Here are some pictures from our time in Russia’s capital…

Ornate decorations in the Moscow subways. The Moscow metro, also dubbed the ‘People’s Palaces’, are really rather incredible with each station offering a different experience. They were apparently designed to ‘raise the confidence and prestige of the working classes’ and are adorned with items and decorations originally taken from churches and Tsarist palaces. Others meanwhile contain more ‘modern’ socialist murals, drawing on the Art Deco. An interesting fact: it is said that under Moscow there are more than twice as many secret tunnels than those that are on the map…

A great big ceiling mural celebrating the launch of the Mir space station. The photo really doesn’t do justice to the scale of this thing, which you can see coming towards you from the bottom of the very long escalator leading out…

We braved the outside for a tour of the city with a guide we hired called Lena. She took us to a nunnery founded by one of Queen Victoria’s daughters who was arrested and starved to death in prison after her husband was assassinated. There is a statue to her outside the nunnery where people lay flowers.

As we walked on through the streets of Moscow, towards Gorky Park, Lena told us that buildings used to be painted in pastel or ‘summer’ shades to subdue people – narrow streets were painted in lighter shades to make them feel more open whereas larger streets were painted in darker shades.

On request Lena took us to Maxim Gorky’s house or ‘gilded cage’. The house is elaborately adorned with art nouveau style stained glass and wooden floors but it is also rumored that the entire place to bugged by the government who were listening to his every conversation (more sinister rumours concern poisoned wall paper). Trapped in an ornate jail, it was no wonder that Gorky suffered and it was rather poignant when Lena pointed to a painting of a fragile, dying girl prominently displayed on the wall and said it was his favourite.

The weather was still bitter with snow underfoot. Lena told us that in Moscow the saying goes – 5 months of Winter, 7 months of waiting for Winter or to put it another way – 9 months of anticipation, 3 months of disappointment. She led us on through the sleet to the eerie sculpture park full of old socialist statues near the river embankment. There are some Stalin-era statues here which have been clearly defaced. In the background looms a huge statue of Peter the Great, atop the mast of a ship, floating on the icy Moskva river behind.

We finished the tour by the iconic Saint Basil’s in Red Square. This building reminds me of my wasted youth playing too much Tetris.

These icons above the gates of St. Nicholas in Red Square were hidden in the plasterwork of the towers by whoever had been ordered to destroy them, left safely hidden behind a plaster covered metal grating for the whole of the Communist era. They were only discovered in 2010 because a man who had originally helped paint them and knew of their hidden whereabouts let his grandson know.

To warm up we headed to the nearby shopping centre where the cafe no. 57 on the top floor does reasonably priced, good cafe food with a vintage theme. The shops are well worth an explore too for some interesting socialist memorabilia.

The Route:

Ulanbaaatar -> Ulan Uday -> Irkutsk -> Lake Baikal -> Novosibirsk -> Ekaterinberg -> Perm -> Moscow

Upon boarding the train we were shown to our cabin which we were to share with two Mongolian guys, who had each brought a number of boxes and suitcases. It wasn’t long before we realised that this would be no ordinary train journey but what we came to term the ‘Great Train Bazaar’ from Mongolia to Moscow…

Winter was only just receding so we were the only ‘tourists’ in our train compartment. By nightfall of the first evening, as we were approaching the Russian border check point, the two young Mongolians we were sharing our carriage with suddenly jumped into action (having slept all day) unpacking their rather large boxes and suitcases. Our compartment was soon full of leather jackets, piles of jeans, sparkly tops, blankets and shower curtains(!). We stepped into the corridor to give them some room and were greeted by the sound of rustling cellophane which was being hastily torn off bundles of clothes left, right and centre before being thrown onto the floor of the corridor to create a sea of plastic. Various items then began to be distributed by a Mongolian of wrestler build throughout the cabins. to look like personal goods, so when we eventually returned to our bunk we had acquired a new wardrobe of clothes hanging on our coat hooks as well as two rather fetching leopard print blankets! The Mongolians in our carriage just grinned and as we would all be on the same train for the next five days, we thought it best to go along with whatever scheme was being hatched.

By the time we reached the check point with Siberia, all was still and there wasn’t a plastic wrapper in sight. The Russian border police were obviously suspicious but were also fairly pleasant to us and soon passed on to the next cabin to interrogate its occupants. There was a blizzard outside (a fitting Russian greeting, we thought) and we were bemused to see several men carrying half naked, snow covered mannequins onto the train and dumping them in the corridor – they looked somewhat gruesome and a little bit freaky, forming slushy melted ice puddles on the floor.

The next morning we awoke to find an apologetic Mongolian stripping the leopard print blanket covers from our beds and pointing manically outside (not what you want when you’re waking up in Siberia in mid-winter). We pulled on a few layers and looked out to see a large crowd of Russian women and men gathered on the train platform. A rather large man then swung past our cabin carrying the clutch of mannequin legs now bedecked in Levi jeans, followed by an equally large woman holding their torso counterparts, which she had dressed in some sparkly clubbing gear – a little cold for Siberia we thought, but perhaps we’re just soft. This marked the official start of what we came to term the Great Train Bazaar – the frenzied buying and selling of goods which happens all along the train line until Novosibirsk (the largest city in Siberia, where the authorities started to crack down on the activity). Not so here as everyone from grandmothers to train staff and police officers were joining the fray to barter for handbags, purses, fleecy covers, spandex outfits and leather jackets.

With entertainment such as this, the five days soon whizzed past and we even made some Mongolian friends by trading an M & S manicure kit for a fleecy blanket – one of the best bargains of our travels we thought!

The journey itself through the snowy Siberian landscape, the immense ice-covered Lake Baikal (where we sampled our second Omul – a distant relative of the Salmon, caught from icy holes in the lake and smoked), the Ural Mountains and onwards through the cities of the Golden Ring surrounding Western Russia was captivating and we never tired of waking up to forests of snow clad fir trees.

She picked us up in a Land Rover and told us not to get used to the ‘road’. We were only on it for about 45 minutes before it ran out and we were driving over the rough terrain of the thawing desert. Passing over the last ice-covered streams, we disturbed a pair of Bar-Headed Geese along the way. In the distance we could make out the occasional Ger, surrounded by mountains, scrubland and packs of wild horses.Another hour passed before our guide pointed out a solitary settlement of a couple of Gers and a stable – she explained that we would have lunch here. A small family welcomed us inside a large Ger to a brightly painted room filled with suitcases, three beds and a fire. The fire is the central point of every Ger as it provides essential heat and acts as a stove (in these conditions and in this nomadic lifestyle the fire is sacred). The father of the household was resting on his bed, watching Mongolian game shows on a small black-and-white television powered by a car battery. His wife was tending to the food: bubbling on the hearth was a stew and next to the a table with a plate of home-made biscuits served with blueberry jam. We were invited to join them for lunch and we ate mutton stew and noodles washed down with glasses of salty mare’s milk.

