The distance between the Shanghai and Hangzhou is 177 kilometres, but we got there in under an hour, travelling at 300km/h. This was our first experience on a High-Speed Train in China and its speed (in comparison to the open windows and gentle motion of the trains we had taken in South East Asia) was something of a shock – though we managed to take a few mildly blurry shots with our camera.

Once we pulled out of the station, the fringe of Shanghai’s vast suburban construction belt soon came into view. The evidence of fast expansion was hard to miss and we passed hundreds of small apartment blocks built in neatly arranged streets, in addition to slightly less sturdy looking housing blocks surrounding construction sites (perhaps for the people working on them). Considering that the city is still growing at a rate of a million people a decade, this construction is probably necessary but it was almost difficult to detect where the urban sprawl of Shanghai stopped and Hangzhou began.

We arrived in Hangzhou in the late afternoon, expecting to find a little tourist town surrounded by tea plantations. Our research should have been more thorough: the centre of Hangzhou is less of a country retreat and more of a sprawling metropolitan city housing 4 million people. When tourists speak of Hangzhou they are more than likely referring to the lake and ‘People’s Pleasure Garden’ which is about a fifteen to twenty minute bus ride from the city centre. After getting stuck in a long queue of traffic on the lake road (which is nearly always backed up with fuming coaches carrying daytrippers from the surrounding cities) we eventually got to our hostel which was located a few minutes walk from the famous “West Lake”.

It was one of the first hot days we had experienced in China so far and so we waited until evening to really explore our surroundings. After the majority of the day tourists had gone home, we found the lake to be rather beautiful and peaceful. It helped that all the magnolias had started to blossom leaving a wonderful scent in the air at dusk. The West Lake itself is pretty big and it takes about two hours to walk all the way around it so we decided to leave that for another day.

The next morning we were awoken at 6am to the sounds of Big Ben chiming. It took me a while to remember where I was and with bleary eyes, I opened the blind in our attic hostel room to find a schoolyard below and groups of children lining up in a very orderly fashion to the sound of the bell. The children then began to sing (a mixture of English and Chinese songs), making it impossible to go back to sleep, so we decided to head out for the day. As we were up early, we asked some people in the hostel about journeying up to the Lion’s Peak of Hangzhou, where Lóngjǐng (translated in English as Dragon Well), one of the most famous teas in China, is grown. What’s more, we had heard that the picking of the highly valued first flush had just begun and if we visited the right pickers we might be able to buy some at an affordable price. Luckily there was a bus stop just near the hostel along the West Lake road and about half an hour later a bus with some vines painted onto its side pulled up – so we were pretty sure it was the right one. We weren’t entirely confident as to where we should get off so we slightly winged it and travelled through a few villages, where we could see people returning from their early morning tea pickings with the leaves balanced in baskets on their heads. About 10 minutes later, the bus stopped ascending and the land flattened out with miles and miles of tea plantations before us. The bus came to a stop and as we realised we were almost the on only ones left on it, we decided that this was as good a spot as any to explore from. It was the right choice as we found ourselves conveniently outside the Green Tea restaurant, which we had heard about from someone in Shanghai. The queues outside were already forming so we decided to take a ticket and try it out.

We were glad we joined the queue early as it continued to grow until early afternoon. We found the location slightly better than the food but the menu choice and variety is pretty unbeatable and the free green tea on tap enriched the view of endless rows of tea-bushes that we could see from our table.

The more interesting items on the menu were Deep Fried Shredded Lotus, Spicy Bullfrog, Traditional Style Braised Duck Feet and Tea Tree Mushroom Stir Fry. We went for the Green Tea Roast Chicken (which was absolutely delicious, seeing as we had been mainly surviving on noodles for a couple of days by that point), followed by stuffed tomatoes and a mixture of boiled vegetables and potato.

The Green tea restaurant sits next to the National China Tea Museum, which is attached to a tea school and teaching rooms for those studying tea at university! Tea is taken pretty seriously here (you get the impression that they’d heavily disapprove of a bag of PG Tips or Tetley’s) and as well as a centre of learning the nearby fields are also a very popular backdrop for bridal photography – I think we saw about five or six different bridal parties all jostling for the best position while we made our way through the tea fields.

The Tea Museum itself contains a wealth of information which we are woefully ignorant of in the tea-drinking West, surprising when you consider how culturally important tea has become in Britain, at least. As we were coming out of season, we arrived to find the museum half empty and were greeted by a resident tea expert who took us to a back room full of glass teapots and kettles. She showed us many of the traditional tea preparation methods and allowed us to sample a wide variety of teas that they grow in the research plots in the museum.

One difference that she pointed out between tea preparation in China and Europe is that the Chinese always fill the entire pot once and empty it before brewing the tea for real. This ‘rinses’ any nasty taste from the outside of the tea leaves and warms the pot before allowing the tea to soak and release its real flavours. Different kinds of tea also need brewing for different times, and some black teas can be refilled over 10 times, yielding different combinations of flavours each time you pour.

Green tea drinkers also tend to drink the tea with the leaves in the glass (whether the tea leaves float or not is a matter of good luck!) and much care and attention goes into choosing the right blend for the mood and social setting, much as a wine would be selected in Europe. Green tea is by far the most popular kind of tea, followed by Black tea and then Oolong tea, which is often confused for the same but has a different method of harvesting and preparation!

