More news from afar...

Right then... be warned!! This is a long blog, but we wanted to update you on all that's been happening. We've travelled this path...
Harbin - Yanji - Songjanghe - Dandong - Dalian - Dandong (again). Here goes!!!

We've now travelled around the North East of China and are currently
heading back towards Beijing in time for our 2nd lot of Hep A+B jabs. This should be us all vaccinated for India and, oh yeah, the rest of Asia!

We left Harbin on Saturday the 25th for Yanji. The train was a 14 hour
seated marathon with smelly people staring at the new attraction - us.
The toilets were special, but at least the windows opened so Martin got a
little air while he squatted in less than hygenic surrounds!!

While on this mega train journey we started to get funny tummies! Oh dear, our run-down bodies had not reacted too well to something we had eaten/drunk. I spent three days with horrid stomach cramps, and Martin had to go to the local pharmacy and act out my problems.... it must have been very funny for the locals watching him jump and squirm on the floor pretending to have diarrhea and tummy cramps. Anyway... the pills worked, even if they smelt very fishy!

Martin saw the main street in Yanji, boring really, but that was all that was on
offer, other than a bridge! I saw nothing more than the inside of the hotel room. Nice place!

We left Yanji on Tuesday the 18th, for Songjanghe. A very small and
insignificant place, save for the fact that it's the best place to reach
Changbai Mountain (A big crater lake in a national park). What a big hassle getting there! First we took the bus to Erdaobaihe (teeeny town with nothing happening in it), then tried to take the train to Songjanghe, but the train
didn't leave until 1:00am. We had arrived at 2:00pm, so we would've had an 11 hour
wait. No way! We decided to camp out for a bus, that may or may
not go to our destination. At one stage a uniformed man came up and offered to
share a lift with us in a taxi to Songjanghe... we synically asked how much he wanted and he told us its "only Y120 (8 pounds)" "Velly good velly good". He took us for fools! Oh how we laughed!! The bus is Y40 (2.70 pounds) and the train is Y10 (60 pence) each. So we waited, and contiuned to smile while telling him to please leave us alone (in not such polite language of course!). After a few hours the last bus left, but they
hadn't given us a seat because they wait for other people who want to go
further and thus pay more. Common practice but very annoying!!! Eventually the uniformed
man got more desperate, and the price began to drop. We resisted, "make it
cheaper", "too expensive", we kept saying.... and at the end we got him
down
to Y25 (1.60 pounds) each, a little more expensive than a bus/train but a quicker and more
comfortable ride in a taxi. The journey was 2 hours along dirt roads
etc, sunning scenery and fresh mountain air.

In Songjianhe we got dropped off right outside our hotel that we had
organised over the phone. We'd found a telephone number of a place that
did rather cheap sounding tours of Changbaishan with accom and food
included so jumped at the chance!! When we arrived the lovely girl that we'd spoken to on the phone to organise all of this and who spoke wonderful English (her name is Oprah) greeted us
with
the manager of the hotel. Our room was amazing - huge - and everyone
seemed to be bending over backwards for us... nice! We had a delicious
supper of rice, eggs, beef etc and collapsed into bed exhausted after
our tiring journey.

On Wed morning we were up eating breakfast at 7am and then went through
to settle our bill before getting on our tour bus for the day. That was
when disaster struck!! We'd been talking of paying 300 "dollars" for the
accom and food and tour all inclusive... so Martin and I started to
hand
the manager Y300 (Chinese currency). But oh no... she simply looked
agast, shook her head and got Oprah to explain that she wanted
US$300!!!
WHAT?? When the realisation of what she was saying finally got through
to our brains we were in dispair!!! No wonder everyone was being super
nice and friendly and giving us free drinks all the time... we were
supposedly paying through our noses for it all!! Yikes. Not sure how
they thought that 2 young people walking around in the same clothes for
3 days straight could afford that kind of price... but still. We slowly
explained that we had no US currency on us, the manager got cross and
then demanded UK pounds! Again, we explained that all we had were yuan
and after a bit of a grump she agreed that we could pay in yuan. The
total price came to over Y2700 (185 pounds)!!! And when you think that
we were expecting to pay Y300 (20 pounds) you can imagine just what
went
through our heads. Yikes. Get out of here fast!

