Sichuan Special

Well we typed up a really nice long blog about Chengdu but when we tried to post it, it went into thin air! Also, it seems that China began blocking this blogsite as well so we had to wait until we got to Nepal (today) to post this…

On our arrival to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in China, we booked into our really cool hostel and took a stroll around the city to see Chairman Mao’s statue and the People’s park which is a beautiful park set in the middle of the city full of tea houses and people doing tai chi.

The next day we spent buying bus tickets (yes, more bus journeys were in our future) and that afternoon, LJ surprised me with an early birthday present; a Sichuan Cooking course where we (or mostly I) learned to make some of our favourite Chinse food; sweet and sour pork, kung pao chicken (gung bao jidin), sweet and spicy eggplant, Sichuan spicy green beans and dumplings. As a bonus, I asked the lady how to make another one of my favourites, baozi, which is steamed bread with filling, usually pork mince. As she was teaching me, LJ happily polished off the leftovers of the cooking class. What a great team we make! That afternoon we explored an area that has been constructed to look like the typical Sichuan alleys. We bought a milk tea and enjoyed it on an old wooden bridge watching the world go by.

The next day we spent on a bus heading to Jiuzhiaguo National Park. And the following day we spent the entire day hiking through the National Park, an incredible place that neither words nor pictures can describe…despite this we still took hundreds of photos of it. It is a National Park set in the mountains and has some of the most stunning scenery with loads of waterfalls, turquoise lakes that reflect the sky and the surrounding mountains and forests. It is so beautiful that some of the scenery was worthy enough to be used in the Chinese films Hero and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and it made the 20 hour round-trip journey from Chengdu worthwhile.

Upon our return to Chengdu we had another amazing Sichuan meal before retiring early for an early day the following day. Up for an early start, we headed to Leshan (yep, on another bus) where we went to see the Grand Buddha. At 71 meters tall, it certainly lives up to its name. It was built in AD 713 to calm the waters of the 2 rivers that meet at the buddha’s feet. When we finished walking around the area, we had a bit of trouble finding the exit. We met “Chinese Patrick” who guided us out and claimed that meeting us was the highlight of his business trip at it was ‘destination that we met!’ We then took another bus to a tiny little town called Baoguo which is the starting point for hiking and exploration at Mount Emei.

The next day we started our exploration of the sacred mountainous area. We walked through and around many temples hidden in the mountainside and through the beautiful forested areas of this UNESCO heritage site. On route to the top we passed through the “Fun Monkey Zone.” Despite being escorted by the trained monkey handlers (which were really just women with bamboo sticks and slingshots that they used to deter the monkeys and some with packets of food to distract them), it did not stop some of these Macaques from jumping on my head a couple of times and on LJ’s back and grabbing and shaking my bamboo walking stick when I tried to gently direct one of them away from me. Mt Emei/Emei Shan was another gorgeous area for hiking, however, the best sight of the day was seeing a grown man running/falling up the wooden path with a massive adult Macaque on his back shrieking as if he was on fire. If we could have gotten it on video, it would have definitely been one for the Funniest Home Videos.

The next day we returned to Chengdu and made a shopping trip for provisions for the upcoming 48 hour train journey to Tibet and went for an early birthday meal at a fabulous vegetarian restaurant. Many of our family members will disagree that a veg rest could be fabulous but even the carnivorous LJ agreed it was an impressive meal!

Our last morning in Chengdu was appropriately spent at the Giant Panda Breeding Centre. I had a fit over the baby Pandas (they really were so cute) and joined the queue 5 times to see them…and LJ didn’t protest to it so I think he was as smitten as I was That afternoon we spent soaking up the Chengdu tea culture in a typical tea-house with a really friendly owner who spoke Mandarin to me as if I understood her. Our final activity was, of course, to eat a final Sichuan meal before heading to the train station to start our journey to Tibet. We had a fabulous time in Sichuan province and were really sad to have to leave it despite having Tibet to look forward to.

Soldiering on to Xi'an

Arriving early morning in Pingyao, we got stuck straight into the local sites with a day trip to see the “Wang Family Courtyard” and Zhangbi Underground Castle.

Both were superb but the show stopper was the underground castle! It was only discovered 20 years ago when residents of the little village above noticed sink holes appearing around town. Excavation started, unearthing a 1400 year old network of Sui dynasty tunnels built as part of a defense network against a feared attack from Tang invaders. To see the castle we had to join a Chinese tour group to stop us from getting lost in more than 1500m of tunnels on 3 separate levels, the deepest of which drops 26m.