Leaf tea and ‘tea cakes’ (compressed tea leaves) are much more popular than tea bags here in China (especially as most Western tea bags are bleached before being filled with tea!), and most of the teapots we saw for sale at the museum had built-in filters to catch the tea leaves and stop the larger ones from escaping into your teapot.

The last part of the museum focuses on traditional methods of tea preparation and serving across different regions in China. There was some time spent on the Gongfu tea preparation method that we came across in Hong Kong, and also some rooms decorated in traditional styles for serving tea (my favourite was the butter tea commonly served in Tibet).

Despite the wealth of information and the natural beauty of the surrounding fields there wasn’t much actual picking going on and we couldn’t find any tea to buy apart from the overpriced, nicely packaged boxes in the museum (which we had a feeling were all from last year’s crop). The sun was beginning to set so we decided to continue our journey up to the hills again the following day, staying on the bus about ten or fifteen minutes longer in an attempt to track down some of the real ‘first flush’.

In contrast to the day before it was a very wet morning but that didn’t dampen our excitement at finally finding what we thought was Lonjing itself and its fields and fields of tea bushes, each being carefully pruned by about twenty or thirty pickers in straw hats. We walked through the beautiful plantations where swifts were darting in and around the bemused pickers, until we found a nearby village (which we found out was not Lonjing but somewhere in between). This actually worked in our favour as there were no tourists here and at one of the local tea houses, with the aid of phrasebooks and hand gestures, we therefore managed to procure a small tin of the ‘first flush’ tea (at a negotiable price) which would keep us going through the rest of the journey. We also found a small heat-resistant water bottle with a tea filter built in, which allowed us to make leaf tea from our supply on the move for the rest of the long journey home.

We spent the rest of the day walking amongst fields of tea leaves as the rain cleared, which is a surreal experience for those unaccustomed to the sight. The organised rows of trimmed tea bushes (which would grow into entire trees if left on their own) have an effect on the landscape unlike any other, allowing you to see across the undulating hills for miles around, each one lined with little rows of different shades of green.

Pickers from the local villages (each village collective manages a plot of tea bushes and collects the harvest) walk between the rows and hand-pick the fully-grown leaves. All the picking is done by hand rather than machine as this preserves the tea’s flavour and makes sure that all the juices stay inside the leaves until the moment they are pressed (mechanical pickers, while allowing cheaper production, tend to damage the leaves and impair the taste and quality of the resulting tea).

At dusk, we returned to the West Lake in preparation for our onwards journey North the next day. The boatmen who ferry people around the lake all day were making their way back home to their various docks. Seeing the sun set behind the silhouette of the nearby mountains and watching the tiniest ripples float across the lake was a beautiful way to end our time here. We made the most of the peace and tranquility because our next stop would be Beijing, the starting point of our long journey home through Russia…

The route out of Hong Kong led us through lush hills and spacious hilltop villas, which shortly transformed into high-rise urban sprawl when we reached the border with Shenzhen (we spotted some fairly quirky architecture in this city – from elephant-shaped shopping centres to castle-turreted restaurants). After a good night’s sleep we were woken in the morning to the sounds of classical music played through a speaker in the cabin and corridors, which progressively increased in volume as we approached our destination. We felt fairly relaxed by the time we reached Shanghai, which was lucky because the break in travelling had lulled us into a false sense of security and we had forgotten to write down the address of our hostel in Chinese. It was raining and the queue at the taxi rank was long, but luckily someone in the queue was able to help us out by translating the street address.

View from Hostel Window

We had booked into the Phoenix Hostel, a short walk from Dashijie station (Chinese: 大世界站; pinyin: Dàshìjiè Zhàn), The Bund and People’s Square (Chinese: 人民广场站; pinyin: Rénmín Guǎngchǎng Zhàn). This is a great hostel with a fantastic and reasonably-priced restaurant on its ground floor (we thoroughly recommend the mushroom dumplings). We spent the first day getting our bearings by walking around the district and finding our way to The Bund (parallel to the Zhonshang road) – previously a British concession and financial power base and now an embankment of preserved historical buildings in Shanghai where building heights are restricted. After a period of intentional neglect during the post-war communist era, Shanghai came under the spotlight again in the ’90s when it was selected as the show-ground for China’s reform and new economy. Consequently, it is now both China’s largest and richest city and it has gone to some lengths to rival Hong Kong’s famous harbour-front light displays along its own affluent riverside stretch.

Not only is every building bordering the Huangpu river and every boat on it lit up at night but so are the city’s highways, under-lit by a dazzling UV light which seems to epitomise the city’s Blade-Runner-esque futuristic aesthetic.

The Bund, by contrast, offers a throwback glance to the city’s days of colonial concession where European powers such as Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands as well as America, Russia and Japan were apportioned areas of territory in the city under the terms of a series of unequal treaties. The British, who controlled The Bund (later with America), made it a playground for the amassing and spending of their financial riches from the East, erecting gothic and baroque style corporate buildings and hotels along the waterfront along with clubs, Cathedrals and huge mansions for their hedonistic exploits in and around the wider city (J.G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun and Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton evocatively depict expatriate life in the city in the lead up to its occupation by the Japanese during WW2).

