Volunteering in Songkhla Province, Thailand (18th May - 13th June)

With Ram at the Volunteer Centre.

We have recently finished a stint of volunteering at Ban Roean Ram Centre for Sustainable Development, in a small village called Banleab about half an hour away from Hat Yai (big city in the south). It feels a little difficult to look back on almost 4 weeks and sum it up in a blog post but here goes!

The centre was set up a few years ago and attracts volunteers from around the world (mainly European) to come and work there, doing a variety of projects from eco-tourism, teaching English, construction, and agriculture. We were on a 'mixed project' and therefore aimed to do a little bit of everything.

We arrived on a Wednesday night so for the first couple of days we didn't do much beyond some orientation, and we had weekends off. We went along to a local 'anti-drug' community event. There were a few speakers of varying levels of skill at engaging the kids (the local police chief didn't seem to do very well), but there was one stand-out speaker who had the kids onstage and engaged them very well. At one point we were made to stand up as the speaker introduced us to the children. Of course we had no idea what anyone was saying as it was all in Thai, and it was a little strange as our presence there was token at best as we had had nothing to do with the community at this point. At the end of the morning we were asked to pose for photogrpahs with one of the schools and then all the children were made to shake our hands. We felt like royalty! After the children had been packed off to school, the fun really began. The food for lunch was whipped out (a fantastic vegetable, prawn, rice and chilli dish) and the afternoon games began. It felt quite strange that the morning for the children was fairly dull at times and the afternoon events once all the children had gone were pretty fun! There was a catapult game which we were both hopeless at, and a game where a a piece of wood with marbles on top was balanced on two tin cans, the aim being to throw a golf ball at it from a distance and knock it over. Charlotte came fourth in the women's heat and Liam came first in the men's! We were ceremoniously presented with hand towels as prizes by the mayor of the town! There was also a golf putting game, but rendered extremely difficult due to the 'green' being a cracked, dusty and uneven wasteland, so it clearly took a lot of skill (or luck) to get the ball in the hole in a less embarrassing fashion than Liam managed!

Once we got into the swing of things our routine was generally thus: On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday mornings, we would spend a few hours at the local primary school teaching English, and then in the afternoon either do some agriculture in the plantation at the centre, do some painting at the house, or clear the area around a hut being built which was going to become a community library. All of this was weather permitting and usually we got back from school in the baking heat, the kind where even sleeping is difficult! So usually we would take a break until 3pm, by which point it might be raining (of the 'heavens opening/God is angry' variety) so sometimes we had the afternoon off. The English teaching was fun, I think we both enjoyed it more than expected. Neither of us has ever had a burning desire to be a teacher (sorry Mum!) or even work with kids, so it was a new experience for us. We taught a nursery class of 3 year olds, then a combined kinderkarten class of four and five year olds, followed by either a class of 11 or 12 year olds. Although the littlest ones were pretty darn cute it was a bit strange to being teaching them the Roman alphabet when they don't even know the Thai one yet, so really we were there for a bit of entertainment and break up there day, and hopefully some basic familiarisation with English and foreigners! So we mainly coloured with them and sang songs with them (If You're Happy and You Know It, Old Macdonald, Wheels on the Bus, all the classics! Being only three some of them would just be napping through our sessions, or crying (one burst into hysterical tears when she saw us and the teacher explained "she's scared of foreigners"!). The next class were a little more receptive as they were more into the routine of school and more confident so we were able to teach them some colours, animals, numbers etc. They loved the games we played with them to help them learn but mainly because it involved running around (not neccessarily to what they were supposed to be running towards) and shouting (if we were lucky what they were supposed to be shouting)! It was a learning experience for us for sure, but we hit a wall with it after a couple of weeks given our limited teaching skills! We were doing the class with Emma, an euthusiastic English volunteer with the ton of energy required for the younger ones. She was also a dab hand at drawing things for the little ones to colour in so most of her days would start with her frantically sketching something for us to photocopy and hand out to the children to colour! So she was a Godsend to have with us and was naturally great with the kids. Despite corporal punishment being made illegal in 2005, both younger classes were subject to a stick or a ruler which the teach waggled about menancingly when the children got a little rowdy, it would have been preferable for us to deal with it ourselves rather than the teacher jumping in with her stick but of course somewhat impossible what with the language barrier! The other major distraction for the kids was a huge table laden with sweets which they were allowed to buy from the teacher. As a result they had bulging pockets of sweets and their teeth were sometimes atrocious. Apart from that the school itself seemed pretty good, and it seemed the younger ones were occupied and looked after much better than the older children.

We would then move over to the junior school and teach a class of 11 year olds on Monday and Tuesday, and 12 year olds on Thursday and Friday. They were working through some dreadful books which we were supposed to help them with, full of nonsensical cartoons, from an overly Americanised perspective and too advanced for their capabilities (despite us both having done GCSE German, probably neither of us would have been able to do these books if they'd been in German). The problem was that the requirement to teach English to curriculum had only just come in at the school (it was the beginning of the school year in Thailand) and there were seperate books aimed at each year group, so each student was given their 'appropriate' book. But of course they weren't really at that level as they hadn't been doing the other books in previous years. They seemed to be be doing some English work from TV lessons (there were only a few teachers so most of the time it appeared that the classes were 'taught' by the TV) but this was mostly rote learning, copying down words which they didn't really understand, let alone able to read. We negotiated with the teachers and ended up working from the book for one lesson a week with each class and then the other day we did our own thing. We took things back to basics as their English was pretty much limited to "My name is..." and being able to answer the question "How are you?" with "I'm fine thankyou". So we devised some roleplays to teach greetings, basic questions about themselves and their families and numbers. Hopefully it was more relevant and useful to them than teaching them about buying a 'package of cookies' at the 'store' or what the weather was like in Alaska. Each day as we went over to the classes they were learning from the TV (the school only has 2 teachers to be in charge of everyone aged 6 to 12), and the lack of appropriate supervision when we were there sometimes made things difficult. We had a couple of 'characters' in our 11 year old class (one named Beer - Liam, don't get any ideas!) who made life tricky at times for the others to get on with their work. Ram (from the centre, who always accompanied us to try and translate) was keen on us 'just teaching the ones who want to learn' which completely went against our principles so we tried our best (with some success) to engage the more distracted ones as well as the attentive ones (after all there were three volunteers for a class of six children!). It's the age old dilemma of who to focus on the most; the kids that are the hardest to reach or the ones that are sat quietly and patiently waiting for you to teach them. We taught outside and were often distracted by other variables; kids wandering by from other classrooms and joining in, a poisonous centipede which the boys joyously hacked into pieces, and on our last day the boys all had 'fighting fish' in glass jars, they put the fish together and the fish attack each other until one dies. Thailand's version of conkers? Our last class before we left blew up into a big fight between some of the boys, which wasn't the nicest way to end our time there! But on the whole we enjoyed teaching the older children, they were all bright and good natured at heart and most of them were genuinely interested to learn. The main problem was distracting them from the distractions, so to speak. We built up a good rapore with all of them and on good days they would even beg us not to leave, which was quite heartbreaking.