Above ground the tiny cobble-stoned village of Zhangbi Cun trundles along as it has for generations. The Chinese construction boom has passed it over and walking it’s narrow lanes was just as, if not more rewarding than it’s subterranean secret.

Before visiting Zhangbi, we stopped by the Wang Family Courtyard. The name doesn’t quite do justice to the impressive 123 courtyards of this former palatial residence for the whole Wang family. Rather surprisingly it was snowing heavily and made looking around even more atmospheric, if not a little bit chilly.

The following morning however we woke to a beautiful sunny day – perfect for renting bikes and exploring Pingyao. Known for being the country’s best preserved ancient walled city, peddling down the narrow alleys off the main drag is a great way of getting a feel for the city and seeing the locals go about their daily lives. Fueling all this was several stops at local bakeries and the infamous Big Noodles snack shop.

Having spent a couple of great days in Pingyao, we decided to take trip out of town and see something a bit different. Early the next morning we set off for the tiny Ming town of Qikou set snuggly between mountains and the Yellow river. The town is well off the main tourist road and villagers are still so excited to see “foreigners” they either run away or run for you. We visited the Black Dragon Temple set in the mountains overlooking the village and strolled around the cobbled streets and courtyards of the town below. Later that afternoon we started our trek into the mountains in search of the 550 year old village of Lijiashan, a cluster of cave dwellings hugging the hillside of a remote valley. Arriving just before sunset we found Mr Li who had a spare cave available and we spent the evening exploring the incredible little village. At one time the town had over 600 families, most named Li, but today the population is just over 40. That night the Li family cooked us a basic but delicious dinner and we had a very cozy sleep in an enormous traditional “kang” bed (stone bed with a coal fire attached as a heater). The next morning at sunrise we were packed off with a breakfast of home-baked Mantou and boiled eggs as we set out for our hike back through the fruit trees to catch our bus back to Pingyao.

The following day we spent relaxing in Pingyao and caught a sleeper train to Xi’an where we’ve spent the last few days planning, planning and more planning and preparing for our trip to Tibet.

Having squared away our Tibet tour we spent the rest of our time visiting the amazing Terracotta Soldiers, Forest of Stelae museum and the Muslim quarter for some more delicious but slightly weird food.

The terra-cotta soldiers were something we were both looking forward to seeing and it really does not disappoint! Seeing Qin Shi Huang’s army, undiscovered for 2000 years, is quite a lot to take in in one visit. His attempt to continue his rule in the after life lay shattered in pieces now, with excavation work continuing.

On our last day we popped into the Forest of Stelae Musuem where over 3000 stelae (inscribed stone tablets), including the 9 Confucian classics and the Nestorian tablet (AD 781, the earliest recorded account of Christianity in China). The museum is also known for it’s examples of early Chinese calligraphy and evolution of Chinese script.

We also spent a couple of evenings in the Muslim quarter eating roasted lamb kebabs, cold satay noodles and the show (and heart) stopper…fried veggies and fried egg stuffed into fried bread. After dinner Patti indulged in a little “light” bargaining and came away with a small army of terracotta soldiers of her own.

With our time in Xian drawing to a close we faced another logistical nightmare of how to spend the week leading up to our departure for Tibet. With camel trekking in Dunhuang proving just too difficult to squeeze in, we made some last minute changes and hopped on an overnight train to the Sichuanese capital of Chengdu. We arrived safely this afternoon and spent the rest of the day walking downtown to see the giant Chairman Mao statue and watching oldies practice their Tai Chi as the sun set over the People’s Park and eating typical Sichuanese food for dinner which consisted of some of our favourite dishes: salty green beans and spicy fried eggplant/aubergine. Tonight we are staying in an amazing converted printing factory called the Loft!

Big City Beijing

From Kaifeng we took an overnight train to Beijing but not before having another go around the night market…seriously crazy and delicious food!