I’ve read a number of accounts from people returning to Shanghai on J.G. Ballard’s trail who find themselves dismayed when faced with the fact that his house, 31a Amherst Avenue, has now been gutted and turned into a wine bar/restaurant. The current battle lines of Shanghai – drawn between preservation and development -  also point to a battle of histories and the question  of whose ‘past’ merits preservation, if any. The name J.G. Ballard means nothing to the current owners of 31 Amherst who see it as a prime business location and nothing else; the government seem keen to support this view on the whole and even if a building is heritage listed not much can be done to prevent it from being developed if the right money changes hands. Shanghai seems keen to reinvent rather than preserve its past, rejecting anything which may hold it back in its quest for ultra modernisation.

Having said this, there are still plenty of concession era remnants around the city left standing – The Bund being an obvious place to start with most of its flagship buildings still intact – the iconic Sassoon Mansion or Peace Hotel is particularly worth looking out for given that it has survived in purpose as well as structure. The next best place to walk through is the old French quarter (a foreign concession until 1946) where spacious tree-lined boulevards and low rise 1930′s style housing still abound. The famous Art Deco Cathay Theatre on Avenue Joffre (Huaihai rd) is an obvious port of call – it is still a cinema and is famous today for its screenings of low budget art house films.

The French district is still characterized by its long, tree peppered boulevards and it also remains a hub for ex-pats as there are many art shops, cafés, bars and cinemas here.

Not long after we arrived on the Fuxing Lu road, we came across two French girls wheeling their bikes along the pavement, who later told us that they were both working in Shanghai. They volunteered to show us around and took us to some of their favourite spots which included the café Bikes and Friends – famous for its chips, wines and film nights. The café was full of young Australians, Germans and French people when we arrived – many of whom were currently working in Shanghai (we spoke to a couple of them who seemed nostalgic for their homes and said that the Café was run by a Chinese businesswoman who let them create a little piece of it here in the café). After a couple of drinks the girls walked with us a little further and dropped us outside a gated club called the YongFoo Elite; they told us that it’s an exclusive dining club housed in the building and grounds of the old British consulate. They told us it was well worth exploring and even though we felt under-dressed they advised us to walk in confidently and say we were meeting someone for tea (you don’t actually have to buy anything to look around the gardens). We proceeded up the driveway and soon saw a British-looking house partially covered by a pine tree. We felt as if we had entered another country in another century. Ornamental ponds of coy carp sat alongside English barber chairs, American vintage fridges, French chaise longues and Indian garden beds. It was very peaceful and serene, the only sound coming from garden birds and the well-dressed Chinese men and women quietly taking tea on the Art Deco patio. For all its modernisation, I suddenly felt like I really had stepped back in time in Shanghai:

Alongside fashionable clubs and bars such as the YongFoo Elite, Shanghai is also fast making a name for itself in world class dining and as in Hong Kong, you can find most types of cuisine here. We were lucky enough to find a very interesting restaurant down the road from us, which specialised in food from Yunnan, called “Dreaming Yunnan Gourmet Specialty Restaurant” (a particluarly popular type of Chinese cuisine in Shanghai). Ingredients are central to the menu choice here and you can choose every aspect of your dish from ‘roots’ to ‘drug herbs’. We played it fairly safe – opting for vegetable based dishes such as the yellow mashed potato with blueberry and the Taro with fragrant willow. The restaurant also served a variety of fried larvae and worms, a regional taste that we decided we’d give a miss this time around.

Before we left Shanghai for further rural explorations, we were keen to visit the sprawling arts district known as Tian Zi Fang. The area is largely hidden from the neon-pulsing shopping streets that surround it, and it took us a little time to locate the entrance on Lane #274. Rows and rows of narrow, pedestrianised streets hide beautiful textile and ceramic shops, a microcosm of world cuisine and some of the most fascinating tea shops we’ve ever seen. Thanks to areas like this, Shanghai is becoming synonymous with cutting-edge art, fashion and design that blends ancient crafts and traditions involving scent, taste and patience with new technique and aesthetic. It is also the chosen hangout spot of Shanghai’s young set who break up their shopping in the districts’ quirky courtyard bars.

Inspired by the tea tasting rooms of Tian Zi Fan, we decided to make Hangzhou and its nearby Longjing tea plantations our next destination (we were told that with any luck we’d just be in touch for the picking of the first flush), so with some reluctance we booked our onward train…

After a very restful night, we awoke to the sound of rain splattering on corrugated iron rooftops. This combined with cool mists is apparently what makes Yangshuo so good for growing pomelos, persimmons (best eaten sundried), chestnuts and oranges (Ponkans) which are the feature ingredients of many local dishes. That morning the rain only lasted for an hour before easing off, leaving us free to go for a misty walk across the flood plain. Yangshuo is best explored by bike but we decided to follow the narrow path, which led from the Mountain retreat to the Yulong Bridge, on foot. The journey would take us along the Yulong river and through the local villages of Yima, Xiatang, Xinglong and Jiuxian. The map we were given marked all the villages, bridges and settlements of the area – some with fantastic names such as: “Two Lions Playing a Ball”; “Frog Crossing River”; “Elephant Out and Horse in a Cave”; “Lion Watching Nice Horses”; “Lion Riding on a Carp” and “Grandpa Guarding the Apple”. With our first marker (Tortoise Probe Head) in mind, and map in hand, we set off for the day. The air was cold and damp, and the a grey mist obscured the tops of the huge karst peaks which towered all around us. The Chinese believe that spirits inhabit these mountains and groups of family graves can be found clustered around their bases – the silence soon became almost eerie, broken only by the occassional passing of a truck, carrying bamboo rafts from the town back to their base further up the river. After about half an hour we passed a farmer leading two buffalo along the road; he didn’t seem in a hurry and was happy to let them eat and pause as they saw fit. We came to associate patience with the Chinese here, especially when we later attempted a calligraphy class and a two-hour tea ceremony where we learned the importance of getting the minute details right!

