Photography

Saturday was planned to be our day of trekking. The mountains in the area are unbelievably amazing so we planned to set out and see the views. First, we checked out of our hotel, Sapa Rooms ($25/night) and moved down the street to Cat Cat Hotel. I think Cat Cat is the name of the village just outside of Sapa. The room is much nicer, has a great view and only costs $15/night! So far so good.

As soon as we set out trekking, it started to rain and we realized the fog was incredibly thick. No sense in doing all sorts of walking if you can’t enjoy the view so we ducked into a café for our second breakfast and cards. Still raining we then moved on to another café for lunch and cards. Eventually the fog cleared, the rain stopped and we were on our way. We basically walked downhill the entire way, trying to keep in mind that we had to go all the way back up on the way home. We saw some amazing views though – mountains, low clouds, rice fields, farm animals, Hmong women, young kids, waterfalls, etc. It was amazing and, of course, my pictures don’t do it justice! We hiked along a river until we came to the part of the trail that required crossing the river. Considering it had just poured and it might rain again, we decided the water was too deep and fast to cross. So we turned around and started the long climb back up. My lesson here = stairs are way more difficult than just a plaved slope. The first part was stairs and I was just dying. Luckily it changed to pavement and we made it just fine.

Finally got some pictures posted -- here they are!

Pictures from first 2 days.

Video of motorbikes in Hanoi - they're everywhere! Next time I'll get a video from on the motorbike!

Last Shanghai Pictures

Collection of all pictures so far

More from Shanghai

Nanjing pictures

With the weekend off, we decided to take a train to nearby Nanjing. Nanjing was the capital of China before it was moved to Beijing so there is a lot of history in the city. We went by train leaving our hotel at 6:45 AM and returning at 11:00 PM. The trip was approximately 2 hours and the train accommodations were better than I expected. The train went between 150 km/hour and 250 km/hour depending on the distance to the next stop. That’s roughly 100-150 mph.

While in Nanjing, we visited the Presidential Palace and the Ming Tombs (yes, more Ming Tombs since some were buried in Nanjing before the capital was moved to Beijing). There were 10 of us so we needed 3 taxis. This caused us to spend a lot of time trying to figure out where each taxi let people out at. We wasted quite a bit of time allowing us to only really see 2 attractions. We did, of course, leave plenty of time for eating. We had 2 rather large meals. We quickly learned that Nanjing is far cheaper than anywhere we’ve been. The meals were 30 RMB each ($4) and you could get a bottle of water for 1 RMB (14 cents) although the average water cost 3 RMB (43 cents).

It was incredibly hot today. 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees F) and not a hint of wind! I don’t remember the last time I sweated that much. We were all happy to be home and jump in the shower! Tomorrow is a more relaxing day with a little group work for our project in the morning and then touring some more around Shanghai.

Check out my pictures from the trip.