New Years Eve, 2010...4.20am
Our first night of bliss in China was spent wandering around in the clothes we'd been wearing in Hanoi, gradually acknowledging the fact that the temperature out here had dropped quite a bit; old ladies kept stopping and rubbing Nastassja's arms
and chuckling in mild disbelief, while Stash insisted she was absolutely fine. We didn't venture far, it really was getting cold, so post vegetables and soapy rice treat in an eating venue we chose because it had English writing on the menu, we returned to our hotel, a tower block with a huge foyer and pretty, non English speaking staff, a lovely big Christmas tree and very cheap, large rooms, with all mod cons. Both Liz and Oskar were feeling unwell, so they were tucked up early, together in the same bed, sniffing, coughing and wheezing. Nastassja stayed up for a while reading her "Twilight" book she got from Santa.
Next Morning we packed and returned to the railway station to book our New Years Eve sleeper bound for Hong Kong, before boarding a bus, which was fairly warm and we had our very own seats.
I am writing this in bed and it's actually so cold i'm not going to get up to check the name of the place we're in now. The hostel is a Dutch owned place called The giggling tree, situated about ten minutes taxi ride above the town where our lovely bus dropped us. The room is lovely, but very cold. We sit and have lunch with our coats and hats on, for the first time in months. I used to claim i preferred the cold. Everyone seems pissed off.
It's actually warmer outside, the walls of the building seem to keep the cold in and there is no heating, only an ineffective air conditioning unit. We walk out of the giggling grounds and turn right at the end, taking a road which leads us to a small market. Old ladies, very, very old ladies, with metal teeth or bits of bone acting as dentures, follow us around relentlessly trying to sell us a crown of thornless flowers. They win, we pay to get shot of them. As our walk progresses, the sun breaks through the cloud and we are soon back to our t shirts again, though not for long.
We can only stay here for one night, but a room is arranged for us with a neighbour, just a small walk through the courtyard. Here we will spend two very cold nights.
We shared a taxi with a couple from Argentina, who were set to start a hike where we were boarding a boat to take us ninety minutes down a freezing cold river. The scenery is absolutely stunning and the whole thing would have been really beautiful if it had stopped around the half hour mark, but sitting on a deck chair on an open boat, drifting through the freezing cold countryside, left us all feeling mentally ill to the point of suicide.
Of course, we turned it on for the photo's, we always do. At the other end, we stopped and had wood fired pizza in a bloody freezing restaurant, had a game of table football and then opted for a bus ride back to Really old lady town.
Down there in the main town, things are a lot more touristy. There's a KFC and a McDonalds, a fake adidas store, pirate DVD and CD shops galore, pubs, bars, restaurants...we spent quite a while looking around a street market which had a bit of a Camden vibe to it. Every time you look up, you are reminded that all this is surrounded by these huge rock formations, similar to what we saw at James Bond Island in Thailand, only these go on forever, miles and miles of these things disappearing into the cold grey distance. Around the town, some are lit from the bottom, making them extra pretty. There are many Western faces around here. Up in the villages, we get stopped and photographed quite a lot, especially Stash and Osk, a new, rare breed. Down here we are just another lot of tourists.
Returning to our new sleeping quarters, it's dark and there's nobody around, even though it's only eight in the evening. As we start to climb the concrete stairs to our room, there's a cry of something which I can only guess is hello in Old Chinese lady speak; there, smiling out from a kind of giant cot with mosquito nets around it, is an old lady we'd seen a few times around here; this is her bed under the stairs and I'm thinking, "Suspiria", or, "Drag me to hell".
Actually, one thing we thought we'd be free of in the sub zero, is mosquitos. But no, they have proved once again, how resilient they really are. Back to the old lady though, this particular night becomes uncomfortably cold. We end up sleeping in all our clothes, sleeping bags inside quilts and huddled up to one another to escape the layer of mist that is forming around our beds. She has got to be freezing. Maybe I should go and get in with her?
And now we are two days without any hot water. What I wouldn't do for a hot bath, a hot anything for that matter. I wonder if this sort of thing goes through the old lady's head? God we're spoilt! Anyway, we'll be gagging for this by the time we get to Hong Kong, by which time it'll be 2011. Yes, we're spending New Years Eve on a lovely sleeper train!