The scenery was beautiful with an aura of the sublime and the timeless. Orange trees grew along either side of the path, surrounded by small settlements of Qing dynasty houses and sheds where chickens roamed and children played. Some of the children ran alongside us and waved, others were disinterested but everybody seemed quietly but intensely focused on whatever they were doing, even if it was sitting on a hay bale staring at the mountain peaks. After about an hour of walking past quiet and almost deserted buildings, we saw signs for the “Outside Inn”, which someone at the retreat had told us was the first countryside accommodation for foreigners that opened in the area. Luckily for us, it was just opening for the season and was serving lunch, aided by some very necessary heaters. To find it, we left the path onwards and took a small winding track through a rural village until we reached the inn. The food was good and just what we needed before heading back into the cold and onto the path leadaing to the historic Chaoyang village, which has so far foregone the touches of modernisation which are quickly sweeping other parts of China. Standing amidst the chickens, crumbling stone, drying beans and red painted walls of this wonderful place remains a stand out memory of the trip, perhaps best illustrated in photographs:

After spending an hour or so exploring the nooks and crannies of the village, the overcast skies had already begun to darken. Evening was setting in and the temperature was dropping fast. Not relishing the thought of walking all the way back, we took out the map and identified a rafting station marked not too far away, near the Xi’angui Bridge. It wasn’t yet warm enough for tourist season and so most of the rafts were tied together next to piles of faded umbrellas unceremoniously lying in the mud. A couple of touts came up to us saying ‘ride?’ and after a bit of thought we negotiated with one family who agreed to take us down the river and back to the retreat (or so we thought) if we paid upfront…

The river was almost as still as a mill pond – everything seemed frozen in the icy mist which was fast descending, infiltrated only now and again by a diving water bird.

It wasn’t long before we reached the first of the rocky dams which punctuate this stretch of the Yulong river. Unfortunately, our raft became stuck and our oarsman, the man who was supposed to be guiding it, began to sway and shout. As he did, we were greeted by strong alcohol fumes and we soon realised that he had probably spent the afternoon drinking in the local café along with the other rafters lying in wait in vain for people stupid enough to want a raft ride in this weather. Not wanting to fall into the freezing river, we lifted our feet up in the air as he jumped onto a rock and began to push the raft roughly down the small drop. At the last moment he jumped back on, submerging all of the raft, bar the slightly elevated seat we were huddling on. Twenty minutes and two more stone dams later, the oarsman had run out of energy (perhaps the hangover was starting to kick in) and made a quick phone call, which resulted in further shouting. Before we knew what was happening, we were heading for the banks of a field where we were essentially pushed off the raft and left in the hands of a confused looking farmer. He started speaking to us in Chinese before running off through the winter-hardened field. We reluctantly followed where he was waiting for us with a hay cart, pulled by a buffalo, that was just about to leave. Whether it was the cold, or the thought of shivering all the way home on the back of a shonky looking hay cart, I got pretty angry. The poor guy suddenly looked quite frightened and ran off again, this time returning with a motorbike which he patted the seat of. We both managed to squeeze on the back and were soon whizzing through the darkening karst peaks and scarily icy roads back towards the hotel. I was too cold to be frightened and just concentrated on clinging on to his coat with my numb fingers. A few swerves and curves later and we were back outside the retreat, where we thanked the farmer (who was really blameless in it all) before quickly running inside to thaw out by the fire with a big pot of hot ginger tea.

The train to Guilin left Nanning early the next morning. We soon discovered that there were no taxis around at that time due to commuter traffic on the roads, and it would therefore be easier for us to walk/run to the station. It was pouring with rain and my small wheelie case – which had made it over Cambodian dirt tracks without a problem – chose this moment to break. Luckily, the handle was still (just about) intact and so we made it to the station with five minutes to spare. What we hadn’t bargained for (this being the first domestic train we’d take in China) was the security processes you have to adhere to here before boarding any inland train. First through the ticket officers, then through the scanners and finally through a turn style controlled by some fierce looking guards. We got through the first two okay but I was taken aside at the turnstyle where the guard grabbed the red notebook I was carrying and started frowning into its pages (we’d be playing cards and so perhaps he thought the lists of numbers were some sort of code). He demanded to see my passport which he just glanced at the cover of before saying “British?, Okay”. For the first time on our trip, I felt relieved to be holding a British passport (we later heard stories from others about how certain countries discriminate against certain nationalities). This time, our passports had worked in our favour and we just had enough time to run through the barrier and hop on the train before it left.