Next to the house was a small wooden stable which sheltered goats, and was protecting the first spring kids and their mothers from the cold desert winds. The father of the family came out and showed us a pair of brown goat twins who had been born a week ago which he promptly thrust into our arms. The family also had three dogs, three horses and a cat whose newly-born kitten was taking a nap in a child’s toy castle. Spring was in the air and with it came an air of celebration and a focus towards renewal and rebirth.

After lunch, we said goodbye to the family and were taken to the museum of Mongolian history which is housed within a giant, hollow statue of Chinggis Khan (the common Western transliteration ‘Genghis’ isn’t quite right, we found out). The founder’s original vision for this desert folly was to create a hub for Mongolian tourism with a tourist Ger village surrounding its base. Sadly, before even the statue could be completed, he was killed in a car accident. Others are continuing his work, however (although the Ger village is thankfully on hold), and the collection of artefacts from the era of Chinggis’ rule were on the whole fascinating – (I say on the whole because of the giant Mongolian boot).

Just before sunset, we were driven to our home for the next two nights – a settlement of ten Gers in a desert valley. The pipes hadn’t yet thawed enough for the shower and toilets to work so washing was from a bucket of water, and the toilet was an Eco style sawdust arrangement a couple of minutes walk from the camp. As we settled into our tent (which was beautifully painted) and wonderfully warm thanks to the fire, we stared to smell tempting aromas coming from the ‘kitchen’ tent a couple of rows down. A gong soon sounded to announce dinner and we sat down along with seven other guests (4 Irish and 3 Australian) to a simple but hearty dinner of pasta and mutton with blueberry juice (with or without Chinggis vodka). We also managed to try some booz’i, the spiritual precursor to dumplings such as Dim Sum and ravioli, which were brought to Peking (then known as Karakorum) by the Mongolian army and, suitably dried, allowed them to travel huge distances across the desert.

By evening the temperature had dipped to – 10 so it was important to keep the fire in the Ger going all night. We were told that someone would come in and light the fire every couple of hours so not to worry if we heard the door open. The next morning we awoke in our toasty Ger to a beautiful sunrise. After a breakfast of blueberry jam and biscuits, we we went for a morning walk across the desert, aiming to climb a hilly peak in the distance. We navigated our way through thawing streams and herds of horses which had recently been let out to pasture now the worst of the winter was over. From the peak of the hill we could see them in their winter coats, clearly enjoying their freedom – bucking and playing – which was in stark contrast to the few horse skulls on the hillside left behind by those who had been more unlucky.

When we got back to camp we were asked if we’d like to see a little more of the desert on a horseback with Batsuk Ala, the local horseman. I hadn’t ridden for a few years but we thought it would be a good way to explore. The horses were frisky and clearly weren’t enjoying having their saddles back on after six months of freedom. As we rode out we passed a grazing herd of horses which which began to Whinnie causing my horse to strain and veer off in their direction. The horseman told me to say chu firmly which seemed to work. There was something rather magical about riding over the desert terrain with no sign of settlement or other humans around. The horses obviously knew their way home and I barely had to touch the reigns on the return which was a bit of a relief.

We got back to camp in time for sunset where our surroundings glowed red making us feel like me were on a moonscape.

Two days didn’t feel long enough as we prepared to return to Ulanbaatar the next morning to reconnect with the Trans-Mongolian train which would take us on the five-day journey to Moscow. On the journey back, Odtka told us about the significance of the Mongolian flags which we passed along the roadside. These are part of a worship ceremony and each colour held different significance – red = fire; white = compassion; yellow = sun; blue = sky; green = earth and black = burial. In Mongolia (Buddhist style) sky burials are common wherein a corpse is left without protection in a specific place (such as a mountain top) for the elements to take it – it is essentially given back to nature. Odtka also showed us how our names would be written in Mongolian (where letters are written vertically rather than horizontally).

Before reaching the station, we had just enough time to stop at an old Buddhist temple and have a look around. Giant prayer wheels and an ancient wooden temple-front had been beautifully preserved, and despite the best efforts of the Soviet-era government, who destroyed many of the temples, a large number of Mongolians practice Buddhism today.

By the time we reached Ulaanbaatar station, the train was already there and people were busy loading big packages on board. We said goodbye to Odtka and went in search of the cabin we would call home for the next five days…

We boarded the train early, on a cold April morning in Beijing. The train wasn’t heated except for a small corner where a samovar (or hot water tank) was slowly bubbling away. The hot water tea bottle we had picked up in Hangzhou suddenly sprang to mind and we filled it with ‘first flush’ Dragon Well/lóngjǐng tea to celebrate our last day in China.

Pulling out of Beijing’s Central Station marked the beginning of our 6000 kilometer journey to Moscow, though we were due to disembark for a brief stay in Mongolia.

In the last two weeks, we went from the tropical temperatures of Hong Kong to desert frosts of -20°C! Hence the scarves and hot drinks which doubled up as hand warmers.

Before long we were travelling through mountains and past lakes bringing back distant memories of our train journey through the Rockies months earlier.

This is the samovar which is a central part to life on the Trans-Siberian route – not only in terms of its being a meeting spot but also as a vital source of heat and drinkable water. Notice the train conductor’s gloves and buns keeping warm against the hot water tank!

Later that day we passed through more Chinese country side, notably skirting more remains of the Great Wall. Unlike at Mutianyu this is the ancient wall itself, and its mark across the landscape is unmistakeably striking. Seeing yet more miles of the Wall gave us new appreciation of its sheer scale.

As the train journeyed north, through the less populated plains of northern China we encountered mud villages and solitary stone burial sites. The cold wind sent whirls of dust frenzinging across the land, creating an inhospitable, unruly feel to the terrain (it is claimed that unless something is done the advancing desert will one day swallow up Beijing – something we could believe from watching the endless stretches of beige outside).

Sunset soon approached and it seemed somehow fitting that our last glimpse of China was of a desert wind farm set, hinting at its bright and greener future.

The last station stop in China is at Erlian where the entire train is brought inside a depot and is lifted carriage by carriage off its bogeys (wheels) in order to have new ones put on. The track is a different width in China compared to the rest of the old Soviet rail network. After the wheel change and a brief passport check, we were able to get some sleep – though needed three or four blankets given the freezing temperatures inside the train.

