Our big trip
A few thoughts and photos from our travels
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Day 117 – A colourful solstice
21st December: Kunming, China When out for morning coffee, I wandered the nearest fancy shopping centre where Christmas songs were playing on a loop. To my amazement, I found an icebreaker merino store – they don’t officially have any in China (or the rest of Asia) but apparently there are a handful of ‘touch stores’…
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Day 116 – The food and music of Yunnan
20th December: Kunming, China I had another planning morning (and evening) with lots of permutations at play for our next couple of months. Kaja is still recovering from her illness, so took it easy. I did pop out for coffee, of course, and had a lovely encounter with the security guard of the building. He…
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Day 115 – The City of Eternal Spring
19th December: Kunming, China Yunnan is our final province in China and probably the one we’ve looked forward to most. Kunming should be a chilled introduction, although the weather in the ‘City of Eternal Spring’ isn’t quite as warm as we’d hoped in the low to mid-teens. We will still have to be careful of…
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Day 114 – The final province
18th December: Yangshuo, China to Kunming, China I had my final stroll around Yangshuo, drinking my usual cheap but delicious coffee. I’ve been sticking to lattes but the place I’ve been using have an eclectic selection, including: pomelo juice with coffee on top, like a kind of reverse tequila sunrise (they call this American style);…
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Day 113 – A view worth more than 20 Yuan
17th December: Yangshuo, China Kaja woke up feeling really ill today, so we changed our plans a little once more. I went and found her various snacks from around town and then headed out to explore. Yangshuo has at least 4 bus stations marked on maps and various recent sources suggested I needed a particular…
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Day 112 – A karst dreamland
16th December: Yangshuo, China We quickly abandoned plans to hire bikes for the day and chose the healthy option of spending the morning eating various bread products instead. It was actually a productive morning getting on top of a bit of planning and also looking after ourselves by resting. We hatched a new plan to…
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Day 111 – Coffee, cake, and karst
15th December: Yangshuo, China Our first day in Yangshuo was a chilled one. Lazing around and drinking coffee to this view of karst peaks is no hardship! Occasionally, we’d hear cats miaowing for attention outside of our room. We ventured out properly in the afternoon for a wander along the Li Jiang, the famous river…
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Day 110 – The Pearl watershed
14th December: Guangzhou, China to Yangshuo, China I woke up surprisingly early feeling keen to do some research with the time we had before our lunchtime train. It didn’t quite pan out like that unfortunately as I popped out to find us breakfast and coffee and had a panic attack. We made the train, but…
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Day 109 – One day in the megalopolis
13th December: Guangzhou, China Wandering out to find coffee and snacks, this area felt different to anywhere else we’ve stayed in China. Granted, we’re a long way out in the suburbs (although looking at the towers and construction you wouldn’t know it) but this felt like a border area. On my 10-minute walk under the…
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Day 108 – A double 12 visa run
12th December: Xiamen, China to Guangzhou, China We headed across Xiamen in the pre-dawn darkness, bound for an early train down the Fujian and Guangdong coastline. Zipping along south, we traversed much of the route we’d taken heading in the opposite direction some 3 or 4 weeks ago. The clouds thinned and eventually burnt off,…