We had booked the ‘third class’ wooden bench seats but the cabin guard took pity on us (we must have looked wet, flushed and tired) and ushered us into another cabin with softer seats which we were glad of as the journey would take 5h 30. The train wasn’t full and it was relaxing to watch the scenery go past. A smartly dressed businessman sat opposite us and I was amused to hear that he had Yann Tiersen’s La Valse D’Amelie as his mobile phone ring tone (we later found out that the Amelie soundtrack is very popular in China). It somehow set the scene for the journey and the time passed quickly as we watched urban sprawl fade into rice fields, rivers and small stone peaks. These started to grow in size as we neared Guilin and looked incredible through the steamed up window panes. On board a sales man was standing in the middle of the carriage doing a pitch and demonstration involving a bowl of water and a quick drying towel which fit into small plastic tubes and came in three bright colours. He handed one out to each passenger and placed its casing prodly on the table in front so we could delight in its magic; unfortunately we were more enchanted by the scenery outside the window and so didn’t make the most attentive of audiences. Catching on, he quickly released his tubes from the clutches of our hands and sauntered off to the next carriage in search of more appreciative listeners.

The peaks rolled on and it wasn’t long before we pulled into Guilin’s station. It felt good to be off the train and stepping into fresher air. We found our way out into a carpark where there was a small cabin with pictures of buses on the side. We showed the lady behind the desk where we wanted to go on a map and she nodded, picked up my bag and ran across the car park with it. There was a local bus just leaving which she ushered us onto after taking our money. This turned out to be a very local bus which not only seemed to stop nearly every 10 meters to pick up and drop off shoppers but also appeared to collect and dispatch post. We hadn’t seen the sun since arriving in China and although it was only 4pm, the light was already fading – we willed the bus on, not relishing the thought of finding our way to the mountain lodge in the dark. About forty minutes later we arrived in Yangshuo town centre – a strange mix of sports shops, cafes and Austrian mountain style buildings – perhaps the result of the influx of tourists the Lonely Planet coverage of the town brought in the 80′s and 90′s. West street is the main shopping street here and was buzzing with tourists (mostly Chinese, escaping from the cities on the increasingly popular bus tours on offer in every major urban area). We felt glad that the Mountain Retreat was a 15 minute ride out of this tourist ville, into the mountains. We managed to find a willing taxi, negotiate a fair price (which we were always getting in the habit of asking about from whatever guesthouse we were headed for prior to arrival) and were soon heading into the mountains…

With the visa situation out of our hands, we were free to explore the wonderful streets of Hanoi at our leisure. We’d heard many people tell us what a special place it is but you really have to see it to understand fully what they mean. The first real surprise was the dip in the temperature, especially given that this was the first cold weather we’d experienced for nearly eight months. Everyone was wrapped up in winter coats, scarves, hats and mufflers and many glove and ear-muff loaded bicycles were being carted around the tourist streets hoping to make money off those tourists who had been caught out in the trip up from Thailand, Laos or Cambodia. At a nearby school, smartly dressed women driving scooters in coats and heels were busy bundling warmly-wrapped children onto their bikes. Scooters and motorbikes are the transport option of choice in Vietnam and Hanoi was no exception. Everywhere we went, the streets were filled to the brim with parked scooters and at the beginning and end of each day every street would buzz with the vibrations of hundreds of scooters making their journey home. The pollution levels were admittedly difficult to take and the cold air meant the clouds of fumes would hang uncomfortably over the city. Even the legendary Hoan Kiem lake and park, which mark the centre of Hanoi and are always full of joggers and Thai Chi groups, could offer no respite and the only option left was to make like a local and invest in a carbon filter mask/fashion statement (whether this had any effect beyond the ridiculousness of its lurid blue flower design was questionable). Strolling along the lake, masks in place, we were lucky enough to get a glimpse of the ancient turtle that inhabits its waters (as homage to the legend that Lê Lợi, one of Vietnam’s greatest heroes, returned his magic sword to the Golden Turtle at this very lake). The present soft-shell turtle, which is affectionately known as Cụ Rùa or ‘Great Grandfather’ is thought to be one of the most endangered freshwater turtles in the world and is sadly not doing so well currently, due to the polluted waters of the lake. In 2011 a rescue operation was carried out to treat the pink lesions on the turtle’s skin, thought to have been caused by floating debris in the lake but it has since been returned to the water as it is considered sacred to residents of Hanoi. Sightings of the enormous creature are thought to be lucky and we were amazed to see how quickly an excited crowd gathered around the lakes edge as word of the turtle’s appearance spread.

After the excitement at the lake we decided to wander to the French quarter which is where many of the smart hotels, restaurants and patisseries are based. It was the closest I had come to feeling autumnal all year, warming up with a hot chocolate and a pain au chocolat as the evening dusk set in and the shop fronts and lake lamps began to light up. We were very glad that we would be staying in Hanoi for a good while longer because it was clear that this intricate city has a great deal to explore.