The next morning we opened the curtains to the beautiful landscape of the Gobi desert, still tinged by small snow patches and a distant band of wild horses.

We got dressed and put on our shoes (it is frowned upon to walk shoeless in the outer corridors) and managed to use the tiny bathroom at the end of our corridor.

The train’s schedule, all relative to Beijing time. Note the six hour stop at one in the morning as we crossed the border earlier!

Conscious of the fact we would later be journeying to a camp outside of Ulan Baator, we decided to splash out on breakfast in the beautifully ornate Mongolian dining car. Easily the nicest one we encountered on our entire journey.

As we travelled further through the desert terrain, we passed various ger camps. There is a power line that follows the train tracks so this ends up being a focal point for various communities scattered along the route, even if they are miles from the nearest station.

Another small community of nomads… and not another soul for miles around.

As the train took a wide bend, we could see its front for the first time.

Our first glimpse of snow up close… During the day the outside temperature was close to freezing so we were preparing ourselves for a night in the desert.

As the number of Ger camps along the track increased, we soon realised these were part of the suburbs of Ulan Batar. It wasn’t long before we saw buildings on the horizon as we pulled into the central station. We had arrived in the capital of Mongolia, the city in the desert.

Everything about the train oozed that 90′s vision of space-age chrome and glass, made even more 90′s in essence by Jackie Chan punctuating the news broadcasts flashing up on the carriage’s TV screens to announce his latest tiger-saving project with some Kung-fu moves. The first few hours were relatively relaxed with passengers reading newspapers, working on laptops or watching other screens but it wasn’t long before the smells from the dining car wafted their way through to our carriage causing a mass exodus to the heart of the train where a rapid-fire service of microwaved rice, meat and sauce was taking place (don’t try and ask for the vegetarian option unless you are the type who enjoys sowing chaos and confusion). The food was unexceptional but tasty and more importantly, given our general state of health at this point, packed full of microwaved oils and vitamins.

Our train from Shanghai arrived at Beijing in the late afternoon where we managed to find a cab to drive us to the happily-named Sunrise hostel, a short walk from the Forbidden city. As we drove away from the station, the sun began to sink, setting the murky haze of the city’s main arteries alight with the fire of a million headlights. The honking cars, bicycles, carts and masses of people pouring out of office buildings made a stark contrast to the clinical and calm surrounds that we’d just spent the last 6 hours in.

The following morning, we had an early start as we had decided to join a group from the hostel who had hired a mini-bus to Mutianyu, a popular segment of the Great Wall that has been restored and geared up to tourists. The two hour journey there was uneventful but one of the team from the hostel animatedly warned us not to lose heart over the Disneyland-esque entrance to the wall as once we were up there, we didn’t have to ‘stick with the crowds’. It didn’t take long to understand what he meant – we were greeted by crowded tourist market selling over-priced tourist gifts and refreshments (and various photographic opportunites – most oddly perhaps, involved posing with a camel). This soon gave way to a brightly coloured cable car which lifted the tourists who didn’t fancy the climbing the stairs up to the top. The cars passed over a giant toboggan slide which allows visitors to whizz back down from the wall the fast way when they’ve finished. We could now see why the word ‘theme park’ had been used so many times in connection to the wall.

What isn’t made explicit in any of the ‘info guides’ is that most of this stretch of the wall has been entirely reconstructed – in that it has been completely re-built with new stone over the original (a common theme in China, as it turned out). One of the guys from our hostel reminded us of what our guide had said on the way here and suggested we walked along the wall to point 1 where the new construction ended and we could see paths of trees and overgrown shrubbery stretching beyond. After a long climb up some very steep steps, we came to see what he meant – through a window of the last watch-tower was sign labelled ‘Dangerous, Do Not Enter!’, which he beckoned us towards… “This”, he said proudly, “is the old ‘disrepaired’ wall and is still an unofficial walking route for the adventurous. Just follow the scrubland and you’ll soon be among the eagles”.  With a quick glance behind us we took off along the path and were soon completely alone on the crumbling remains of a magnificent stretch of wall. Though it wasn’t obvious from where we had joined the wall, we could now see that we were in the middle of a mountain range dotted with sections of old wall and small stone-built forts that had been slowly overgrown by shrubs and trees over the years. Looking eastwards towards the snow-capped mountains, we could clearly see it snaking onwards into obscurity, circled over by eagles whose calls echoed between the peaks.

After a wonderful hour spent amongst the crumbling stone, we traced our steps back, descended the almost vertical staircase of the reconstructed wall and re-joined our group for a late lunch in one of the tourist outlets. We got talking to a man from Israel who had been working in Shanghai and was now making the most of exploring China before heading home. He asked us if we had yet visited the Arts District 798 in Dashanzi, just outside of the city’s centre, yet – which we hadn’t. “If there’s one thing you do in Beijing, make it that – you won’t be disappointed”. We only had two full days left in Beijing, and on one of those we were due to transfer to a hotel near Beijing central station, from where we were due to catch our train to Mongolia, so we had to make a call on what to see but decided that the arts district was definitely one of them.

The next morning we decided to take a cab to south of the Dàshānziqiáo flyover where the now defunct military warehouses which house the 798 Arts quarter (a sprawling settlement dedicated to freedom of expression comprising of art studios, galleries, bookshops, cafes and stalls) can be found. Factory 798 (as it is also referred to) became an underground arts hub and refuge to Beijing’s contemporary artists who were evicted from their Old Summer Palace residences by the government during the 1980′s. The site of the old factory with its industrial chimneys and sweeping ceiling arches offered inspiration as well as space to those who set up studios there and the area began to grow by word-of-mouth, in time attracting international artists to the area too. Industrial remnants are interspersed with exhibits that make use of materials scavenged from the old factories themselves, while quaint artists’ shops, cafés and residences now occupy the smaller buildings. It is now a fashionable hub of high-profile galleries, catwalks and event spaces for trend-conscious companies. Most of the exhibits are completely free but art can be found around every corner – from carparks to chimney tops – no space is left unadorned.

Inside buildings played to host to spotlighting one or two particular artists. One sculptor fashioned subjects that looked as though they were drowning or swimming in a pool of lrippling iquid cast from dark iron. It wasn’t clear if they were winning their battle against the tide, but fittingly for the area, the focus seemed to be in the struggle.

