am. after that it went straight to Hekou - via back roads in order to avoid the tolls on the highway. We arrived in hekou at 4.30 - 7 hours altogether. Luckily, Vietnam is one hour behind so we got a bus from Lao Cai to Sapa. The border crossing was easy - it took about 10 minutes. Both sides were efficient, they did not search our luggage and from the Chinese side to the Vietnamese side is a short walk over a bridge.

We are staying at the Sapa Rooms Hotel which is a community project that trains and employs people from the local tribes. It is nice - the only disappointment is the cooking here - it is very bland - not at all like the Vietnamese cooking we can get in London. I expect we will get better food in Hanoi.

28th September 2010
We tried to visit some local villages today but it was raining so much and the clouds were so low that we could not see beyond the roadside, so we returned to town and had a walk around it. It is ugly - the buildings are in the modern concrete box style and beginning to crumble - but the views from the town are great - when the clouds cleared - it is very high up the mountain.

27th September 2010
Jianshu to Yanyuang
We took a taxi because we would have had to take quite along taxi trip to get from the main town to the mountain town anyway. It cost £37 pounds and took about 3 hours. the trip was very scenic - mountains, windy roads, mountain passes and we drove through clouds in one place.
After checking in to the hotel we hired a driver to take us to the huge rice terraces. They are over 2,000 years old. They are spread along the sides of a long wide valley - it is spectacular.

26th September 2010
Double Dragon Bridge and Tuanshan Village
The bridge is fantastic. Built in the traditioanl style in 1886 from stone and wood. I guess it is in such good condition because it is too narrow for motorised vehicles to cross.

The village is very old and we were lucky to be the only visitors. We visited some peoples' homes.

25th September 2010
Kunming to Jianshu.
We are staying at the Zhu Family Garden which is an old manor house that belonged to the Zhu family when they ruled the surrounding area. It is a traditional Chinese house with lots of courtyards and beautiful gardens.

We went to the Kong Ze temple which is the largest confucian temple in China and were lucky to see a traditional orchestra practising in the main courtyard.

23rd September 2010
We visited The Dragon Gate and the Confucian Temple. They are disappointing. The temple has been re-built in concrete and clearly no-one cares for it as a temple any more. It overlooks Ten Lake which is badly polluted by the factories on the far side of the lake - detergent is clearly visible on the lake. After we went to a really good local restaurant and had a meal with spare ribs mainaded in 13 spices and tied up with lemon grass and Yunnan ham fried with chili. The ham tastes like spanish Serrano ham - very nice.

Then we went to Yunnan Unversity. Its main building was built by a Chinese architect trained in France and the style of the building was a mixture - built in the 1930's

22nd September 2010
Train - Lijiang to Kunming
We returned to the Jinjiang Hotel - it is good and in a good location. We checked in and had another good meal in the hotel restaurant.


20th September 2010
Went to Baisha Village - a Naxi village. It is less visited than the other villages in the area, so is quieter and easier to see the lovely old buildings, mostly built of wood. We met the famous Dr Ho at his Chinese medicine clinic - he is over 80 years old now. We visited a few peoples' homes becasue they kept inviting us in.
After we went to Black Dragon Pool. It is the nicest city lake we ave visited in China - peaceful, clean, nice old buildings and bridges and a lovely view of Snow Mountain.


19th September 2010
Tiger leaping Gorge and Chiang Chiang First Bend
The gorge is beautiful - the river is very powerful here and the gorge very deep with steep sides.

After we went to the first bend in the Yangste river. It is one of the locations where the Red Army crossed on the Long March. It is at Stone Drum village and has a memorial to the crossing.