The next day we began our explorations in Ma May street where our guesthouse was based. I had come down with a bit of a cold so somebody recommended that we visit 69 Bar a few doors down for their sweet and sour dill soup and lime, ginger and honey tea. Both were delicious and helped set us up for another chilly day in Hanoi. For dessert we opted for the vegetarian Tamarind café on the same street which we heard was offering a heater and the prospect of warm apple pie for those who, like us, were missing home just a bit. Ma May street is central to Hanoi’s old quarter, and is perhaps the best known to tourists but the real action takes place on the surrounding streets which are bustling day and night with street sellers touting every kind of imaginable product you could ever wish to buy. The old district is a perfect example of a giant market where each street specialises in something different, so while one street is known for its bamboo ladders, another will be famous for coffins or kitchenware. A helpful lady we met in a shop sketched a basic street index for us, indicating which street name meant what, which helps to get across just some of the weird and wonderful things you can find in the narrow streets of the district if you know where to look:

Hang Ma – paper products; Hang Manh – bamboo mats; Hang Thiec – tin ovens; Hang Quat – religious artefacts; Hoang Hoa Tham – plants, pets; Le Duan – garages, running shoes (!); Ma May – passport, photos, cd burning; Ly Nam De – computers; Trang Tien – bookshops and galleries; Tran Hung Dao – dentists; Ba Trie – bicycles and motorbikes; Hang Bo – motorbike stickers, clothes accessories and barbeque squid (late night only); Gia Ngu – socks, stockings, underwear and gloves; Hang Luoc – plastic flowers; Hang Ga – bamboo ladders; Hang DAU – shoes etc. etc.

It was a pleasure to while away the hours just drifting from street to street, occasionally pausing to draw up a blue or red plastic stool to perch on at one of the many street cafes from which we could watch the world drift by while sipping a Vietnamese coffee. Like many South East Asian cities, the streets really are where the action is and everything from peeling potatoes, preparing meals and ‘chewing the fat’ with friends or family to having a hair cut takes place on its pavements. As the days went on, the sight of pavement slabs covered in sunflower seed husks, crab shells and discarded bits of hair became a familiar sight and one which I began to find strangely comforting. In the evenings, many of the cafes would transform into Bia Hơi stalls where fresh, 24-hour shelf life beer (containing no preservatives) would be sold by the pint for the equivalent of 15p, accompanied by freshly baked crisp baked and pipes/tobacco if desired. When we’d had our fill of Bia Hơi we would often wander up the boutique-lined Nha Tho street to Nha Chung or ‘lemon tea’ street where we were told the young, hip crowds of the city like to spend their evenings. The neo-gothic St Joseph’s Cathedral can also be found here and it looks rather spectacular lit up in the dark. This part of town bears the unmistakable markings of French influence perhaps more than any other, with its cathedral square and neatly painted, shutter fronted cafes and shops bordering it either side. The beautifully tiled La Place café provided a beautiful place to work and read from while looking out on the Cathedral and square below through the balcony window.

On our fifth day in Hanoi we heard back from Vietnam Impressive, who told us that they’d failed to get us a double entry visa (apparently visa entry requirements had become stricter in China since January 2012) but they could get us a single entry which would at least get us to Hong Kong where we should have ‘no problem securing another single entry visa’. They hadn’t even needed to sort out the train tickets from Hanoi to Nanning in order to get the visa so we decided to book those through our hotel which was a fair bit cheaper. With one more day left in Hanoi, we decided to spend our last evening at the Thăng Long Water Puppet Theatre on Dinh Tien Hoang street near the Hoan Kiem lake. We couldn’t leave Vietnam without seeing one performance of this traditional Vietnamese performance art and we weren’t disappointed as a live band sung, plucked and drummed their way through various water themed scenes from Vietnamese culture and legend (think buffalo’s tilling, farmers dancing, goats fighting, golden fish jumping and dragons soaring). It was a more than appropriate way to end our stay in such a wonderful and surprising city.

Huế is certainly less geared towards tourists than Hoi An, making it an excellent place from which to observe the local day-to-day activity of the town. We were amused to watch fishermen in wooden boats on the Perfume River using traditional fishing techniques but taking breaks every now and again to talk on their mobile phones. It’s easy to forget that in seemingly timeless places such as this mobile phones have become as much a part of the culture as Nón Lá hats and you are just as likely to find Angry Birds merchandise for sale as you are silk embroidery. We also found that many young people very much wanted to practice their English and we had some interesting conversations about how they approach it. One lovely girl at our hotel was volunteering there to practice conversation by talking to guests and many of her favourite phrases had been taken straight out of Gone with the Wind and Little House on the Prairie – her favourite film/series. She said she wants to be just like Scarlett O’Hara and when I asked her why, she smiled and said “because she is a strong and fearsome woman”.

Our stay in Huế was only short as we were due to catch the train to Hanoi the next day but we couldn’t leave without a visit to the Citadel and its Forbidden Purple city within the walled and moated Imperial complex which was once the centre of life in the old capital. Most of the 17th-century buildings in this fortressed complex were destroyed or damaged during the war and bullet holes can still be seen in some of the stonework. Restoration work is in progress but slow, which suited us as there was something magical about the crumbling buildings set amongst lush green paddocks and rivers. Night Herons nestled in trees above the river while a couple of rather sad and damp looking elephants grazed in the old palace gardens (apparently they were due to appear at the Huế festival later that month but we hoped they’d be moved to better grounds after as they were on quite short tethers when we saw them). Apart from that, exploring the vine-covered city was an unexpected pleasure; we could weave in and out of its maze of buildings without coming across another soul, which brought back something of how we’d felt at the temples surrounding Angkor Wat. The interior buildings house art galleries and theatre spaces which were a great place to shelter in from the rain when it got a little heavier. There were some really beautiful and affordable pieces in the art gallery so I was able (after some gentle negotiation) to buy a charcoal sketch of two Vietnamese women despite being on a restrictive traveller’s budget.