The afternoons would often involve somekind of agriculture (weather permitting), often hoeing, weeding and planting corn, cucumbers, pack choi etc. We also used a funky contraption on a long pole to reach up and put a plastic bag over the fruit in the trees and then pull the string to snap an elastic band over it to keep the bag sealed. This was to stop the insects getting to the fruit, and since they were growing things organically they weren't using pesticides. The agriculture work was pretty fun when it wasn't too hot and we'd love to have an allotment at some point in the future. To avoid the heat Liam ended up buying a huge traditional wicker hat from the nearby village which the locals were extremely amused by as we walked back from the bus stop, however it turned out a little too impractical to actually do any work in! One week we helped to paint the centre a very fetching shade of green. Unfortunately between school and doing work in the afternoon it was too hot to really do much (all the Thais would be sleeping, as they mainly work in the mornings and evenings - and at night if they work on the rubber plantations) so the day often felt quite drawn out. Sometimes we would catch a songthaew (local bus - basically a pick up truck with seats and a covering on the back) to a nearby village and go on the internet. We also got friendly with the Cha Yen (Thai iced tea) lady in our village as we visted for our fix most days! Cha yen is Thai style iced tea, made with dark red tea, sweet spices, copious amounts of sugar and mixed with condensed milk. It is then poured over ice and then topped up with a bit of evaporated milk. Not being a huge fan of creamy drinks we couldn't believe how mind-blowingly good it was, and the sugar certainly helped to pep us up from our heat-induced comas!

On a Wednesday we would tend to do something different. On our first Wednesday we did a bit of planting in the morning and set off to Satun province in the afternoon as Deng (who worked for the project) was going to see her family there. We hadn't realised quite how far away Satun was and the whole round trip was at least 8 hours, all in the back of Deng's pink pick-up truck exposed to the elements. The most entertaining bit of the day was watching Deng's sister selling compression style socks to various friends and family members; these socks apparently cured pretty much any ailment including spots, being too dark-skinned (skin lightnening is big business here as in most of Asia), even not being able to walk! Miracle socks indeed. They were being sold for 3600 Baht, which works out at almost £75! We watched a rubber plantation (big money in Thailand) owner's wife buy three pairs. As Liam commented, when your water supply isn't even safe to drink, spending over £200 on magic socks might indicate there are some skewed priorities somewhere! A couple of Wednesdays we drove off to visit Kris, a German guy who was volunteering at a national park nearby. We worked with him in the gardens of a local school, attempting to tidy up the school garden for inspection. As Kris rightly commented, it probably looked nicer before we hacked it up and nature was running its course! However, the day ended with a trip to the waterfall in the national park (more on that in the next post) which was beautiful and the perfect end to the day. Another time we went to see a lake just as the sun was going down, with an Irish guy living locally who popped by at the school to chat to us for a bit. The lake was really stunning, and it was fabulous to watch the sun go down behind the jungle-clad mountains surrounded by whispy low clouds.

Whilst volunteering we stayed with Ram and Deng, the two women who ran the project out of Deng's house. They had met whilst working at another volunteer project and decided to set up their own. They didn't get a wage for working with the project so both had other jobs; Ram was a hairdresser and Deng got up at 3 in the morning to work on a rubber plantation, and also worked with the local council. They were great fun to spend time with - Ram was utterly hilarious and Deng was an amazing cook. They really made our time volunteering special and it was really good to get to know them. Our first impression of Ram was pretty funny as we'd caught a minibus from the Malaysian border and then rang her to let her know we were in Hat Yai and needed to be picked up. Having assumed it would be a very short call we stupidly used our English mobile, rapidly zapping it of credit without getting anywhere. Ram couldn't understand anything we were saying (cue lots of "EH!?" from the other end of the phone). We eventually used a payphone and collared a young Thai guy to speak to Ram and explain where we were, and Ram came and picked us up with a huge grin on her face, explaining that she really struggles to understand English over the phone!

Sometimes we would have casual Thai culture, language and cooking lessons from them, which was a great introduction to the customs of Thailand. We would love to say that this means we can now whip up amazing Thai food but unfortunately a lot of the dishes it would be struggle to be replicated at home e.g. a curry made mainly from the leaves and flowers of a tree in a field nearby, and of course all fresh herbs and spices used. We also learned to make cha yen, the aforementioned addictive Thai iced tea. Our language learning didn't really get very far so I'm sure the kids at school were amused with us saying "dee mak" ("very good") to just about everything they did. There were also some cute kids from the village who would come and see us who we'd play cards with etc. Their names were Mintin, Min and Mon, and a little boy called either Phil, Will or Quill, depending on who you asked! They were very sweet and would say our names over and over again, taking particular delight in Liam's name and wandering about saying "Leeeeeeam, Leeeeeeam, Leeeeeam". We were later told that Liam is a simiiar word for a pointy nose in Thai (and also police constable), which might explain why they liked it so much!

I think perhaps what we enjoyed the most about the volunteering was living in a Thai village, seeing people go about their daily lives, and learning more about their culture. It was interesting hearing their thoughts on the upcoming election, especially on why Thaksin is so popular despite charges of corruption. We also got to attend Ram's friend Um's monk ordination party (most Thai men at some point become a monk for a short while, and the party was a send-off before he went. He had already been shaved and was wearing a fetching white robe, which is then swapped for an orange one on arrival at the temple) and witness some hilariously camp dancing to the karaoke (seemingly most Thais favourite past-time - the karoke that is!). It's great to now have some Thai friends and I hope we'll be able to keep in touch.

More to follow on the sightseeing we did during our time here!

Volunteering, Southern Thailand

Kota Bahru & Pulau Perhentian (6th - 18th May)

Charlotte rocking the diver look.

To travel from Pengang to the Perhentian Islands the easiest way to go was via Kota Bharu. We only had a late afternoon and evening there, but managed to visit a 'Thai festival' (a few stalls selling bits and bobs, and some awesome Power Tea - amazing Thai ice tea which I'm sure we will discuss at length in the Thailand blog!) and the recommended night market which had so many rats and so little atmosphere we ended up cutting our losses and going to Pizza Hut.

