Black Dragon Pond park is a beautiful attraction, a lovely walk just outside of the old town main square with a number of temples and a lake with the gorgeous backdrop of Jade Dragon Snow Mountains. Definitely worth a visit

Tiger Leaping Gorge
This was a trek we were really looking forwards to as we'd heard great things about it. However not so great was the '3 hour' bus ride to Qiaotou which in reality because of the truly awful roads and many accidents we saw along the way took about 5 hours.
So after we arrived at 1.30 we set about finding the beginning of the trek. Along the way we met 2 other couples & we all basically got lost. After about 40 minutes of going completely the wrong way & not being able to find the signposts, we set about going the right way. And then it pi***d down with rain!
So we were already almost 2 hours late on starting the trek, but thankfully the weather brightened up and further on we met another 3 guys that were on their way up so we all headed on together.
The killer punch of the day was the '24 bends' which is an extremely steep hike, apparently 600 metres, so after successfully making it that far we finally rest at the 'TeaHorse Guest House' at around 6pm.

The next day was beautifully clear & allowed us to truly appreciate the scenery. It was breathtaking.
It stayed clear for us all day so the 9 of all hiked together across waterfalls, high above the Yangtze River, all in all about 5 hours that day and we enjoyed every minute of it.

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on August 3, 2011 from Lijiang, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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From here we took a River cruise on the Li River, down to Yangshou..........and I think this was the highlight of Guilin for us. The River scenery was almost like a minature Yangze River cruise and for us was the perfect way to reach our next destination. Yangshuo.

The yummy rice pots

our fave market stall......eating with our fellow Stokie!

On the Li River

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on August 9, 2011 from Guilin, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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The actual 'town is not that special- the fact that the main street (West Street) is renowned for haggling kind of gives you an idea of what its like ;-0 However the surrounding countryside is just stunning.
There are huge lakes, lush greenery & everywhere around you can see the mountainous landscape. We took a bike trip which was a great way to see just how gorgeous a place it is. And of course we went & watched the Cormorant fishing at night……which isn't quite exactly how it happened on the HSBC ads but even so it was pretty spectacular :-)!

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on August 12, 2011 from Yangshou, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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What we didn't really was that it also had a massive Portuguese culture to it & in the first day we visited some absolutely gorgeous parks, historical buildings & the Cathedral all of which were stunning & you really could have been in the Med!
Danny & I are not gamblers at all, but we of course had to check the casinos including the Lisboa (which I think is the oldest). To be honest we only went to the Mandarin Oriental to sample their cocktails ;-) and excuse as we don't gamble. It was here where we got chatting to their executive chef who was such a lovely interesting guy…..we must have been talking with him for over an hour when we so kindly offered to let us try one of his signature afternoon teas - on the House! So there we were, at 4pm is the afternoon eating smoked Salmon sandwiches, Victoria sponge & drinking English Breakfast tea. It was ace!!!!! So all in all Macau turned out to be a real highlight of our trip, and an unexpected pleasure of all kinds.

The Portuguese influence

views from Mount Fortress

Mount Fortress

The ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral

Casino Lisboa

Afternoon Tea at the Mandarin Oriental. Get us!

meet the Chef

We stayed on Fashion Street ( basically the wholesale area for fashion buyers) which was very close to Ladies Market- another place we'd been recommended to visit. Luckily we were give some great tips form the guy whose apartment we had rented- well I use the term 'apartment' loosely as it was actually only a 8ft x 12ft box room! But after some of the advice we'd read online about dodgy hostels & way expensive hotels it was just the perfect place for us. The location was fab, everything we needed was literally just within 10 mins walk……amazing local food (where nobody spoke English which was interesting!) fashion, electronics, jewellery shops etc & the bus to the Ferry stopped right outside!

So we made the trip across to HK Island & from here did some great day trips. We of course went to Oxford Street which was full of quirky shops & cafe, and saw all of the big glam shops at Times Square & went on the famed longest escalator (weird, but true!) However the best bits were going to HK point as the views across the city are just incredible, seeing the almighty massive Buddha, as well as visiting Tao which was a really cute little fishing village.