Feeling restored and relaxed we headed for Huế train station to board our night train to Hanoi. The station was one of the more interesting we had encountered of late, with motorbikes and other merchandise being noisily crated up for transportation and delicious food being cooked up all along the trackside. I won’t forget the sights, sounds and smells of that train station for a long time and I was really looking forward to experiencing more of it in Hanoi.

We left early the following morning to take the short bus ride to Kep, a former French colonial beach settlement just along the coast from Kampot and further towards the border with Vietnam. We’d booked a stay in a palm-fronded bungalow in the gardens of a businesses have re-emerged in various parts of Cambodia, albeit with a more locally sensitive attempt at integration this time around. Some of the best have not only offered local employment and educational opportunities but have also turned a spotlight on ecological or responsible tourism. All of the accommodation at Le Bout du Monde for example, has been made in the traditional style so the houses have been built on stilts, out of wood and other natural materials which means that they remain cool in all seasons and do not need to be air-conditioned. They also offer various styles of bungalow meaning that people on tighter budgets are also catered for which we felt was important in the battle to prevent eco-lodges becoming associated with and branded as the preserve of the wealthy, luxury accommodation chains and trend-followers.

Proving that the finer things in life don’t need to cost lots of money, Le Bout du Monde is refreshingly different to other more exclusive settlements in the area such as its neighbour, the Veranada Natural Resort. Our bungalow ‘Holy’ (named after one half of the Bertrand Tavernier filmwhich was filmed on location there), may have been one of the more basic on offer but it was just what we were after. The bungalow and wooden slated balcony (complete with hammock) was surrounded by lush greenery and beautiful views out to the Gulf of Thailand, especially at sunset; but it was the evening and dawn choruses of tree frogs, geckos and various other jungle inhabitants that made the experience really unique.

When we finally managed to tear ourselves away from our hammock pod, we discovered that Le Bout du Monde was also a great starting base for treks through the national park. Many routes through which have only recently been opened up thanks to the efforts of the charismatic Christian from the local Led Zep café (which itself has fantastic views of the coast from its hill top location and is great place to enjoy a post-walk drink). Following Christian’s squirrel icons through the hills will take you to sunset rocks, horse icons, a little Buddha and a disused, gothic nunnery. Along the way, we saw snakes, lizards and lots of exotic birds. We later learned in the Led Zep cafe that there is now sadly only one Great Hornbill, a male, regularly seen in the Kep area since the disappearance of his mate a few years ago. It is currently unclear as to why Great Hornbill numbers are in decline in Cambodia but they are now listed as near threatened on the endangered species list.

The jungle canopies offer refreshing respite from the town below which the French established as a holiday resort (Kep-sur-mer) back in the early 2oth century where they could go to escape from the heat and bustle of Phnom Penh. The ghostly presence of the old colonials is still visible in the form of abandoned, crumbling villas (many of them pockmarked by bullet holes) which were left to decay during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and haven’t been touched since. Kep is far from lackadaisical though, its famous crab market is garnering global attention and word is quickly spreading through internet forums, magazines and newspapers of its adjoining restaurants which serve up fantastically fresh dishes making full use of Cambodia’s famous salt and pepper. There are also sailing clubs, boutique hotels, juice bars and yoga retreats spurting up in abundance - often advertised by leaflets thrust out to you from a passing bike.

offers some particularly enticing drinks mixes, for those that find themselves in the area. It was difficult to leave Kep with its lush green forests and rich, red dirt tracks burned crimson by the huge setting sun. But with our visas running out, it was time to make the very short journey to the newly opened Ha Tien/Prek Chak border checkpoint where we would cross into Vietnam…

Désirez-vous rayonner comme l’aube? Une robe demoiselle d’honneur rose le peut. Vous trouverez des robes demoiselle d’honneur rose qui diversifient en termes de couleur précise, tissue, forme, ornement et conception, etc., mais maintiennent toujours la meilleur qualité, une couture recherchée et une mise superbe très confortable. Soyez la bienvenue à notre boutique. Robe Demoiselle D’honneur Mousseline

While the blossoming of arts in Cambodia is having a positive impact among many in the community, it is estimated that over half of the people in Siem Reap province still survive on less than 45 cents per day. Schools, technical and vocational training centres, healthcare and more general support still remain unavailable to those unable to pay. Some funding has come in for language schools from foreign companies and local organisations, though children are still supposed to buy their own books. There was one school at the end of our lane where we worryingly noticed that children were being taught how to say ‘We love KFC’  and ‘I want a hamburger’ (we hope that company sponsorship had nothing to do with this but we won’t hold our breath). Given that tourism is a fast-growing industry in Cambodia, studying English can help lead to stability and a future career in the sector. Good local organisations such as Concert (CONnecting Communities, Environment and Responsible Tourism) are helping to fund some very good local schemes as well as showing tourists how they can most effectively help out. Sadly, children begging and pickpocketing on the street are still common sights in the city. Many children have been taught to pickpocket by predatory crime gangs and are made to line the streets into the late evening looking for tourists to hug/handbag grab, while watchful adults pretend to admonish those who are obvious enough to get caught. The ‘milk for money’ scam is also big in Siem Reap. Women clutching tiny babies wander the streets and gather outside supermarkets begging for milk. This is a scam run by one of the local businesses where tourists are tricked into paying ten times the price for a particular brand of tinned milk at a particular shop which the women will give back to the shop as soon as the tourist has disappeared in return for a share in the profits. These women, like the children, are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and are basically just pawns in someone else’s larger game. This is why organisations such as Concert are playing such an important role in the battle against the darker effects of tourism. After witnessing the effects of poverty, mine field explosions and environmental degradation first hand, many people feel a real need to do something to help but it is often difficult to know how to go about this in the most effective way. Concert, who have an office in Siem Reap, have lots of ideas on the subject – though using your own initiative can be good too and a couple of travellers we met were teaching a local ten year old girl, who worked in her parents’ shop every day for 12 hours a day, how to swim in their hotel’s pool.  She had never been in a swimming pool before and her excitement really was infectious – even the hotel managers got involved by providing lunch and taking photographs that the girl could take home to show her family. Angkor Wat aside, I suddenly knew why so many people are drawn back to Cambodia time and time again.