The following morning we took a minibus to the tourist port of Kuala Besut, stopping for far too long on the way to pick some other people up from the airport. The driver then proceeded to drive the rest of the journey like a madman possessed who had watched too much Dukes Of Hazard, flying over potholes and bumps in the road. After our white knuckle ride we got to the port and went to the resorts mainland 'office' (a local families house with a shop out the front) and were shown to the pier by a frankly very rude lady (the joke was on her though, as in her rush to get us on the boat and out of her sight she forgot to make us pay!). Skipping across the still blue ocean in a 15 person speed boat for about half an hour we arrived at the smaller island (Perhentian Kecil) and started dropping other passengers off at various resorts, the sea so clear and turqouise it was as if your brain was photoshopping your vision. The resorts were a little overcrowded though, with lots of wooden huts and concrete hotels (although nowhere near the scale you would expect on some Thai islands) built right out onto the beach. After stopping off at various bays and having our fingers crossed that it wasn't where we were staying, we were the last people on the boat and we finally rounded into what looked like a deserted jungle-backed bay on Perhentian Besar, the larger of the two islands, wondering why we appeared to be heading inland. As we came closer it became apparent that the resort had just made an effort to be discreet and not build directly on the beach, and so the resort itself was just behind the trees. We were welcomed to Bubbles Resort by a friendly English girl and an Australian kid and checked in and were shown to our rooms. The resort itself was no frills, just simple concrete bungalows set back in a cluster from the beach. The rooms were nice enough and clean, although we took the cheapest option and baked ourselves for the duration of our stay in the fan only rooms. The first day we spent on the beach, deserted as the resort had it all to themselves and there were only a handful of guests staying. It was a very hot day and despite suncream and efforts to stay in the shade of the beach, we were both lobster red by dinner. The staff had a good laugh at us and our sterotypical Brits abroad look! The next day we took a snorkelling tour by boat around a couple of different reefs, saw lots of shoals of colourful fish and a couple of huge turtles. At the end we were taken to a freshwater creek to cool off and rinse off the salt water. Charlotte managed to burn her back despite wearing a t-shirt, when floating around snorkelling her t-shirt had ridden up, bad luck!

We decided to do a 'Discover Scuba' day course and were taken out by the resort's friendly South African Dive Instructor, Chris. We liked it so much we decided to carry on and get our PADI Open Water qualification, a course to learn the basics and technically allow you to dive without supervision up to 18m, although we won't be doing that anytime soon! But it will mean we can go on dive trips with Dive Masters to show us the sights at any Dive resort in the world. There were some patronising and tedious videos to watch (PADI is an American organisation - 'nuff said!) and some quizzes to fill in, but it was mostly logical common sense. We did 4 dives and some skills practise in the shallow water at the beach. There are a couple of 'house reefs' at the resort, so all we had to do was wade out from the resort to dive. We also did a couple of boat dives where they took us out to two different reefs (Gadom & Tiger Reef) and we jumped in and dove down to some beautiful reefs and saw some interesting creatures (including big bumphead parrot fish, boxfish, angel fish, batfish, stingrays and another whopper turtle). We passed the final quiz and Chris was happy with our skills so we were issued with our temporary PADI ID cards. Whoop!

The rest of our 5 day stay at Bubbles was spent relaxing the hammocks in the shade of the trees by beach, snorkelling on the house reef at the beach (saw a Black-tip Reef Shark!), swimming and kayaking in the sea and eating in the canteen. The food was OK but nothing spectacular, it all has to be imported from the mainland so it is fairly expensive and it was canteen style food cooked up by some non-Malaysian guys so not exactly authentic cuisine! But it did the trick, and I even enjoyed some tasty, locally caught, breaded fish and chips on a couple of occasions. Beer in Malaysia is very expensive so we only treated ourselves to a can each on one occassion, because of the high tax on alcohol in Malaysia (as it's a Muslim country) and the fact the beer was shipped in from the mainland. The price is just over £2 for a small can, so you easily bankrupt yourselves at those prices. Also the fact was that the cost of two beers would have upgraded us to an air-con room, so we held onto our precious Ringgits (Malaysian currency). The resort also operates a turtle conservation project, which originally we had thought about doing, but in the end the dates didn't work out and it was a little too expensive (we actually spent a little less as paying guests in total than in would have cost to volunteer!), The guy running the volunteering gave us a little talk about the turtles and how their nesting is being disturbed by tourism (especially resort building on the beach, and too many lights, which is why they had taken a more subtle approach). He took us out one night to see a couple of pretty huge turtles (a good metre in length), digging holes in the sand to lay eggs. Underwater they are quite graceful but on land they are very slow and cumbersome as you can imagine, dragging themselves across the sand, before quite energetically scooping the sand out with their flippers. A truly amazing sight. The volunteers also keep the turtles tracks hidden to stop poachers digging up the eggs for sale, apparently they are considering to have health-giving properties. The turtles don't breed until they are on average around 25 years old and many of them die before reaching maturity, so their existence really is in the balance in places such as the Perhentian Islands.

We had also planned to visit the smaller island, Perhentian Kecil and so headed off by boat to a resort we had booked by email a few weeks previously. Chris (dive instructor) kindly came with us to make sure we got there and that the boat guy knew where to pick us up from (our final dive had been called off because of bad weather so we were doing it the next day). We turned up at the resort to find that our reservation had been cancelled, because Paypal had held the deposit payment. The lady explained that she had emailed Paypal (but inexplicably not me, despite me having had booked via email!) and my account had been suspended. I had known this but hadn't worried, as I had received the email the day after I had transferred the deposit, and had an email receipt confirming my payment. Paypal wanted all sorts of bank details that I didn't have on me to unlock my account so I had left it. Now we were stood on the beach, watching our boat disappear back to Bubbles wondering what to do! Another resort we had been originally booked into but had been cancelled due to crossed wires and then told they were full (lesson learnt: don't book accommodation in the Perhentians by email!) was only a 15 minute walk away so we decided to dump our bags and go and see if they had any free rooms. Thankfully they did and we came back and collected our bags, and tramped through the hot and humid jungle (admittedly the paved path made it a lot easier!) further up the coast and checked into our wooden hut on stilts, a stones throw from the beach. It was located in a small, picturesque bay with a beautiful beach and great swimming, with a collection of wooden huts just back from the beach. The accommodation itself was basic to say the least, but what more does one need in paradise other than a bed, mosquito net, fan and a toilet? It wasn't particularly clean but we wouldn't be spending much time in the room. We also had a little balcony with a hammock and table and chairs, the perfect spot to chill and out and read, with a lovely view of the beach and out to sea. The people working there were a crazy couple of guys, a young guy with a pet otter (very cute, it even followed us all the way to the next bay when we were collecting ours bags) and an older bloke who liked to sing and exclaim 'OH MY GOD!' a lot. They both made for some light entertainment most days! Although with only 2 staff, great patience was needed in the restaurant if there were a few other guests in there, one day I had to wait an hour for a cheese sandwich! We soon discovered that the resort we had supposed to have been staying at had a very good restaurant with good food and a nice atmosphere so we tramped on over there a few nights for dinner. Each day they did a special dish and we enjoyed some great locally caugh Snapper fish in Thai curry sauce, and a delicious Chicken Korma on our last night. Their generator had given out so one evening they closed their kitchen early, although very kindly whipped us up some sandwiches as we had walked all that way in the dark. But it made the restaurant even more atmospheric eating by the sea by candlelight.