HK we love you!

Lantau Peak - the highest point of HK Island

The amazing Hong Kong skyline

the streets of HK

Tian Tan Buddah (Ngong Ping, Lantau Island)

views on the country trial (Ngong Ping, Lantau Island)

Hong Kong skyline. Just fabulous

our snug apartment

The view from our apartment

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on August 18, 2011 from Hong Kong, Hong Kong
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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There's not a great deal to visit in Hanoi really. There are a few nice lakes to wander around, and we watched an underwater puppet show which was really great……..but the main reason everyone visits is to organise their onward trips. As did we!

Hanoi city centre

St. Josephs Cathedral

Skater dudes in hanoi park!

Water Puppet show

Me, Dan & Acer

The trek included a home stay, and because of the lovely bunch of people we where this was great……we were cooked some amazing food, we ate & drank outside overlooking the hills & slept in a huge dorm like room in a huge wooded House on simple mattresses under mosquito nets. It was the best nights sleep whe'd had in ages!!

The local tribeswoman were the only thing that made the trip a bit weird. They were lovely, but there were hoards of them following us around everywhere & asking for us to buy from them literally every 5 minutes, which gets to be very tiring, and annoying, meaning unfortunately you forget just how basic & tough their lives really are.

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on August 25, 2011 from Sa Pa, Vietnam
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It was similar to the landscape we's seen in Yangshou, but on a much larger scale, and even more spectacular. It really was breathtaking and we really couldn't believe our eyes.

We spent a bit more than budgeted just so we could stay on a nicer boat (& one that wasn't a teenage booze cruise trip !) which was worth it not only for the quality of food we were served but also the trips we were taken on………visiting the floating villages (families literally living on a 20x20ft wooden platform bobbing around in the Bay) kayaking, visiting monkey Island & swimming in beautiful clear waters. But the best part of the trip, for Dan at least, was jumping off the boat into the gorgeous sea every night after sunset & splashing around being surrounded by the beautiful mountains. I just hope the photos do this stunning place justice.

The never missed a trick to sell us stuff!

Kayaking

I made my very own spring rolls. Yummy!

fun for Dan in Halong Bay!

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on August 30, 2011 from Ha Long, Vietnam
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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We made our way to Tam Coc which was only about a15 minute ride & took a trip on the Ngo Dong River which was a bit like a mini Halong Bay with huge caves which we paddled through, and was surrounded for Miles by jagged cliffs jutting out of the lush paddy fields. The scenery was just gorgeous. A quirky little Surprise to the trip was that the locals actually paddled the boats with their feet - it looked like a great workout!

We also did a spot of unexpected rock climbing! what we thought was a few steps up a Mountain to take in the gorgeous views ended up being climbing up the side off quite treacherous rock for about 30 minutes in just our flip flops. But its actually doing unplanned things like this that have made our trip so amazing :-)

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on September 1, 2011 from Ninh Binh, Vietnam
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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It's actually quite hard to visualise what is once would have looked like as most of it is just ruins now, but I imagine that it would have been like a smaller version of the 'Forbidden City' in Beijing.
In it's time it was also used to House one of the favourite royal past times .......elephants fighting with tigers! So today you can see a few elephants here & ride them around grounds. We didn't actually do this but seeing these gorgeous creatures again took us back to our time in India.

We also did the DMZ tour- we wanted to learn as much as we could about the Vietnam war & this took us to the De Militarised zone at the time of the North/South divide & we got to see a section of some of the man made tunnels. The Vietnamese had built Miles of this tunnel system, which were so complex & tiny only they knew how to navigate in & around them. We crawled our way into them & there are so small that I couldn't properly stand up & width wise I had only just a few inches spare either side of me.

It was just incredible to learn that the local families actually lived here, women even gave birth here in these tiny dark tunnels and they are one of the main reasons why the Vietnamese outwitted their enemies & won the war.

views of the itadel

the Citadel ruins

inside the Citadel

inside the Vinh Moc tunnels (DMZ tour)

on the DMZ tour