After many long discussions and apologies etc etc... we managed to get
a
really good deal. We agreed not to have Oprah come with us as a tour
guide and rather do it all ourselves, not to eat at the hotel anymore
and to move to another smaller room for the next night. Oprah was
amazing and managed to bargain down all the prices for us to something
we could afford... somewhere around Y800 (55 pounds). Still more than
we
wanted to pay but we both really wanted to see Changbaishan so agreed
that it was ok.

The day turned out to be amazing!!! We took a bus for 2 hours through
the gorgeous mountainside, eventually arriving at the base of
Changbaishan - a huge crater lake formed from a volcano that erupted a
whole bunch of years ago! We had to hike up more than 1300 steps to the
summit... and when we got there we were just amazed!! One of the most
beautiful places in the world met our eyes. A huge crater lake
surrounded by mountains, volcanic ash and rocks all over the place. It
was just stunning. We sat up there and ate our lunch and marvelled at
the beauty of nature.
Later we took the bus to another tourist attraction in the region - a
big gorge with stick-y-out-rock things formed when the volcano erupted.
Also lovely but not as striking as the lake.

Later we arrived back at our hotel, asked for help getting a train ticket to
Dandong, and that was that! We had a lovely supper of beef kebabs and a
roll each for Y5 together (that's about 30 pence!!!), walked to the
train station to buy the tickets and got to bed.

On Thursday morning, we took the train to Dandong - a lovely little town that we came to to see North Korea. The train journey was another nightmare-ish ride... 16 hours of sitting!!!
In Dandong we went on the bridge that crosses the Yalu River... the naughty
Americans bombed the bridge during the Korean war, so you walk half way and the bridge ends... but it is fun to walk half-way into the river and there are loads of cool shrapnel marks to see. You can't actually go into N. Korea unless you're a
cool nation and you have the money to pay through the nose (Y8000 or 550pounds) to go on an expensive tour (where the rules stipulate that no one can talk to the locals or leave the
bus
and there is a strict itinerary).
In fact Americans, South Koreans and
Israelis are NOT allowed to enter N. Korea, even on a tour. While on the bridge we saw North Korea... well
actually just
lots of bushes, fishermen and children playing. Dull, but only a few
people can say they've seen N.Korea :) Yay for us.

After another day in Dandong, hand washing ALL our clothes (oh yes, we are washer-women of note!) we headed for Dalian. A great big city full of European
architecture. Impressive because of the wide streets, clean pavements
and clean people. Very convienent, too. However the flip-side was
expensive hotels, even outside the city, and not much to do but look at
the clean pavements and clean people. We could have gone shopping, but
that's just silly when we have a tight budget! A lovely old man
spotted
us and spoke really good English, (another strange phenomenon in this city) and wanted to help. We asked for a cheap
place to stay..... oh dear, not so easy. We walked in a large circle
for over 2 hours with our heavy backpacks on our backs, asking small hotels for cheap rooms to no avail!! We even found two hostels from
the
guide that no longer exsited! Great. In the end we
settled
for the cheapest place we could find (ironically the first place we'd asked at!!) and made plans to leave sharpish before all our
money was spent on lavish two star hotels at peak season! A lovely
room, but we couldn't justify Y188 (12 pounds) a night for this place! No choice
but head straight back for Dandong (4 hours on a bus) again to stay in the
friendly, clean hotel for Y60 (4 pounds).

We've decided we really like Dandong... its clean (ish), the people are friendly, and everything is cheap! We're planning on relaxing here for a few days before heading off for pastures new...

So that's all for now - sorry if it took you years to read :)