We would have loved to have stayed on the Perhentians longer and chilled out in the sun reading and swimming, but we dragged ourselves out of the hammock as we were due to arrive in Thailand at our volunteer project. We got the boat back to Kuala Besut and waved goodbye to Perhentians. Truly paradise!

We ended up spending another night in Kota Bahru after returning from the Perhentians and enjoyed it much more this time around. We asked the hostel guy where we could get a beer (it being a Muslim province most restaurants and shops don't sell beer - only the Chinese restaurants) and he jumped at the chance of showing us to a place nearby. Because he is of Muslim origin (although non-practising) it is frowned up for him to drink in public, but apparently it's acceptable if he is with foreigners. He still got some funny looks from the Chinese patrons though. He seemed to enjoy meeting travellers and questioning them on their philosophy on life. He took us back to the rat-infested night market but this time it was surprisingly rat-free and there were a fair few more people milling around. We bumped into a German guy who was staying at the hostel, who had also bumped into an American guy he had met at some other point in Malaysia (even when travelling to far off destinations, the world can still seem small!) and we got some amazing tasty treats. Grilled chicken, blue rice with curried anchovies, really great food. It changed our perception of Kota Bahru a lot. I had a chat to the German guy about beer (he was a Bavarian) and despite being un-stereotypically slight for a Bavarian he really loved his food and beer, and was waxing lyrical about the grilled chicken and bakery products he had bought (made me chuckle as he sounded a lot like Uter the sterotypical German boy in the Simpsons). The American was from Gainsville, Florida so I chatted to him about The Fest which is punk rock festival there I have also wanted to go to. The night ended with a failed attempt at watching Shutter Island on the hostel TV (dodgy pirate copy, it skipped so much we watched the 'entire film' in 40 minutes!) and we hit the hay in preparation for our journey across the border to Thailand.

Perhentian Islands & Kota Bharu, Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur & Penang, Malaysia (30th April - 6th May)

Tasty food by the sea.

After a flight to Kuala Lumpur from Chengdu, we realised why we enjoyed rail travel so much. What seems like a short journey can be significantly extended when you have to take a bus from the airport to the train, a train into the city, and finally a metro to get to the hostel. At least generally when you get somewhere by rail you're actually in the city centre. Basically what would have been a 4 hour flight ends up taking twice that. Also despite travelling cattle class on most of our rail journeys, it somehow isn't quite as bad as cattle class on a plane. At least you can have a wander on a train, maybe grab a drink or bite to eat in the restaurant car, stretch your legs at a station etc. So despite endless, occasionally hellish journeys by train it's still our favourite mode of travel.

So to KL - a bit of a summary I guess is appropriate. People had warned us of it being 'another commercial Asian city - busy etc', but it actually seemed pretty tame coming from China. The lack of beeping horns and crazy drivers took us off guard and made the whole place feel a little sleepy in comparison. We only had a couple of days there so did the usual; exploring Chinatown (nothing like China - except for some interesting temples which have long since been destroyed in China), looking round the Indian and Malay quarters, and walking to the Lake Gardens (is unworthwhile a word?). We did a trip out to the Batu Caves, which apart from the impressive Hindu God towering at the entrance, and the cute monkeys scampering up and down the steps, was really just a fairly unimpressive cave with a couple of statues. And the beer is expensive. And usually Carlsberg. The less said the better.

Ok so you're probably thinking we spent the whole time slagging the city off, so this is to counteract the above!

We had some awesome food. Really good, cheap Indian and Malay grub, with lots of tasty side dishes. It felt refreshingly healthy after China. Having said that a deep fried mars bar probably would too..
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On two consectutive days we went to see 'Dr Fish', as in the paddling pools full of fish which nibble the dead skin from your feet. The fish were a hell of a lot bigger than what we had seen back home in Meadowhell etc and they really went for our feet. Fairly embarassing as passers by stopped to watch and question why they were swarming round us so much, seemed to do the trick though!

We visited the National Mosque, where Charlotte got to dress up as a Jedi - not just a distasteful joke, look at the photos and you'll see what we mean! We also wandered up to a pretty cool Butterfly Park and saw some huge colourful butterflies. And the Petronas Twin Towers, all lit up at night, were very impressive.

From KL we travelled up to Penang, where the British first landed in Malaysia back in the day. The best thing to be said about Penang is that it is really awesome for food. Big food halls next to the sea serving up a tasty mix of different cuisines, nice and cheap. Awesome deep fried banana bread, chicken satay and curried stingray. Can you really justify visiting a place just for its food? Arguably yes, especially for us! Apart from that Georgetown didn't leave much of an impression. There are some interesting old colonial streets but apart from that it is very grey and commercial.

We started our trip there with checking into our pre-booked hostel in Georgetown. It was a brand new hostel, looked pretty swanky on the website (aimed at 'flashpackers', alarm bells should have been ringing from the start!), and we booked in haste as we were worried that nowhere else seemed to have availability or weren't getting back to us. What an error. The photos on the website were obviously an artist's impression of how it might look in the future, the whole place had been decorated with grey paint making it feel like a prison, our bathroom hadn't been cleaned and the cleaner proudly told us he'd "changed the sheets just for us". Erm, damn well hope so mate. So basically we logged onto the internet (incidently, checked BBC News and read about Bin Ladens demise), realised that one of the places we'd emailed had finally got back to us with availability, drew ourselves a rudimentary map from the current hostel to the new hostel via Googlemaps, and checked out 30 mins after checking in. The receptionist didn't seem in the least bit surprised.