Dawn rose as we reached the edges of the suburbs and the city became illuminated with a smoggy haze. At a crossing I noticed a smartly dressed police officer trying to lure a cat off the tracks with a sucking noise while people scurried past him and each other on foot and moped trying to get to work. It was a relief to leave the franticness of the city behind and it wasn’t long before we were in open, breathable countryside – among lush green pastures farmed by one or two early risers. A few stations along, the train began to fill up with local traders carrying bananas, rice packaged in banana leaves and other breakfast delicacies, which seemed to go down well with the other passengers. As we ate some mango slices we had just bought from one of the sellers, the landscape outside began to subtly shift from grazing land into paddy fields which in turn gave way to rivers, stilted housing and large areas of wetland. What we hadn’t read about this train journey from anywhere before is that it provides an absolutely fantastic opportunity to spot wetland birds. The train snaked alongside small canals of water for almost three hours, passing entire fields filled with white ibis, tall statue-like herons, small water rails, kingfishers and countless other wetland inhabitants. For bird watchers and nature lovers this train journey would be worth taking for the wildlife alone (especially as the tickets cost a total of £1.50 each).

The six hours passed quickly and we both managed to have a small sleep before arriving at Aranyaprathet. By now, the sun was gradually climbing the sky and the heat was intensifying, so it was a relief that we met up with Sarah and Guy and tackled the tuk-tuk negotiating together (the actual border point is a short drive from the station). To avoid unnecessary hassle and scamming, we had got e-visas online a few days before, which is well worth doing as without them, tuk-tuk drivers will attempt to drive you to visa points before the border which are all basically scams. Our tuk-tuk driver did attempt this but we were able to present him with our e-visa and demanded to be taken straight to the border, which he reluctantly accepted. The Aranyaprathet/Poipet border crossing has improved massively in recent years, though the government on the Cambodian side have now set up transport schemes for tourists which make it very difficult to get anything apart from government-approved transport to Siem Reap (and is obviously set at inflated tourist prices). We had printed and read a fantastic guide, written by a local who crosses the border often, which explains all the workings of the border crossing and points out the pitfalls. You can find it at Tales of Asia. The border crossing itself was fairly painless. First we were stamped out of Thailand, and then had to walk across a dusty road in between the two checkpoints in order to reach the Cambodian immigration office. This is a major transport hub between the two countries and we saw families pulling heavily laden wagons and sacks, along side trucks full of live pigs squealing in the heat. We had to walk behind the truck all across the border which was difficult to watch.

'Poipet' by MsNina on Flickr

If you don’t have an e-visa you can still buy a visa at the border, though the queues can be very long. Once you’ve got your visa and filled in a health card you can get stamped into Cambodia, which was very quick and efficient (they even take fingerprints) once you reach the office. Once you are on the other side, you are swiftly shepherded onto a bus which takes you to a transport centre where all the government-approved transport options are waiting for you. We have heard that people have still managed to get into Poipet to make their own arrangements for travel, but the guys hanging outside the immigration office make this very difficult for tourists. It is worth trying to get to Poipet to at least eat before your onwards travel as the food at the transport hub is both overpriced and terrible. They will also insist that you must buy some Cambodian riel or dollars at the exchange, but whatever they say, you are not obliged to do this. All their transport prices are in dollars, the de facto currency of Cambodia, so it is worth taking at least $50 with you across the border. We shared one of their cabs which came to $45 which we split between the four of us. There have been reports of some taxis dropping passengers outside Siem Reap if they had been paid upfront but our taxi driver was pretty good and took us to our hotel (the Golden Temple Villa) after asking someone for directions in the town.

The journey from Poipet to Siem Reap takes about three hours but thankfully the road has been much improved (from dirt track to a single gravelly road). It didn’t take long to fully realise how different Cambodia is from its richer Thai neighbour. Buffalo and horse drawn carts were as numerous as cars and chickens and ducks pecked in the dust along most of the roadside. The houses were mainly stilted and wooden with haystacks and cows dotted around front yards. It may be what the Thais term as a more ‘simple existence’ but I couldn’t help but find it beautiful after a week in Bangkok. Cambodia is still a relatively rural country, the most built up towns being Phnom Penh (the capital) and Siem Reap (which is the accommodation hub for those visiting Angkor Wat). The latter is where we were headed and despite being perhaps the most touristy town in Cambodia there are still many delightful pockets of it left to explore, as we were to find out…