We spent 6 days in the capital city and still didn’t get to see everything we wanted to. This is probably a good time to mention that while traveling and seeing the sights of China is a priority of ours, we have also been eating our way through…probably not much to your surprise! One cannot explain how good even the most ordinary of food here is! A plate of noodles is hardly inspiring in the West but here, we wake up thinking ‘Noodles, noodles, must have noodles!’ So, when we arrived at our really cool (literally and figuratively hostel in a hutong (narrow alleyways typical of old Beijing with one-story courtyard homes that are rapidly being destroyed by the vast amounts of massive building construction) www.redlanternhouse.com, we asked them for a good place for baozi (steamed buns stuffed with different types of fillings). Their recommendation turned out to be a big winner and we proceeded to eat there most of the mornings. We were pretty tired the first day since we had spent the night trying to sleep on the sleeper train so we thought we might take it easy. We went to see the Olympic park…Bird’s Nest and Water Cube which are very impressive indeed. Then we went to another night market for dinner and found it just didn’t compare to the one in Kaifeng so dinner was a bit of dud. Just as well we had amazing baozi to look forward to the next day! We walked all the way around the outside of the Forbidden Palace that night (accidentally) to get to see the front of it and Mao’s massive portrait. We were so exhausted by then that we could even fathom walking the few steps down and then back up to Tianamen Square across the street.

Next day we woke to rain! and visited the INSIDE of the Forbidden Palace which took up most of the day. We had Peiking duck for dinner…I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how delicious it was, but it was pretty delicious! Then we met up with a friend of some of our family who is from China but lives in the US and happened to be visiting her family at the same time we were there! We went to a really cool area of bars set around a lake (HouHai) and sat and visited in the empty jazz bar seeing as it was Monday night.

The next day, Yulan took us shopping at Ya Show and the Silk Market. I broke down and bought a pair of fake UGG boots (they are super cozy and warm!) and watcher her work her bargaining magic. It was entertaining to watch her yelling her price as we walked on to the next shop and looked at other things and then, continuing to yell as we walked around the corner and out of sight. We were yelled at and even grabbed a couple of times by the shop attendants desperate for us to buy things. LJ was asked ‘Hey mister, you want to buy my pants?’ which we have been laughing about ever since. That night we went to a small little restaurant around the corner from our hostel and ordered 2 bowls of noodles and, yep, they were incredible and cost the equivalent of 1pound 50 p/$2 and they even filled LJ up!

Wednesday we rented bicycles and spent the majority of the day cycling around HouHai lake and some really cool Hutongs. That night I convinced LJ that an acrobatic show was worth our time and a larger percentage of our daily budget. Yulan motivated me with the bargaining and I asked the hostel for a special discount and got one…apparently they had never offered it to anyone before…Yulan rubbed some of her bargaining magic off on us! We saw loads of crazy stuff like contortionists, crazy juggling of 10 balls and then some hats and then umbrellas and the 12 girls balancing on 1 bike for the finale. Great stuff. Then we went to see the very impressing new CCTV building…this is not a building that makes CCTVs for England but rather is the China Central TV bldg and is pretty dang impressive. We’ll try to post pics.

Thursday was the day at the Great Wall. We opted for a less popular/less visited portion so we had to leave quite early. Breakfast was included in the tour price and it consisted of a McDonald’s breakfast bun with some kind of unidentifiable meat (too bad for the vegetarians) and coffee…very Chinese. After about 4 hours of traveling in buses we got there and, as always, were encouraged to take the cable car and as always, we didn’t. We were told the walk up would take around 30 to 40 minutes and wouldn’t you know, it only took us 15. Even though it was a less-visited portion of the wall, that didn’t discourage touters and we had a few ‘Missy, you want beer coffee?’ I’ll have to try that one day. I did bargain for the must-have cheesy tourist souvenir “I climbed the Great Wall” t-shirt for LJ and got them down to 1 pound 50 p.

Next day was a visit to the Summer Palace which was chocked full of red-hat-wearing Chinese tourists. That night we decided to have a go at the Chinese cinema…we managed to find one Chinese film that had English subtitles that wasn’t a love story. It was entertaining but not in the normal sense such as great cinematography or a good story line but rather for its very cheesy storyline and its really obvious and basic CGI. I would tell you which one it is but it doesn’t even have an English name even though they bothered with English subtitles. Good fun though and the popcorn was caramel corn! Yum!