The new place was much better, in an old colonial mansion, and they sorted out our Thai through them, as we would only have been issued 15 day visas travelling over the border by land. We visited Fort Cornwallis (an old fort built by the English, not much left of it though) and some temples around Georgetown, including an interesting Hindu temple where we peeked in on part of a service, all waving insence sticks and beating drums. For the next two days we stayed further along the coast at Tanjung Tokong in a nice little guesthouse where we could use the pool at a nearby hotel, which was lovely, especially since it's not advised to swim in the sea due to the amount of jellyfish. The area itself was mainly hotels and apartment blocks so we can't say it changed our minds about the feel of Penang itself, but we did find a great Indian place that served dishes on banana leafs, and an outdoor food court serving all sorts of Asian food. We visited the impressive Kek Lok Si Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in South East Asia, where we nearly roasted to death climbing the million buddha pagoda (most of them pictures on tiles rather than actual statues) and took the funicular railway up to see a giant golden Buddha.

In true laid-back style we headed out in the morning to catch the bus across to the east coast town of Kota Bahru, and having got stuck in the rush hour traffic on the bus and in the taxi, arrived with 2 minutes to spare, to run up to the office to get our tickets and thankfully board the bus which kindly waited for us! We enjoyed some good food at a bus stop on the way (no non-descript "haven't we been here already?" service stations like back home, just roadside cafes with squat toilets and tasty food, with the added thrill of Russian Roulette food poisoning to keep things interesting). And so we were on our way for a 'week off' (tongue firmly in cheek), to spend relaxing by the beach!

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Penang, Malaysia

Chengdu, China (26th - 29th April)

Charlotte and the Big Big Buddha.

Chengdu was our final destination in China. We spent a fun few days there, and felt it had a pretty good feel to it and more of definitive centre to it (marked by a huge Mao statue, naturally) than some other Chinese cities. The weather had certainly heated up and our hostel had a nice graden terrace, so after the long rail journey we spent some time chilling out there.

The first full day we went to visit the Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Centre, where we enjoyed watching Giant and Red Pandas lolling about in the sun, chomping on bamboo and occasionally cooling down in the small pools. There really is something very endearing about pandas which is hard to put your finger on. The information provided showed a fairly hilarious lack of accountability for dwindling panda numbers ('more research is needed on why the pandas were dying out' - err really, how about not chopping down all the bamboo forests?) and an awful lot of self-congratulatory back-patting for China's conservation efforts now. We were also amused by the references to mating as marriage ('the marriage ceremony can take place in a field, or up a tree')!

Back near the centre of the city, we explored the People's Park and Wen Shu Monastery. It's amazing how one minute you can be on a busy street with honking horns and hawkers and then step over the threshold into peace and serenity. The temple is also home to a teahouse where we enjoyed far too many cups of jasmine tea (free refills courtesy of the staff wandering about with big teapots of hot water), and watched men having their ears cleaned by a man with a thin vibrating metal pole, a bit like a long tuning fork. Very bizarre.

One evening we went to see some Sichuan Opera, not at all like its Western counterpart and more like a variety show. Amongst the usual singing and dancing we enjoyed some amazing shadow puppetry, a guy playing an impressive string instrument that at times sounded like a horse neighing, and the climax of the show was the Sichuan speciality of 'Changing faces, changing costumes'. Basically guys in cloaks and masks leap about the stage, with their cloaks and masks changing colour at random intervals. It was pretty good and they came right out into the audience to do it and we still couldn't really figure it out; the masks are obviously really thin and laid on top of each other so that the top one can be whipped off, but they manage it so quickly and who knows where they stash the discarded mask. The performance was in a teahouse so we enjoyed yet more tea throughout the performance.

We also did a day trip our to Leshan to see the Giant Budda. It's the largest carved stone Buddha in the world at 71 metres tall, and is carved into a cliff face. It's really hard to get a sense of scale from any of the photos but it really is completely huge. After various travels in SE Asia we've seen a fair few Buddhas, but this is by far the most impressive we have seen. The site also has lots of temples and other things to see it would have been nice to see a little more, but we had a flight to catch. The 30-odd degree heat wasn't exactly conducive to walking up and down endless flights of stone steps either!

Our time in Chegdu was made even better by meeting up with Liam's future brother-in-law's brother, Tom (as in Emily's fiance Alex's brother). It was fab to meet up with a fellow Chorleyite, meet his girlfriend Cecelia and hear about his experiences teaching at the University there. Tom took us out for some great food, including the Sichuan speciality of hotpot. A very unhealthy meal of a bowl of bubbling beef dripping, chillis etc is placed in the centre of the table, with a choice of what ingredients to cook in the vat. Under Tom's persuasion we tried tripe, eel and ... pig's brains. All of which we wouldn't be adverse to trying again!

To commemerate our time in China - here are the top 5 best and worst things generally about travelling in China... and in many ways, ironically enough, the best things also make the worst list!

BEST:
1. Food, accommodation and transport is all very reasonable and usually good quality. Sampling the various treats was a highlight and certainly changed our opinions of Chinese cuisine. Hostelling International in China has obviously had some serious recent investment so was often verging into boutique hotel territory. China is bloody massive, but we travelled over 1000km for less than the price of a rail ticket from Sheffield-Manchester, but 20 hours in a seat can get a little wearing.
2. It's a country of huge contrast; from the peace of the countryside, rivers and rice terraces to the hectic madness of the cities. Guidebooks are often useless in China due to the breakneck speed development going on, every city was full of half built skyscrapers and flyovers.
3. The majority of Chinese are friendly and happy people. They seem to have no inhibitions whatsoever about walking around singing, or whistling, or doing strange exercises such as walking literally backwards around a park. Wherever we went, people said hello to us and asked us where we were from (and liked having their picture taken with us!).
4. The other backpackers in China (I think it's fair to say) are a little different from a lot of those who hit the usual Asia trail (or the Banana Pancake Trail as it's often referred to!), perhaps a slightly older bunch and less gap year travellers (nothing wrong with that of course!).
5. Cheap beer! Tsingtao managed to persuade Liam that drinkable and (shock horror) enjoyable low strength lager can be produced! When the weather's hot outside, one can want for nothing more, and imbibing in a few too many won't leave you with a hangover in the morning.

WORST:
1. Food hits the list again. Although we had some utterly amazing food, we felt glad to leave and eat some healthier food, decrease of fat, salt and MSG intake and increase our fibre intake!
2. It's a huge country (stating the obvious of course, but we now truly appreciate that after endless hours on the train!). We spent a month there and felt like we'd barely scratched the surface. It also meant that we literally spent over 10% of our time there just travelling on trains.
3. As well as being friendly, the curiosity that we invoked in people became frustrating and annoying at times. We had our photo taken a lot, which we didn't mind when people actually asked us but was a different matter when people just snapped at our faces willy nilly, or when we were at a teahouse and a guy had a very long lens permanently focused on Charlotte.
4. Tourist attractions are pretty overpriced. We often paid more for entrance to a tourist attraction than for a nights (very comfortable) accommodation.
5. Obviously: politics, lack of freedom of speech etc. It didn't really directly affect us, but was disheartening to hear about nonetheless. Although the 'Great Firewall' is surprisingly easy to circumvent.