Another exhibition, Bashir Makhoul’s “Enter Ghost, Exit Ghost“, was set out as a maze of confusing holographic pictures, each simultaneously displaying a Middle-Eastern streetscape contrasted with an equivalent one made out of old cardboard boxes, to look like a ghost city.
In another brick-interiored industrial outhouse, blown-up photographs were being carefully ignored. I particuarly liked the contrast of this photograph with the group in front inadvertantly mimicking one of the pictures in the gallery, transfixed by their iPhones and tablets instead of the nude woman just behind them.

We were completely absorbed by the arts district and only noticed the fading light when the cold started to seep in. Stalls roasting sweet potatoes over a fire had sprung up next to an old steam engine which helped to warm us up. As the temperarture continued to dip, we made our way to the exit, not realising how tired we were until we flopped down in the hostel and slept for a full 13 hours in our clothes.

With one day left in Beijing before our departure to the Gobi desert, we decided to get up early to try and beat the crowds to the Forbidden City. It was so cold that the trays of milk drinks we had got used to seeing around the city had frozen tops and the groups of men who were usually outside playing Mahjong and dice were nowhere to be seen.

We got to the Forbidden city early, but not early enough to escape the mass of tour groups all colour coded by hats and led by guides carrying large flags and megaphones. We made efforts to avoid the sea of red hats (many clinging onto children dressed as little emperors) and headed to the side rooms instead, which gave us a bit more space to breathe and take in the detail. We spent a lot of time looking around the emperor’s theatre, which was still complete with trap doors and a wonderful selection of 1920′s vinyl recordings of the dowager empress’s favourite eunuch troupe. Next we visited the treasury within the Forbidden City, a collection of buildings housing some very extravagant teapots and trinkets including an amethist massage roller, a disgustingly striking headress made of brilliant blue kingfisher feathers, and an incredible golden astrolabe with pearls representing each of the star clusters. If you look closely at the signs outside each building you can see that they many were once upon a time sponsored by a certain American company, which has since been discretely painted over.

After a morning’s exploration of the Forbidden City, we made our way back to our hotel to prepare ourselves for the onwards journey. We could see Beijing’s Central Station, with its mass of crowds, from our 20th floor window and it felt strange, as we watched the people below disperse, to think that this time tomorrow, we’d no longer be in China…

In the context of our journey around the world, Hong Kong was also special because it marked another turning point for us. Not only was it the first familiar territory we’d encountered since America, but it would also be the first time I had seen my parents after eight months on the road and a Christmas aboard a cargo ship. Another reason for my excitement on arriving was that my family lived in Hong Kong for about five years when I was a child. My dad was offered a job there in the ’90s and we eventually moved over to live in 1992, during the last few years before the island was handed back to China in 1997. What was originally supposed to be a one-year secondment became a five-year stint abroad on my parents’ part and a defining point in my childhood. As a young boy, I experienced a very ‘bubble wrapped’ view of the island’s culture, but I was lucky enough to explore some unsung parts of Hong Kong life that, like the city itself, are now changing so fast they have almost become unrecognisable. Coming back to those same places as an adult and re-parsing my old memories was something that I had been looking forward to since we set off from England. We had a lot of catching up to do…

We arrived at Kowloon Tong station in the early morning and had some time to wash, rest and recover once we reached our hotel (the shiniest we’d stayed in for quite some time). Most people in Hong Kong live in high-rise apartments, so it didn’t seem strange to me that we would be on the 23rd floor but it was probably the highest above sea level we had been since visiting the Nepenthe restaurant in California all those months ago. Black Kites circled outside the window, riding thermal currents to scan the grassland of one of Hong Kong’s inner city parks for prey. My parents arrived a little time after us and some emotionally charged greetings followed their arrival in the hotel’s wine bar. We had a lovely evening watching the sunset over the hazy city while reminiscing, catching up and deciding how we wanted to spend the next 10 days.

Not surprisingly, the hit list included many excursions to old places from my childhood past as well as some of the places that we never took the time to visit when we used to live on the island all those years ago. While it was something of a whistlestop tour, we took time to reflect on the contrast between life in Hong Kong, our time in South East Asia and life back home.

Star Ferry

We took a number of journeys on the Star Ferry while we were in Hong Kong. This iconic ferry service has been running since 1888, and the ferries currently in service are an average of 40 years old. They are still more than seaworthy and are actually quite a fast way to get between the sides of the Harbour, if you’re already in the city centre.

Nothing seems to have changed here at all since I lived in Hong Kong, except for further building development/land reclaim on the harbour and the introduction of a comically named Oyster-style system called the “Octopus” card which you can use to buy your ticket.

Hong Kong Cricket Club and Hong Kong Country Club

Nestled on the mountain along the Wong Nai Chung Gap Road, which separates the harbour front from the secluded southern parts of Hong Kong island, the cricket club used to be a meeting house for all kinds if expatriates, from socialites to sports enthusiasts. On the surface, it’s not much different than a glorified leisure centre, but its walls are brimming with quirky historical artefacts if you care to look a bit closer. The cricket pitch was originally constructed right on the waterfront, surviving four years of Japanese occupation in 1941-45 and decades of social change in Hong Kong, but later moved up the mountain in 1975 as the increasing price of land made the club’s presence in such a prime seafront location untenable. The new pitch has probably one of the best views of any in the world, the dance of Hong Kong Harbour playing itself out in miniature in the distance below.

Inside the pavilion is a replica 17th century wooden-beamed British pub, originally built by the harbour-side and then moved beam by beam up to the new location at Wong Nai Chung. The interior reminded us of a quiet country pub in deepest Sussex, each wall stacked with commemorations of old matches between now-extinct colonial power bases such as Burma, Macau and Singapore, as well as newer commemorations of matches between Hong Kong and minor county sides from the UK or Australia (Hong Kong unfortunately usually ending up as the losing side). Other relics of the bygone age of British influence in Asia and of the resistance movement during the Japanese occupation can also be found in the room that used to be a relatively large video rental library when I was young. Other rooms house more recent celebrations as new histories are forged on its cricket pitches. This relic of British governance over Hong Kong has been embraced by the city alongside other clubs such as the Helena May women’s club (which was running its spring tombola and tea party when we visited) and the Hong Kong Country Club which recently celebrated its 100th year.

The country club is slightly out of the city near Ocean Park and is a relaxed, family-oriented (if slightly Desperate Housewives-ish) meeting place with a secluded pool, a cocktail bar overlooking Causeway Bay, and a few decent restaurants. When I was younger a couple of goats helped to manicure the lawns but they are now long gone and only the old climbing frame and green swing boat remained – surprisingly still in good working order!