Saturday was our last day in the capital and we were leaving that afternoon so we chose to go and look for another one of Beijing’s new modern buildings with a crazy architectural design called the Linked Hybrid, designed by Steven Holl…we’ll try to post pics but the place consists of 8 massive buildings connected by sky bridges. We had a bit of an adventure trying to get to the bus station from our hostel in order to leave for our next destination. The hostel recommended a route to get there but it was obviously one they had never taken as it was not that easy which means I had to resort to my basic Mandarin and Beijing’s luiliqian (or whatever it was) regional bus station is not an easy name to remember so LJ kept having to follow me with the book with the characters so we could point to it. We started our attempts with the underground hoping to carry on with public transport but bailed and looked for a taxi. We waited for at least 15 minutes to find one that wasn’t full and when we finally found one, he just waved his hand to me and refused to take us…that was such a fabulous feeling. I slammed the door really hard to indicate to him how cool I thought his decision was. We finally made it and got a really nice bus (which should have been, seeing as it was more expensive than our sleeper trains and it wasn’t even an overnighter!) with LOADS of leg room to Datong. We made the classic mistake when we got to Datong and got a taxi without asking how much it would cost and didn’t say anything when we noticed the meter was not running. When we got there and he told us that the 5 minutes and 4 kilometers was going to cost 50 RMB/5 Pounds. I shook my head, told LJ to stay in the cab with the stuff and ran to the first person I saw and asked (or at least tried to) how much 4 km should cost and did they agree that 50 RMB was too much. I got agreement so I threw 15 RMB at him and we took our stuff and walked off to find our hotel. It was late and really freaking cold so we really didn’t feel like walking too far. As has happened quite a few times, we found that the hotel we were looking for was not there. Well, it was there but was not the same name and looked MUCH nicer than our budget would allow but we decided to give it a go. Thank goodness we did because it was cheaper than our HOSTEL in Beijing and was a proper nice hotel with a bathroom in each room and western toilets and free toothbrushes and everything!!! After the palava of getting to Datong, we were super happy to be living it up in the great hotel!

Sunday morning, when we woke up and looked out our window, we discovered a dusting of snow on many of the rooftops and cars! We were expecting it to be cold since we are traveling off-peak but snow in October was a little surprising! We wrapped up warmly and went to the Yungang Caves which were very impressive! They are 5th century caves containing 51,000 ancient Buddha statues which are some of the oldest collection of ancient Buddhist carvings in China. Very impressive and perhaps one of the most amazing sights we have visited thus far.

Yesterday was finally a gloriously beautiful sunny day without a cloud in the sky…a vast change from the snow from the day before but still SUPER cold! We had another episode of Chinese traveling. We wanted to go to what sounded like a very impressive hanging monastery outside of the city. We got a bus at 1:00 and found out that the last returning bus to the city was at 4:30. We started to go but only found out that we were being shipped off to another bus at another bus station which took ages to leave and took ages to get out of the city. It took us about 3 hours to get there when it should have only been 1 and a half hours and when we got there it was much smaller than we had imagined…very impressive and impressively small. We were so tight for time that we couldn’t even go into it so we had to stand on the bridge in the freezing wind, take pictures for about 5 minutes and rush back to the taxi that we had been dropped of to because the bus couldn’t be bothered to drive us all the way there.

Last night we took another sleeper train (goodbye lovely hotel) to Pingyao and when we arrived this morning we were picked up by the hostel that we had booked…what a luxury to not have to bother with taxi touters or walking for miles with our rucksacks! Our hostel is a really cool traditional courtyard Qing or Ming dynasty building. Our room is a traditional Chinese room with a little table sitting on the long bed with 2 teacups ripe for drinking green tea! We thought we might have a chilled out day to recover from the little sleep we got on the train journey but were convinced otherwise. We took a tour that we will describe later as it is 11 p.m. and we still haven’t gotten any sleep so it is time for bed! Weather in Pingyao today…SNOW AGAIN! Unbelievable but very picturesque.

Farewell Fenghuang

Having spent 3 fun days exploring the old town of Fenghuang it was time to move on. We had many highlights and a couple of low lights; great hostel with a balcony overlooking the river (and it had a western toilet!), freshly fried ‘bing’ bread with chili paste and pickles for breakfast, Patti being given a ‘push’ for her cough (some tablets), street food vendor stomping on a rat right next to our table mid-kebab (what is it with Patti and her China rat stories), ordering the recommended special dish only to discover it was pig offal (and awful).