Despite ending on a slightly negative note, we still immensely enjoyed our time in China and are already planning a return visit, we would have loved to have travelled to Tibet for starters and we never did make it to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors... so fairwell to China although I have a feeling it won't be long until we grace your soil again comrade!

Chengdu, China

Guilin, Yangshuo, Xingping & Tiantou, China (14th - 25th April)

Enjoying the fruits of our labour at a cooking class.

Our trip to Yangshuo started with a rail journey from Shanghai to Guilin (where we very much suspect we were in the 'family wagon' due to plethora of screaming young 'uns and a severe lack of beer or junk food being offered on the trolleys) and after a night in Guilin (not much to say about it really, it rained a lot so we didn't get to see much - highlight was some awesome chilli flatbreads from a street vendor) we took what was purported to be a 'bamboo raft' down the Li River to Yangshuo. The bamboo raft turned out to be a motorised raft made of plastic piping stuck together, with a few bits of loose garden furniture thrown on top for us to sit on. Luckily it had a decent roof so we didn't get too wet despite the drizzle. The karst scenery on the river was really awesome, quite majestic and eerie due to the low cloud that clung to the oddly shaped, foliage-clad mini-mountains, and it reminded us of Halong Bay in northern Vietnam.

In Yangshuo we stayed at the 'Yangshuo Culture House', a pretty cool homestay/guesthouse where food is included in the nightly price, and was located in a peaceful suburban street a short walk from the centre. Yanghsuo itself is a very touristy, busy town on the Li River, with streets reminiscent of the tourist streets in Thailand etc. The real highlights of the town are getting away from the centre itself. We hired bikes and a guide along with some other people from the guesthouse; Birget and her son Noah (Germans), and Maya and Tamara (Israelis), and enjoyed a fabulous day cycling through rice paddies and out into the countryside. At one point our bikes were abandoned for a more authentic bamboo raft on the Yulong River, this time without the incessant drone of motors and with the added bonus of mini waterfalls and floating beer sellers. Gently floating down the river with a beer in hand, doesn't get much better! Every now and then there was a mini-rapid just to keep you on your toes, but as long as you remembered to lift up your feet you didn't get soaked. We also climbed to the top of 'Moon Hill' for great views across the landscape. An irritating factor of Chinese tourism is having to pay quite a lot to get into everything (paying to climb a hill - really?) and then still being hounded by hawkers all the way up. Ho hum.

One evening we went to see the Liu Sanjie Impressions show, directed by Zhang Yimou who also directed the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony. The audience (some 2500) are seated in a natural amphitheatre overlooking the Li River. As night falls, the mountains and river are lit up spectacularly, and 600 local performers tell a story through song, dance and physical theatre routines actually on the river, using rafts and walkways. It's hard to make it sound as impressive as it was, but it was certainly an amazing spectacle.

Our final morning in Yangshuo was spent participating in a cookery class, along with six hooray henry Brits (I'm not sure we've met any northerners yet!). The class started with a quick trip to the local market to buy ingredients. It was our first experience of a proper Chinese food market, and the live fish and frogs in the first hall did nothing to prepare us for the second hall, which amongst the usual array of poultry, rabbits etc also contained cats and dogs. The sight of sorrowful looking dogs in cages, right next to a huge boiling pot with legs sticking out and some cooked dogs strung up was disturbing sight. But even sadder, due to our cat loving nature, was a huge cage filled with dozens of cats piled on top of each other, all looking very lethargic and giving plaintive muted meeows, quite heartbreaking! Appetite thoroughly shot to pieces, we went onto make Beer Fish, a Li river delicious specialty of white fish in a beer, ginger and chili sauce; Gung Bao Chicken, a spicy Sichuan chicken dish with peanuts; and vegetarian steamed dumplings. Even if we do say so ourselves, the results were pretty bloody tasty (and our appetite most certainly returned) and we can't wait to get somewhere where we can try out the recipes again.

We then traveled to Xingping, a bit further up the river, for some relative peace and quiet compared to the tourist bustle of Yangshuo. Xingping is a nice small town, not touristy enough for it to get annoying but enough to have good tourist activities and markets. The hostel we stayed in was fabulous (Hosteling International China has obviously had some serious investment recently) and we had a balcony, so much time was spent reading and writing and whiling away the time overlooking the river and the amazing karst scenery. We enjoyed some great walks along the river, and playing table football and pool with a Danish and a Belgian girl we'd met at the hostel. Good times.

Our final destination in the province was Tinatou, a village a few hours north of Guilin, which is famous for it's rice terraces. We caught a bus to Dazhai to be met by a woman from the guesthouse, and then walked for about 45 minutes along stones paths and lots of steps up to the village of Tiantou. Pretty hard-going in the 30 degree heat, but we resisted giving our bags to the local women who tried to persuade us fairly relentlessly for them to carry our bags for us (for a fee of course). We're all for supporting the local community, but there's something not quite right about giving your bag to an elderly lady to carry for you! Also, Liam with his huge bag likes to feel he is capable of hauling his bag around himself, if not he might have to seriously consider jettisoning some of his extensive book and t-shirt collection! The rice terraces around Dazhai are very impressive, they are manmade stepped terraces carved into the hills, which are flooded each Spring to grow rice (when we were there they hadn't been flood yet). When they have been flooded they sparkle in the sun and are said to look like dragon scales, hence the nickname Dragons Backbone rice terraces. Mao declared Dazhai his model agricultural village before the Great Leap Forward (which ended up as nothing of the sort). We did a great hike to different view points in the area and agreed that the 'stepped' nature of the terraces make the hills look like they were made of Lego. Quite spectacular scenery and it must be amazing to see it through all the different seasons as it changes colours. The villagers are interesting as they are Yao ethnic minorities, who all wear a beautiful pink and black outfit and the woman don't cut their hair but wear it wrapped around their heads in a scarf (examples here). We celebrated Easter here by having boiled eggs and French toast for breakfast! Also egg fried rice for lunch, but sadly no chocolate eggs.

The time had come once more for us to be on our way on a mega train journey (we worked out that in China we spent 3 days on the train, 10% of our entire stay!). How fitting then that our last overland journey should be 25 hours in hard seat class (sleepers were sold out again), in the baking heat and with gawping Chinese teenagers. A flight will seem like heaven (maybe)!