Tea Museum

Nestled in the middle of Hong Kong Park, this little museum was one of the little gems we found when exploring the area near the Mid-Levels. A place of relative peace and quiet in the hustle and bustle of the city, we explored halls of eccentric tea pottery and were first introduced to the ways of the Gongfu tea ceremony by a video of the resident Professor of Tea (serious business in China and Hong Kong!). The tea ceremonies are traditional forms of both mindful meditation and perfect tea brewing, a set of steps each with its own name and backstory in Chinese lore (my favourite part being “the dragon rolls the ball”, an intricate movement of the fingers where teacups are washed one at a time by rolling them between three fingers in a cup of boiling water).

Adjoining the museum is a beautifully decorated tea house, where we sampled some of the finer Chinese leaf teas and were able to practice some of the tea rituals we had studied earlier (shown above is the traditional way of warming the tea pot by pouring boiling water over it, which is then collected into the tea stand itself).

Wetland Park

When I was here last, the Mai Po marshes were part of a wild stretch of land between Kowloon and the border with China. Now the marshes have been transformed into an entirely new area of affordable housing developments, bordered by a stretch of protected wetland which forms the Hong Kong Wetland Park. We travelled to the park by MTR and a new tram service which allowed us to take in how much the northern suburbs have changed in the 15 years since our last visit. The densely packed housing developments were huge and laundry hung from poles which were pushed out of many of the high-rises’ tiny windows. The temperature had begun to soar so it was difficult to imagine how hot the box-like flats must get.

The wetland park is the main segment of open space left in the area and is a sanctuary for wild birds of all kinds. It has been cleverly marketed as a tourist attraction and the waders who have frequented the marsh for years have become its stars – viewable through bird hides, viewing platforms and high-spec telescopes. Highlights include spoonbills, the Crested Bul-Bul, kingfishers and herons.

The sprawling megalopolis of Shenzen (mainland China) looms over the lakes in the distance, and the marshland feels like the last barrier keeping these two enormous cities from combining into one giant concrete mass.

Occupy Hong Kong

Free speech and the notion of ‘freedom’ (despite the fact that Hong Kong has never had a general election in all its existence) is defended much more strongly by the population of Hong Kong than other places in Asia. The Occupy Hong Kong group were able to camp under the concourse of one of Hong Kong’s main banks (the HQ of HSBC) for 306 days mainly due to the fact that the Legislative Council is careful not to appear too authoritarian for fear of antagonising a public that is already nervous of sweeping change. We happened to stumble across it while going from one place to another – all the activists were out apart from one guy who was looking after the camp and it was interesting to talk to some of the passers-by about their views (most were positive but one woman almost spat at the camp while repeating the word ‘disgusting’ over and over). The camp was cleared by bailiffs in September 2012 following a legal action from HSBC, but it’s interesting to note that the group’s activities were never stopped by the government themselves. Down the road, near the peak tram terminal, there is a smaller scale protest with banners and leaflets set up by a lady who believes she was abducted by aliens. Apparently, she has been there so long she is almost a feature of the landscape and there are no signs that she will be moved on anytime soon.

Rainbow Restaurant, Lamma Island (Pok Liu Chau)

After seeing so many other aspects of the island grow out of all proportions in the last 20 years, it was heartening to find that not everywhere has been swept up by the maddening pace of change that Hong Kong’s particular brand of capitalism is famous for. A short ferry ride from Tsim Tsa Tsui or the small harbour community of Aberdeen (on the south end of the island), the island of Lamma was and still is home to a small community of local fishermen who serve up their catch of the day in their own unique style via a number of waterfront restaurants.

As a child, I have fond memories of frequenting the Rainbow restaurant, which I was excited to learn is still there. This was the first place I had returned to in Hong Kong where time really hadn’t changed it at all – the writing on the melamine plates and bowls was slightly worn but the same, almost as if they were the same plates that we had eaten off 15 years previously, the table cloths had the same familiar patterns and the food was just as fresh as I remembered. As night fell, we watched the fishing boats heading off to start fishing by the moonlight and filled ourselves with delicious rice, noodles and fish roasted with salt and a local recipe of soy sauce, garlic and plum sauce.

The Peninsula Hotel and the Hong Kong Cultural Centre

The Peninsula hotel opened its doors in 1928 and was once described as ‘the finest hotel east of Suez’. It manages to retain its elegance but is a magnet for the cruise-liner passengers who form snaking queues in the lobby for its famous afternoon tea (one family had even hired a Filipino girl to queue in their place so they didn’t have to bother!) I remember going once or twice for tea when I was younger and we were over on the Kowloon side of the harbour so we decided to have tea one quieter afternoon after visiting the nearby planetarium. It felt strange to be back amongst tea and scones again, having bypassed most of the places that have kept up this tradition in Malaysia, but it was in some ways comforting, seeing as we were pretty sure we wouldn’t be having any more scones with strawberry jam until we were back on home turf, still a very long way away. To complete this British themed day we decided to see what was on at the Cultural Centre (which, for those who know London, feels a little bit like the Southbank centre crossed with the Barbican). We’d hoped to catch an appropriately train-themed drama ‘Railway is like a Long Winding Recollection’ but that wasn’t starting until the next week so we saw a ballet rendition of Turandot instead.

Reflections

The place and culture of Hong Kong has left its imprint on my character since I lived there as a child. I was expecting a lot more to have changed, but I realised that perhaps I have changed even more than the place I once called home. Sure, there are big new buildings, a new government and a couple of square miles more harbour than when I last left its shore, but its the somewhat zany spirit of the place – with the freedom of days spent floating on junks, island exploring, sharing adventures with friends of every nationality and weathering typhoons, landslides and hill fires that have stayed with me.

Our Russian and Chinese visas procured, our next journey was a voyage across mainland China to another bustling city hub: Shanghai!

At the Inn, we were first shown into the converted mudbrick farmhouse at the back of the Inn which was beautiful but also extremely cold, having only just been opened for the season. Luckily there was a slightly smaller but warmer spare room available in the main hotel with a beautiful view of Moon Hill which we chose to opt for instead. I say luckily because the next day Anna started to feel very sick and came down with what we think was food poisoning (we met two lovely American girls while we were staying at the Inn and one of them came down with it too). Anna and our new acquaintance Crystal were both stuck in bed for three days and I spent most of an afternoon frantically attempting to rearrange our onward journey, giving us an extra day to rest and recover. Luckily the Inn staff were really helpful, managing to send for new tickets and helping to translate for me over the phone. I spent a few days wandering the local scenery and playing cards with Deb (the non-poisoned American). An American man at the Inn who lived in China gave me some medical tea sachets to give to Anna which he said would help ease the sickness (by this stage we had to keep the curtains closed because Anna said the mountains had become too menacing to look at, so I really hoped the tea would help). By the third day, she seemed better and was able to eat something so we decided to try and make the onwards journey to Hong Kong the next day. It had become a little bit like a beacon to us as we knew if we could just get there, we’d see my parents and enjoy a little home comfort and familiarity (I spent several years of my childhood there) for a week or so.