From Fenghuang we took an overnight train (24hrs) to the ancient Song dynasty’s capital of Kaifeng. Most of the old city lies buried about 10metres below the surface, but the city still has some amazing old traditional wooden buildings and an absolutely fantastic food market!

The last two nights we have joined the scrum of people wandering the streets at the Kaifeng night market enjoying various new and wonderful dishes, including fried and steamed dumplings, stuffed naan breads, fried duck pancakes, candied crab apples on sticks, fresh noodles in beef broth, squid skewers, poached pears, peanut brittle and almond tea. There are hundreds of stalls lined along the streets selling all kinds of other crazy things – duck blood soup and sheep’s eye kebabs to mention a couple – all to the sound of Chinese opera music being played out across the square.

On our first day in the city we hired a couple of bikes and explored the narrow back streets, weaving between fruit stalls, roadside butchers and steamed bun vendors whilst dodging rickshaws ferrying muslims to Friday prayers. After leaving the city walls we headed north to the Yellow River Scenic Viewing area to get our first sighting of the mighty river and birthplace of Chinese culture. On our return we passed ‘The worlds greatest pagoda’, called the iron pagoda after it’s iron coloured glazed tiles. It is set in a beautiful park where we enjoyed a bit of peace and quite having safely made it back to the city along the chaos that is China’s roads.

The second day we spent strolling around the hutongs making a stop at the Sacred Heart of Jesus church which offers some tranquility from the madness that surrounds it. Kaifeng is known for it’s early Jewish and Christian settlers and today still has a small Christian community.

We also made a visit to the Temple of the Chief Minister which was first founded in AD 555. Inside a giant Budda carries the inscription ‘big belly can endure all that is hard to endure in the world’ and contains the aptly titled ‘Four-faced thousand hand thousand eye Guanyin’ statue, a stunning 7m tall gilded statue with 1048 arms and eyes – quite a sight!

Having thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Kaifeng we continue our journey to the northern capital, Beijing.

Sunny Southern China

Days 1-3 we spent in Hong Kong walking around and attempting to adjust to the time difference…difficult. Our hostel was in the Mirador Mansions and from what I can tell, it has had a bit of a face lift since I stayed there 6 years ago. We got a really good induction to the Chinese starting culture the second night we were there having dinner at a noodle restaurant. An old woman who had fallen asleep at her table got up to leave and walked by us and saw us using chopsticks (A Westerner using CHOPSTICKS!? How absurd!) and came up to our table and stood right beside LJ and just stared in amazement. I was surprised to see that in Hong Kong, especially as we haven’t had as good of a stare since then after more than 2 weeks in the mainland. That night we shopped around for a cheap tent so that we could go camping in Tai Long Wan (Big Wave Bay) and found one for 10 pounds. Learned that you get what you pay for. Had a lovely hike to the beach and when we went to set up the tent, the pole was broken! We went into problem-solving mode for the next couple of hours and using a lot of whittling with rocks and plasters/bandaids we fashioned something that got the tent through the night at least. We gave it away to some local fisherman the next day.

Day 4-5 we took the train into Shenzhen, our first time back in the Mainland for 6 years. Loads has changed there…mainly, it looks a lot nicer and less seedy than when I lived there. We had an interesting time trying to speak Chinese to the hotel receptionist and had lots of people attempt to help us although none of them could actually speak English! Next day we met up with my old contact teacher Lu Haibo and saw the school and building where I spent my year there. We had lunch with him at one of my favourite restaurants, a Sichuanese. He helped us book our overnight sleeper bus to Yangshuo and we left that night.

Days 6-7 We got into Yangshuo really early in the morning and thanks to the National Day Chinese Holiday, everyone else was already there and we spent a good chunk of the morning looking for a hostel. Eventually got that sorted and walked around the town which has also changed loads since we were there last. We did manage to find the restaurant where we met and it is still in business. The town has almost doubled in size and didn’t have that same relaxed backpacker vibe that we experienced last time but it might be different now that the holidays are over and the Chinese people have gone back home now! The second day we rented bicycles and cycled through the mad traffic (LJ had a great video of it…somehow he wasn’t run over in the filming process…I have no idea how he survived it though!) out of town to Moon Hill where we first set eyes upon each other. Had an amazing cycle ride through the small towns and karst peaks. We weren’t exactly sure how to get back to the city centre but luckily were adopted by a group of Chinese cyclists who adopted us and guided us across the river with our bikes and back to the city.