Li River, Yangshuo & Xingping, China

Longji Rice Terraces, China

Shanghai, China (10th - 13th April)

Awesome beer and food at Boxing Cat

To get to Shanghai from Qingdao is a fair old journey, as are most places we wanted to visit in China. Because we had only decided at the last minute and booked the day before, we were only able to get standard class seats (hard seats), but given that it was a 19 hour journey we were hoping for hard sleeper cabins. In China the trains are often full and often for long distance routes they book up a few days in advance for anything but hard seat. Not the greatest for flexible travellers such as ourselves, although being forced into hard seats meant a significant cost saving (for a journey over 1000km it was about the same price as Sheffield to Chorley back home, not bad!). We figured it wouldn't be too uncomfortable anyway, as up until this point our only experience of Chinese trains was the swish high-speed one from Beijing to Qingdao. "How bad can it be?" we thought, but by the end we definitely weren't seeing the value in the money we saved! The seats are arranged so you are always facing someone else, and with little legroom between you. Also, despite having us having sequential seat numbers on our tickets, the way it worked out was that actually we were sitting at either side of the wagon, not even across each other. The seats are padded unlike the name hard seats suggest, but they are benches so it makes it quite difficult to sleep on. The Chinese seem pretty cool with it and are perfectly happy to sleep on stranger's shoulders!

After a long night and little sleep we were very happy to arrive in Shanghai. Within minutes of arriving we managed to meet a couple of 'characters', a girl who was overly helpful at the ticket machine (after the long night in hard seats we had learnt our lesson and were booking early to get a sleeper), and dismayed when we didn't buy tickets, not because we didn't understand the machine but because it wouldn't give us 2 tickets in the same cabin. While in the queue for the ticket desk a random white guy asked us if he smelt... Things got even weirder as we left the station to witness a motorist trying to take on a few traffic policemen with a stick. Convinced Shanghai was some kind of magnet for madheads, we took the subway to nearby the hostel. We got lost finding the hostel again and wandered around randomly until we decided to get a taxi, but this time we were prepared with a leaflet for the hostel with the address in Chinese.

The first night we checked out a local restaurant, which served Uighur food, from the Muslim north-west of China. The hostel manager seemed reluctant to send us to a 'proper' Chinese restaurant as she claimed Westerners didn't always appreciate the tastes and textures of Chinese cuisine! But the recommendation turned out to be good one, piles of spiced lamb, flat breads and black beer later we were satisfied and ready to do some proper exploring in Shanghai (as we had slept most of the afternoon away, another reason hard seats overnight aren't the greatest option). We headed straight for the Bund for a night-time stroll along. Lots of historic buildings from the French colonial days on one side and all the modern commercial buildings on the other. Quite an impressive spectacle!

The next day we headed out to explore Shanghai in daylight, on a lovely warm spring day. In the street we met some more local 'characters' who struck up a friendly conversation about where we were from and what we were up to in China, intrigued that we were wearing shorts and t-shirts (it was about 20 degrees so a very nice day back home but not really in Shanghai when it hits 35 regularly in the summer) and commenting that I looked like an artist with my hair and beard. Eventually they got round to inviting us to a 'tea festival' which had all the hallmarks of a scam (a common one in China, people approach you in the street, offer to take you to a tea ceremony, all very nice by all accounts until the bill comes for £200) so we politely declined and hot-footed it to the Yuyuan gardens and bazaar, one of the few historical tourist sites left in Shanghai. The "bazaar" is actually mainly souvenir shops and American franchises (Starbucks, Dairy Queen etc), but we had some apparently world famous 'steamed buns' were basically dumplings. They tasted nice and, well, dumplingy. There's only so much you can say about dumplings filled with mincemeat! Maybe were a little dumplinged out after seemingly every country we had visited for much of the trip had a national dish of dumplings, each with their own name for it: perogi (Poland), pelmini (Latvia), manty (Russia), buuz (Mongolia). The gardens themselves were actually very beautiful and peaceful (save for being invaded by middle aged German lemmings, sorry, tourists) and were every bit as ornate and well ordered as you would imagine an ancient Chinese garden to be. We felt this was the kind of thing the emporers were sorely lacking in their desolate Forbidden City in Beijing. In the evening we ate at a decent veggie restaurant and had some interesting tea before heading out to a bar near the hostel. It was a self-styled Belgian beer bar but we ended up drinking the imported American beers as they were cheaper, but it was great to have some 'proper' beer again. And by American I mean Brooklyn not Budweiser! On our walk home a makeshift barbequeue stand had been popped up, complete with covered seating area. Figured we could use some food to soak up the beer and had some amazing skewers. We picked out fish, beef kidney and assorted vegetables and waited with another beer for them to be cooked, grabbed some noodles from a neighbouring stand and tucked into the spicy BBQ goodness. The fish was so good we ended up ordering more. Seriously the best food of the trip so far probably! When we payed the bill it was so cheap too, ironic that our favourite meal so far was also the cheapest.

Slightly hungover we decided to check out the sights of Pudong (the commercial district), the only sight really being the district itself viewed from above in one of the high-rise towers. First we ended up in an eerily quiet shopping mall attached to the metro station, full of posh brand shops such as Armani and Versace. By this point we very hungry and figured there would be a food court and grabbed some Japanese noodles and a coke to sort us out. There was also a supermarket presumably aimed at the rich western businessmen (or more likely their wives) where we could have had ourselves some Marmite for £8! Headed for the Jin Mao tower, which was the tallest building in Shanghai until the World Financial Centre was built right next to it, a few floors higher. I bet they were a little miffed! Annoyingly between walking into the building, queuing up for tickets and taking the lift up it had hazed over so the view wasn't as good as it could have been but still pretty spectacular. Charlotte relished posting the postcards from the highest post office in the world (it sometimes feels like our travels are one long ramble trying to find the nearest post office!). Decided it would be rude not to take the world fastest train while we were in the area, despite it being to and from the airport. We took the metro there to save on the fare which we immediately regretted, given that it took over an hour. Coming back on the Maglev was pretty amazing, 431km/h an hour was the fastest speed we travelled at, almost as fast as flying. It felt like we were in a low flying aircraft as we swooped around on the elevated track, and made the trip that had took us almost an hour on the metro in 7 minutes.