The next morning Anna was still weak so I packed as much of her stuff as I could into my backpack and we boarded the bus back to back Guìlín. Unlike the last connection, we made it with plenty of time to catch the overnight train to Guangzhou which would take us almost within batting distance of HK. It felt strange to be leaving the karst peaks for the built-up environs of a city again but I was looking forward to taking the backpack off after over six months ‘on the road’ and getting Anna some medicine that I could actually read the label of. The overnight journey to Guangzhou passed in relative peace and we were able to get some sleep. By the time we woke up, the train was just pulling into Guangzhou where we would catch an early morning connection to Shenzhen, the last city we had to get through before crossing the border with Hong Kong. After an hour’s ride on a very modern train to Shenzhen station, we disembarked with a crowd of other passengers and soon saw arrows pointing towards Hong Kong. We followed these on foot for about ten-minutes through what felt like a discount shopping centre, luntil we came across a queue which we gathered was for the immigration checkpoint. Hong Kong is now a region of China but resides in its own ‘Special Economic Zone’, meaning that travelling from within China to and from Hong Kong counts as an ‘exit’ for visa purposes, so the length of our stay here was pretty much defined by the amount of time it would take to get Russian and Chinese visas for our onward journey (but that’s another story). Compared to the difficulties we’d had getting into China from Vietnam, this border crossing was a breeze, and we were not only ushered into a shorter queue but also given permits to stay for 180 days.

Once we were through the other side, we took a short ride from Lok Ma Chau, the northernmost station on the MTR, to the big rail station at Kowloon Tong. The map looked a little bigger than I remembered but became familiar again quite quickly. Apart from a couple of stretches of old rail lines, most of the MTR stations were built in the early 80′s and looked exactly the same as I remembered. Brightly coloured tiles line the spartan walls, decorated only by safety posters and billboards full of gaudy advertising.

Once we reached our destination, we suddenly emerged in a gleaming white station with fast food outlets, chain stores and a huge glass ceiling. It was a little surreal given where we had come from only a few hours ago. Taxis queued up outside, fighting to take our luggage, and too tired to protest, I gave in and just laid back, looking forward to seeing the land of my childhood again…

In the waiting room we had a short conversation with one of the staff from our hotel, who happened to also be waiting for an arrival from the train. We couldn’t exchange much in the way of conversation, still being reliant on our phrasebook and wild gesticulation, but managed to swap greetings, some basic stories and, in true English style, complain about the last few days’ weather. At long last the train pulled up – this was a Chinese train, markedly different from the Vietnamese versions we’d travelled on before in interior (the Chinese go in for emblemed carpets, polished wood and sleeker sound-systems/screens). It was our first step into what would become a constant flow of elaborate and ornate displays of affluence.

In 1902, the line from Hanoi to Đồng Đăng (the Vietnamese station on the border with China) was built. At the time Vietnam was still colonised by the French and the line was heavily bombed by the Americans during the Vietnam war. Since then it has been patched up and is again a major route for the transporting of goods and passengers between China and Vietnam. It is also a great way to experience the marked contrast in landscapes and philosophies between the two countries.

This line would carry us over 396 kilometres of terrain to the relatively small (by Chinese standards) border town of Nanning – but first we had to experience the delights of our first Chinese border crossing.

Not long after we’d settled into our cabin on board, a train guard knocked on our door to check our passports, visas and tickets before swapping them for a couple of colourfully decorated plastic cards, leaving us free to wash and get ready for bed despite the knowledge that in a few hours we would be rudely awakened for our first border check by train. We had been on the train for around three hours, enjoying the luxury of a train carriage all to ourselves, before we were alerted by the guard to get ready for the border crossing (it was about 1.30 am and the cabin felt freezing so we quickly pulled scarves and warm jumpers out of our backpacks). We couldn’t see much outside apart from the occasional collections of lights in the distance and the noise and flash of sparks coming off the axles. It felt like this went on for some time but the train had started to slow and ten minutes later it came to a complete stop at the dimly lit border check point.

The night air was the coldest we’d felt in a long while – and we felt glad of the warm clothes we’d purchased in Hoi An. By the time we assembled ourselves, we were one of the last off the train and the platform was eerily empty but for a couple of border officials who were inspecting the train carriages and carriage underbellies with torches for stowaways and contraband. We were motioned into a brutalist style building where a group of around 30 shivering passengers were gathered around the glass screens of the passport office, protected by three officials in thick military coats. Behind the screens, the office staff had begun to stamp, hand-wave and pore over the minute detail of each passenger’s passport, taking especially long over our European ones. Once a stamp had been granted a stern-faced official would bark the passport holder’s name and wait for them to come to the front and collect it, rather like a school prize giving. The stern expressions of the officials only changed once – amusingly when they reached Anna’s passport – at which point the guard’s frown melted into a smile and he raised his shoulders in an actual laugh. We don’t know whether it was the photo, the strange butterfly hologram on the passport’s photo page or the surname ‘Rice’ which did it but whatever it was, it brought a more human side to the otherwise military-style experience.

The Chinese border post

After twenty minutes of huddling in the cold, we were back on the tracks for a five-minute train ride to the Chinese side of the border, where we had the pleasure of repeating the entire process again, thankfully in a heated room this time. The difference between the sides couldn’t have been more stark: the Chinese border post was kitted out with top-of-the-line scanners probing our bags with all kinds of rays and sniffer dogs mainly on the lookout for dangerous fruit-bearing tourists. Presumably other ‘dangerous’ goods are occasionally tried but I wouldn’t bet on a smuggler’s chances here…

We were now officially in China and it wasn’t long before the train was pulling away and edging towards Nanning. The train carriage was pretty freezing by this point, so we decided to keep our jumpers on underneath the duvet before attempting to get some sleep (tip: Chinese provincial trains are rarely heated except in extreme conditions so always bring something warm for nights). As day broke, we were woken to a dawn chorus of hauntingly beautiful piano music, played out through the sound-system to wake up sleeping passengers.  We drew back the curtains to see our first glimpse of China – the paddy fields of Vietnam had transformed into beautiful Karst peaks, huge towers of rock that stand alone in the mist as millenia of rivers have whittled their edges down to steep cliffs that oscillate across the landscape. This didn’t last for long as we soon hit the urban sprawl of Nanning’s outskirts. This “small” border town is in fact huge – with a population of six million, it is almost the same size as London and has a shopping district to rival that of any British city. This wasn’t the easing into Chinese culture we’d hoped for but it was at least a ‘real’ introduction. With no airport terminals to soften the blow, we were soon released into a station heaving with Chinese workers and commuters (and not another ‘tourist’ in sight). Hanoi felt like a village in comparison.