Days 8-9 Left the next day for the Devil’s Backbone Rice Terraces north of Yangshuo and Guilin where we stayed in a minority cafe/inn which was an amazing old traditional wooden house that resembled a barn. We hiked around the stunning scenery for the next 2 days. One of the days we were walking through one of the little villages and were asked by one of the minority ladies if we wanted “lunchie lunchie.” We were pretty hungry so we went for it and are we glad we did! She took us to one of their homes and they proceeded to cook up a feast of 7 different dishes of locally produced food. Definitely a highlight of the trip so far!

Days 10-11 From there we had an interesting journey to our next destination. We had to take 2 buses to a town called Sanjiang and were keeping our fingers crossed that we would be able to get a train to another town. We got to the town and started looking for the train station but couldn’t find it on any map. A really kind girl who spoke really good English helped us and told us the train station was very far away and we had to take a minibus taxi to get there. She flagged one down for us and we had to be pushed in by her and pulled in by the other taxi passengers to get in with our bags sitting on top of us. Then we proceeded to drive through the countryside to what we were really hoping was going to be the train station. The taxi dropped us off at the bottom of a hill in the middle of nowhere and all the passengers pointed in one direction then drove off. So we headed in that direction and at the top of the hill (through the world”s most disgusting street with the highest population of flies) we came to the station. For some reason, the ticket salesman didn’t want to talk to us so a helpful girl came up and tried to translate for us except she didn’t speak English so she was essentially just translating our Mandarin to a more understandable version of Mandarin for the salesman. Got a ticket and had a 6 hour wait so went back to dirty street and had a really lovely dinner at one of the streetside restaurants. Took an overnight train to the next town where we took a bus to a small minority village called Dehang. It was beautiful and I think we were the only tourists staying overnight in the village. We stayed in yet another really cool traditional wooden house built alongside the river next to the ancient Jielong Bridge. We hiked to what is supposedly China’s highest waterfall and climbed up to another waterfall along a breathtaking but terrifyingly steep and treacherous path. We were thankful to make it to the top and back to the bottom without any major slipups!

We are now staying in another incredible riverside town with ancient city walls, disintegrating gate towers, rickety houses on stilts overlooking the river (thanks Lonely Planet for the description!) called Fenghuang. The last 2 days we have spent exploring the back alleys and the old town. We will be here for another day then will head on to Kaifeng and then Beijing afterwards.

Getting ready to go!!

Hi all! Well we are making the final last-minute plans before we leave for the airport tomorrow, like trying to sell our 97 VW car...we have been really surprised that people haven't flooded our inbox with emails making offers to buy it. Live and learn. Don't leave your car to sell the week before you leave. :) We have at least packed our rucksacks and yes, when I wear it I look like I have doubled! I just can't figure out what to take out of it...I really don't have that much stuff in it.

So for those of you who don't know yet, LJ and I have decided to move across the ocean to the US, hopefully San Francisco if we can find jobs and a place to lay our heads. We spent over a year applying and waiting for the red tape to clear to get LJ's spouse visa/green card to move there and he was approved on 3 September, hooray!!!! So, we have decided to take a final hoo-rah to Asia before we settle across the pond.

We are flying to Hong Kong and will spend 3 months travelling overland around China, hopefully Tibet, and Nepal. For those of you who are surprised to hear that we are not including India in this itinerary, as we had previously planned, we had a little hiccup with the Indian visa so we unfortunately cannot make it there this time around! Basically we couldn't get one in time before leaving because I am not a permanent resident in the UK according to the Indian embassy. They have the most fabulous way of verifying that as well. So, it is really easy. All you have to do is stay at the same address for 2 years and keep the same utility company for those 2 years in order to get processed as a UK resident...you have to provide a utility bill from 2 years ago and a bill from the same utility company sent to the same address from the most recent month. Well, what do you know, I have never lived anywhere in England for 2 years so that counts me out, full stop! I think it is a brilliant process and India really have their stuff together for coming up with such a fabulous way of checking up on residency. We are just happy that this happened with the visa to India and NOT to the US! Anyhow, that just leaves us more time to see more things in the other areas, and there should be plenty. So, just as a lot of athletes are doing for the India 2010 Commonwealth games, we are going to give India a miss!

I suppose I should really stop blogging now and get to that infinite list of last-minute things before we leave in a few hours!