Next we visited what turned out to be a real highlight in the Wright World of Beer trip. I had been hankering after some good beer since it had a been a while since we had had any variety or interesting flavours for a long while. Eastern Europe certainly has some good beers, but mainly of the same style (strong lager), and Russia was to be honest fairly uninspiring, even when we tried some beers brewed by micro-brewers. Mongolia had been the same story and it would seem the only beer normally available in China is weak lager (which actually I grew to like a lot and I think Tsingtao is the best beer of this type I have tasted - does the job when you want a cold, refreshing, cheap and thirst-quenching beer and the low ABV means you don't regret it in the morning). So some internet research revealed a few interesting beer bars in Shanghai (including the one we had patronised the previous night), mainly on account of the American influence it would seem. We found the Boxing Cat, near the laid back Fuxing Park, rammed full of young American schmoozing at a networking event. The lady kindly assumed maybe we had turned up for the event (despite Liam wearing shorts with baseball shoes and being fairly unkempt in the hair and beard department), but we politely declined and took our seats in the swish eating area upstairs. We very much enjoyed their 4 draft offerings; TKA IPA (very hoppy and dry beer in the traditional strong English India Pale Ale style, reminded me a lot of Brewdog Punk IPA), Right Hook Helles (decent German-style lager), Standing 8 Pilsner (dry, flowery Czech style lager) and Sucker Punch Pale Ale (wonderfully fruity and reminded us of Thornbridge Kipling). Along with the beer we had some tasty American grub, Charlotte opted for a Mexian soup and I went for an amazing burger; succulent beef topped with cheese and avocado - after so long eating different cuisines it was heaven to have a 'proper' burger, and it was worlds apart from the usual American fast food chain offerings. After a heady mix of beer and awesome food we were feeling good (and probably a little drunk) and headed back to the hostel feeling full and satisfied.

Our last day in Shanghai we spent visiting the Propaganda Museum, a collection of Chinese political poster art from the 20th century, housed in the basement of an apartment building. We are both fans of the style and it was an interesting historical snapshot of Chinese history too. For lunch we had some tasty noodles with stewed beef before heading for a quick pint at the Boxing Cat (Liam wanted to visit Fuxing Park which is nearby, so it would be rude not to have popped in, very convenient!). Liam also bought a baseball shirt, as he had his eye on it as all the staff were wearing them (although they were wearing them in American sizes and so were far to big for the small Chinese staff). Pint quaffed, and we were off to the train station to take a sleeper train to our next destination, Guilin.

Shanghai, China

Qingdao, China (7th - 10th April)

"Hook it to my veins!" - Bags of Tsingtao beer

We were whisked from Beijing to Qingdao in record time on the fastest train of our trip yet. 888km (they must have gone out of the way to ensure the track length, as the number eight is considered lucky in Chinese culture) in less than 6 hours, with a maximum speed of about 250km/h. Our first Chinese train of the journey and we were very impressed, lots of legroom and comfortable airline style seats even in second class. Got lost trying to find the hostel, ended up getting a taxi but we had foolishly written the address down in pinyin (Chinese in latin characters) only, which it turns out most Chinese taxi drivers can't read. After the taxi drove us around randomly for a while we got out, at which point I realised that if I brought up my email on my phone, the address would be on there in Chinese. The wonders of modern technology eh? Eventually we arrived to the hostel, in what had to be the best location in the city. On top of a hill, surrounded by parkland, the hostel was a converted observatory, complete with telescope still present in the bar area upstairs. There was also a rooftop terrace, so in theory there should have been very good views but unfortunately for the whole trip there was a low haze of dust and pollution (an all too common thing in Chinese cities sadly). After some Chinese barbeque grub we headed out to the pier, which is recognisable as the logo of the beer of the city's namesake (although spelt the old way - Tsingtao). The beer was of course one of the reasons we were here, as well as sea. After winter in Siberia I think we were a bit too keen in getting to the coast, and while pleasant the weather wasn't quite warm enough. On the way back to the hostel we discovered a pretty cool local food market selling fruit, veg, meat, fish (sea-fresh, no fishy smell!) and barbequed goodies, and also a local 'pub' complete with resident blind cat. It was a pub in the truest sense, as in a public house, literally a family serving beer straight from the keg in their living room. There were a few locals watching the tea-time soap, enjoying some seafood and of course a pint. And a guy giving himself a close shave with nail clippers, obviously his daily ritual along with his pint. For about 25p a pint we quaffed a couple of fresh Tsingtao's and people watched, while of course the Chinese did the same with us (in China it's not considered rude to stare it would seem) but it was a pretty friendly and welcoming atmosphere.

The next day was beer day! After a hearty 'English' breakfast (consisting of fried eggs, hot dog sausauge, about 15 beans and some charred bacon) on the rooftop terrace we headed to 'Beer Street' and took a look round the Tsingtao brewery. In all honesty the museum part was pretty boring, apart from some amusing sections seemingly thrown together by some high school interns such as how to appreciate beer (swirling the glass, but not in public as you might look a bit poncy) and some half-baked environmental corporate responsibility guff. But the real highlight was the bottling line. That doesn't sound so thrilling, but viewed from a walkway above it was pretty cool to see the bottles whizzing around on the conveyour belt, getting filled with beer, capped, labelled and boxed up. The only active jobs done by humans were watching the bottles go past a bright light to check there is nothing in them and a guy loading the can tops into the machine every few minutes (you'd think that with all that machinery and technology they'd have figured a way to automate this process but apparently not!). After that we got a taste of the beer unfiltered, just a more fuller flavour really as they are mainly brewing low strength lager. The best part though were the free beer peanuts, seasoned with yeast, hops and chilli. So after eating them you couldn't really taste the beer anyway. Beer Street itself was pretty dead, and basically consisted of lots of empty seafood restaurants, so instead we headed to our new local and grabbed a couple of bags of beer. Yes, that's not a mispelling! For takeaway purposes they sell litres of beer straight from the keg into clear bags, the kind of bags you get a the supermarket to put your vegetables in. Pouring them is fairly precarious, but we were well prepared with plastic glasses and enjoyed them in the park near our hostel (cue strange looks from the occassional passing local, the Chinese don't seem to drink in public parks like us Europeans, and in Russia it's probably considered strange behaviour if you don't walk down the street with a beer in your hand!).

On our final day we took a walk down the extensive boadwalks along the coast around Qingdao, from the older part of town to the business district with the flashy highrises and the soulness feeling common in these places wherever you are in the world - especially China as these areas have been thrown up in a matter of years. The walk was very pleasant, but even though it was a nice sunny day the visibility out to sea was really bad which was quite strange. We also saw the area where the Olympic Sailing events were held in 2008. Well, we could just about make out the huge Olympic rings across the harbour in the low cloud. We also enjoyed a baked sweet potato, a winter staple in China, the sellers have a makeshift oven on the back of bicycle made from an old oil drum, sold by weight. On our walk we also saw loads of Chinese newly weds (it being a Saturday) posing on the beach for photos, we must have seen about 30-40 couples on our 10km walk!

And so, our time in Qingdao coming to an end, we booked our train tickets to our next destination, Shanghai!

Qingdao, China