Nanning Train Station Square in the rain, by Ian Stacey on Flickr

The area outside the station station is a large concrete mass with an underground shopping centre to shield pedestrians from the cold in winter and a topside market full of motorcycles, each laden with a different speciality of fresh fruit or hot dumplings simmering over portable gas heaters. Vast video displays arch over entire sections of the streets, while four lanes of traffic speed past pavements full of pedestrians all moving as fast as they can to get out of the smog.

Our hostel was located a 10 minute drive away, so we pulled the Chinese phrasebook out of our backpack and attempted to find a taxi. Luckily, we’d thought ahead and had the address written down in Chinese which saved us (I don’t think our terrible attempt at conversation was getting us anywhere). The hostel was located in a side street in a sort of park next to the river – if it hadn’t been signposted, I would have taken it for a toilet block. The inside was thankfully quite welcoming and there were a couple of Australian and British travellers who were about to continue their routes into Vietnam. They told us that Nanning is really a business town and most travellers just stop by en-route or to investigate business opportunities (one of the Aussies was there to try and sell New Zealand and Australian wines into business hotels and restaurants – an alcoholic beverage which is apparently becoming more popular with Chinese businessmen and women since travel has become more commonplace). Although it was still early morning, we were incredibly hungry and so decided to go out to find something to eat. The back streets which wound their way to the centre were abuzz with activity – metal sheets were being sawed, old men were playing Mahjong in the park, pans and pots were bubbling over and textiles were being hung out to dry. It felt similar, yet different to Vietnam – more industrial with a slightly aggressive sense of purpose hanging in the air.

We followed the streets until we hit a line of cafés (where no-one spoke a word of English) on the main street. We opened our dictionary but realised stupidly that we didn’t know whether to use Mandarin or Cantonese. We went into one of the cafés and attempted to order something vegetarian, trying the word in both languages before the lady behind the counter nodded and ordered something for us, directing us towards a hatch at the end to collect it. The café was full of smartly clothed office workers and mothers with warmly-wrapped babies. After collecting our food, which arrived in a sturdy iron vessel from the hatch, we took a place at one of the bright red plastic tables. We’d ordered some kind of soup, which was definitely not vegetarian judging by the tentacles and grey bits of meat which were floating in it. There were however piles of vegetables and tofu thrown on the top so it was halfway there and tasted really delicious. After travelling for this long, we were used to eating what we were given and in all honesty it was exactly what we needed. While we were busy sucking up the noodles, a toddler at the next table decided to take an interest in us and tried to feed us noodles from her bowl. The mother was soon encouraging her to wave and say ‘ni hao‘, so our first breakfast in China became something of a family affair, a welcome change among all the offices and business suits.

Feeling refreshed, we made our way back to the hostel, where a French family were watching Alvin and the Chipmunks on the television in Chinese with badly-dubbed subtitles (“get suitcase down Alvin chipmunk”, “no, I am furry-tale Simon chipmunk” etc.) Our train to Guilin was due to leave early the next morning and so we decided to catch up on some sleep before heading out for dinner. After conducting much research on travel forums, we came across a well-rated Chinese-run restaurant called Babel, serving British/American cuisine which was apparently very popular with dating couples and the young crowd of Nanning. We decided to give it a go, feeling like a change from noodles, and were surprised to find ourselves in a slick style palm house where the after-work crowd were quietly sipping on Bellinis and Cosmopolitans. We ordered a vegetable burrito with cheese (we hadn’t seen dairy products in quite a while!) and a ‘roast chicken’ with gravy and a dish of mashed potato. The next table were busy tucking into a massive wedge of chocolate cake and cream while sipping on an American beer. We didn’t think the food came close to the deliciousness of the noodle broth we’d had for breakfast, in either quality or taste, but this was one of the pricier restaurants in Nanning and there was a large queue forming at the door by the time we’d finished. Was this the ‘changing face of China’ which we’d heard so many people speak of? We’d have to wait and see…

The railway was constructed in the thirties by French colonists, split in 1954 following the Geneva accords and remained as two separate rail systems until the end of the Vietnam war. In 1975 the two lines reunited and within a year the old route was put back into operation.

In order to book your tickets for this train you have to physically go to the station as there is no online ticket ordering service in operation yet. As the sleeper compartments usually get booked up a couple of days in advance, it can be a bit difficult to spontaneously travel onward (though there is usually room in the hard sleeper section which has as many as four bunks to a wall)! A slightly easier but more expensive way of going about booking is to go through an agency such as the efficient but expensive Vietnam Impressive (there are however many hotels and guesthouses that now offer train booking services and we found them to be cheaper). After our visa debacle at the Chinese embassy, we managed to find ourselves sleeper train tickets on the evening train out of Ho Chi Minh the next day. It was strange to think of this as the first train link in a continuous chain of connecting tracks that would eventually take us all the way back to London.

We were shown to our carriage by the attendant (each carriage has one) and after we tried to thank him in our broken Vietnamese he smiled before rushing back to his post at the carriage door. The interior of the cabins is basic but comfortable (and unlike the ‘plusher’ Chinese trains there were no television screens and sound systems so books and packs of cards came in very useful). The bottom bunks nearly always get booked up first as they are the most convenient during the day time, doubling up as basic sofas, having access to the table in the centre and enjoying the best views.

As we had booked fairly late in the game for all of our train rides through Vietnam, we were on the top bunks both times but as the train from Ho Chi Minh to Danang and from Hue to Hanoi are both basically night trains, this wasn’t a problem. This was our first introduction to the standard 4-berth sleeper carriage (most of them built by German companies) which are used on many routes through Vietnam, China, Mongolia and Eastern Europe. Each one may have differing degrees of comfort but the layout is always the same and was to become very familiar over the coming months.

The train is a really fantastic way to travel as it offers a chance to bond with both locals and fellow travellers. Our first cabin companions were a brother and sister from Australia who had come to Vietnam on a spontaneous holiday with a view to getting some wardrobe items made up in Hoi An. We spent the evening playing cards and swapping travel stories before trying some local beer to help us get to bed. It was hot inside the cabin with our air vent missing a few nuts and bolts but the night passed quickly and as morning broke we were able to see beautiful pastures and rolling hills through the scratched window pane. Our second lot of fellow cabin occupants were a Vietnamese couple who were travelling with a large number of other family members, all dotted amongst the other carriages. There was a celebratory atmosphere as they began to unpack steaming flasks of tea and pots of noodles to share amongst themselves. The women started to gather in one carriage while the men congregated on chairs by the sink area, both parties soon deep in conversation and laughter. One of the women helped us map out the exact train route on a Palin-esque blow-up globe that we a had brought along as an illustrative tool to help explain our journey. Although there was a language barrier between us, we really appreciated being privy to what was essentially a family gathering taking place on a train and they were very generous with their delicious home made dishes, which made a diverting alternative from our own carry-on dinner of crackers and peanut butter.

The train journey through Vietnam is particularly beautiful and we could see why people found it so difficult when the line was deliberately attacked and blown up during the war and resulting unrest. It has slowly but surely been patched up, mended and ‘reunified’ so travellers and locals are once more able to wind their way through the communities and endless fields of egrets and scarecrows which snake all the way along the coast from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi.

Putting its uniformly ochre-coloured buildings and golden-lettered shop fronts aside, the less contrived beauty of Hoi An can be found in its maze of cobbled side streets and tiny alleyways where much of the real day-to-day action takes place. It is here that many of the back stage culinary and clothes operations are revealed, and you don’t have to stroll for long before you’ll come across large racks of noodles drying out in the sun, swathes of colourful material pegged up on lines awaiting their turn through the sewing machine or circles of talkative women stuffing ‘white rose’ dumplings. A local speciality, these dumplings are made from transparent Manioc-flour stuffed with shrimp or mushrooms with fresh herbs, which apparently ‘no meal is complete without’ in Vietnam. The French gave them the name White Rose due to their bunched up appearance and they are now commonly fried with chopped shallots as a quiet nod to this origin. They are often served up with a delicious dipping sauce made from shrimp broth, chillies and lemon so you have to be quite restrained not to polish off a whole plateful. One of the running jokes in Hoi An is that if you do happen to overindulge, at least there’ll be a street full of tailors waiting on hand to adjust your garments to your newly inflated shape.

Hoi An is not only notorious for its excellent food but also for its amazing cloth shops. You won’t have to go far before happening upon one of its many tailors, each vying for the attention of passing tourists in the hope that one may be in need of a new work or casual wardrobe. Each tailor keeps a large catalogue of styles but it’s possible to get anything made up if you bring a photo along (catwalk designs are a particularly frequent request apparently). In one shop along Le Loi Street we spied some winter coats that we thought would come in very useful for the onward journey through the cooler temperatures of northern China, Mongolia and Russia. After browsing through some patterns, I found a wool coat with a fleecy lining which I thought would do the trick and would cost around £20 to be fitted and made up from scratch. The lady in the shop expertly took some measurements and proudly declared that it would be ready to collect the next morning. Later, while we were waiting for some small adjustments to be made, we had time to talk to the owner of the shop. She mentioned that it used to be much easier to manage a family-run tailoring business in the town but that in the last five years business has definitely been on the decrease. There was a time when people used to commission an entire wardrobe but since cheap factory clothing has become available in most countries they now buy only a few clothes at once, making it difficult to exist given the number of other shops they have to compete with. Unfortunately, the skill of the local clothes-makers has not gone unnoticed by major labels such as North Face who are only too happy to employ people from the family-run companies which go bust (there are many pros and cons to this according to local opinion – while wages are not necessarily terrible by local standards, the happiness and satisfaction that one gets from working for oneself is taken away and replaced with an essentially unrewarding job). Branded clothes made here also sell abroad for about fifty times the cost of production, highlighting the ridiculousness of designer labels and economic disparity. In the back streets, it is possible to find some stores selling similar items without the label or with slight imperfections for a fraction of the price they are sold abroad. We spent the remainder of our time in Hoi An exploring its beautiful streets and town paddy fields, sipping Vietnamese coffee near the riverside and browsing the many beautiful arts and crafts stores on offer. One of our personal favourites was Reaching Out which sold beautiful handmade paper lampshades, pottery and notebooks covered in silk patterns, all made by disabled artisans from the local area.

After having had such a relaxing time soaking up the beauty of this creative dwelling, we were in for shock with the onward journey to Huế, which was perhaps one of the strangest we had encountered so far. We decided to book onto a local bus, given that Huế was only a few hours away by road and were dropped off in the middle of a muddy clearing which was apparently the bus depot. Half an hour later, our bus staggered into the lot and emptied itself of tired looking night-passengers who had travelled from Hanoi. It wasn’t long before a remarkably irate driver – who had probably been driving all night to get here – jumped out and barked at us to take our shoes off and get our bags in. This was a sleeper bus, with three rows of tiny bunks packed top-to-toe in a filthy compartment that smelled of body odour. Not expecting to be given a ‘bed’ for three hours, we had no alternative but to climb in and try to make ourselves comfortable among the crisp packets and blankets the old passengers had left behind. Luckily the stunning scenery more than made up for the strange bed bus and we managed to make the best of it, listening to music while watching the beautiful hills, coastline and fishing villages float by. It wasn’t long before we arrived in a misty and cold Hue, the ex-national capital that sits alongside the perfume river…

Some of our favourite Hoi An hangouts:

Before and Now, 51 Le Loi – a vibrant little cà phê with delicious cakes and cocktails but it’s the wall art which really makes it worth visiting.

533 Hai Ba Trung is the place to go to sample some of Hoi An’s famous white roses. The recipe is reportedly still a secret passed down to a select few who still make the dumplings before selling them on to the rest of the town. 533 is one of the few places you can see them being made.

White Sail - 134 Tran Cao Van. Relaxed cà phê serving good, fresh local food

Papillon Noir – 30 Tran Hung Dao Street. Beautiful hand painted silks which you can also see being painted in the studio at the back.

Thanh Tu cloth shop – 16 Le Loi Street. Excellent, reasonably-priced tailors specialising in all types of clothes.

Cloth Shop Thien – 637 – Hai Ba Trung Street. Stocking a wide range of material but particularly good for Chinese, Vietnamese and Raw Silk items.

Huế